June 30th marks the anniversary of the launch of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which started its nine-year mission in space on this date in 2001 to measure temperature differences across the sky in the cosmic microwave background. Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Chuck Bennett was the Principal Investigator of the mission. WMAP’s measurements were so exact that they form the foundation of the Standard Cosmological Model and provided values for all of its parameters. In 2012, Bennett and the 26-person WMAP team was recognized by the Gruber Foundation’s 2012 Cosmology Prize for their transformative study of light from the infant universe. In 2018, the WMAP science team was also awarded a Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.