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Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)
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Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Artist's conception of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) leaving the Moon's orbit for the L2 Lagrangian point.

Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)

United States satellite
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Also known as: WMAP
Written by
Dave Dooling
Education and Public Outreach Officer, National Solar Observatory, Sacramento Peak, New Mexico. Coauthor of Engineering Tomorrow.
Dave Dooling
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Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), a U.S. satellite launched in 2001 that mapped irregularities in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The CMB was discovered in 1964 when German American physicist Arno Penzias and American astronomer Robert Wilson determined that noise in a microwave receiver was in fact residual thermal radiation from the big bang. The thermal radiation started as light and has been redshifted by the expansion of the universe to longer wavelengths where its radiation is that of a blackbody at a temperature of 2.728 K ( −270.422 °C, or −454.76 °F). WMAP uses microwave radio receivers pointed in ...(100 of 579 words)

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