ESA Science & Technology - Planck
Fact Sheet
Planck addressed some of the most important questions 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 objective is to analyse, with the highest accuracy ever achieved, the remnants of the radiation that filled the Universe immediately after the Big Bang - this we observe today as the Cosmic Microwave Background.
News
News
Planck finds no new evidence for cosmic anomalies
6 June 2019ESA's Planck satellite has found no new evidence for the puzzling cosmic anomalies that appeared in its temperature map of the Universe. The latest study does not rule out the potential relevance of the anomalies but they do mean astronomers must work even harder to understand the origin of these puzzling features.
Planck reveals link between active galaxies and their dark matter environment
17 April 2019Scientists have used the tiny distortions imprinted on the cosmic microwave background by the gravity of matter throughout the Universe, recorded by ESA's Planck satellite, to uncover the connection between the luminosity of quasars – the bright cores of active galaxies – and the mass of the much larger 'halos' of dark matter in which they sit.
From an almost perfect Universe to the best of both worlds
17 July 2018The Planck consortium has made their final data release, including new processing of the cosmic microwave background temperature and polarisation data. This legacy dataset confirms the model of an 'almost perfect Universe', with some remaining oddities giving researchers some intriguing details to puzzle over.
ESA Planck team awarded prestigious prize
10 May 2018The ESA Planck team has been honoured with the 2018 Gruber Cosmology Prize for its mission mapping the cosmic microwave background – relic radiation from the Big Bang that is still observable today.
Rosetta and Planck honoured in annual Royal Astronomical Society awards
12 January 2018ESA’s Matt Taylor has been awarded the 2018 Service Award for Geophysics by the Royal Astronomical Society for his outstanding contribution to the Rosetta mission, while the Planck mission has been honoured with the Group Achievement Award for their extraordinary achievements in cosmology.
First stars formed even later than previously thought
31 August 2016ESA's Planck satellite has revealed that the first stars in the Universe started forming later than previous observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background indicated. This new analysis also shows that these stars were the only sources needed to account for reionising atoms in the cosmos, having completed half of this process when the Universe...
Featured Publications
Featured Publications
ESA BR-347: Planck - Science and Legacy
11 November 2020
This brochure summarises the Planck mission and gives a glimpse of its main achievements.
Planck cosmology results 2015 - preprints
5 February 2015The first release of the 2015 Planck results using the full mission data are presented here. These recent results are produced by the Planck Collaboration and the papers are available online.
A Joint Analysis of BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck Data - preprint
2 February 2015The BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck Collaborations began a joint analysis of BICEP2/Keck Array data in mid-2014, and the results are reported here.
Planck cosmology results 2013
29 October 2014The scientific findings of the mission are presented in a series of papers based on data from the first 15.5 months of Planck operations. The results are produced by the Planck Collaboration. The papers are published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and are available online.
A&A Special Issue: Planck early results
14 March 2012The December 2011 volume of Astronomy & Astrophysics contained a special feature dedicated to early results from the ESA Planck mission. A collection of 26 articles presents the first year of operations of Planck and the performance of its payload: the Early Release Compact Source Catalogue, ERCSC; first scientific results based on the ERCSC,...
A&A Special Issue: Pre-launch status of Planck mission
5 December 2011This A&A issue features 13 articles describing the pre-flight status of the European Space Agency Planck mission.
