Cosmic Background Explorer
COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer ) is a satellite of NASA, which provided revolutionary results of the measurement of the cosmic background radiation from 1989 to 1993. The satellite is still in orbit.
Name and Mission
COBE was used to study the cosmic microwave background radiation, from a 360 ° map was made. These COBE circled the Earth at about 900 km altitude on a polar orbit. The space probe WMAP is the successor of the satellite, it serves since 2001 researching this radiation. As of August 2009, the European Planck spacecraft measured the radiation with greater resolution, their mission ended in 2013.
History:
- COBE was launched on November 18, 1989 on a Delta 5920 launch vehicle. Originally COBE should be transported into space with the Space Shuttle. The mission STS -82 -B should start in 1988 from Vandenberg Air Force Base with the Discovery. After the Challenger disaster, the mission was canceled.
- On September 1, 1990 COBE's stock went to liquid helium running out, failure of a part of the instruments, v. a FIRAS (Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer ) to determine the background radiation
- December 23, 1993: End of the scientific mission
- As of January 1994: technological experiments.
Results
The result of the mission is a highly accurate map of the cosmic background radiation. It therefore supports the big bang theory.
Other findings of the mission are data on interplanetary dust and the position of our sun in the galaxy. 2006 was George Smoot as scientific director of this program, along with John C. Mather, also employees on this project, the Nobel Prize for physics.