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Planck
satellite to be presented to media
16 January 2007
By
the end of February, integration of Planck, the ESA spacecraft
due to study relic radiation from the Big Bang, will have been
completed - and so too will a major step towards launch. ESA and
Alcatel Alenia Space (AAS) are jointly inviting the media to a
press conference to be held at the AAS facilities in Cannes,
France, on 1 February to hear about the mission’s
technological achievements and scientific objectives and to view
the spacecraft in all its splendor.
Planck
will make the most accurate maps yet of the microwave background
radiation that fills space. It will be sensitive to temperature
variations of a few millionths of a degree and will map the full
sky in nine wavelengths.
The immediate outcome of the
Big Bang and the initial conditions for the evolution in the
universe’s structure are the primary target of this
important mission. From the results, a great deal more will be
learn not only about the nature and amount of dark matter, the
‘missing mass’ of the universe, but also about the
nature of dark energy and the expansion of the universe itself.
To address such challenging
objectives, Planck will need to operate at very low, stable
temperatures. Once in space, its detectors will have to be cooled
to temperature levels close to absolute zero (-273.15ºC),
ranging from -253ºC to only a few tenths of a degree above
absolute zero. The Planck spacecraft thus has to be a marvel of
cryotechnology.
After integration, Planck will
start a series of tests that will continue into early-2008. It
will be launched by end-July 2008 in a dual-launch configuration
with Herschel, ESA’s mission to study the formation of
galaxies, stars and planetary systems in the infrared.
Source
/ Credit: ESA
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