The most detailed map of ripples in radiation left over from the big bang – known as the cosmic microwave background, or CMB – will let cosmologists hone their theories of how the universe evolved. This new view of the CMB comes from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite. Just how sharp is it? Find out using the pictures below, which show the Planck map and its predecessors alongside corresponding images of the Earth, blurred to mimic the cosmic maps’ resolution. (1)

Images of CMB correspond to images of our world.

Structures in the cosmos tend to repeat themselves. We live in a fractal world. A world lives within us.