Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Holy Planck !

Thanks to Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy blog for turning us all on to the following superb skymap brought to us by the Planck telescope and ESA. Also thanks to Phil for introducing the word "entelescopinate" to the English language.

Click here for all the details.



Click on the picture above to "entelescopinate" as Phil would say.

For a truly lovely thrill ride of an exploration, click on Chromoscope, here, to examine that picture at various wavelengths from gamma rays to radio.

OK, I can die happy now (because I've seen it all ... literally). :-)

1 comment:

Steven Colyer said...

I wish to point out that in spite of that which which dominates that photograph, the MOST important part is what you see in the Northwest quadrant, and the South.

Eventually, our "galaxy" will be removed, in 2-3 years, and that which remains behind, will be revealed.

What will remain, is what there is in the NW and S.

Big hint!

Possibly some surprises? we'll see.

This is the THIRD of three VERY important probes, to discover the Cosmic Background Radiation, first discovered by Robert Wilson of Princeton University, and Arno Penzias (the only Nobel Prize winner I've met) of Bell Labs, at Bell Labs-Holmdel, in the 1960's.

Specifically, and with links:

COBE - launched Nov. 1989

WMAP - launched June, 2001

Planck - launched May 2009

And it is SO cool that Planck has delivered, here in 2010.

THANK you European Space Agency dudes, wherever you are, from a very grateful U.S. of A. You rule.