WMAP—From the Archives

  • Released Thursday, June 21, 2012
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On June 20, 2012, Dr. Charles Bennett and the WMAP team were awarded the Gruber Cosmology Prize.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) was built and launched by NASA to measure a remnant of the early universe - its oldest light. The conditions of the early times are imprinted on this light. It is the result of what happened earlier, and a backlight for the later development of the universe. This light lost energy as the universe expanded over 13.7 billion years, so WMAP now sees the light as microwaves. By making accurate measurements of microwave patterns, WMAP has answered many longstanding questions about the universe's age, composition and development.

This video from Goddard's tape archive features Dr. Bennett after the first results were announced in 2003.

Short video featuring interviews with Dr. Charles Bennett and Dr. Lyman Page

For complete transcript, click here.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Thursday, June 21, 2012.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:52 PM EDT.

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Tapes

This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:
  • WMAP Archival Video (ID: 2012072)
    Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 4:00AM
    Produced by - Robert Crippen (NASA)