Planck probe has helped to better understand the 13,800 ... - Reuters

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MADRID

27 Oct (IRIN) –

The European Space Agency (ESA) has highlighted the achievements of the Planck probe since its launch in 2009, until this week, when it terminated its mission. It has pointed out that Planck has helped better understand the history of the Universe, from a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, through the evolution of stars and galaxies along the 13,800 million years with the cosmos .

The satellite has passed 4.5 years observing the sky to study cosmic matter how it evolved over time. On Saturday the ESA extinguished its Low Frequency Instrument (LFI), who had completed his scientific observations on day October 3, while the High Frequency Instrument (HFI) had completed its mission in January 2012, following five full-sky observations in parallel with LFI.

Finally, the apparatus was ending its activity last Wednesday, October 23, after completing a series of operational protocols.

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Earlier this year, scientists working with data from Planck presented the most accurate picture of the cosmic microwave background (CMB, for its acronym in English), the remains of the radiation from the Big Bang which were recorded in the sky when the Universe was only 380,000 years.

CMB signal is the most accurate picture of the distribution of mass in the early universe. It can detect lower temperature fluctuations that correspond to regions in the beginning, had slightly different densities and which constitute the seeds of all structures, stars and galaxies we see today.

“Planck has provided full-sky image of the CMB signal more accurate than ever, with which we can test a variety of models on the origin and evolution of the cosmos,” said one of the responsible for the mission, Jan Tauber.

“Before you can start using this valuable cosmological information, had to separate the CMB signal emissions of all matter that is in the foreground, in our own galaxy and in other galaxies and galaxy clusters, a job really careful, “he added.

As a result, Planck has performed the most comprehensive catalog to date of the main galaxy clusters, the largest blocks of the Universe. Planck has also identified more dense clumps of matter in our galaxy and cold, cold matter pools from which new stars may form in the future.

However, these are just two examples of the wide variety of issues that the Planck data file is helping to solve.

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Noting

beyond the Milky Way and through cosmic history, Planck has redefined the relative proportions of the ingredients that make up the universe. The conventional materials, which are formed the stars and galaxies, is just 4.9% of the total density of mass / energy of the Universe.

dark matter, which until now has only been detected indirectly through its gravitational interaction with galaxies or clusters of galaxies, is 26.8%, more than you initially thought. On the other hand, dark energy, the mysterious force responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe, representing 68.3%, less than expected.

These data also provide a new figure to define the age of the Universe: 13,800 million years. Over these millions of years, the light from the Big Bang that sailed through the universe to reach Earth met and interacted with the cosmic structures that were forming at the time. One type of interaction is what causes gravitational lensing, the deflection of light by massive objects such as galaxy clusters.

Like rays bend and distort light passing through a glass lens, the photons of the CMB signal deflected by gravitational lenses introduce small distortions on the background pattern of the CMB. Astronomers were able to draw a map of this effect over the entire sky from Planck data, providing a new method to study the evolution of structure in the universe over time.

These data also helped to better understand the formation of cosmic matter. When photons of the CMB signal are caught with the hot gas in galaxy clusters, its energy is altered in a characteristic way that allows astronomers to identify the position of these large structures.

This method also can detect the faint gas filaments that could connect different clusters together.

In the early universe, the sky was covered by a network of filaments of gaseous matter, in which nodes denser began to form clusters of galaxies. Have not yet been able to observe these faint filaments of gas, but cosmologists expect to find between the interacting galaxy clusters, where the filaments are compressed and heated, making them easier to detect.

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Until now the main objective of the mission was the preparation of more detailed map of the CMB signal. From now, cosmologists are trying to go back even further in time to study the first moments of existence of the universe. It is thought that a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang the universe underwent a rapid expansion called inflation.

Scientists think

during inflation, quantum fluctuations could have produced a sea of ??gravitational waves that would have been recorded in a CMB signal component that is polarized – light as we see with polarized glasses.

If we can detect this component of the CMB, we could confirm the hypothesis of inflation, but this first cosmologists will have to further filter interference foreground sources, among which are found the polarized emission from our own galaxy.

“We could not be more pleased with the performance of Planck and the results it has brought so far.’re eager to see what we will have polarization data. Next year will be very exciting,” he noted Tauber.