WMAP's Portrait of the Early Universe

  • Released Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
  • Updated Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 1:55PM
  • ID: 10123

Scientists using NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe (WMAP) have created the most detailed portrait of the infant Universe. By capturing the afterglow of the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background (CMB), we now believe the Universe to be 13.7 billion years old. Encoded in these patterns is much—anticipated information about the fundamental properties of the early Universe. WMAP launched on June 30, 2001.

This animation begins with a zoom into the WMAP data. We then see the formation of the first stars and galaxies. The images zooms out to reveal the relative locations of the WMAP data and from where the satellite is observing.

This animation begins with the satellite and then goes into a zoom of the WMAP data. We then see the formation of the first stars and galaxies. The images zoomz out to reveal the relative loctaions of the WMAP data and from where the satallite is observing

For More Information

See http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Datasets used in this visualization

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.