This presentation offers an accessible description of the state of modern observational cosmology — the science of observing the origin, composition, evolution, and eventual fate of the Universe. Professor Vieira will describe his research group’s effort to build a new camera for the 10-meter South Pole Telescope. This paper will discuss how it is possible to directly observe the relic radiation left over from the Big Bang, discover the first galaxies in the Universe, and study dark matter and dark energy can be directly observed.