Cosmic Background: Planck Mission Returned First Image of Entire Sky, Looks Like Ghostbusters
Posted by super_collider on Monday, Jul 05, 2010
The European Space Agency’s Planck mission has returned its first image of the entire sky – and it looks like the scene in Ghostbusters when they cross the beams. Showing both the Milky Way and the Cosmic Microwave Background, the shot was created from data captured by the probe, which is currently sitting out in space near the L2 Lagrange Point mapping the entire sky in unprecedented detail.
ESA explains that “the dust throughout the Galaxy is shown in blue, while hot gas can be seen as red regions across the centre of the image. The main disc of our Galaxy runs across the centre of the image. Immediately striking are the streamers of cold dust reaching above and below the Milky Way. This galactic web is where new stars are being formed, and Planck has found many locations where individual stars are edging toward birth or just beginning their cycle of development. Less spectacular but perhaps more intriguing is the mottled backdrop at the top and bottom. This is the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. It is the oldest light in the Universe, the remains of the fireball out of which our Universe sprang into existence 13.7 billion years ago.”
The image is just the first glimpse of what Planck will eventually reveal, as the plan is the map the sky four times over. You can view it at higher resolution here or compare it against other wavelengths on the awesome Chromoscope website
Filed under:
About the author
_a London-based collective exploring science through the creative industries | http://www.super-collider.com | http://twitter.com/super_collider
