In 1964 Smithsonian astronomer Robert Wilson (then at Bell Labs) and his colleague Arno Penzias discovered a mysterious radio hiss coming from all directions of the sky. They thought there was a problem with their equipment, and even cleaned out pigeon droppings to make sure there was no interference. The hiss remained. It turned out to be the whisper of the Big Bang — an afterglow known as the cosmic microwave background.

On the 50th anniversary of this profound discovery, we will condense a trillion years into just one hour. This Observatory Night webcast will feature four leading cosmologists:
 * Alan Guth will discuss the Big Bang and cosmic inflation.
 * Robert Wilson will describe his Nobel Prize-winning find.
 * Robert Kirshner will address dark energy and the accelerating universe.
 * Avi Loeb will transport us to the end of everything.

Watch It Live

Date: Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014
Time: 7:30 p.m. EST
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yEjjIJjs7M

Watch It Later

If you miss the live broadcast, this Observatory Night talk will be posted to the CfA YouTube channel within a week of the event: http://www.youtube.com/user/cfapress

Background

Observatory Nights are held at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) on the third Thursday of every month during the academic year. These talks cover a variety of timely astronomical topics.

Then-CfA director Harlow Shapley founded the “Observatory Nights” program in 1930 in order to give the public an opportunity to learn about astronomers’ latest discoveries and to view the cosmos through telescopes. More than 80 years later, Shapley’s prescience is confirmed and Observatory Nights are still going strong, reaching ever-wider audiences online.

Contacts:
David Aguilar
+1 617-495-7462
daguilar@cfa.harvard.edu

Christine Pulliam
+1 617-495-7463
cpulliam@cfa.harvard.edu

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.