The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)The WMAP mission provided the first detailed full-sky map of the microwave background radiation in the universe. The map produced is characterized as a map of the effective temperature of the microwave background radiation as depicted below. The later Planck satellite refined that map. This is a synopsis of the description of the mission from the WMAP mission report on the NASA website. The illustrations are NASA graphics. Note that the temperature variation on the Earth covers about 100°C while those measured by WMAP range only over about 0.0004 °C, a smaller range by a factor of a quarter of a million. The wavelengths of radiation detected by WMAP were in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum as depicted in the NASA graphic below. The synopsis of the implications of WMAP as summarized in the mission report includes the following quote from the WMAP site:
The positioning of the WMAP satellite made use of the Earth-Sun Lagrange point L2 which permitted it to be kept in place with a minimum expenditure of fuel and always keep its sensors pointed away from both the Earth and the Sun.
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