Place: meeting room of astrophysics center 3rd floor (天体楼三楼会议室)

　Time: 9:30 (AM), Jan 12nd

　Title: The Universe – as seen by Planck Abstract: Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is the oldest light in our Universe that we can realistically see today.Although this light lacks strength compared to light coming from nearby astrophysical sources, its accurate measurement opens up a unique window on the Physics of early Universe. Very recently, European Space Agency (ESA)'s Planck satellite, the third generation CMB satellite, following COBE and WMAP, has delivered the most accurate all-sky image of the CMB, bringing with it new challenges about our understanding of the origin and evolution of the cosmos. For the most part, the data agrees extremely well with the concordance model of cosmology and allow for a much improved measure of its parameters. At the same time, the extraordinary quality of the Planck data reveals the presence of subtle features in the CMB pattern that might challenge the very foundations of cosmology. In this seminar I will present the latest cosmological results obtained from the high quality measurements of the sky made by this satellite for four years of its operation. I will also discuss about plans for future CMB satellite mission.

  Speaker: Soumen Basak       Post-doctoral fellow, Astrophysics Department, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA), (International School for Advanced Studies), Via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy.