Exquisite Cosmic Map Hints at Universe's Birth

This map shows the oldest light in our universe, as detected with the greatest precision yet by the Planck mission. 

The ancient light, called the cosmic microwave background, was imprinted on the sky when the universe was 370,000 years old. 

It shows tiny temperature fluctuations that correspond to regions of slightly different densities, representing the seeds of all future structure: the stars and galaxies of today. Image released March 21, 2013.

CREDIT: ESA and the Planck Collaboration

Charles Lawrence

"We have the best map ever of the cosmic microwave background, and that shows us what the universe was like 370,000 years after the Big Bang," said Charles Lawrence, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California who is the lead U.S. scientist on the Planck project. Lawrence and other researchers summed up the consequences of the meeting, called the Davis Cosmic Frontiers Conferences, in a call to reporters Friday (May 24).

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) was first discovered in 1964, and since then a series of experiments, culminating in Planck, have measured it in increasing detail, providing cosmologists a direct line to test theories about the beginnings of the universe.

Planck launched in 2009, and the recent data represent the product of the spacecraft's first 15.5 months of observations.

Andreas Albrecht

"Rarely in the history of science has there been such a triumphant transformation from really complete ignorance to really deep insights in just a few decades," said Andreas Albrecht, chair of the University of California, Davis Department of Physics.

ESA Planck and Fermi: Galactic Haze

This all-sky image shows the distribution of the Galactic Haze seen by ESA's Planck mission at microwave frequencies superimposed over the high-energy sky as seen by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

The Planck data (shown here in red and yellow) correspond to the Haze emission at frequencies of 30 and 44 GHz, extending from and around the Galactic Centre.

The Fermi data (shown here in blue) correspond to observations performed at energies between 10 and 100 GeV and reveal two bubble-shaped, gamma-ray emitting structures extending from the Galactic Centre.

The two emission regions seen by Planck and Fermi at two opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum correlate spatially quite well and might indeed be a manifestation of the same population of electrons via different radiation processes.

Synchrotron emission associated with the Galactic Haze seen by Planck exhibits distinctly different characteristics from the synchrotron emission seen elsewhere in the Milky Way. Diffuse synchrotron emission in the Galaxy is interpreted as radiation from highly energetic electrons that have been accelerated in shocks created by supernova explosions.

Compared to this well-studied emission, the Galactic Haze has a 'harder' spectrum, meaning that its emission does not decline as rapidly with increasing frequency.

Several explanations have been proposed for this unusual behaviour, including enhanced supernova rates, galactic winds and even annihilation of dark-matter particles. Thus far, none of them have been confirmed and the issue remains open.

The Planck image includes the mask that has been used in the analysis of the data to exclude regions with strong foreground contamination due to the Galaxy's diffuse emission. The mask also includes strong point-like sources located over the whole sky.

Credits: ESA/Planck Collaboration (microwave); NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT/D. Finkbeiner et al. (gamma rays)

ESA Planck study: Cold Gas Pockets May Point to Star Formation, Cosmos Blueprint

(Photo: ESA/Planck)
Distribution of carbon monoxide (CO), a molecule used by astronomers to trace molecular clouds across the sky, as seen by Planck (blue). 

A compilation of previous surveys, which left large areas of the sky unobserved, has been superimposed for comparison (red). The outlines identify the portions of the sky covered by these surveys.
 
Astronomers are closer to uncovering a blueprint of the cosmos after finding islands of cold gas and mysterious microwaves and for the first time map out carbon dioxide through the universe.

The discovery came from the Planck mission from the European Space Agency and was presented at an international conference in Bologna, Italy.

Most people think of carbon monoxide as a poisonous gas sometimes found in households, but an international team mapped out carbon monoxide that is part of the cold clouds in the Milky Way and other galaxies.

Astronomers hypothesized that these hydrogen-rich regions could be the birth places for stars.

"The great advantage of Planck is that it scans the whole sky, allowing us to detect concentrations of molecular gas where we didn't expect to find them," Planck collaborator Jonathan Aumont from the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Universite Paris XI, Orsay, France, said in a statement.

The microwave haze defied explanation, according to scientists, who are still studying the dataset.

"The results achieved thus far by Planck on the galactic haze and on the carbon monoxide distribution provide us with a fresh view on some interesting processes taking place in our galaxy," Jan Tauber, ESA's Project Scientist for Planck, said in a statement.

The astronomers plan to release the Planck dataset in 2013.

For more details click here.

ESA Planck instrument loses its cool

Artist's impression of Planck. Credit: Background image: ESA, ESO and STECF. Planck image: ESA/AOES Medialab.

After an impressive two and a half years of operation, Planck's High Frequency Instrument has finally exhausted its onboard coolant gases and reached the end of its very successful mission.

Meanwhile the Low Frequency Instrument, which does not need to be super-cold, will continue taking data with unprecedented sensitivity at longer wavelengths.

Planck’s primary mission is to observe the Cosmic Microwave Background – the afterglow of the Big Bang.

Despite an original mission lifetime of a year, the spacecraft has continued working for almost three years, and has mapped the sky nearly five times.

The expansion of the Universe means that the Cosmic Microwave Background is brightest when seen in microwave light, with wavelengths between 100 and 10,000 times longer than visible light.

To measure such long wavelengths Planck’s detectors have to be cooled to very low temperatures, with the heart of the High Frequency Instrument (HFI) being the coldest place in space.

Professor George Efstathiou, at University of Cambridge and the Planck Survey Scientist, said “Planck is giving us the best ever view of the early Universe, and while the High Frequency Instrument is coming to the end of its mission we have a wealth of data to analyse over the coming months and years.”

Although Planck is an international project, led by the European Space Agency, there is strong involvement from scientists in the UK. Scientists at University of Cambridge, Imperial College, University of Manchester and Cardiff University have been involved in the design, construction and operation of Planck and its instruments for over a decade, and are now heavily involved in analysis of the data.

In addition, one of three refrigeration systems was designed and built at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Harwell, Oxfordshire.

The detectors of the High Frequency Instrument (HFI) only work properly when cooled to very low temperatures, and for the duration of the mission have been cooled to 0.1 degrees above absolute zero (-273.15 Celsius) – making them the coldest known place in space! The refrigerator that keeps them cold relies on helium gas, and it is this that has finally been exhausted.

ESA: Planck spies massive dust clouds

BBC News - Planck spies massive dust clouds

Europe's Planck observatory has given another brief glimpse of its work.

The space telescope's main goal is to map the "oldest light" in the Universe, but this data is being kept under wraps until the surveying is complete.
Instead, Planck scientists have released a snapshot of the colossal swathes of cold dust that spread through the Milky Way galaxy.

Such imagery will be very useful to astronomers seeking to understand star formation.

It is in the regions of space that are most dense in terms of gas and dust that are likely to give rise to new suns.

It's the 'reject' for some people, but the 'treasure' for others - Dr Jan Tauber, Esa Planck project scientist

The latest Planck pictures will be of special interest to researchers working on the European Space Agency's (Esa) other great telescope, Herschel.

This observatory is investigating processes that trigger the creation of stars.

Dr Jan Tauber is the Esa project scientist on the Planck mission.

He told BBC News: "The latest release shows how well Planck works on its own, but it also emphasises the complementarity with Herschel; with Planck looking at the whole sky at very large scales, and Herschel zooming in and making very detailed investigations of a much smaller part of the sky."

Planck and Herschel were launched last May and sent to an observing position some 1.5 million km from Earth.

Herschel sees the sky at far-infrared wavelengths. Planck, on the other hand, sees the Universe at radio wavelengths.

ESA Planck Mission