Coming soon: Planck unveils the cosmic microwave background

After years of painstaking detective work, Planck’s science team has extracted and analysed the foreground emissions that lie between us and the Universe’s first light to reveal the CMB in the highest detail yet. The main image shown here is Planck’s first all-sky map released in 2010, highlighting emission from the Milky Way with hints of the mottled CMB behind. Underneath are progressively more detailed views of the CMB from Planck’s predecessors, NASA’s COBE and WMAP missions. The much-awaited CMB image from Planck will be unveiled on 21 March 2013.