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WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe)


WMAP
Previously known simply as MAP (Microwave Anisotropy Probe), a NASA MIDEX satellite designed to map fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background over the whole sky with unprecedented accuracy and to provide insights into the formation of galaxies and the basic parameters of cosmology. WMAP's data bring into sharper focus the irregularities in the cosmic background discovered by COBE a decade earlier. The spacecraft operates from a halo orbit about the second Sun-Earth Lagrangian point, 1.5 million km from Earth.


launch date Jun. 30, 2001
launch vehicle Delta 7425
launch site Cape Canaveral
orbit halo about L2
mass 840 kg


External site

WMAP homepage (Goddard Space Flight Center)


Related category

   • SATELLITES AND SPACE PROBES


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