UBC’s SPIDER telescope seeking Big Bang’s light patterns

The SPIDER telescope is cruising Antartica searching for clues to how the universe began.

UBC scientists launched the telescope on Dec. 31 to locate patterns of polarizations created after the Big Bang.

If it finds these patterns, “it would be a smoking gun of how the universe began,” said UBC physics and astronomy professor Mark Halpern, a member of the SPIDER team.