Measurements of the CMB: Current Status and Future Prospects

Abstract

The study of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is a rapidly maturing field. In remarkable advances in the past two years, experiments have begun to probe the detailed structure of the CMB angular spectrum thereby providing insight into the contents of the universe. We briefly review the BOOMERanG and DASI results with an emphasis on what the data tell us with only minimal cosmological assumptions. After a short discussion about a grand future for CMB physics, key features of the MAP satellite, now in orbit, are described. We also discuss how we anticipate MAP will advance the field beyond what we know now.