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About the Project
- The Planck Satellite was launched in 2009
- The Planck mission has collected and characterised radiation from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) using sensitive radio receivers operating at extremely low temperatures.
- The telescope has mapped the sky in 8 wavebands in order to eliminate the many foreground emissions. The result has been an order of magnitude improvement over the WMAP observations.
- The questions that Planck is answering include:
- What are the (more precise) values of fundamental cosmological parameters such as the Hubble constant?
- Can it be shown conclusively that the early Universe passed through an inflationary phase?
- What is the nature of the dark matter that dominates the present Universe?
Cavendish AP Group involvement
- The Group is a partner with the Institute of Astronomy in the Cambridge Planck Data Analysis Centre.
- The results will provide definitive values for the cosmological parameters and test thoroughly our understanding of the standard ΛCDM cosmological model.
