2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/6206The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has mapped the full sky in five frequency bands between 23 and 94 GHz. The primary goal of the mission is to produce high-fidelity, all-sky, polarization-sensitive maps that can be used to study the cosmic microwave background. Systematic errors in the maps are constrained to new levels: using all-sky data, aspects of the anisotropy may confidently be probed to sub-microKelvin levels. We give a brief description of the instrument and an overview of the first results from an analysis of maps made with one year of data. The highlights are (1) the flat Lambda-CDM model fits the data remarkably well, whereas an Einstein-de Sitter model does not; (2) we see evidence of the birth of the first generation of stars at z ~ 20; (3) when the WMAP data are combined and compared with other cosmological probes, a cosmic consistency emerges: multiple different lines of inquiry lead to the same results.To appear in Carnegie Observatories Astrophysics Series, Vol2 Measuring and Modeling the Universe, ed. W.L. Freedman,Cambridge University Press. Version with high-quality figures at http://ophelia.princeton.edu/~page/carnegie.pdfAstrophysicstext