WMAP and Our Flat Universe 229
universes, its expansion began to accelerate due to the effects of the cosmological constant.
It continues to expand perpetually (see Figure 5-12 for a full timeline).
Astronomers now know that for our universe, W = 1. This means that our universe
is flat. But how do we know that, and why doesn’t the model for our universe look like
model b, the flat universe, which shows a slowly decreasing rate of expansion?
WMAP and Our Flat Universe
The majority of the data that we use to verify the curvature of the universe comes from
images and other information taken from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or
WMAP. WMAP ...
Get The Manga Guide to the Universe now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
