George F. Smoot, University of California, Berkeley
Physics
Professor
Berkeley, California
gfsmoot@lbl.gov
Office:
(510) 642-9389
Expert In
Bio/Research
2006 Nobel Prize winner-Experimental Astrophysicist George Smoot is an active researcher in observational astrophysics and cosmology. Smoot’s group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley is observing our galaxy and the cosmic background radiation tha...
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Bio/Research
2006 Nobel Prize winner-Experimental Astrophysicist George Smoot is an active researcher in observational astrophysics and cosmology. Smoot’s group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley is observing our galaxy and the cosmic background radiation that is a remnant from the fiery beginning of our Universe. Projects include ground-based radio-telescope observations, balloon-borne instrumentation, and satellite experiments. The most famous of these is COBE (the NASA Cosmic Background Explorer satellite), which has shown that the cosmic background radiation intensity has a wavelength dependence precisely that of a perfectly absorbing body, indicating that it is the relic radiation from the Big Bang origin of the Universe.
Using NASA’s COBE DMR, Smoot and his colleagues made a map of the early Universe discovering the seeds of present day galaxies and clusters of galaxies. These seeds show up as variations at one part in 100,000 level in density from place to place. They also reveal information on the Big Bang and the origin of the Universe. In addition to continuing work on the four years of COBE data and on-going balloon experiments, Dr. Smoot has joined with colleagues in Europe to propose a new European Space Agency satellite to extend and improve these measurements. That satellite is now known as the Planck Satellite and is currently mapping the sky. Dr. Smoot has also published a popular book on cosmology: Wrinkles in Time.
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Using NASA’s COBE DMR, Smoot and his colleagues made a map of the early Universe discovering the seeds of present day galaxies and clusters of galaxies. These seeds show up as variations at one part in 100,000 level in density from place to place. They also reveal information on the Big Bang and the origin of the Universe. In addition to continuing work on the four years of COBE data and on-going balloon experiments, Dr. Smoot has joined with colleagues in Europe to propose a new European Space Agency satellite to extend and improve these measurements. That satellite is now known as the Planck Satellite and is currently mapping the sky. Dr. Smoot has also published a popular book on cosmology: Wrinkles in Time.
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