 Artist depiction of the WMAP satellite at the L2 point The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) is a NASA satellite whose mission is to survey the sky to measure the temperature of the radiant heat left over from the Big Bang. The satellite was launched by a Delta II rocket on June 30, 2001, at 3:46 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA. WMAP satellite artist depiction from NASA Believed to be in the public domain. ...
WMAP satellite artist depiction from NASA Believed to be in the public domain. ...
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According to the Big Bang theory, the universe emerged from an extremely dense and hot state (bottom). ...
A Delta II rocket launches from Cape Canaveral carrying a GPS satellite The Boeing IDS Delta II family of launch vehicles has been in service since 1989. ...
June 30 is the 181st day of the year (182nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 184 days remaining. ...
2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
Cape Canaveral from space, August 1991 Cape Canaveral (Cabo Cañaveral in Spanish) is a strip of land in Brevard County, Florida, United States, near the center of that states Atlantic coast. ...
Official language(s) English Capital Tallahassee Largest city Jacksonville Area - Total - Width - Length - % water - Latitude - Longitude Ranked 22nd 170 451 km² 260 km 800 km 17. ...
The goal of WMAP is to map out minute differences in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation in order to help test theories of the nature of the universe. It is the successor to COBE and one of the series of medium-class explorer (MIDEX) satellites. In cosmology, the cosmic microwave background radiation (most often abbreviated CMB but occasionally CMBR, CBR or MBR) is a form of electromagnetic radiation discovered in 1965. ...
The deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. ...
The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), also referred to as Explorer 66, was the first satellite built dedicated to cosmology. ...
WMAP is named after Dr. David Wilkinson, a member of the science team and pioneer in the study of cosmic background radiation. The science goals of the WMAP broadly dictate that the relative CMB temperature be measured accurately over the full sky with high angular resolution and sensitivity. The overriding priority in the design was the need to control systematic errors in the final maps. The specific goal of WMAP is to map the relative CMB temperature over the full sky with an angular resolution of at least 0.3°, a sensitivity of 20 µK per 0.3° square pixel, with systematic artifacts limited to 5 µK per pixel. David Todd Wilkinson (13 May 1935 – 5 September 2002) was a world-renowned pioneer in the field of cosmology, specializing in the study of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) left over from the Big Bang. ...
Angular resolution describes the resolving power of a telescope. ...
To achieve these goals, WMAP uses differential microwave radiometers that measure temperature differences between two points on the sky. WMAP observes the sky from an orbit about the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrangian point, 1.5 million km from Earth. A differential can mean one of several things: Differential (mathematics) Differential (mechanics) Differential signaling is used to carry high speed digital signals. ...
The Microwave Radiometer (MWR) is an instrument that measures energy emitted by the atmosphere at very low energy levels (wavelengths much longer than red light also known as microwaves). ...
The term L2 may refer to The Level-2 CPU cache in a computer The second lumbar vertebra in Human anatomy The second Lagrange Point in an astronomical Solar System This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
The Lagrangian points (IPA: ; also Lagrange point, L-point, or libration point), are the five positions in interplanetary space where a small object affected only by gravity can theoretically be stationary relative to two larger objects (such as a satellite with respect to the Earth and Moon). ...
This is on the line from the Sun to the Earth, but at a larger distance from the Sun than the Earth, where the sum of the (larger) Sun's gravity and the (smaller) Earth's gravity is equal to the centripetal force needed for an object to have the same orbital period in its orbit around the Sun as the Earth, with the result that the object will stay in that relative position. Gravity from the Sun is 2% (118 µm/s²) less than at the Earth (5.9 mm/s²), while the increase of required centripetal force is half of this (59 µm/s²). The sum of both effects is balanced by the gravity of the Earth, which is here also 177 µm/s². For other uses, see Sun (disambiguation). ...
Earth is the third planet from the Sun. ...
A centripetal force is a force pulling an object toward the center of a circular path as the object goes around the circle. ...
The orbital period is the time it takes a planet (or another object) to make one full orbit. ...
This vantage point offers an exceptionally stable environment for observing, since the observatory can always point away from the Sun, Earth and Moon while maintaining an unobstructed view to deep space. WMAP scans the sky in such a way as to cover ~30% of the sky each day and as the L2 point follows the Earth around the Sun WMAP observes the full sky every six months. To facilitate rejection of foreground signals from our own Galaxy, WMAP uses five separate frequency bands from 22 to 90 GHz. Download high resolution version (1950x1491, 780 KB)WMAP. http://map. ...
