Key facts
- Names
- Explorer 66, COBE
- Mission type
- Cosmic microwave background Astronomy
- Operator
- NASA
- Cospar id
- 1989-089A
- Website
- lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/cobe
- Mission duration
- 6 months (planned), 4 years, 1 month and 4 days (achieved)
- Spacecraft
- Explorer LXVI
- Spacecraft type
- Cosmic Background Explorer
- Bus
- COBE
- Manufacturer
- Goddard Space Flight Center
- Launch mass
- 2,206 kg (4,863 lb)
- Dry mass
- 1,408 kg (3,104 lb)
- Dimensions
- 5.49 × 2.44 m (18.0 × 8.0 ft)
- Power
- 750 watts
- Launch date
- 18 November 1989, 14:34 UTC
- Rocket
- Delta 5920-8 (Delta 189)
- Launch site
- Vandenberg , SLC-2W
- Contractor
- Douglas Aircraft Company
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Official website
- lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/cobe
- Image
- Cobe.jpg
Show 2 more facts
- Commons category
- COBE
- UTC date of spacecraft launch
- 1989-11-18
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~26 min read
Article
The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE /ˈkoʊbi/ KOH-bee), 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 (CMB or CMBR) of the universe and provide measurements that would help shape the understanding of the cosmos.
COBE's measurements provided two key pieces of evidence that supported the Big Bang theory of the universe: that the CMB has a near-perfect black-body spectrum, and that it has very faint anisotropies. Two of COBE's principal investigators, George F. Smoot III and John C. Mather, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for their work on the project. According to the Nobel Prize committee, "the COBE project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science".