Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

The goal of WMAP was to map out minute differences in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation which would help test theories of the nature of the universe. It was the successor to COBE and one of the series of Great observatory satellites.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (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.

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 Lagrange point, 1.5 million km from Earth. 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.

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, while waiting for the launch and results of the Planck Surveyor satellite. According to NASA, this picture "contains such stunning detail that it may be one of the most important scientific results of recent years".

Important inferences from the initial analyses of the WMAP data

• The universe is 13.7 billion years old (to within about one percent error [1]).
• The universe is composed of 4% ordinary matter, 23% of an unknown type of dark matter, and 73% of a mysterious dark energy.
• The cosmological scenarios of cosmic inflation are consistent with the observations.

External references

• NASA's February 11, 2003 press release
• local cosmological parameters - WMAP team
• http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/
• Anisotropy
• Seife, Charles, BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR: Illuminating the Dark Universe, Science 2003 302: 2038-2039. The article includes a bibliography and interesting web links.

Referenced By