Next spring, the Planck satellite lifts off from the European Space Agency’s launch pad in French Guiana. A few hours after launch, Planck will detach from its escort and begin its six-month journey to its final orbit—a place 1.5 million kilometers away from our planet, far enough away from our neighborhood to avoid the emission of any heat from the Earth, the moon and the sun.
By taking sensitive temperature measurements of whatever it can find after those heat sources are well out of the way, the Planck satellite will be able to record the lingering radiant heat leftover from the very formation of the universe. The mission is expected to produce 17 terabytes of data during its 14-month run. Its data will come in a continuous stream and will require around 100 teraflops of computing power for storage and analysis. For part of this analysis, the Planck community is using grid technology . . . Read more  | 
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