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Full-sky Map Of The Oldest Light In The Universe
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Related Documents
- The Birth and Formation of Galaxies
- The Oldest Light in the Universe
- Cosmic History
- The WMAP Spacecraft
| Name | Type | Width x Height | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| wmap1.jpg | JPEG | 640 x 320 | 77K |
| wmap1.jpg | JPEG | 4096 x 2048 | 1M |
| wmap1.tif | TIFF | 4096 x 2048 | 14M |
This full-sky cosmic map captures the afterglow of the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background. It is a map of the oldest light in the universe: a "baby picture" of the universe. The picture was captured by scientists using NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) during a sweeping 12-month observation of the entire sky. Colors indicate "warmer" (red) and "cooler" (blue) spots. The oval shape is a projection to display the whole sky; similar to the way the globe of the earth can be represented as an oval.