We have a cool group of people in search for information about the origin of the Universe. We look for this information in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, which is a relic remnant from the Big Bang. We have been using self-made balloon-borne telescopes that fly high above the planet to observe this radiation. We are now searching for signals that originated as early as 10+35 seconds after the big bang.

If the signals are detected, we are poised to learn about the physics of the Bang itself. There is a lot of hands-on hardware, computational and analysis work in putting together a balloon-borne payload together, and then in analyzing the data. It's fun work to be an observational cosmologist!