Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Big Bang telescope finale marks end of an era in cosmology

With the end of Europe’s major Planck mission, researchers are moving to smaller projects studying different aspects of the cosmic microwave background.
  1. Davide Castelvecchi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

A transformative era in cosmological science ended this week when the European Space Agency’s Planck telescope released its final maps of the early Universe. Planck was the last in a line of three major space telescopes to study the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the faint afterglow of the Big Bang, resulting in the most precise measurements yet of the age, geometry and composition of the cosmos. With space agencies in Europe and in the United States hesitant to fund a follow-up CMB-focused satellite, Planck looks set to be the last space telescope to study the CMB for many years — marking a big change for cosmologists.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 559, 455-456 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05788-5

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 26 July 2018: An earlier version of this story oversimplified an explanation of gravitational lensing given by Karim Benabed.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links