<img alt=“planck.jpg” src=“https://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/planck.jpg” width=“410” height=“220” align=right hspace=10 border=0 />

The European Space Agency released images from Planck’s 2-week test run today. The results of this test will help astronomers calibrate the spacecraft, which contains instruments cooled to 0.1 degrees Kelvin, for its upcoming 15-month observing run.

Planck began its first-light test run on 13 August, measuring 15-degree strips of the sky in nine different frequencies. It is tasked with making two all-sky maps of the cosmic microwave background, which is the background noise left over from the early universe.

The successful test must be a relief for ESA, which is still grappling with an instrument failure aboard Herschel, Planck’s traveling companion (Space telescope suffers instrument delay, Nature News, 14 September 2009).

Photo: ESA, LFI & HFI Consortia (Planck), Background image: Axel Mellinger