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Planck Telescope Is Coolest Spacecraft Ever
Hugh Pickens writes "Launched in May, BBC reports that Europe's Planck observatory has reached its operating temperature, a staggering minus 273.05C — just a tenth of a degree above what scientists term "absolute zero." and although laboratory set-ups have got closer to absolute zero than Planck, researchers say it is unlikely there is anywhere in space currently that is colder than their astronomical satellite. This frigidity should ensure the bolometers will be at their most sensitive as they look for variations in the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) that are about a million times smaller than one degree — comparable to measuring from Earth the heat produced by a rabbit sitting on the Moon. Planck has been sent to an observation position around the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system, L2, some 1.5 million km from Earth and Planck will help provide answers to one of the most important sets of questions asked in modern science — how did the Universe begin, how did it evolve to the state we observe today, and how will it continue to evolve in the future. Planck's objectives include mapping of Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies with improved sensitivity and angular resolution, determination of the Hubble constant, testing inflationary models of the early Universe, and measuring amplitude of structures in Cosmic Microwave Background. 'We will be probing regimes that have never been studied before where the physics is very, very uncertain,' says Planck investigator Professor George Efstathiou from Cambridge University. 'It's possible we could find a signature from before the Big Bang; or it's possible we could find the signature of another Universe and then we'd have experimental evidence that we are part of a multi-verse.'"
Is anyone else dissapointed we don't already have this capability? I can stream Top Gear in HD from youtube in faster than real time but we lag this far behind in (optical? thermal?) imaging? I know the atmosphere creates a lot of optical distortion... but really? Not even a rabbit (which have unusually high body temps if I recall correctly)?
moox. for a new generation.
I don't know what else to say about that.
They call that a cool space craft? It doesn't even have warp drive, let alone quantum torpedoes. It doesn't even have anything onboard to which you could apply the phase "reverse the polarity". Cool. Bah!
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
If the rabbits don't have the Holy Hand Grenade in their arsenal..... :-)))
(Monty Python and the Holy Grail for all you unwashed masses....)
But, seriously, being to cool down the detectors so low is great, although I don't think that it is a "first" (citation needed). ;-)
Didn't COBE have super-cooled detectors also? I'm too lazy to look that up.....
That's a pretty small telescope you have there, and it doesn't last very long either ; ).
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
"Sorry for the Inconvenience"
The Planck telescope is the smallest telescope that, according to our current understanding of nature, it is meaningful to speak about. This property sets the Planck telescope apart as the natural unit (also called Planck unit) for telescopes.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
A rabbit sitting on the moon will be at a much different temperature than its surroundings, not a millionth of a degree kelvin. The only thing interesting about measuring the temperature of a rabbit on the moon is resolution, not sensitivity. So essentially completely the opposite of what the Planck telescope does.
Sorry, just had to release my inner pedant - this was too good to resist.
They call that a cool space craft? It doesn't even have warp drive, let alone quantum torpedoes. It doesn't even have anything onboard to which you could apply the phase "reverse the polarity". Cool. Bah!
Dude, you can reverse the polarity on anything with a DC circuit. Sometimes, with spectacular results.
Really, it doesn't have a reason to go on the moon.... if they would give the mouse for example, i'm sure that little critter would love to be on the moon much more than a rabbit, so that it can eat all the cheeze there is there!
This is where the so-called "neutral point of view" ceases to be useful.
I hope the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature doesn't turn out to be constant...
L2 is behind the earth, as seen from the sun. And the distance given is correct.
apparently you've never heard of the company powergen, that went international and opened up an italian branch.
www.powergenitalia.com
It's not about fate, it's about character.
there be no shelter here, the frontline is everywhere!
that's colder than a witch's titty (-273.04C).
Wikipedia has an excellent article describing each of the Legrangian points and why each of them is pseudo-stable.
Don't Bogart the fish sticks
... is the rabbit alive or not? And who wants to look?
You did a lot of typing in your post. I think perhaps you could have saved a lot of it in your quest to enlightenment if you'd have chosen a text field on a different web page. May I suggest http://google.com/ and the phrase "earth sun l2"? The first link even has a very descriptive map. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point
while (measured_age_of_the_universe != 6000)
launch a better satellite;
Why is it so hard for people to understand that there is no "before the big bang"? Time was created at the big bang. There is no "before time began". Before time, there is no before. A bit like there was no spelling bee champion 65 million years ago. Maybe very little like that. Or maybe a bit like asking what is west of the moon. Hmmm... ok, very little like that, too. How about like asking at what date 13 became a prime number? Yes, more like that. You get the gist. Time is part of our universe. The big bang created the universe, space and time together.
If there was no big bang, then maybe there was something before whatever was then. But if there was a big bang, there was nothing before that.
I, for one, welcome our lunar rabbit overlords.
A simpler analogy would be to try to go north from the North Pole.
Oliver.
Hmm, so we're measuring telescope resolution and fidelity by the ease at which we can look at rabbits on the moon? How many libraries of congress worth of data can these 1-rabbit-resolution telescopes transmit back to earth per hogshead?
