Concept Animations

Take a trip through space and time to put "earliest light" in perspective.

Pulling back from the WMAP spacecraft in orbit at L2, we see that we are but a tiny speck in our Milky Way Galaxy.

As the journey continues, we see that the Milky Way is but a tiny speck in the Universe as we pass quasars that were some of the early brightest structures that we can detect with conventional instruments.

Finally we arrive at the beginning of time as we understand it. The super heated, roiling ionized hydrogen gas of a universe newly made glows throughout the universe. The energy from sonically condensed and rarified ripples in this gas, released as it cooled to 3000° kelvin, is the basis for the data collected by WMAP.

Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team

Duration: 65.0 seconds

Available animation formats:
320 x 240 (15fps) QT (1.1 MB)
320 x 240 (15fps) MP4 (1.5 MB)
320 x 240 (15fps) WMV (2.1 MB)
640 x 480 (30fps) QT (4.5 MB)
720 x 486 (30fps) QT (7.9 MB)
1920 x 1080 (30fps) QT (107.8 MB)

Top Image:
160 x 90 JPG (3 KB)
320 x 240 JPG (16 KB)
720 x 540 PNG (508 KB)

Middle Image:
160 x 90 JPG (2 KB)
320 x 240 JPG (11 KB)
720 x 540 PNG (416 KB)

Bottom Image:
160 x 90 JPG (3 KB)
320 x 240 JPG (13 KB)
720 x 540 PNG (404 KB)

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