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Planck Satellite Releases First Images
davecl writes "The Planck Satellite has released its first images. These are from the 'First Look Survey' and show a strip of the sky scanned at a range of radio and submillimetre wavelengths. The results are already better than what was seen by the previous microwave background satellite, WMAP. More details and images available in English and French. The Planck Mission Blog contains more details of the project and continuing coverage. I maintain the mission blog but even I am impressed with these first images!"
Fucking excellent.
I was involved for a while with a project within Manchester university where they were looking to map some of the cmb on the cheap using students/postgrads and a few Professors combined with some off the shelf tech.
To cut down on costs we were going to use the receivers from sky's satellite dishes since theres millions of the things, combined with a form of interference.
My job was supposed to be (until I suddenly was swamped with other responsibilities and had to leave the project) to write the code that would create montecarlo simulations of the project.
Was a while ago since I left I wonder how they have gotten on with it now.
...I always knew those French saw things differently!! By different I mean wrong!!
French Soldier: Un cadeau.
Other French soldiers: A what?
French Soldier: A present.
Other French soldiers: Oh. Un cadeau.
Other French soldiers: Oui oui.
French Soldier: Allons y!
Other French soldiers: What?
French Soldier: Let's go!
Other French soldiers: Oh.
Frenchman: You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called Ah-thoor Keeng, you and all your silly English K-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-niggits!
Sir Galahad: What a strange person.
King Arthur: Now, look here, my good man--
Frenchman: I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough water! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
Frenchman:No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time-a!
Frenchman:: (Fetchez la vache.) wha?
Frenchman:: (Fetchez la vache!) [moo]
King Arthur: If you do not agree to my commands, then I shall--
[twong]
[mooooooo]
Jesus Christ!
Right! Charge!
The detectors are looking for variations in the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background that are about a million times smaller than one degree â" this is comparable to measuring from Earth the body heat of a rabbit sitting on the Moon.
The body heat of a rabbit sitting on the moon? Interesting example.
Breaking news !
The universe is green with blotches of red !
Details to follow !
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Very nice resolution. I can't wait to see further output from the project.
I don't even know what I'm looking at.
Were you accidentally looking at the French images? Try the English ones and see if that helps.
...if my first thought was "Planck? That's an awfully small satellite."
I am very curious to see Planck's resolution compared to the W-MAP. Just zoom into a bit of the map, and show them side by side, that's all I ask! They do have some nice zooms of the map on the french-language site, and I suppose if I wasn't so lazy I could find the corresponding sections in the W-MAP output. I know that Planck can detect the polarization of the CMB, I'm just dying to see what that will show us!
I've read several times that while Planck has many times the resolution and sensitivity of the W-MAP probe, there's really no more information to be gained beyond Planck. It will give us almost every bit of information that the cosmic background radiation has for us. It's kind of amazing, really.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
emission from the Cosmic Microwave Background is pretty hot on the extreme left of the scan wonder what it may be ?? any idea
More details and images available in English and French.
What's the difference between an English image and a French image?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
There's a lot more to do beyond Planck on polarization, but you're right that primary intensity anisotropies in the CMB will essentially be done by Planck. There are lots of secondary anisotropies, such as the SZ-Effect, on smaller scales to be done at higher resolution, though, and instruments like the SPT are doing exactly that.
I was left wondering about the scan pattern shown in the animation "Planck scanning the sky". I have no idea if it matches what the satellite actually does, but if it does then it seems they would gain a much better image at 'the center of the galaxy' by altering the axis of the scan pattern so the 'poles' of the scan point to it. In the animation the scanning 'poles' are currently aimed at the the section in the galaxy with the least information (the very top and bottom of the light survey image), and it seems to me that the poles are where the satellite would have the best resolution (because it passes over the poles during its scan many times and then you could calculate a very high resolution scan from all of these passes for the circular section of overlap).
Therefor wouldn't it be better to alter the scan axis by 90 degrees so the poles of the scan point toward the center of the galaxy? Perhaps this doesn't matter as they are going to do passes until the end of time and refine the resolution, but the poles would still have many times the resolution of the rest of the scans.
Here you go. (The Planck data in this picture is simulated.)
Your red-bluish widdle-waddle is important to science, I know, but that bitchin' hires-photo of our galaxy that you pair it with would make a nice skybox for compiz-fusion...wink-wing...nudge-nudge...y'know what I mean?
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
I'd expect the Planck satellite to provide just one very small constant image.
One such polarization experiment is EBEX. This experiment seeks to map the CMB polarization from a balloon-borne telescope.
Very impressive. I hope that this satellite finally helps to prove that the Big Bang is a bogus theory full of fudge factors and that the universe is actually much older and much larger than we had ever imagined. Accomplishing that could have profound implications on understanding the origin of life itself.
Here is a high resolution image from the article: http://www.esa.int/images/FIRST_LIGHT_SURVEY.jpg
Here is a high resolution image from the WMAP data: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/WMAP_2008_94GHz.png
Enjoy.
i wish they could see the other side of the bubble.because seriously infinty goes forever therefore even something as large as our universe is a minor speck in a bigger something.
I don't even know what I'm looking at. It looks like something I could have made with my Commodore Amiga.
I've heard ridiculous claims from Amiga fans before, but are you actually claiming that an Amiga can be used to create the universe?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer