"TAKING THE MEASURE OF THE UNIVERSE"
The first findings from a year of operations by the Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite provide the first detailed
full sky picture of the afterglow of the Big Bang. The patterns in
this picture encode a wealth of cosmological information, including the
age of the universe, the epoch when the first stars formed, and the overall
composition of normal matter, dark matter, and dark energy. The results
have tantalizing implications for the period of inflationary expansion
in the very first moments of time. These and other aspects of the
mission will be discussed. The WMAP satellite was built in a close
partnership between Princeton University and the Goddard Space Flight Center.