PCCS2: Planck Catalog of 70-GHz Compact Sources Release 2

The full-duration Planck mission (2009 onward) produced the Second Planck Catalogue of Compact Sources (PCCS2), a list of discrete Galactic and extragalactic objects detected across the entire sky. It was created by the European Space Agency (ESA) with NASA contributions, superseding earlier versions with improved processing and reduced noise. The catalog includes polarization measurements for seven sensitive channels and aims for 80% integral reliability.

Use Cases

• Identifying extragalactic compact sources based on detection in single-frequency Planck maps.
• Studying Galactic foreground emission based on sources detected across frequencies from 30 to 857 GHz.
• Analyzing source polarization using polarized flux densities and orientation angles from seven polarization-sensitive channels.
• Creating high-reliability subsamples of compact sources using the PCCS2 catalog's reliability metrics.

Strengths

• Covers the entire sky, providing a full-sky survey of compact sources.
• Includes polarization measurements for seven Planck channels, offering vector data.
• Aims for a target 80% integral reliability, with the PCCS2 subcatalog allowing for higher reliability subsamples.
• Supersedes previous catalogs (PCCS, ERCSC) with improved data processing and reduced noise levels from the full mission.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The PCCS2E subcatalog contains sources from regions with diffuse emission where reliability is difficult to quantify.

Provenance

Source

European Space Agency (ESA) mission with contributions from NASA, processed by the Low Frequency Instrument Data Processing Center.

Collection Method

Detections from single-frequency maps from the full duration of the Planck satellite mission.

Time Range

Mission launched 2009-05-14; First Light Survey began 2009-08-12; data covers the full mission duration.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 18:19:42.973511; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Entire sky.