Planck satellite

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Planck
General information
Alternative names COBRAS/SAMBA
Organization ESA
Launch date due October 2008
Location 1.5×106 km from Earth
(L2 Lagrangian point)
Wavelength 350 to 10,000 µm
Instruments
Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) 30–70 GHz receivers
High Frequency Instrument (HFI) 100–857 GHz receivers
Website
ESA's Planck Satellite webpage

The Planck satellite is a spacecraft built in the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center, that is designed to observe the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) over the entire sky, using high sensitivity and angular resolution. It was created as the third Medium-Sized Mission (M3) of ESA's Horizon 2000 Scientific Programme. Initially, the project was called COBRAS/SAMBA; after its selection and approval, it was renamed in honor of the German scientist Max Planck (1858-1947), who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918.

The mission will complement and improve upon observations made by NASA's WMAP probe, which has measured the anisotropies at larger angular scales and lower sensitivity. Planck will provide a major source of information relevant to several cosmological and astrophysical issues, such as testing theories of the Early Universe and the origin of cosmic structure.

It is currently scheduled for launch in October 2008 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket together with the Herschel Space Observatory satellite.

Contents

[edit] Instruments

The spacecraft carries two instruments; the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) and the High Frequency Instrument (HFI).[1] Both instruments can detect both the total intensity and polarization of photons, and cover a frequency range of 30 to 857GHz.

[edit] Low Frequency Instrument

Frequency
(GHz)		 Bandwidth
(Δν / ν)		 Resolution
(arcmin)		 Sensitivity (total intensity)
ΔT / T, 14 month observation
(10-6)		 Sensitivity (polarization)
ΔT / T, 14 month observation
(10-6)
30 0.2 33 2.0 2.8
44 0.2 24 2.7 3.9
70 0.2 14 4.7 6.7

The LFI has three frequency bands, covering the range of 30-70GHz. The detectors use High Electron Mobility Transistors.[1]

[edit] High Frequency Instrument

Frequency
(GHz)		 Bandwidth
(Δν / ν)		 Resolution
(arcmin)		 Sensitivity (total intensity)
ΔT / T, 14 month observation
(10-6)		 Sensitivity (polarization)
ΔT / T, 14 month observation
(10-6)
100GHz 0.33 10 2.5 4.0
143GHz 0.33 7.1 2.2 4.2
217GHz 0.33 5.0 4.8 9.8
353GHz 0.33 5.0 14.7 29.8
545GHz 0.33 5.0 147 N/A
857GHz 0.33 5.0 6700 N/A

The HFI has six frequency bands, between 100 and 857GHz. They use bolometers to detect photons. The 4 lower frequency bands have sensitivity to linear polarization; the two higher bands do not.[1]

[edit] Scientific aims

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

The mission has a wide variety of scientific aims, including:[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Blue Book, Chapter 1
  2. ^ Blue Book

[edit] See also

[edit] External links


v • d • e
Cosmic microwave background experiments
Space-based
RELIKT-1 · COBE · WMAP · Planck · SPOrt
WMAP full-sky temperature map
Full-sky temperature map taken by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)
Balloon
QMAP · MAXIMA · BOOMERanG · Archeops · Spider · EBEX
Ground-based
Saskatoon · MAT · COSMOSOMAS · Tenerife Experiment · DASI · CBI · CAT · ACBAR · CAPMAP · VSA · QUaD · SPT · SZA · ACT · AMI · Clover  · QUIET