A brief but fairly up-to-date discussion of the basic observed properties of the isotropic ("monopole") and dipole features of the CMB.
The CMB discovery paper, which revolutionized cosmology and for which the authors received the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.
This is a brief but up-to-date and comprehensive summary of the CMB and the wealth of cosmological information it encodes; Smoot shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the CMB. He will visit Illinois this semester to give the Iben Lecture.
We will talk about the temperature fluctuations later in the course, so while you are welcome to read about these now, the main focus of the next week (and this Preflight) will be on the material in the first two pages.
A beautiful and still the best measurement of the CMB spectrum. Mather shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the CMB.
The questions are really meant to help guide your thinking as you read. You may find it helpful to look at the questions first and bear them in mind as you read.