Planck Satellite

I apologize that I have made very few comments on the life of a physics student so far. I imagine that that will be the case until I start my degree in the fall. Currently I am still working away at revising for my exams, which remain two weeks away.

That said, I will make some brief comments about something physics related. Earlier today occurred the successful launch of the Herschel and Planck satellites, new experiments from the European Space Agency.

Europeans launch space telescope duo

Herschel is an infrared telescope, though I don't know too much about it. I only know slightly more about Planck, since its mission is related to what I did my essay on a couple of weeks ago. It will be measuring the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and is an improvement upon WMAP. One of the interesting aspects of the CMB temperature anisotropies is that they are very close to Gaussian, and any detection of non-Gaussianity has important implications for the evolution of the early universe. In particular, most models of inflation (the period of rapid acceleration in the early universe) predict an almost Gaussian anisotropy distribution. Planck's ability to place restrictions on the level of non-Gaussianity, or to provide evidence for it, will provide cosmologists with a tool to distinguish between different inflationary theories.

I could say more, but will keep my first foray into scientific descriptions brief. I hope it was readable. In the future I'll attempt to be more comprehensive (as well as more comprehensible).