all-sky image

Planck all-sky image depicts galactic mist over the cosmic background

05 Jul 2010

An all-sky image from Planck's recently completed first survey highlights the two major emission sources in the microwave sky: the cosmic background and the Milky Way. The relic radiation coming from the very early Universe is, to a large extent, masked by intervening astronomical sources, in particular by our own Galaxy's diffuse emission. Thanks to Planck's nine frequency channels, and to sophisticated image analysis techniques, it is possible to separate these two contributions into distinct scientific products that are of immense value for cosmologists and astrophysicists, alike.

This multi-colour all-sky image of the microwave sky has been synthesized using data spanning the full frequency range of Planck, which covers the electromagnetic spectrum from 30 to 857 GHz. The sequence of images shows the all-sky map with, superimposed, the locations of previous Planck image releases, a selection of extragalactic sources, and a map of molecular clouds. Individual images and detailed captions can be accessed by following the image links on the right-hand menu. Credit: ESA, HFI and LFI consortia./.../