Telescopes and Detectors
Telescopes and the Discovery of the Universe
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Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation - COBE
Launched in 1989, over the course of a four year mission, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), mapped the microwave background radiation of the Big Bang.

This image map of the whole sky, generated from COBE data, shows the minute fluctuations in density that eventually gave rise to the galaxies we see in the universe today.

Following the success of COBE, the Wilkinson Anisotropy Probe was built to map the early universe in finer detail.

 NGC1566