Space Craft Loses It’s Cool
January 17th 2012 06:27
Category: Space Probes
ESA space craft Planck
The ESA space craft Planck finally lost its cool after two and a half years of observing the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation of deep space.
The spacecraft’s High Frequency Instrument had exhausted its on-board coolant gases over this past few days and has effectively reached the end of the mission.
Cosmic background radiation (CMB) is the leftover radiation from the big bang. CMB can be “seen” In every direction throughout as a very low energy radiation.
The purpose of the spacecraft is to detect CMB by measuring the relative temperature within the universe.
By measuring the temperature differences a map detailing the expansion of the Universe can be plotted.
CMB can be referred to as 3 Degree Kelvin Background Radiation, or the Cosmic Background Radiation, or the Microwave Background.
Cosmic background radiation is essentially a dark body with a temperature slightly less than 3 degrees Kelvin (about 2.76 K), which just happens to peaks in the microwave portion of the spectrum.
This radiation does support the validity of the hot big bang theory.
The Planck spacecraft has or did have on-board coolant to keep the radio detector below 3 degrees Kelvin in order to minimise other spurious background noise.
The colder the spacecraft, the lower the temperatures the spacecraft can detect.
Although the coolant has gone The Low Frequency Instrument will continue to receive and send data regardless.
The temperature in space is still a bone-chilling -255 C.
The Low Frequency Instrument will now continue send back data to Earth for at least another year.
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