Differences at low l in Planck's first light sky map of the cosmic microwave background from WMAP's and COBE's

Understand

The recent release of the first light sky map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from the Planck satellite provides an initial opportunity for comparison with the WMAP and COBE sky maps and their reconstruction algorithms.

• The precision of the match between Planck's and WMAP's anisotropies below several degrees in size, which corresponds to spherical harmonics with high l, provides confidence that the differences between the anisotropies at low l are substantial.
• If the Planck first light sky map is taken as the gold standard, the results seem to suggest the low l components of the WMAP map and a considerable part of the COBE sky map have a similar reconstruction artefact.
• As the Planck first light sky map covers only about 10% of the sky, any conclusions drawn from this comparison are speculative but deserving of further investigation.