Download high resolution version (1950x1491, 780 KB)WMAP. http://map. ...
Bulk composition of the moons mantle and crust estimated, weight percent Oxygen 42. ...
A gigahertz is a billion hertz or a thousand megahertz, a measure of frequency. ...
On February 11, 2003, the public relations group from NASA made a press release regarding the age and composition of the universe. This release included the most intricate "baby picture" of the universe taken so far. According to NASA, this picture "contains such stunning detail that it may be one of the most important scientific results of recent years". Note that the image was not the highest resolution image of the cosmic microwave background radiation at that time, but it was the all-sky image of the radiation which had by far the least noise. February 11 is the 42nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Public relations is, simply stated, the art and science of building relationships between an organization and its key audiences. ...
NASA logo Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2005-09-01, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...
A news release or press release is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as having news value. ...
The deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. ...
The three-year WMAP data was released at noon on March 17, 2006.
Findings so far from WMAP
 WMAP image of background cosmic radiation WMAP provided higher accuracy measurements of many cosmological parameters than had been available from previous instruments. According to current models of the universe, WMAP data shows: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2198x1274, 1278 KB)WMAP map of CMB anisotropy, from NASA.gov File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2198x1274, 1278 KB)WMAP map of CMB anisotropy, from NASA.gov File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Cosmology is the study of the large-scale structure and history of the universe. ...
- The universe is 13.7 billion ± 0.2 billion years old [1].
- The universe is composed of 4% ordinary matter, 23% of an unknown type of dark matter, and 73% of a mysterious dark energy. This is a confirmation of the so-called concordance Lambda-CDM model.
- The cosmological scenarios of cosmic inflation agree with the observations, though there is an unexplained anomaly on large angular scales[2].
- The Hubble constant is 71 ± 4 km/s/Mpc
- Current theories applied to the WMAP data indicate that the universe will expand forever, and that it is shaped like a cone, known as a Picard Topology.
Matter is commonly defined as the substance of which physical objects are composed. ...
// This refers to the cosmological use of the term. ...
In cosmology, dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy which permeates all of space and has strong negative pressure. ...
ΛCDM or Lambda-CDM is an abbreviation for Lambda-Cold Dark Matter. ...
Cosmology, from the Greek: κοσμολογία (cosmologia, κόσμος (cosmos) world + λογια (logia) discourse) is the study of the universe in its totality and by extension mans place in it. ...
Cosmic inflation is the idea, first proposed by Alan Guth in 1981, that the nascent universe passed through a phase of exponential expansion (the inflationary epoch) that was driven by a negative pressure vacuum energy density. ...
Hubbles law is the statement in physical cosmology that the redshift in light coming from distant galaxies is proportional to their distance. ...
Instruments which also measured fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background
Earlier Before WMAP, there were several incremental improvements in our maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background: - COBE - measured the very large scale fluctuations
- Cosmic Anisotropy Telescope - measured the very small scale fluctuations in small regions of the sky
- Boomerang - measured fluctuations with improved precision
- Maxima - measured fluctuations with improved precision
- Cosmic Background Imager - measured the very small scale fluctuations with improved precision in small regions of the sky
- Very Small Array - measured fluctuations with improved precision in small regions of the sky
The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), also referred to as Explorer 66, was the first satellite built dedicated to cosmology. ...
The Cosmic Anisotropy Telescope CAT was a three-element interferometer for cosmic microwave background observations at 13 to 17 GHz, based at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. ...
The Boomerang experiment measured the cosmic microwave background radiation during three sub_orbital balloon flights. ...
For other uses of Maxima, see Maxima (disambiguation). ...
The Cosmic Background Imager (or CBI) is a 13-element interferometer perched at an elevation of 5000 metres on the Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes. ...
The Very Small Array is a 14-element interferometer perched at an elevation of 3000 metres on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. ...
Later Future instruments are expected to make measurements with higher precision and/or resolution than WMAP. These include: CLOVER array Clover is a new instrument which has been designed to measure the B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background down to a sensitivity limited by the foreground contamination due to lensing, allowing the detection of primordial gravitational waves in the Universe. ...
WMAP image, unrelated to Planck The Planck Surveyor is the third Medium-Sized Mission (M3) of ESAs Horizon 2000 Scientific Programme. ...
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