Tag Archive for 'Planck'

This new composite image of the Andromeda galaxy includes X-rays from Chandra and XMM-Newton (represented in red, green, and blue); ultraviolet data from GALEX (blue); optical data from astrophotographers using ground based telescopes (Jakob Sahner and Tarun Kottary); infrared data from Spitzer, the Infrared Astronomy Satellite, COBE, Planck, and Herschel (red, orange, and purple); and radio data from the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (red-orange). Image credit: NASA.

New Image Shows Andromeda Galaxy as We’ve Never Seen It Before

Jun 27, 2025 by News Staff

Using data from several space- and ground-based telescopes, NASA astronomers have captured a stunning new image of the Andromeda galaxy, which is the closest...

This image of NGC 5468, a galaxy located some 142 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, combines data from Hubble and s Webb. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / A. Riess, JHU & STScI.

Webb Measurements Shed New Light on ‘Hubble Tension’ Mystery

Mar 12, 2024 by News Staff

When you are trying to solve one of the biggest conundrums in cosmology, you should triple check your homework. The puzzle, called the Hubble Tension,...

As the CMB light (left image) travels through the Universe until observed on Earth (right image), the direction in which the electromagnetic wave oscillates (orange line) is rotated by the angle β; the rotation could be caused by dark matter or dark energy interacting with the CMB light, which changes the patterns of polarization (black lines inside the images); the red and blue regions in the images show hot and cold regions of the CMB, respectively. Image credit: Y. Minami / KEK.

Astrophysicists Find Hints of Beyond-Standard-Model Physics in Universe’s Oldest Light

Nov 30, 2020 by News Staff

Using the polarization data from ESA’s Planck satellite, a mission that have studied the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the oldest light in the Universe,...

As the Universe evolves, matter concentrations are surrounded by gas halos getting hotter and bigger. Image credit: D. Nelson / Illustris Collaboration.

Universe is Getting Hotter, Says New Study

Nov 10, 2020 by News Staff

The mean temperature of gas across the Universe has increased more than 10 times over the last 10 billion years and reached about 2 million Kelvin today,...

This composite image shows the Orion A molecular cloud, the nearest known massive star factory, as seen by ESA’s Herschel and Planck space observatories. Located approximately 1,630 light-years away, Orion A is one of the two giant molecular clouds in the Orion molecular cloud complex. The other cloud is Orion B, which lies east of Orion’s Belt. Orion A is packed full of gas -- it contains so much material, in fact, that it would be capable of producing tens of thousands of Sun-mass stars. Different colors visible here indicate the light emitted by interstellar dust grains mixed within the gas, as observed by Herschel at far-infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths, while the texture of faint gray bands stretching across the frame, based on Planck’s measurements of the direction of the polarized light emitted by the dust, show the orientation of the magnetic field. Image credit: ESA / Herschel / Planck / J.D. Soler, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

Magnetic Fields Play Role in Structuring Interstellar Medium in and around Star-Forming Clouds: Study

Nov 19, 2019 by News Staff

In a new study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, Dr. Juan Soler of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy used observations from ESA’s...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Our Universe is Curved, Suggests New Study

Nov 11, 2019 by News Staff

The current model of the Universe needs to be revised, according to a new analysis of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy data. This artist’s...

An all-sky image of the Milky Way Galaxy, as observed by ESA’s Planck Space Observatory in IR. The data contained in this image were used in this research and were essential in calculating the distribution of the light energy of the Galaxy. Image credit: ESA / HFI / LFI consortia.

Researchers Map Light Energy Distribution in Milky Way Galaxy

Jul 31, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has used data from ESA’s Planck Space Observatory and other telescopes to map the distribution of all light energy...

This map of dark matter was obtained from data from the KiDS survey, using ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope. It reveals an expansive web of dense (light) and empty (dark) regions. This image is one out of five patches of the sky observed by KiDS. The invisible dark matter is seen rendered in pink, covering an area of sky around 420 times the size of the full Moon. This image reconstruction was made by analyzing the light collected from over 3 million galaxies more than 6 billion light-years away. The observed galaxy images were warped by the gravitational pull of dark matter as the light traveled through the Universe. Some small dark regions, with sharp boundaries, appear in this image. They are the locations of bright stars and other nearby objects that get in the way of the observations of more distant galaxies and are hence masked out in the map as no weak-lensing signal can be measured in these areas. Image credit: Kilo-Degree Survey Collaboration / H. Hildebrandt & B. Giblin / ESO.

Deep Space Images Shed More Light on Dark Matter

Dec 7, 2016 by News Staff

An international research team led by Dr. Massimo Viola from the Leiden Observatory and Dr. Hendrik Hildebrandt from the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie...

Astrophysicists Create Largest Ever Map of Cosmic Superstructures

Oct 13, 2016 by News Staff

Astrophysicists from the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, UK, have produced the largest ever map of cosmic superstructures...

Universe is Expanding Uniformly, Scientists Say

Sep 23, 2016 by News Staff

The Universe is not spinning or stretched in any particular direction, according to a team of researchers from University College London and Imperial College...

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds and an interstellar filament. Image credit: ESA / Planck Collaboration.

Planck Captures Magellanic Clouds, Interstellar Filament 300 Light-Years Away

Sep 8, 2015 by News Staff

This image portrays the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds – two spectacular, naked-eye companion galaxies to our own Milky Way Galaxy; and a filament...

The Planck all-sky map at submillimeter wavelengths; the band running through the middle corresponds to dust in the Milky Way Galaxy; the black dots indicate the location of the proto-cluster candidates identified by Planck and subsequently observed by Herschel. The inset images showcase some of the observations made by Herschel’s SPIRE instrument; the contours represent the density of galaxies. Image credit: ESA / Planck Collaboration / H. Dole / D. Guéry / G. Hurier / IAS / University Paris-Sud / CNRS / CNES.

Astronomers Discover Over 200 Young Galactic Clusters in Distant Cosmos

Apr 1, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers using data from two ESA’s space telescopes, Planck and Herschel, has identified more than 200 proto-clusters of...

Zoom on the CMB polarization, filtered to show mostly the signal detected on scales around 5 degrees on the sky. Image credit: ESA / Planck Collaboration.

Universe’s First Stars Appeared 100 Million Years Later than Thought

Feb 6, 2015 by News Staff

Thanks to new data from European Space Agency’s Planck space telescope, researchers have found that the reionization – one of the most important...

Magnetic field of Milky Way Galaxy as seen by ESA's Planck Space Telescope. Image credit: ESA / Planck Collaboration.

Milky Way’s Magnetic Fingerprint Revealed

May 7, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers using data from ESA’s Planck Space Telescope have created a map of the entire sky that charts the magnetic field shaping our Milky Way...

Planck Scientists: Universe is 100 Million Years Older than Previously Estimated

Mar 25, 2013 by News Staff

Scientists using ESA’s Planck satellite have released the most detailed map ever created of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Cosmic microwave...

Planck Discovers Huge Gas Filament Connecting Two Galaxy Clusters

Nov 21, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

European astronomers using ESA’s Planck Space Telescope have detected a 10 million light-years long bridge of hot gas connecting a pair of galaxy clusters,...

Planck Discovers New Islands of Star Formation and Mysterious Haze of Microwaves

Feb 14, 2012 by James Freeman

The ESA-NASA Planck spacecraft has returned new remarkable images showing previously undiscovered islands of star formation and a mysterious haze of microwave...