I have a new story published on the ESA website:

“…Scientists from ESA and several European astronomy institutes will present the first data and results from ESA’s Planck mission. The Early Release Compact Source Catalogue contains thousands of sources detected by Planck from radio to far-infrared wavelengths, ranging from dense, cold clouds embedded in nearby star-forming regions to distant, supermassive clusters of galaxies.

Planck’s goal is to make the most accurate measurements to date of the ‘cosmic microwave background radiation’, a rippling glow covering the whole sky, left over from a time just 380 000 years after the Big Bang created the expanding Universe. With these measurements, we expect to be able to learn much about the birth, early evolution and ultimate fate of the Universe…”

You can read the full story here.