Planck Science Team Home Planck’s HFI completes its survey of early Universe.The High Frequency Instrument (HFI) on ESA’s Planck mission has completed its survey of the remnant light from the Big Bang. The sensor ran out of coolant on January 14 2012 as expected, ending its ability to detect this faint energy. Planck was launched in May 2009, and the minimum requirement for success was for the spacecraft to complete two whole surveys of the sky. In the end, Planck worked perfectly for 30 months, about twice the span originally required, and completed five full-sky surveys with both instruments. Able to work at slightly higher temperatures than HFI, the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) will continue surveying the sky for a large part of 2012, providing even more data to improve the Planck final results. Read full story. Announcement of the Conference Astrophysics from the radio to the sub-millimetre: Planck and other experiments in temperature and polarization, Bologna, Italy, February 13-17, 2012. Registration must be electronically submitted, faxed or mailed no later than January 31st, 2012. The Early Release Compact Source Catalogue can be accessed by the world-wide community from the Planck Legacy Archive link in the left hand menu. Latest NewsPlanck’s HFI completes its survey of early Universe: The High Frequency Instrument (HFI) on ESA’s Planck mission has completed its survey of the remnant light from the Big Bang. The sensor ran out of coolant on January 14 2012 as expected, ending its ability to detect this faint energy. Planck was launched in May 2009, and the minimum requirement for success was for the spacecraft to complete two whole surveys of the sky. In the end, Planck worked perfectly for 30 months, about twice the span originally required, and completed five full-sky surveys with both instruments. Able to work at slightly higher temperatures than HFI, the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) will continue surveying the sky for a large part of 2012, providing even more data to improve the Planck final results. Read full story. Validation of Planck clusters: further results from the ongoing XMM-Newton follow-up of Planck clusters, detailing X-ray observations of eleven candidates, are now available on astro-ph. Announcement of Planck Conference: Astrophysics from the radio to the sub-millimetre: Planck and other experiments in temperature and polarization, Bologna, Italy, February 13-17, 2012. Registration must be electronically submitted, faxed or mailed no later than January 31st, 2012.
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 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.
Click to access the Planck Early Results papers Click to access the Early Release Compact Source Catalogue 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.
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