This historic [ http://lambda.gsfc.…] all-sky map is based on the first two years of data from NASA's COsmic Background Explorer [ http://lambda.gsfc.…] (COBE) satellite, launched in November of 1989. The map shows minute temperature variations (red is hotter) imprinted on the Cosmic Microwave Background [ http://map.gsfc.nas…] (CMB) radiation by structures in the early Universe [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. These detailed measurements of the CMB and other COBE [ http://lambda.gsfc.…] results ushered in an age of precision [ http://lambda.gsfc.…parameters.cfm ] cosmology, and exactly confirmed the predictions of the Big Bang theory [ http://www.astro.uc…]. Playing leading roles in the COBE project, for their resulting discoveries John C. Mather [ http://adsabs.harva…bib_query?1994ApJ... 420..439M ] (NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center), and George F. Smoot [ http://adsabs.harva…nph-bib_query?1994Ap J...437....1S ] (UC Berkeley) were selected to receive the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics [ http://nobelprize.o…2006/ ].
