Watch Live Webcast: Oldest Light in the Universe from Planck

By Nancy Atkinson - July 31, 2013 06:50 PM UTC | Cosmology

Earlier this year, a new map of the Cosmic Microwave Background from the Planck spacecraft

revealed our Universe was a bit older and is expanding a tad more slowly

that previously thought. Additionally, there are certain large scale features that cosmologists cannot readily explain. In fact, because of this finding — possible because of the Planck satellite -- we may need to modify, amend or even fundamentally change our description of the Universe's first moments.

Today, July 31, at 19:00 UTC (12:00 p.m. PDT, 3:00 pm EDT) the Kavli Foundation is hosting a live Google+ Hangout: "A New Baby Picture of the Universe." You can watch in the player embedded below. You'll have the chance to ask your questions to Planck scientists by posting on Twitter with the hashtag #KavliAstro, or by email to

[email protected]

. Questions can be sent prior and during the live webcast. If you miss it live, you can watch the replay here, as well.

You will hear from three leading members of the Planck research team -- George Efstathiou and Anthony Lasenby of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, and Krzysztof Gorski, Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA and faculty member at the Warsaw University Observatory in Poland -- and they'll answer your questions about what was found and what this means to our understanding of the universe.

See the

Kavli Foundation page for this event

for more details.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com