WMAP team releases final results, based on nine years of observations
Friday, December 21, 2012 - 15:30
in Astronomy & Space
(Phys.org)—Since its launch in 2001, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) space mission has revolutionized our view of the universe, establishing a cosmological model that explains a widely diverse collection of astronomical observations. Led by Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Charles L. Bennett, the WMAP science team has determined, to a high degree of accuracy and precision, not only the age of the universe, but also the density of atoms; the density of all other non-atomic matter; the epoch when the first stars started to shine; the "lumpiness" of the universe, and how that "lumpiness" depends on scale size.