Main Result
The main result of the mission is contained in the various oval maps of the CMB spectrum over the years. These oval images present the temperature distribution gained by the WMAP team from the observations by the telescope of the mission. Measured is the temperature obtained from a Planck's law interpretation of the microwave background. The oval map covers the whole sky. The results describe the state of the universe only some hundred-thousand years after the Big Bang, which happened roughly 13.7 billion years before our time. The microwave background is very homogeneous in temperature (the relative variations from the mean, which presently is still 2.7 kelvins, are only of the order of 5x10−5. The temperature variations corresponding to the local directions are presented through different colours (the "red" directions are hotter, the "blue" directions cooler than the average).
Read more about this topic: Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe
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