Speaker
Description
SPIDER is a powerful balloon-borne instrument designed to map the polarization of the millimeter-wave sky from above the bulk of the Earth’s obscuring atmosphere. SPIDER leverages the pristine observing conditions and long flight time provided by the NASA Long-Duration Balloon (LDB) platform to produce deep maps over a large area (~10% of the sky) and broad frequency range (95, 150, 280 GHz). SPIDER also serves as an important technological proving ground and training program toward future space missions. SPIDER’s 2015 flight yielded published constraints on the circular polarization and B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), as well as intriguing hints of complex behavior in the polarized emission of Galactic dust. The 280 GHz data from SPIDER’s 2022-23 flight promise further insight into Galactic dust, with relevance to foreground studies for future studies of the CMB.
