8 days to go... countdown for a snapshot of the past !

Artist impression of the Planck satellite from the ESA website.

The countdown has started to watch live the launch of this satellite with a unique mission :(text source from the ESA website)

"The mission Planck is Europe's first mission to study the cosmic microwave background, the relic radiation from the Big Bang, which occurred about 14 thousand million years ago. As the early universe expanded it cooled, and at a time called "recombination," it had cooled sufficiently for electrons and nuclei to form atoms. At this time the light that had been bouncing about within the plasma became free to travel through space (as if the universe had switched from being opaque to transparent). This freed light was initially energetic, but with the continued expansion of the universe, what was once a searing fireball of radiation has since cooled to become a background sea of microwaves.
Planck will measure the temperature variations across this microwave background with much better sensitivity, angular resolution and frequency range than any previous satellite, giving astronomers an unprecedented view of our Universe when it was extremely young, just 300 000 years old."

It will be launched by the Ariane launcher from Kourou in Guyane on May 14th and we will be able to see the launch live here .

NB: I will most probably miss it being travelling in the UK this day for my work but will think about it !

This will be a unique scientific experience, result of many years of preparation, and leading to a
incredible snapshot of the past ! Last summer, I had the chance to meet Larry (from Los Angeles area, USA) working on this project and discuss briefly with him about his contribution and involvment for many years in this project, while we were sharing time about our passion, driving an E-Type in a classic car event in Belgium.

I trust he must be very excited to see the end (or the start) getting nearer and start collecting the results ! Wish it all goes well ! Impressive work !

In a period where the human has been able to influence global warming in such a small slot of time, going back so far in time is just amazing ; let's hope our planet has many millions of years to go !