The telescope that brought the world the most accurate and detailed map ever of the oldest light in the universe has gone dark. After more than four and half years of absorbing leftover radiation from the Big Bang and researching the evolution of stars and galaxies throughout the universe's existence, the device was manually switched off Oct. 19.
The Planck space telescope was launched in 2009 with the mission of teasing out the radiation from the Big Bang, also known as the cosmic background. The results were published in March in the form of a map of the ancient light as it was imprinted on the sky when the universe was just 370,000 years old.
From it, scientists found the universe is expanding slower than previously believed, and is 13.8 billion years old, or 100 million years older than estimated. They also learned there is less dark energy and more matter -- normal and dark -- than prior research indicated.
The project was a joint venture by NASA and the European Space Agency, and earned itself the title "time machine" for its ability to peer back in time.
"Planck is a model for international cooperation in space. Both Europe and the U.S. contributed enabling new technologies, giving Planck unprecedented scientific capability," Ulf Israelsson, the US Planck Project Manager at JPL, said in a statement.
While no longer collecting data, the device will continue to benefit scientists for years to come.
"We are only part way through the analysis of the data and have already learned a huge amount about the universe from the Milky Way galaxy, to the observable edge, and beyond to the first tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang," said US Planck Project Scientist Charles Lawrence of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.