What are the origin, evolution and fate of the Universe?
Two of the most profound questions that all cultures, both past and present, have asked are: where did we come from and what is our destiny? Throughout history philosophers, theologians, and scientists have debated these questions. NASA Science seeks to provide quantitative information pertinent to these basic elements of human curiosity by enabling scientists and engineers to construct instruments and make measurements on these topics that were once the purview of thought experiments only. Central elements of these questions concern the birth and ultimate fate of the Universe. To understand any topic well one must understand its background or history. For the Universe, that history starts with the Big Bang. Previous NASA investigations with the Cosmic Microwave Background Explorer (COBE) and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and their measurements of the Universe when it was about 300,000 years old have given us exquisite confirmation of our theoretical models of the ear
