The Golden Age of Cosmology, according to Smoot

Physics Nobel Prize Laureate, George Smoot, who substantiated the Big Bang theory was in Montreal two weeks ago to speak to a full house at the McGill Frank Dawson auditorium about his work on the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
CMB is a form of radiation that, Smoot says, remains from the energy released from the early universe. He has built various apparatuses to collect information about different energy waves. Examining the wavelengths of these energy waves enabled Smoot to date them and to conclude the CMB was a result of the Big Bang.
In 1989, Smoot and his team launched the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) the first satellite dedicated to the collection of measurements from the CMB. His instrument, the Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR), recorded the difference in the density of the CMB, demonstrating that shows the universe is not made up of a homogenous substance.
Later this year, Planck, the third-generation space-mission satellite for CMB experiments will be launched. The hopes are to create a more accurate CMB map than what COBE and WMAP, the second satellite, produced.
There is, however, a limit to how much information can be retrieved from CMB radiations.
“We can see as far back as light can travel to us, about 13.5 billion years ago.” Before that period, he said, it is not possible to see what went on, “because the universe is opaque. It’s like looking through fog.”
Smoot believes that before a certain point, the universe was too hot and too dense even for light particles to form. That would cause a problem because if light didn’t form at that time, it could not travel to us.
What we see at any given time is an image of the past. If you take a picture of the moon it’s a picture of the moon two seconds ago, explains Smoot, the sun, eight minutes ago and a star maybe from a decade ago.
In an effort to show the complexity of his task, having to piece together the history of the universe, Smoot suggested to the audience: “Imagine a picture of McGill, the only one you had, and you had to reconstruct the entire history of McGill with it.”
There are more than 100 billion galaxies, he explains. The mystery, according to Smoot, is why do they all exist?
“We’re in the golden age of cosmology,” he told everyone. “The earth is round but our universe is flat.” As counter-intuitive as it may sound, Smoot believes a lot about the universe still eludes us.