The goal of the MAP Education and Outreach program is to introduce as many students to Astrophysics as possible. This involves not only attracting students to the MAP Home Page to browse, but also bringing the techniques and applications of MAP into the classroom. For this purpose, this page outlines several different experiments and short lessons for educators to use in their classrooms.
The Microwave Anisotropy Probe measures the differences in temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Backgound between adjacent points in the sky rather than the absolute temperature values themselves. This is because anisotropy measurements of the CMB are much more accurate than absolute measurements. To illustrate this, students should separate into pairs and conduct the following experiment (each pair of students needs one small ruler -- the smaller the better):
Students are to take turns measuring each other's height using their small rulers. After recording the height of
each student, the lower value is subtracted from the higher to find the difference in height between the two students.
For this step, each pair of
students should work with another pair. The first pair of students stand back-to-back
while the other pair measures the difference in their height and records it. Then, the first pair records the difference in height of the second pair of students.
After comparing the two values
for the difference in height, students should be encouraged to discuss why the values are so different. Which value do they think is more accurate and why?
This experiment demonstrates
very simply why MAP measures anisotropy rather than absolute temperatures: there is
much less possible error with an anisotropy measurement.
More to come, including a demonstration explaining how the Cosmic Microwave background travels through the universe from the big bang! Stay tuned to this page.
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Gary Hinshaw / hinshaw@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov Charles L. Bennett / bennett@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov |
Last updated: Friday, 05-21-1999