Planck - About ESA - Looking back to the dawn of time

Aug 23, 2026

Uploaded by Jake

Planck介绍欧洲航天局（ESA）的科学计划背景，概述宇宙学从早期观测受限到实验宇宙学兴起的关键进展。文中回顾大爆炸情景及其仍未解答的核心问题，强调通过持续实验与新型空间探测仪器获取更精确、更可靠的数据。重点阐述Planck作为2007年计划发射的卫星任务，将为理解宇宙起源提供前所未有的测量能力，并把科学家带到更接近“宇宙诞生”的位置。

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

About ESA

Looking back to the dawn of time

Detectives of the past and the future

An expanding Universe with a hot past

A mission to understand the origin and evolution of our Universe PLANCK About ESA The European Space Agency (ESA) was formed on 31 May 1975. It currently has 14 Member States: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Canada is also a partner in some of the ESA programmes. The ESA Science Programme has launched a series of innovative and successful missions. Highlights of the programme include: IUE, the first space observatory ever launched, it marked the real beginning of ultraviolet astronomy. Giotto, which took the first close-up pictures of a comet nucleus (Halley) and completed flybys of Comets Halley and Grigg-Skjellerup. Hipparcos, which fixed the positions of the stars far more accurately than ever before and changed astronomers' ideas about the scale of the local Universe. ISO, which studied cool gas clouds and planetary atmospheres. Everywhere it looked it found water in surprising abundance. SOHO, which is providing new views of the Sun's atmosphere and interior, revealing solar tornadoes and the probable cause of the supersonic solar wind. Ulysses, the first spacecraft to fly over the Sun’s poles. Hubble Space Telescope, a collaboration with NASA on the world's most important and successful orbital observatory. Huygens, a probe to land on the mysterious surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan in 2004. Part of the international Cassini mission. XMM-Newton, with its powerful mirrors, is helping to solve many cosmic mysteries of the violent X-ray Universe, from enigmatic black holes to the formation of galaxies. For further information on the ESA Science Programme please contact the Science Programme Communication Service on (tel.) +31-71-5653223 More information can also be obtained via the ESA Science Web Site at: [http://www.sci.esa.int](http://www.sci.esa.int) [Compiled by: Monica Salamone and Jan Tauber](Compiled by: Monica Salamone and Jan Tauber) [Published by: ESA Publications Division](Published by: ESA Publications Division) ESTEC, PO Box 299 2200 AG Noordwijk The Netherlands Editor: Bruce Battrick Design & Layout: Carel Haakman Graphics: Medialab, Willem Versteeg (ESA) Illustrations: Alcatel Space, D. Ducros, NASA/COBE, HFI & LFI Consortia Copyright: © 2000 European Space Agency ISBN No.: 92-9092-619-8 Price: 15 Dfl/7 Euros Printed in The Netherlands [http://sci.esa.int/planck](http://sci.esa.int/planck) Looking back to the dawn of time Only a century ago, the origin of the Universe was a topic that few scientists dared to touch: they simply lacked the experimental means to gather reliable data. The situation is quite different now. Cosmology, the science that aims at explaining how the Universe formed and evolves, has become one of the richest and hottest fields of experimental research. Key discoveries made during the last eight decades show that in the past the Universe was very small, dense and hot, and that it started to cool and expand – a process that is still going on today – about 15 000 million years ago. This version of events, known as the Big Bang theory, is currently considered a firm scenario. But the picture is still far from complete. Questions such as what triggered the birth of the Universe, or how it will evolve in the future, remain unanswered. These questions, though, are no longer untouchable. Contrary to what happened a century ago, scientists now know where to look for the answers, and they are steadily gaining the means to do so. The era of experimental cosmology is indeed in full swing: ongoing experiments are starting to yield new and exciting results. But in the coming years the field will be enriched with complex space-based instruments specifically designed to tackle fundamental problems. The Planck satellite, a mission of the European Space Agency due to be launched in 2007, is the most ambitious of these s

FAQs

ESA何时成立？目前有多少成员国？

欧洲航天局（ESA）成立于1975年5月31日。目前有14个成员国。

过去八十年左右的关键发现说明了什么？

关键发现表明：过去的宇宙非常小、致密且炽热，随后开始冷却并膨胀；这一过程至今仍在进行，约发生在150亿年前。

Planck卫星任务的目标是什么？

Planck旨在提供同类任务中最精确、最可靠的数据，帮助科学家更接近宇宙起源，并解决宇宙学中仍悬而未决的重大问题。

Aug 23, 2026

Uploaded by Jake