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Herschel
Date: 19 Sep 2007
Satellite: Herschel
Depicts: Artist's impression of Herschel
Copyright: ESA/ AOES Medialab;
background: Hubble Space Telescope image (NASA/ESA/STScI)
The Herschel Space Telescope is a far-infrared telescope that will be launched towards the end of 2008 on the same launch vehicle as the Planck satellite. With its 3.5m mirror it will be the largest telescope ever sent into orbit.
The far-infrared is an important but largely unexplored part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Emission in the far-IR is dominated by cool dust, at temperatures of 100 to 10 K. Many important astrophysical processes take place in dusty regions, including star and planet formation. Because dust absorbs visible light we can't see inside these dusty regions and so must operate in the far-IR if we are to understand the physics behind these processes. And it's not just star and planet formation in the local universe where dust is important. When you look at the total energy output of the universe since the Big Bang, by looking at the integrated background light of the universe, you find that emission in the far-IR contains roughly as much energy as emission in the optical and near-IR.
This means that half the energy generated since the big bang has been obscured by dust. If we are ever to understand the full history of star and galaxy formation we must thus look in the far-IR as well as in the optical. Herschel's main job is to uncover this obscured history of the universe.
Currently working on Herschel/SPIRE:
- Dave Clements
- George Bendo
- Pierre Chanial
- Markos Trichas
Links:
- Herschel for beginners
- Large Herschel Projects that Imperial is involved in:
- Dave Clements' blog, including news from Herschel
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