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FIRAS compared sky radiation with an adjustable internal blackbody using an interferometer and cold bolometers. An external blackbody could cover the sky entrance for measurement calibration. The team adjusted the internal temperature to minimize the difference signal.^[ref]

Comparisons across detectors and mirror strokes tested instrumental errors; sky mapping separated Milky Way emission. John C. Mather's lecture reports a final root-mean-square spectral departure of 50 parts per million of peak brightness. This is neither the preliminary 1990 precision nor a relative error in every spectral bin. Calibration drift and nonideal reference emission required correction.^[ref]

The advantage of a null measurement is that a small difference can be resolved without assigning the same absolute precision to a large detector output. Nevertheless, matching an internal reference is meaningful only after its relation to an independently calibrated blackbody has been tested. A bound on departures from a Planck spectrum constrains energy redistribution after thermal equilibrium; it does not require the cosmic microwave background to have exactly the same temperature in every direction.

The Cosmic Background Explorer connected two questions: does the cosmic microwave background follow a Planck spectrum, and how does its temperature vary across the sky? John C. Mather and George F. Smoot shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for these discoveries.^[ref] The FIRAS and COBE DMR comparisons below explain why measuring spectral shape and measuring angular structure require different information.

An astronomer researching the cosmic microwave background.^[ref]

Awarded in equal shares to John C. Mather and George F. Smoot for discovering the black-body radiation form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background.^[ref]