Cosmology

Cosmology is a branch of astronomy committed to the study of the universe as a whole, of the contents, structure, and evolution of the universe from the beginning of time to the future.

A seminal project in the advancement of cosmology was COBE. With COBE, the extent and precision of the data gathered shifted the entire field of cosmology prompting the Nobel Foundation (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) to comment, "the COBE-project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science: For the first time cosmological calculations (like those concerning the relationship between dark matter and ordinary, visible matter) could be compared with data from real measurements. This makes modern cosmology a true science (rather than a kind of philosophical speculation, like earlier cosmology)."