Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 1992. 30: 653-703 Copyright © 1993 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

5. FUTURE PROSPECTS

We have seen in the preceding sections that the sensitivity of microwave background radiation observations has now reached levels at which a number of effects dominate over the intrinsic anisotropy. These include (a) instrumental effects, under which rubric we include atmospheric effects and ground spillover; (b) Galactic foreground emission; and (c) extragalactic foreground emission and scattering from both diffuse and discrete sources. We discuss next the extent to which the instrumental problems can be overcome. We show that the future prospects are bright, and that there are strong grounds for anticipating an increase in sensitivity of at least an order of magnitude over present levels.