ESA Universe results successful

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released successful initial results from its mission to study the early Universe.

ESA's Planck microwave observatory is the first European mission designed to study the Cosmic Microwave Background, the relic radiation from the Big Bang.

The space association believes the positive initial results bode well for the full-sky survey now in process.

Planck started surveying the sky regularly from its vantage point at the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system, L2, on 13 August. Since then the instruments have been fine-tuned for optimum performance.

Since its launch in May, the satellite's subsystems have been fully checked and the instrument’s detectors cooled down. The detectors are looking for variations in the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background that are said to be around one million times smaller than 1deg.

ESA describe this as comparable to measuring, from Earth, the body heat of a rabbit sitting on the Moon.