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COBE Sky Map: Caption
This image of the microwave sky was created from COBE DMR data products. The COBE satellite, launched in 1989, was developed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to measure the diffuse infrared and microwave radiation from the early universe. In this i
mage, the galactic center is in the middle, with the plane of the Milky Way running horizontally across (from Cygnus on the left to Orion on the right, ). It shows the dipole, a smooth variation between relatively hot and relatively cold areas (upper rig
ht to lower left), which is due to the motion of the solar system relative to distant matter in the universe. The signals attributed to this variation are extremely small, only one thousandth the brightness of the sky.
The COBE datasets were developed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center under the guidance of the COBE Science Working Group and were provided by the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC).
For further information about COBE data contact:
David Leisawitz
leisawitz@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov
Astrophysics Data Facility
Code 631, NASA/GSFC
Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
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Copyright, (c) 1995: Board of Trustees, University of
Illinois
NCSA. Last modified 11/1/95.