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 olf. Encoded in these patterns is much-anticipated information about the fundamental properties of the early Universe. WMAP launched on June 30, 2001.
|