First Full-Sky Image From Planck Mission 56
krou writes "Six months of work has produced a remarkable full-sky map from Planck. 'It shows what is visible beyond the Earth to instruments that are sensitive to light at very long wavelengths — much longer than what we can sense with our eyes. Researchers say it is a remarkable dataset that will help them understand better how the Universe came to look the way it does now. ... Of particular note are the huge streamers of cold dust that reach thousands of light-years above and below the galactic plane. "What you see is the structure of our galaxy in gas and dust, which tells us an awful lot about what is going on in the neighborhood of the Sun; and it tells us a lot about the way galaxies form when we compare this to other galaxies," observed Professor Andrew Jaffe, a Planck team member from Imperial College London, UK.' The ESA has more details on their website, with a higher-res JPG available."
Re:At the risk of hurting someone (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I hate hearing this kind of stuff from people who should know better.
However, the silly justifications and flowery language work well with the politicians, who have to be convinced to pay for this stuff. I'm sure most of the people working on Plank would dance in a furry bear costume in front of Congress if it would get them the time and money they need to do the work and be left alone.
I've learned that scientists are a lot like serious artists and musicians. You should just give them the gear they need to work and then let them be. Don't ask for quarterly reports, don't ask for balance sheets. Just toss them whatever equipment they request and an occasional sandwich and get out the way.
Re:At the risk of hurting someone (Score:2, Insightful)
I've learned that scientists are a lot like serious artists and musicians.
No they aren't. Serious artists and musicians get paid for results. There is this myth that you just give stuff to scientists, don't supervise them, and you will get wonderful things in return. My view is that doesn't work in practice. If a scientist is willing to dance in a bear costume to get funding, then they're will do real science for funding. That's good enough for me.
Faster than light expansion.... (Score:3, Insightful)
According to the article, one of the goals of this mission is to look for signs of "Faster than light expansion" that occurred shortly after creation of the universe.
This really excites me, it implies, that there existed conditions in our very own universe where at some point we had faster than light travel.
More thank likely not in our lifetime, however if it happened once, its bound to be discovered "how" and potentially exploited to achieve FTL.
Just my 0.02$
Re:At the risk of hurting someone (Score:3, Insightful)
actually, that is the real justification. top scientists dream of things normal people call lame and stupid.
However, society found that these dreamers are useful, because they stumble onto stuff that engineers can use.
what is the justification of becoming a champion tennis/football player (since it's the season)? sports was, is and always will be a dick measuring contest (even for women). so is science, for each individual scientist. you can't change that, it's in the genes.
Re:At the risk of hurting someone (Score:3, Insightful)
From a research perspective, the optimal program is the one with the smallest gap between what you say you're going to do with the funding and what you have to actually do in order to advance science in some rigorous and meaningful way.
This perspective doesn't breed cynicism, it's simply realistic. Much as everyone would like to narrow the gap, criteria for a successful grant proposal are not quite the same as for doing actual science.