In a fitting irony, the static that once bothered scientists trying to tune in to the universe has turned out to be an incredibly rich source of information about it. Probing these signals over the past 40 years--known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation--scientists have dug out cosmological secrets that have revolutionized the field. Next, European scientists will spy on the relic photons with instruments of unprecedented detail, when they launch the Planck satellite in early 2009.