On June 30, 2001, the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) spacecraft launched on a Boeing Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral. The probe measured small fluctuations in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and created the most accurate full-sky map of the CMB. In 2003 it was renamed the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) in honor of cosmologist David Todd Wilkinson, a member of the mission science team. Carrying on the Nobel Prize winning work of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), WMAP data has played a critical role in establishing the current standard model of co

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