By Clive Cookson in Turin
Published: July 5 2010 15:25
Space oddity: The universe as seen from the solar system
The European Space Agency on Monday released a remarkable new view of the universe as seen from the solar system.
It is the first full-sky image from the €600m Planck satellite, launched last year to observe the universe’s microwave radiation from a vantage point more than 1m km from Earth. The image was released at the EuroScience forum in Turin
The satellite’s main mission is to help cosmologists understand what happened immediately after the creation of the universe 13.7bn years ago.
“This single image captures both our own cosmic backyard – the Milky Way galaxy that we live in – and also the subtle imprint of the Big Bang from which the whole universe emerged,” said David Parker, science director of the UK Space Agency.
Planck is the third microwave satellite of its type. Its images are much sharper – and should therefore be more informative – than the two pioneering US missions that gave astronomers their first maps of microwave background radiation.
Across the middle of the image is the hot white disc of our own Milky Way galaxy, with streamers of cold blue dust reaching above and below it. This is where new stars are being formed, and Planck has found many locations where individual stars are edging towards birth or just beginning their cycle of development.
Less spectacular but central to the mission is the mottled red-and-orange backdrop at the top and bottom of the picture: the “cosmic microwave background” radiation. It is the oldest light in the universe, the remains of the fireball out of which it sprang into existence.
In due course the Planck scientists will use digital image analysis to remove as much as possible of the Milky Way radiation in the foreground, leaving the cosmic microwave background. They hope that small variations in the pattern will reveal clues about “cosmic inflation”, the expansion of the universe by a factor of a trillion trillion trillion in the first moments of its existence.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.
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