Cosmic Background Explorer
The Cosmic Background Explorer, also referred to as Explorer 66, was a NASA satellite dedicated to cosmology, which operated from 1989 to 1993. Its goals were to investigate the cosmic microwave background radiation of the universe and provide measurements that would help shape our understanding of the cosmos.
Cosmic Background Explorer mission patch Explorer program← AMPTE-CCE (Explorer 65)Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (Explorer 67) →
Launch of the COBE spacecraft on 18 November 1989.
Diagram of COBE spacecraft
Cosmic microwave background
The cosmic microwave background is microwave radiation that fills all space in the observable universe. It is a remnant that provides an important source of data on the primordial universe. With a standard optical telescope, the background space between stars and galaxies is almost completely dark. However, a sufficiently sensitive radio telescope detects a faint background glow that is almost uniform and is not associated with any star, galaxy, or other object. This glow is strongest in the microwave region of the radio spectrum. The accidental discovery of the CMB in 1965 by American radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson was the culmination of work initiated in the 1940s.
The Holmdel Horn Antenna on which Penzias and Wilson discovered the cosmic microwave background. The antenna was constructed in 1959 to support Project Echo—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's passive communications satellites, which used large earth orbiting aluminized plastic balloons as reflectors to bounce radio signals from one point on the Earth to another.
Artist impression pf the gravitational lensing effect of massive cosmic structures