I'm confused... if L2 is behind the earth as seen from the sun, how does it get data to my processor so quickly?
How would scientist tell exactly or even generally what was making the Cosmic Microwave Background. If anyone on slashdot knows (and yes I am insulting your ego to get more answers).
I have nothing to add, save the fact your slashid's are exactly 200,000 apart. Neat.
/wrists
Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it.
we must be prepared to take account of the fact that our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
So is moon-rabbits the new metric standard unit for measuring instrument sensitivity?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Look, matey, I know a dead rabbit when I see one, and Iâ(TM)d be looking at one right now. It 'd have passed on! This rabbit would be no more! It 'd have ceased to be! It 'd have expired and be gone to meet its maker! This would be a late parrot. It'd be a stiff. Bereft of life, it 'd rest in peace, if you had sent it to the moon, it 'd be pushing up the daisies! It'd be rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This would be an ex-rabbit!
For more information you can catch up with Planck on the mission blog on Planck's twitter, and on the Planck outreach website.
I help maintain the blog and work on both the Planck and Herschel missions.
Is that /bow-low/ meter, or /bollo/ meter (as in bollocks).
hot SPACE RABBITS
I know that late this night I will have the weirdest fantasy ever.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Their UK office is in Scunthorpe.
Just to clarify: -273.05C equals 0.1 Kelvin. That looks much more impressive, as it
indicates how close to absolute zero it is - and even is easier to grasp in my opinion.
Come on, we're on Slashdot, dammit!
Not to be too picky, but calling .05 a tenth is just bad math.
A bunch of us amateur astronomers pwned it. We imaged it in UV, optical, NIR, IR, microwave and audio too. We tapped directly into its downlink, and guess what ... Turns out this whole thing is a cover for a top secret military mission, possibly to intercept or interact with alien ships lurking at the Lagrange Points.
First off, turns out the Bolometer, officially allegedly used to measure Cosmic Microwave BG, seems to be doing nothing of the sort. It's just continuously looping this music. Either the Big Bang is a dance party gone uncontrollably wild, and/or God is South American, and/or this top secret military mission was partly funded by Latin American drug money, built with Gitmo prison labor.
Tellingly, the spacecraft itself in optical imagery iooks like this galaxy. Obviously this is a rather pathetic camouflage of some sort to hide the real mission from public scrutiny, or a telling clue as to its Latin drug money financing source. OR, the said aliens come from said galaxy so our military is just being friendly. Take your pick as to the likely truth - all of the above.
Also a whistle blower revealed that the subcontract to camouflage the spacecraft was outsourced to this now bankrupt Indian IT shop, which in turn was bought up by this other Indian company that makes civilian and military SUVs! That explaines why, bizzarely sometimes the spacecraft looks like thisthis SUV, at other times like this older one which was made under license by the same Indian company! This too, points either to the military nature of this mission, or it's just a glaring bug in the camouflage code, coming as it is from habitually incompetent Indian coders.
Imagine, if Indian outsourcers screw up a mega military project in this fashion, how can the American taxpayer trust them with our credit cards and jobs?
In higher resolution IR images, we could clearly read the mission code name painted in invisible ink. It read Operation Bolero, also clearly indicating its military origin!
Interestingly, hidden right next to the mission name was a tiny nude picture of the actress Bo Derek from this movie. Clearly, only a sex starved military rookie or an Indian geek (also sex starved) or more likely, a Gitmo prison laborer could slip such a tasteless Easter Egg on a super secret military mission!
All this evidence - admittedly circumstantial - clearly supports our hunch that this is a top secret military mission, illegally outsourced to India in defiance of congressional regulations - not to mention at grave risk to the security of homeland - and possibly financed by drug money from Latin America!!
This needless to say, is a humongous threat!! Evil FUD against righteous FLOSS!!
Wake up netizens!! Exercise your 2nd Ammo rights and load up on its name sake, ammoooo! Who else can defend this great nation from a grave threat - of alien invasion, Latin American Drug peddlers, or worse, our own military in collusion with aliens - but the self-righteous Joe Public armed with hunting rifles! Think of the children! Who will save them from such evil resident at the Lagrange Points!
Wake up! Before its too late and Earth turns into Soviet Alienia, and clocks are forced to freeze at 1984; where outlandish Sombrero Hats top you, and the white noise drone of the Cosmic Microwave BG is broadcast from loudspeakers at every street corners!!
We amateur astronomers, of course plan to climb down pronto from roof tops and retreat to our mom's Windows-less basements, where we plan to dance the Bolero with our Linux Powered RealDolls until the threat passes.
Wonder what sort of protection measures it has against random stuff flying in front of the sensor/bolloneymeter/whateverotron.
Obviously, if those sensors ever point at the sun, they going to be pushing up mechanical daisies, what about Mars flying past, or Venus?
i wish i could mod everyone offtopic! less rabbit, more Planck telescope!
It'll be dead cold within seconds