Oldest Light in the Universe
The European Space Agency’s Planck space telescope has obtained the most accurate and detailed map ever made of the oldest light in the universe, just 370,000 years after the Big Bang! The map suggests that the universe is expanding more slowly than scientists thought and is 13.8 billion years old—100 million years older than previous estimates. The data also show that there is less dark energy and more matter in the universe than was previously known. The resulting map, which is based on the mission's first 15.5 months of all-sky observations, reveals tiny temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The CMB is remarkably uniform over the entire sky, but tiny variations reveal the imprints of sound waves triggered by quantum fluctuations in the universe just moments after it was born. These imprints, appearing as orange or blue splotches in the Planck map, are the seeds from which matter grew, forming stars, then galaxies, and then clusters of galaxies. NASA contributed mission-enabling technology for both of Planck's science instruments; U.S., European, and Canadian scientists work together to analyze data from Planck.
Planck space telescope image of the oldest light in the universe.
For More Information
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
ESA and the Planck Collaboration
-
Project support
- Marit Jentoft-Nilsen
- Mark Malanoski (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
Release date
This page was originally published on Thursday, October 17, 2013.
This page was last updated on Thursday, October 10, 2024 at 12:19 AM EDT.
Missions
This page is related to the following missions:Datasets used
-
CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) [Planck: HFI and LFI]
ID: 806This dataset can be found at: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Planck
See all pages that use this dataset
Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.