“This is the extraordinary place where we all live – the Universe.
The picture is the first full-sky image from Europe’s Planck telescope which was sent into space last year to survey the “oldest light” in the cosmos. It took the 600m-euro observatory just over six months to assemble the map. It shows what is visible beyond the Earth to instruments that are sensitive to light at very long wavelengths – much longer than what we can sense with our eyes.
Researchers say it is a remarkable dataset that will help them understand better how the Universe came to look the way it does now. “It’s a spectacular picture; it’s a thing of beauty,” Dr Jan Tauber, the European Space Agency’s (Esa) Planck project scientist, told BBC News. Dominating the foreground are large segments of our Milky Way Galaxy. The bright horizontal line running the full length of the image is the galaxy’s main disc – the plane in which the Sun and the Earth also reside.”
Read more at BBC News
You can also see a video about how the image was captured on Physorg
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Heard that this morning on the radio and it’s on my list of thingmies to look up today. Thanks for the link; saves me searching for it. x
Ooooh. Aaaaaaah. Ooooooh. Aaaaaah.
(The first ever fireworks display)
is that a crack i can see?
Nice easter egg I’d say. I checked the chromoscope website as well .. to see the universe at different waves. So many truths .. We only see part of the whole as we already knew ofcourse .. although some of us do seem to see/hear more .. but those are being called psychotic most of the time. Weird huh?!
If I put on 3D glasses the world also looks different .. but …. Those chromosome images do remind me a bit of that .. I can put up a good theory behind the 3D glass vision .. Yes, I can.
hmmmm…can we be sure it really looks like this????
Hmm, i coulnt believe this being a real picture at first but this telescope is amazing!
Most of my friends call you darren which i most hate!
Great post Derren, Very interesting.
HAHA, it’s that smiley crack from dr. who!