Planck-Euclid


Overview

The Planck satellite was a European Space Agency (ESA) survey mission to measure the anisotropy and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Planck was launched on May 14th, 2009 and ceased operations on October 23rd, 2013. The first major Planck data release was in 2013, the second in 2015, and the final relase was in 2018.

The CMB is radiation from the early universe. It was emitted when the universe was about 400 000 years old. Its intensity and polarization varies over the sky, and these variations reflect the properties and structure of the early universe as well as the later history of the universe through which this radiation has traveled.

We developed data analysis methods for Planck, and participated in analyzing the Planck data and in preparing the scientific publications from Planck.

Euclid is an ESA cosmology survey mission, a wide-field space telescope, launched on July 1st, 2023. It will photograph over one third of the sky in visible and near-infared wavelengths, obtaining images of over a billion galaxies and spectra of tens of millions of galaxies. Using the redshifts of galaxies and the distortion of galaxy images caused by gravitational lensing by the intervening matter, Euclid will produce a 3-dimensional map of the distribution of visible and dark matter over a sizable part of the observable universe. The main goal of Euclid is to help solve the Dark Energy Problem: What is causing the acceleration of the expansion of the universe - is it a new form of energy, called dark energy, or does gravity deviate at cosmological distances from Einstein's theory of General Relativity.

Finland provides one of the nine Euclid Science Data Centers, the SDC-FI. This is based on virtual machines running on CSC's Pouta Cloud Service. We participate in producing simulated Euclid data and in developing data analysis methods for Euclid.

Project leader: Hannu Kurki-Suonio


Publications

Conferences, visits, and talks

Personnel

Hannu Kurki-Suonio, Planck Scientist, Euclid Builder, professor, project leader, C329
E-mail: hannu.kurki-suoniohelsinki.fi

Elina Keihänen, Planck Scientist, university researcher, C328
E-mail: elina.keihanenhelsinki.fi

Jussi Väliviita, Planck Scientist, senior researcher, B323
E-mail: jussi.valiviitahelsinki.fi

Valtteri Lindholm, postdoctoral researcher, A325
E-mail: valtteri.lindholmhelsinki.fi

Kimmo Kiiveri, PhD student, A325
E-mail: kimmo.kiiverihelsinki.fi

Akke Viitanen, PhD student, at Nordic Optical Telescope, La Palma
E-mail: akke.viitanenhelsinki.fi

Susan Rissanen, Master's student, A332
E-mail: susan.rissanenhelsinki.fi

Jani Haapala, Master's student, A332
E-mail: jani.haapalahelsinki.fi

Former personnel

Anne Lähteenmäki
Torsti Poutanen
Reijo Keskitalo
Matti Savelainen
Viola Allevato
Ghassem Gozaliasl
Charles Kirkpatrick
Anna-Stiina Suur-Uski (Sirviö)


Links

European Space Agency Planck pages
European Space Agency Euclid pages
Planck Science Team pages
Euclid Consortium pages