Herschel

Herschel, European Space Agency space telescope, launched on May 14, 2009, that studied infrared radiation from astronomical objects. It was named in honour of German-born British astronomer Sir William Herschel, who discovered infrared radiation in 1800. Herschel was launched on an Ariane 5 rocket that also carried Planck, a satellite that studied the cosmic microwave background.

Herschel was the largest telescope launched into space. Its primary mirror was 3.5 metres (11.5 feet) across. Herschel had three instruments: a high-resolution spectrometer that operated in two bands to observe light with wavelengths from 157 to 212 micrometres and from 240 to 625 micrometres (1 micrometre = 10⁻⁶ metre), a combined camera/spectrometer that saw infrared radiation between 55 to 210 micrometres, and another combined camera/spectrometer that observed three wavelength bands at 250, 350, and 500 micrometres. The instruments were shielded by a hatch until June 14, 2009, when the pyrotechnic bolts holding it in place were manually triggered from the ground; the hatch had remained in place for a month in order to ensure that contaminants such as water vapour had evaporated. Removal of the hatch allowed the telescope to begin functioning upon reaching its orbit. Galaxies forming in the early universe, the interstellar medium in other galaxies, and nascent planetary systems were some of the objects that Herschel was particularly well suited to study.

Like Planck, Herschel was positioned about two months after launch near the second Lagrangian point (L2), a gravitational balance point between Earth and the Sun and 1.5 million km (0.9 million miles) opposite the Sun from Earth. The spacecraft moved in a controlled Lissajous pattern around L2 that kept it at an average distance of 800,000 km (500,000 miles) from L2. This isolated the spacecraft from infrared emission from Earth and the Moon. The spacecraft was shielded from the Sun by a sunshade. Herschel’s mission lasted until April 29, 2013, when observations became impossible because it ran out of its supply of liquid helium coolant, which minimized the thermal interference that the instruments received from the rest of the telescope.

Herschel’s mission yielded a number of significant findings. Herschel discovered water vapour escaping from the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres, which was the first detection of water in the asteroid belt. Herschel’s observation of spectral lines of isotopic forms of water in Comet Hartley 2 also revealed that the cometary water had the same isotopic signature as the water in Earth’s oceans, which was evidence that Earth’s water may have come from comets. Data gathered by Herschel showed that previous observations had underestimated by a third the amount of molecular gas from which stars form in the Milky Way Galaxy. Herschel discovered a galaxy, HFLS 3, that was forming stars at a rate more than 2,000 times that of the Milky Way even though HFLS 3 was observed only 880 million years after the big bang; accepted theories of galaxy formation could not explain how such a massive and active galaxy could have formed in so short a time.