Planck

Meet Hopper: A Key Player in the Planck Discovery Story

March 22, 2013

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter Behind every modern tale of cosmological discovery is the supercomputer that made it possible. Such was the case with the announcement yesterday from the European Space Agencies’ Planck mission team which raised the age estimate for the universe to 13.82 billion years [...]

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Planck’s Cosmic Map Reveals Universe Older, Expanding More Slowly

March 21, 2013

Like archaeologists sifting through the dust of ancient civilizations, scientists with the ESA Planck mission today showed a map of the oldest light in the Universe. The first cosmology results of the mission suggest our Universe is slightly older and expanding more slowly than previously thought. Planck’s new estimate for the age of the Universe [...]

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Hot Gas Bridge Discovered Connecting Galaxy Clusters

November 20, 2012

An “bridge” of hot gas stretches between galaxy clusters Abell 401 and Abell 399 It may not be good practice to burn bridges but this is one super-heated bridge that astronomers were happy to find: an enormous swath of hot gas connecting two galaxy clusters 10 million light-years apart, and nearly a billion light-years away. Remove [...]

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Planck Spacecraft Loses Its Cool(ant) But Keeps Going

January 17, 2012

After two and a half years of observing the Cosmic Microwave Background, the ESA Planck spacecraft’s High Frequency Instrument ran out of its on-board coolant gases over this past weekend, reaching the end of its very successful mission. But that doesn’t mean the end for Planck observations. The Low Frequency Instrument, which does not need [...]

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Planck Unveils the Wonders of the Universe

January 12, 2011

The mission began on 13th August 2009 with a goal to image the echo’s of the birth of the Universe, the cosmic background radiation. But scientists working on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Planck mission got more than they bargained for making ground breaking discoveries and shedding light on old mysteries. By studying light from [...]

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