March 5th radio show...

is now online and available here. The guest this week was Dr. Gary Hinshaw of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, who discussed the origin and importance of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in our current understanding of the universe. I also discussed on this episode

• Calendar of upcoming science events in the greater New York City/Poughkeepsie area
• Interview with Dr. Gary Hinshaw on the importace of measurements of the CMB
• News:GLAST arrives at Kennedy Space Center for final preparations before May 16th launch; NASA and ESA maneuver spacecraft orbitting Mars to prepare for landing of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander on May 25th
• Cosmology, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy:Changes in the distortion in 3D (space and distance) distribution of galaxies resulting from galaxies falling into galaxy clusters as the universe evolves could provide a very sensitive measurement on the properties of dark energy; computer simulations suggest small-scale structure in the CMB can also help determine the properties of the dark energy; CDMS experiments - which looks for dark matter particles passing through the Earth - releases latest results, no detections yet but future, larger detector should see something; professor theorizes that dark energy and dark matter have the same origin, details to come later; measurements of absorption of light by neutral hydrogen at high redshifts (very far away when the universe was young) might be able to test string theory; possible evidence for "cosmic strings" - 2D structures with infinite density - in the latest map of the CMB taken by WMAP; computer simulations of gravitational wave emission underway - detecting gravitational waves important test of General Relativity, the theory upon which the existence of dark matter and dark energy rests.

Hope you enjoy and, as always, please email me or leave any questions/comments you might have below. Thanks a lot for listening!