Astrophysics

Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)

Survey Observatory · Competed · Agency-led · Launched on November 18, 1989 · Completed · LCC: $193M/$589M (2025 $)Life-cycle cost: NASA’s reported cost to build, launch, and operate a mission through its prime mission, plus documented partner contributions, in 2025 dollars. Extended missions are not included. Methods · Wikipedia

Scope Active Mission WindowActivePapers published from the first full month after science operations begin through two years after the mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. For COBE, papers published December 1, 1989 to January 1, 1996. Methods LifetimeLifetimeEvery tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. For COBE, papers published from 1990 to November 3, 2026. Methods
Tracked publicationsTracked publications: peer-reviewed papers we found that name the mission or its instruments in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. Papers that used the data without naming it are missed. Methods1,417
CitationsCitations: every citation these publications have drawn to date. Older missions have had longer to collect them. Methods120,966
Citation indices
h-indexh-index: the largest h such that h papers have at least h citations each. It only grows with time, so older missions score higher. Methods159
g-indexg-index: the largest g for which the g most-cited papers together hold at least g² citations. Like the h-index, but it lets the most-cited papers count for more. Methods306
m-indexm-index: a mission’s h-index divided by the years since its first peer-reviewed paper. It falls every 1 January even when nothing else changes; the figure shown is as of November 3, 2026. It also discounts the long operating life that larger missions paid for. Methods4.3
toritori (total research impact, from SciX): for every paper citing one of the mission’s papers, 1 divided by the citing paper’s reference count times the cited paper’s author count, summed, with self-citations removed. It favors citations from papers with short reference lists and from outside the mission’s own authors. Computed over the tracked citation graph, which can be slightly incomplete. Always over every tracked publication to date, whichever scope is chosen. Methods989
riqriq (research impact quotient): 1,000 times the square root of tori, divided by the years since the mission’s first paper. A rate, not a total, so it does not keep growing with age the way the h-index and tori do. Like tori, always over every tracked publication to date. Methods849

Publications and citations by year (lifetime)

Publications per yearCumulative citations

Institutional contributions (lifetime)The institutions SciX lists for each paper’s authors, as printed on the paper, located through the Research Organization Registry. A square counts a paper once, however many of its authors worked there. Methods

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Tracked publications over the lifetime (1,417)

All publications CSV · JSON

  1. Maps of Dust Infrared Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Foregrounds

    Schlegel, David J., 1998, ApJ

    14,346 lifetime citations

  2. Structure in the COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer First-Year Maps

    Smoot, G. F., 1992, ApJ

    2,832 lifetime citations

  3. The Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum from the Full COBE FIRAS Data Set

    Fixsen, D. J., 1996, ApJ

    1,670 lifetime citations

  4. Infrared Emission from Interstellar Dust. II. The Diffuse Interstellar Medium

    Li, Aigen, 2001, ApJ

    1,301 lifetime citations

  5. Four-Year COBE DMR Cosmic Microwave Background Observations: Maps and Basic Results

    Bennett, C. L., 1996, ApJ

    1,195 lifetime citations

  6. Gravitational wave experiments and early universe cosmology

    Maggiore, M., 2000, PhR

    1,087 lifetime citations

  7. The Temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background

    Fixsen, D. J., 2009, ApJ

    1,061 lifetime citations

  8. Acoustic signatures in the primary microwave background bispectrum

    Komatsu, Eiichiro, 2001, PhRvD

    1,031 lifetime citations

  9. Cosmology with a primordial scaling field

    Ferreira, Pedro G., 1998, PhRvD

    936 lifetime citations

  10. Cluster Abundance Constraints for Cosmological Models with a Time-varying, Spatially Inhomogeneous Energy Component with Negative Pressure

    Wang, Limin, 1998, ApJ

    916 lifetime citations

  11. Extragalactic optical-infrared background radiation, its time evolution and the cosmic photon-photon opacity

    Franceschini, A., 2008, A&A

    907 lifetime citations

  12. The Neutral Atomic Phases of the Interstellar Medium

    Wolfire, M. G., 1995, ApJ

    904 lifetime citations

  13. Reconstructing the Linear Power Spectrum of Cosmological Mass Fluctuations

    Peacock, J. A., 1994, MNRAS

    871 lifetime citations

  14. The cold dark matter density perturbation

    Liddle, Andrew R., 1993, PhR

    810 lifetime citations

  15. Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum by the COBE FIRAS Instrument

