Planck

In preparation for its final switch-off on 23 October, mission controllers today fired Planck’s thrusters to empty its fuel tanks. The burn is one of the final steps to ensure that Planck ends its hugely successful mission in a permanently safe configuration.The satellite, which mapped the relic radiation from the Big Bang – the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB – in unprecedented detail, will be switched off in two days.

A collection of intriguing images based on data from ESA’s Herschel and Planck space telescopes show the influence of magnetic fields on the clouds of gas and dust where stars are forming.

ESA’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.

By combining observations of the distant Universe made with ESA’s Herschel and Planck space observatories, cosmologists have discovered what could be the precursors of the vast clusters of galaxies that we see today.

Euclid’s mosaic on Gaia and Planck sky map

ESA science missions

The Orion A molecular cloud viewed by Herschel and Planck

The CMB temperature on large angular scales

Achievements during 2010

Hubble contribution to astronomy and the forthcoming missions