Planck Snaps Its First Images of Ancient Cosmic Light

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

News Release: 2009-141 Sept. 17, 2009

Planck Snaps Its First Images of Ancient Cosmic Light

PASADENA, Calif. – The Planck mission has captured its first rough images of the sky,
demonstrating the observatory is working and ready to measure light from the dawn of
time. Planck – a European Space Agency mission with significant NASA participation –
will survey the entire sky to learn more about the history and evolution of our universe.

The space telescope started surveying the sky regularly on Aug. 13 from its vantage point
far from Earth. Planck is in orbit around the second Lagrange point of our Earth-sun
system, a relatively stable spot located 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) away from
Earth.

"We are beginning to observe ancient light that has traveled more than 13 billion years to
reach us," said Charles Lawrence, the NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It's tremendously exciting to see these very
first data from Planck. They show that all systems are working well and give a preview of
the all-sky images to come."

A new image can be seen online at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/planck/firstlight20090917.html .

Following launch on May 14, the satellite's subsystems were checked out in parallel with
the cool-down of its instruments' detectors. The detectors are looking for temperature
variations in the cosmic microwave background, which consists of microwaves from the
early universe. The temperature variations are a million times smaller than one degree. To
achieve this precision, Planck's detectors have been cooled to extremely low temperatures,
some of them very close to the lowest temperature theoretically attainable.

Instrument commissioning, optimization and initial calibration were completed by the
second week of August.

During the "first-light" survey, which took place from Aug. 13 to 27, Planck surveyed the
sky continuously. It was carried out to verify the stability of the instruments and the
ability to calibrate them over long periods to the exquisite accuracy needed. The survey
yielded maps of a strip of the sky, one for each of Planck's nine frequencies. Preliminary
analysis indicates that the quality of the data is excellent.

Routine operations will now continue for at least 15 months without a break. In this time,
Planck will be able to gather data for two full independent all-sky maps. To fully exploit
the high sensitivity of Planck, the data will require a great deal of delicate calibrations
and careful analysis. The mission promises to contain a treasure trove of data that will
keep cosmologists and astrophysicists busy for decades to come.

Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA.
NASA's Planck Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling
technology for both of Planck's science instruments. European, Canadian, U.S. and
NASA Planck scientists will work together to analyze the Planck data. More information
is online at http://www.nasa.gov/planck and http://www.esa.int/planck .

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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