The European Space Agency (ESA) suggests that the oldest stars in the universe may be younger than previously thought. An interactive map of the Milky Way has also been released using data from the Planck satellite.
The ESA launched the Planck satellite in February 2009, which started orbiting the Earth from July of the same year. Until 2013, the spacecraft observed radiation left after the Big Bang, which is called the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which has worked closely with the ESA on the Planck mission, has used information collected by the satellite and has now released an interactive map of the Milky Way.
The interactive map combines numerous views of the Milky Way, which include dust, magnetic fields, a type of radiation called "free-free" and also carbon monoxide gas.
"Planck can see the old light from our universe's birth, gas and dust in our own galaxy, and pretty much everything in between, either directly or by its effect on the old light," said Charles Lawrence, the NASA project scientist who worked in the Planck mission.
The space agency was able to create an interactive map using data collected by the Plank mission, but it also discovered some other aspects of the Milky Way.
The scientists reveal that the universe was different from what it is today after CMB was released. They believed previously that the Dark Ages of the universe, which was the time before the first stars were born, lasted for about 300 to 400 million years following the Big Bang. However, new data from Planck reveals that the Dark Ages lasted for about 550 million years.
"While these 100 million years may seem negligible compared to the universe's age of almost 14 billion years, they make a significant difference when it comes to the formation of the first stars," said Marco Bersanelli, an ESA researcher at the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.
More data collected by the Planck mission is being analyzed by scientists. Further analysis may reveal some more interesting facts about the Big Bang and the formation of the Milky Way.
