Harlow Shapley Visiting Lectureship in Astronomy

Professor John Huchra, Professor of Cosmology at Harvard University and President of the American Astronomical Society, will tell us about "The State of the Universe" in the Myers Auditorium of McComsey Hall on Wednesday, April 1st at 7:15 pm.  The talk will be suitable for all audiences and attendance is free.  Please join the Millersville community in celebrating the International Year of Astronomy in 2009.

ABSTRACT
Our best model of the Universe, the Hot Big Bang, has recently been put on a much firmer footing by advanced observations with new satellites and ground-based telescopes, especially the Hubble Space Telescope and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.  We have what just might be the final answer on the Age and Fate of the Universe and the basic parameters of our cosmological model.  Or do we?  Ninety-five percent of the content of the Universe has only been inferred from theory and observations but remains undetected.  Before assuming that cosmology has been "solved," it is important to consider how we have gotten to this Concordance Cosmology and what problems remain with the data and the model.