Planck Science Team Home  Planck was selected as the third Medium-Sized Mission (M3) of ESA's Horizon 2000 Scientific Programme, and is today part of its Cosmic Vision Programme. It is designed to image the anisotropies of the Cosmic Background Radiation Field over the whole sky, with unprecedented sensitivity and angular resolution. Planck will provide a major source of information relevant to several cosmological and astrophysical issues, such as testing theories of the early universe and the origin of cosmic structure. The scientific development of the mission is directed by the Planck Science Team.
Planck was formerly called COBRAS/SAMBA. After the mission was selected and approved (in late 1996), it was renamed in honor of the German scientist Max Planck (1858-1947), Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918. Planck was launched on 14 May 2009 together with the Herschel satellite. After 50 days, as foreseen, Planck entered its final orbit around the Second Lagrangian point of the Sun–Earth system (L2), at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Since the end of the commissioning and performance verification phases in mid-August 2009, Planck has been performing its planned mission. On 15th January 2010, ESA's advisory bodies approved an extension of Planck operations by 12 months. Planck is now scheduled to continuously acquire high-quality science data until the end of 2011. The mission status is available via the menu at left.
A complete science case for Planck, often referred to as the "Bluebook", is available for download here. More information on Planck may be accessed via the links to the left and right (some of the links are restricted).
Please note that these pages are largely directed to the astronomical and Planck communities.
Other Planck pages under ESA's Main Planck Portal and Sci-Tech Planck Portal are more specifically directed to the public and the press. Need help ? If you are a member of the Planck Collaboration, with access to restricted areas of rssd pages, and are having problems using these facilities, you can ask for help by sending an email to RSSD Helpdesk putting "Planck" in the subject field. Also note that: (a) logging in via the rssd portal - via the menu at the left - solves most access problems; (b) if you have problems with your password, first try the automated password reset facility via the menu at left.
Recent News
- The Planck community mourns the tragic death of Prof. Andrew Lange of the California Institute of Technology. Prof. Lange's untimely death is deeply felt by the many friends and collaborators that he had within Planck.
- On 15th January 2010, ESA's advisory bodies approved an extension of Planck operations by 12 months. Planck is now scheduled to continuously acquire high-quality science data until the end of 2011. Planck has been performing its planned mission since mid-August 2009 and, at this point, all systems are functioning very well.
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