Planck's first image of space, past and present

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The European Space Agency today released the first image of space obtained by the Planck mission. Shown above, the image includes emissions from dust in our own galaxy and faint ripples of the cosmic microwave background that is light left behind from The Big Bang. This is the first all-sky map from the spacecraft, which will complete four surveys before its mission ends in 2012. A good explanatory article here on SpaceFlight Now. (image courtesy ESA/ LFI & HFI Consortia; Thanks, Dave Clements)