Routine Operations Begin

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Submitted by chrisnorth on Fri, 14/08/2009 - 10:55
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As of 13th August 2009, Planck is in "routine operations mode".  The first two weeks are taken up by the "First Light Survey" which is intended to check that everything really is working in that mode.  Providing everything works as expected, Planck will continue to operate in this mode.

In 15 months the first two surveys of the full sky will be complete, and Planck should continue to scan the sky until its coolant runs out.  The major science results will take quite a while to come out due to the immense amount of computation needed to analyse them, and are expected in around 3 years' time.  These results will be a full-sky map of the Cosmic Microwave Background, and more accurate measurements of the parameters which have governed how our Universe has evolved.

Image of Planck and the CMB
Image credit: ESA/NASA/WMAP

 

Planck sees the sky at higher resolution than previous satellites, and so will be able to see smaller features in the sky.  The resolution is still coarse relative to optical telescopes such as Hubble because the wavelength is much longer - the smallest "beams" on Planck are about 1/6th the diameter of the Full Moon as seen from the ground.  Anything much smaller than this will only be seen as a single "fuzzy blob" in the map, with little or no information about the shape and size of the object.  This is a bit like taking a camera out of focus and trying to look at something small on the horizon - all you'll see is a fuzzy blob.  In astronomy such objects are called "compact sources".

In around 18 months the "Early Release Compact Source Catalogue" will be released.  This will be a collation of all the compact sources which Planck has seen in its first pass over the sky.   This is slightly less computation required to identify thes sources, to they can be released earlier than the core science results.  Publishing the catalogue early also means that they can be observed by other telescopes - such as Herschel.  Since Planck has a finer resolution than its space-based predecessors, such as WMAP, and is more sensitive, there are certain to be sources found which haven't been seen before.

Over the course of its whole lifetime, Planck will be able to detect fainter and fainter objects, which is why this is an "Early Release" catalogue - the later releases should have even more sources in.