Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)

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 opposite directions to map the unevenness—anisotropy—of the background. WMAP is named in tribute to American physicist David Todd Wilkinson, who died in 2002 and who was a contributor to both WMAP and WMAP’s predecessor, the Cosmic Background Explorer.

WMAP was launched June 30, 2001, and was positioned near the second Lagrangian point (L2), a gravitational balance point between Earth and the Sun and 1.5 million km (0.9 million miles) opposite the Sun from Earth. The spacecraft moved in a controlled Lissajous pattern around L2 rather than “hovering” there. This orbit isolated the spacecraft from radio emissions from Earth and the Moon without having to place it on a more distant trajectory that would complicate tracking. WMAP was initially planned to operate for two years, but its mission was extended to Sept. 8, 2010. After its mission ended, WMAP moved from L2 into orbit around the Sun.

Discover how ordinary objects work, and expand your understanding of the familiar.

SIGN UP

" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">

Thank you for signing up!"

Back to homepage

By clicking "Sign Up", you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Britannica Quiz

Astronomy and Space Quiz

The spacecraft carried a pair of microwave receivers that observed in nearly opposite directions through 1.4 × 1.6-metre (4.6 × 5.2-foot) reflecting telescopes. These reflectors resembled a home satellite “dish” antenna. The receivers measured the relative brightness of opposite points in the universe at frequencies of 23, 33, 41, 61, and 94 gigahertz and were cooled to eliminate internal noise. The spacecraft was protected from the Sun by a shield that was deployed with the solar arrays and was permanently pointed at the Sun. The spacecraft rotated so the two reflectors scan a circle across the sky. As WMAP orbited the Sun with the L2 point and Earth, the scanned circle precessed so that the entire sky was mapped every six months. When Jupiter passed through the field of view, it was used as a calibration source.

Data from WMAP showed temperature variations of 0.0002 K caused by intense sound waves echoing through the dense early universe, about 380,000 years after the big bang. This anisotropy hinted at density variations where matter would later coalesce into the stars and galaxies that form today’s universe. WMAP determined the age of the universe to be 13.8 billion years. WMAP also measured the composition of the early, dense universe, showing that it started at 63 percent dark matter, 12 percent atoms, 15 percent photons, and 10 percent neutrinos. As the universe expanded, the composition shifted to 23 percent dark matter and 4.6 percent atoms. The contribution of photons and neutrinos became negligible, while dark energy, a poorly understood field that accelerates the expansion of the universe, is now 72 percent of the content. Although neutrinos are now a negligible component of the universe, they form their own cosmic background, which was discovered by WMAP. WMAP also showed that the first stars in the universe formed half a billion years after the big bang. The European Space Agency’s Planck satellite, which was launched in 2009, is designed to map the CMB in even greater detail than WMAP.