Explanation:
This
historic all-sky map is
based on the first two years of data from NASA's
COsmic
Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, launched in
November of 1989.
The map shows minute temperature variations (red is hotter)
imprinted on the
Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB) radiation by structures in the
early Universe.
These detailed measurements of the CMB and
other
COBE results ushered in an age of
precision cosmology,
and exactly confirmed the predictions of the
Big
Bang theory.
Playing leading roles in the COBE project,
for their resulting discoveries
John C. Mather
(NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center), and
George F. Smoot (UC Berkeley)
were selected to receive the
2006 Nobel Prize in Physics.
