Planck Mission animations: Mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background with Planck [2008 version]

Videos: Digital

Title: Planck Mission animations: Mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background with Planck [2008 version]

Released: 24/09/2025

Length: 00:01:21

Language: English

Media type: Stock shots

Planck was a European Space Agency space-based observatory observing the Universe at wavelengths between 0.3 mm and 11.1 mm (corresponding to frequencies between 27 GHz and 1 THz), broadly covering the far-infrared, microwave, and high frequency radio domains. The mission's main goal was to study the cosmic microwave background – the relic radiation left over from the Big Bang – across the whole sky at greater sensitivity and resolution than ever before. Planck was therefore like a time machine, giving astronomers insight into the evolution since the birth of our Universe, nearly 14 billion years ago.

This animation shows ESA's Planck observatory scanning the sky and completing its first all-sky survey.

From its orbit around the second Lagrange point (L2) of the Sun-Earth system, Planck performs a continuous scan of the sky. The spacecraft spins at 1 rpm causing the telescope's field-of-view, which is inclined at 85° to the spin axis, to trace out approximate great circles on the celestial sphere. Planck's spin axis is periodically shifted by a few arcminutes per hour in ecliptic longitude (adding up to ~1° per day), to maintain an anti-Sun pointing throughout the year. As a result, the annular region observed with the telescope slowly drifts across the sky, resulting in a complete sky survey.

Version from July 2008.

©ESA - European Space Agency

Scanning the microwave sky with Planck

07 July 2008

1080p TRT 01’21’’