Planck was a space observatory operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2009 to 2013. It was an ambitious project that aimed to map the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at microwave and infrared frequencies, with high sensitivity and small angular resolution. The mission was highly successful and substantially improved upon observations made by the NASA Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
The Planck observatory was a major source of information relevant to several cosmological and astrophysical issues. One of its key objectives was to test theories of the early Universe and the origin of cosmic structure. The mission provided significant insights into the composition and evolution of the Universe, shedding light on the fundamental physics that governs the cosmos.
Planck was initially called COBRAS/SAMBA, which stands for the Cosmic Background Radiation Anisotropy Satellite/Satellite for Measurement of Background Anisotropies. The project started in 1996, and it was later renamed in honor of the German physicist Max Planck (1858–1947), who is widely regarded as the originator of quantum theory by deriving the formula for black-body radiation.
Built at the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center by Thales Alenia Space, Planck was created as a medium-sized mission for ESA's Horizon 2000 long-term scientific program. The observatory was launched in May 2009 and reached the Earth/Sun L2 point by July 2009. By February 2010, it had successfully started a second all-sky survey.
On 21 March 2013, the Planck team released its first all-sky map of the cosmic microwave background. The map was of exceptional quality and allowed researchers to measure temperature variations in the CMB with unprecedented accuracy. In February 2015, an expanded release was published, which included polarization data. The final papers by the Planck team were released in July 2018, marking the end of the mission.
At the end of its mission, Planck was put into a heliocentric graveyard orbit and passivated to prevent it from endangering any future missions. The final deactivation command was sent to Planck in October 2013.
The mission was a remarkable success and provided the most precise measurements of several key cosmological parameters. Planck's observations helped determine the age of the universe, the average density of ordinary matter and dark matter in the Universe, and other important characteristics of the cosmos.
Objectives
The mission had a wide variety of scientific aims, including:
high resolution detections of both the total intensity and polarization of primordial CMB anisotropies, creation of a catalogue of galaxy clusters through the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect, observations of the gravitational lensing of the CMB, as well as the integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect, observations of bright extragalactic radio (active galactic nuclei) and infrared (dusty galaxy) sources, observations of the Milky Way, including the interstellar medium, distributed synchrotron emission and measurements of the Galactic magnetic field, and studies of the Solar System, including planets, asteroids, comets and the zodiacal light.
Planck had a higher resolution and sensitivity than WMAP, allowing it to probe the power spectrum of the CMB to much smaller scales (×3). It also observed in nine frequency bands rather than WMAP's five, with the goal of improving the astrophysical foreground models.
It is expected that most Planck measurements have been limited by how well foregrounds can be subtracted, rather than by the detector performance or length of the mission, a particularly important factor for the polarization measurements. The dominant foreground radiation depends on frequency, but could include synchrotron radiation from the Milky Way at low frequencies, and dust at high frequencies.
Instruments
The spacecraft carries two instruments: the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) and the High Frequency Instrument (HFI). Both instruments can detect both the total intensity and polarization of photons, and together cover a frequency range of nearly 830 GHz (from 30 to 857 GHz). The cosmic microwave background spectrum peaks at a frequency of 160.2 GHz.
Planck passive and active cooling systems allow its instruments to maintain a temperature of , or 0.1 °C above absolute zero. From August 2009, Planck was the coldest known object in space, until its active coolant supply was exhausted in January 2012.