Internal Linear Combination Map, WMAP

This image could have imperfections as it’s either historical or reportage.

Whole sky image of the cosmic microwave background made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The Internal Linear Combination Map is a weighted linear combination of the five WMAP frequency maps. The weights are computed using criteria which minimize the Galactic foreground contribution to the sky signal. The resultant map provides a low-contamination image of the CMB anisotropy. This map indicates that the age of the universe is around 13.7 billion years. The data also reveal that the universe is expanding at 71 kilometers per second per megaparsec (1 Mpc = 3262 light years). The colors reveal variations in the temperature of the universe in all directions. This correlates to the density of material at the time when the universe became transparent to radiation, about 380, 000 years after its creation. The denser regions (red, yellow) formed the seeds of galaxies and other structures.