Herschel News

Complex molecules in Orion

chrisnorth — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:12:56 +0000

HIFI spectrum of the Orion Nebula. Image credit: ESA/HEXOS/HIFI consortium. Background image: NASA/Spitzer Science Center

The newly repaired high-resolution spectrometer on Herschel, the HIFI instrument, has shown its worth after its repairs by looking deep into the Orion nebula. The breakdown of the far-infrared light into a wide range of wavelengths, or spectrum, reveals a series of spikes, where radiation is emitted at particular wavelengths by certain elements and molecules, as shown on the right. The HIFI spectrometer can see much finer detail in the spectrum than has been possible before, and has seen many elements. Frank Helmich, Principal Investigator of the HIFI instrument, said "We obtained this spectrum in a few hours and it already beats any other spectrum, at any other wavelength, ever taken of Orion. Organics are everywhere in this spectrum, even at the lowest levels, which hints at the fidelity of HIFI. The development of HIFI took eight years but it was really worth waiting for."

Hi-Five for HIFI!

chrisnorth — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:16:23 +0000

Image of the HIFI focal plane unit. Image credit: ESA/Herschel-HIFI

After a number of months offline, the third of Herschel's instruments is back online. HIFI, which is a high resolution spectrometer has recently been turned back on after being shut down by a fault in early August 2009. After months of effort to understand the problem and ensure that it does not happen again, the instrument team have now got it back into working order and are ready to continue with its mission.

HIFI is a spectrograph, splitting the light into a range of wavelengths and detecting the "fingerprint" of individual elements and molecules in space. While Herschel's other two instruments, SPIRE and PACS, both have spectrometers, HIFI can split the light up much more finely, even detecting the speed with which gas and dust are moving in other galaxies.

Happy 2010 from ESA

chrisnorth — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:49:28 +0000

Find the full-resolution version here

First Science Results from Herschel!

chrisnorth — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:17:10 +0000

Herschel scientists are meeting in Madrid to present the results from the Science Demonstration Phase of the mission. This is the phase of the mission where the satellite and its instruments are stretched to their full capabilities. A number of results involving the SPIRE instrument and astronomers from the UK have been presented. Professor Matt Griffin, SPIRE Principle Investigator, said “The Herschel Science Demonstration meeting is what the SPIRE team has been looking forward to since the start of the project more than a decade ago, and the results being presented are even better than we dared hope before launch. Not only are the observatory and the instrument working very well, but it is already clear that in this unexplored region of the spectrum, the Universe is even more interesting than we thought.”

A teaser of a star formation region in Aquila is shown above, as seen by the SPIRE and PACS instruments.

Seeing Between the lines: First spectra from SPIRE

chrisnorth — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:39:19 +0000

SPIRE spectrum of the giant star VY Canis Majoris, with the inset showing the star as seen by the SPIRE camera. Image credits: Herschel/SPIRE "MESS" consortium.

Herschel SPIRE releases first spectra

Spectrometers on board all three Hershel instruments have been used to analyse the light from objects inside our galaxy and from other galaxies, producing some of the best measurements yet of atoms and molecules involved in the birth and death of stars. This includes the first results from the SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), which covers th whole submillimetre wavelength range from 194 to 672 microns. The SPIRE FTS will be invaluable to astronomers in determining the composition, temperature, density and mass of interstellar material in nearby galaxies and in star-forming clouds in our own galaxy.

I spy...a spacecraft

chrisnorth — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:34:59 +0000

The Herschel satellite is not only being monitored by the mission controllers at Herschel Science Centre. It is also being watched by optical astronomers, who have captured images of the satellite against the starry background. There are two methods of doing this, one is to stare at the area of sky which the spacecraft will pass through and watch for moving objects - this is the same method used to find near-earth objects such as asteroids and comets. The other method, which relies on more equipment, is to track where Herschel should be in the sky. Since it is a movi

A top invention of 2009

chrisnorth — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:14:51 +0000

Alongside teleportation and the AIDS vaccine, the Herschel Space Observatory has been voted one of the greatest inventions of 2009 by Time magazine.

Herschel on air

chrisnorth — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:13:26 +0000

The SPIRE Instrument

Key members of the SPIRE team, including the lead scientist on the instrument, Professor Matt Griffin, will feature in a two-part Radio 4 programme.

The Herschel Space Telescope is a two-part series to be aired on Radio 4 on Wednesday 18th November, 11:00-11:30am and Wednesday 25th November, 11:00-11:30am. BBC science reporter Jonathan Amos follows the engineers and scientists working on the SPIRE instrument for the European Space Agency's Herschel satellite. Herschel is one of the most important missions in the history of European spaceflight and was launched successfully on May 14 this year.

Herschel’s cameras combine to show the galaxy in a new light

spxpch — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:32:48 +0000

Spectacular new images of interstellar material in our galaxy have been produced, using the UK-led SPIRE camera in tandem with Herschel’s other camera, PACS.

The new pictures, made during the first trial run with the two instruments operating at the same time, have unveiled a small part of our Milky Way Galaxy as we have never seen it before, and bode well for one of Herschel’s main scientific projects, which is to survey large areas of the galaxy.

Herschel passes critical test

spxpch — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:35:42 +0000

Herschel has successfully completed its in-orbit commissioning review.

The spacecraft is in excellent condition, and its instruments have been fully commissioned and checked out.

Herschel is now certified ready to begin the performance verification phase. This is where the scientists will "tweak" the observatory to attain optimum performance for scientific observations.

This marks the end of the development phase and the start of the operational phase for the mission.