The first cosmology results from the European Planck mission appeared this week. The results broadly confirm the results from NASA’s WMAP satellite, however, at higher angular resolution.(image:  (http://spaceinimages.esa.int/Images/2013/03/Planck_WMAP_comparison)   Consequently, the Planck results push our understanding of the early universe. The new ‘recipe’ for the universe reduces the percentage of dark energy from ~72 to ~68% and increases the percentage of dark matter to ~26.5%. The Hubble constant at the current epoch decreases from ~69 to ~67 km/sec/Mpc.

There is one interesting thing about the 29 papers that ESA uploaded to the arXiv server: about half the scientific results papers played up the consistency of the Planck results with the results of WMAP and other cosmology data sets; and about half the papers played up the differences with prior data. The press release points out the excellent confirmation of the ‘standard’ model of the universe immediately next to a figure illustrating the anomalies between Planck and WMAP data! Now that’s the way to straddle a fence!

Planck confirms the existence of the ‘cold spot’ as well as potentially uncovering a hemispheric asymmetry.(http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=51559).  I say ‘potentially’ because the statistical significance is marginal. The current Planck results are based on ~15 months of data. More data already exist, but are not yet processed — if the asymmetry is real, its significance will become stronger after the data are processed.

Consequently, the team should straddle the fence because the reality of the asymmetry is not so firmly established to be real, but the clues are sufficiently interesting to warrant attention.

The problem, of course, is the sensation of ‘new’ that everyone wants these days. The anomalies get played up even though the data do not yet fully support them — the anomalies are currently the equivalent of a point guard’s head feint to pull the defenders out of position. You’re watching all of this in slow motion, so the ball is still arcing toward the basket and you do not yet know whether the feint has a successful outcome.