    Mather, J. C., 1994, ApJ

    805 lifetime citations

  16. The Photoelectric Heating Mechanism for Very Small Graphitic Grains and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

    Bakes, E. L. O., 1994, ApJ

    777 lifetime citations

  17. The Cosmic Infrared Background: Measurements and Implications

    Hauser, Michael G., 2001, ARA&A

    767 lifetime citations

  18. Tentative detection of a cosmic far-infrared background with COBE.

    Puget, J.-L., 1996, A&A

    741 lifetime citations

  19. The Spectrum of the Extragalactic Far-Infrared Background from the COBE FIRAS Observations

    Fixsen, D. J., 1998, ApJ

    723 lifetime citations

  20. Asymmetries in the Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy Field

    Eriksen, H. K., 2004, ApJ

    720 lifetime citations

How we found these papers

We searched NASA’s Science Explorer (SciX) for peer-reviewed articles naming COBE in the title, abstract or keywords; standard filters drop articles that are not peer-reviewed and magazine pieces.

((=abs:("Cosmic Background Explorer" OR "Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment" OR "Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer" OR "Differential Microwave Radiometer" OR "Differential Microwave Radiometers") OR facility:COBE OR (abs:COBE AND (collection:astronomy OR (abs:(inflation OR inflationary OR microwave OR anisotropy OR anisotropies OR cosmological OR cosmology OR cosmic OR blackbody OR infrared OR spectrometer OR dewar OR cryogenic OR neutrino OR neutrinos) NOT =abs:"sea surface"))) OR (abs:(DIRBE OR FIRAS) AND (collection:astronomy OR abs:(blackbody OR CMB OR microwave OR infrared OR spectrometer OR spectrometry) OR =abs:"background radiation")) OR (abs:DMR AND collection:astronomy AND abs:(microwave OR CMB OR anisotropy OR anisotropies)))) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[1989-12 TO 2040-01] AND NOT bibstem:("A&R" OR "ACPD" OR "AIASJ" OR "AMTD" OR "AeAm" OR "AirSp" OR "AsNow" OR "AsUAI" OR "AvWST" OR "BGD" OR "C&E" OR "C&T" OR "CAPJ" OR "CliPD" OR "E&S" OR "ENews" OR "ESDD" OR "ESSDD" OR "ESuDD" OR "GID" OR "GMDD" OR "GeCAS" OR "HESSD" OR "IrAJ" OR "JCos" OR "JRASC" OR "LAstr" OR "MNSSA" OR "Met" OR "NHESD" OR "NPGD" OR "NewSc" OR "OcScD" OR "Orion" OR "PhT" OR "PhTea" OR "PhuZ" OR "PhyOJ" OR "PhyW" OR "PlR" OR "SOILD" OR "SciAm" OR "SpFl" OR "TCD" OR "ZemVs")

Open in SciX

Removed after review (6)

  1. Echo of creation Popular pre-launch preview of the mission; describes planned observations and reports no results. Decision 🤖
  2. Overview of TDRSS Overview of NASA's TDRSS relay satellites; lists COBE only as a supported mission. Decision 🤖
  3. Trade-off between angular resolution and straylight contamination in the PLANCK Low Frequency Instrument. I. Pattern simulations Design simulations for Planck's Low Frequency Instrument; mentions COBE only as a predecessor. Decision 🤖
  4. The Microwave Anisotropy Probe Mission Mission description of WMAP; mentions COBE only as a predecessor. Decision 🤖
  5. Preliminary Results from NEOWISE: An Enhancement to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for Solar System Science Preliminary NEOWISE results from WISE; mentions COBE only as a predecessor. Decision 👨
  6. First-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Preliminary Maps and Basic Results First-year WMAP maps and results; mentions COBE only for comparison. Decision 👨