Europe’s Planck satellite will measure the big bang’s afterglow with unprecedented precision (Illustration: NASA)
COSMOLOGISTS are doing the happy dance. The European Space Agency’s is busy surveying the cosmic microwave background, aka the “echo” of the big bang, and in 2013 will release a feast of data that promises to deliver profound new insights into the origin of the universe.
Surely a victory for science? Only, it seems, if cosmologists can resist the temptation to gorge themselves on all those goodies.
A trio of astronomers have warned that, unless we use the information sparingly, we risk squandering a…
