Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe DR2The data made available through this page has been updated. The most recent version of this data may be accessed through https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/wmap/current/ Foreground Reduced Sky Maps Per Frequency BandCoordinate System:
Galactic
Projection Type:
0.23°- 0.93° (frequency dependent)
Resolution:
HEALPix, nested, res 9 (Nside=512)
Download Links:
The foreground reduced skymaps were produced by removing a foreground model from the 'unreduced' maps using the Foreground Template Model discussed in Hinshaw, et.al., 2006 and Page, et.al, 2006; see those papers for details. Briefly, synchrotron, free-free, and dust emission templates were modeled and then subtracted from the single year 'unreduced' maps. The goal was to produce a set of maps with the foreground removed while retaining WMAP's noise characteristics. Because the K and Ka maps were used to produce the foreground models, only Q, V, and W band foreground reduced maps were created and delivered to LAMBDA. As with the 'unreduced' maps, full three year maps were produced by performing a weighted, pixel-by-pixel, mean of the three single year maps; the N_Obs measurement was used to weight this mean. The N_Obs measurements were added together to produce the final, three year, N_Obs measurement. This same weighted mean method was then used to combine three year maps of the same frequency band into a single map for each frequency. Two maps were combined to produce the Q and V band maps; four maps were combined to produce the W band map. WMAP maps are stored in FITS binary table extensions. The maps are stored in the first extension in a file; the format of this table depends upon whether polarization maps have been included in the file. Some files also contain the polarization covariance matrices for the maps; if supplied these matrices are stored in a second binary table extension. As previously stated, the first FITS extension contains the maps. These maps
are in a nested HEALPix format, with
each row representing a single pixel. There are either four or two columns
depending upon whether or not polarization maps are included; these columns
are:
The column names were selected to be compatible with existing HEALPix software. The TEMPERATURE and N_OBS columns are the only columns that exist in files that do not contain polarization maps. Pixel noise in units of mK can be evaluated from N_obs with the expression
σ = σ0 / sqrt(N_Obs)
where
Some files that contain polarization maps contain a second FITS extension
containing the #nxn# polarization noise covariance matrices for the pixels in the
maps of the first FITS extension. These matrices are used in the map-making
process and characterize the noise properties of the polarization maps. See
section 3.4 of Jarosik, et.al., 2006 in
the set of three year WMAP papers for more details. The columns of this extension are:
The covariance matrix of a pixel may be constructed by assembling the row elements into a 3x3 or 2x2 symmetric matrix with the form:
The size of the matrix depends upon whether or not the spurious signal component is included. Additional Information
Release Notes
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