Why was this a problem for Smoot? (p 217)

What alternatives did they start looking into after that? (p 217)

What features of modern astronomy did Edmund Halley, who died in 1742, anticipate? (p 218)

What would the implication be if COBE found no fluctuations in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation? (p 219)

What would the implication be if COBE did find fluctuations in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation? (p 219)

What second catastrophe occurred on April 19, 1986? (p 220)

What was the third catastrophe? (p 220)

What alternatives did they start to look into after that? (p 221)

How did NASA respond to those plans (p 221)

What is a Lagrangian point? (p 221)

What are some advantages of having COBE orbit a Lagrangian point? (p 221)

In the end, why wasn’t the Lagrange point 2 used? (p 222)

What was used? (p 223) The answer is shown at right.  

What was the main challenge associated with using this rocket? (p 222,3)

What is a Rube Goldberg Machine? Mentioned on page 224. An example can be found at http://www.anl.gov/OPA/rube/

What did the Japanese/American team learn about the background radiation that "stunned the world of cosmology"? (p 224,5)

Why didn’t it stun the world of cosmology for long? (p 225)

Did you know that a dewer is a large thermos? (p 226)

How costly was COBE in terms of people, time, and money? (p 230)