NASA releases universe study data

GREENBELT, Md., March 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency has released five years of data collected by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, refining the understanding of the universe.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the new data provide three major discoveries: evidence that a sea of cosmic neutrinos permeates the universe, the first stars took more than a half-billion years to create a cosmic fog, and suggest tight new constraints on the burst of expansion in the universe's first trillionth of a second of existence.

"We are living in an extraordinary time," said Gary Hinshaw of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Ours is the first generation in human history to make such detailed and far-reaching measurements of our universe."

WMAP measures a remnant of the early universe -- its oldest light -- that lost energy as the universe expanded during more than 13.7 billion years. WMAP now sees that light as microwaves. By making accurate measurements of microwave patterns, WMAP has answered many longstanding questions about the universe's age, composition and development.

The five-year WMAP data are included in a set of seven scientific papers submitted for publication to the Astrophysical Journal.

Additional information is available at http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/index.html.