ON THE ORIGIN OF THE DIPOLE ANISOTROPY AS DETERMINED BY QUADRUPOLE MEASUREMENTS

We discuss the possibility of investigating the nature of the dipole anisotropy by means of measurements of the quadrupole component due to the light aberration effect. The aberration term is of the order DELTA-T/T congruent-to 1.2-1.6 x 10(-6) (thermodynamic temperature fluctuations), which is close to the expected final sensitivity of the high-frequency channel of the differential microwave radiometer of the COBE satellite (COBE-DMR): this term represents approximately 85% of the total quadrupole. Because of the relevance of the effect, we suggest increasing the observing time of COBE beyond the already scheduled duration of 2 years.