Scrutinizing WMAP's CMB DATA: implications for Planck

Abstract: I will present briefly our previous and currently on-going work on analyzing WMAP data, with emphasis on sources of foreground residuals in WMAP's cleaned sky maps: (1) WMAP's non-gaussianity; (2) foreground point sources; (3) WMAP gamma-ray correlation; (4) WMAP-SDSS-SFD three way correlation; (5) WMAP - cosmic ray correlation. Our results indicate that a major source of WMAP's foreground residuals is the inaccurate dust extinction map, which is contaminated by previously unknown foreground galaxies when the dust extinction map was made.