What is this jibberish I’m spouting now? Well LFI and HFI are two instruments flying on ESA’s new Planck spacecraft, which will be launching in a few months time. Planck will measure, and map in exquisite detail, radiation from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The spacecraft is a sort of cylinder about 4 metres high with a diameter also of 4 metres. you can see what I mean in the image on the embedded poster from ESA.

You learn more about Planck and the LFI and HFI instruments via this link and you can also follow the craft’s Twitter feed. I like this whole Twittering spacecraft thing - its so accessible and easy for anyone. Brilliant.

Oh and did I mention that Cardiff University is heavily involved in Planck, particularly with the HFI instrument which was built here.