Episode 23: Studying the Universe's Large Scale Structure from the South Pole, with Keith Vanderlinde

Keith Vanderlinde joins Justin Trottier at The Star Spot to share his Antarctica experience, studying the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation from the South Pole Telescope. He explains the ambiance, challenges and thrills of working in cold and darkness for nearly a year. The two then discuss how the origin and evolution of large scale structure in the universe can be read from imprints left on the first light released into space, and what we can learn about dark matter and dark energy from characterizing the universe’s earliest galaxy clusters. Keith Vanderlinde is Global Scholar with the Canadian Institue for Advanced research and Assistant Professor in the University of Toronto's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Vanderlinde previously worked as a Research Assistant at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics in Chicago. He participated in crafting a number of science exhibits at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium and Museum of Science and Industry. More recently he was stationed for nearly a year in Antarctica working with the South Pole Telescope to study data from the universe's youngest days taken at one of the coldest locations on earth. In Current in Space, we look at some notorious recent international examples of space adventures - or sometimes misandventures.