Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe


Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

(WMAP) NASA probe investigating and mapping the fluctuations in the microwave background radiation that had been discovered by COBE. It was launched June 30 2001 into a halo orbit around the Sun–Earth Lagrangian point L2, about 1.5 million km from the Earth. Originally known as MAP, it was later renamed in memory of the famous cosmologist David Todd Wilkinson, who died in Sept. 2002.