Herschel looks into the Heart of Darkness May 10, 2010
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Star formation in Gould's Belt
Last week a big conference took place at the European Space Agency hub ESTEC, down the road in Noordwijk. The town was inundated with the lucky scientists who got to play with the first data from the new infrared space observatory Herschel and were finally allowed to talk about it to the rest of the world. And now that the conference is over, as expected, science from Herschel is everywhere!
20 Years of Hubble April 24, 2010
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Source: Hubblesite.org. Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)
Today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. Hurrah! Although it’s clearly impossible, as I haven’t aged more than, oh, 10 years since then.
The folks at NASA and ESA have released a set of gorgeous new images and videos of the Carina Nebula, a region of active star formation in our Galaxy.
The European Hubble team have also taken the occasion to launch a rather nice looking new website, check it out here.
The same team are organising a competition to find the most artistic, funniest, weirdest, largest and smallest manifestations of Hubble and its images in popular culture – that’s a fun idea. Anyone can join the Flickr group and submit images, and the category winners get some cool prizes. Read more here.
Google joined in the celebration with a lovely doodle for the day:
Oh My Herschel December 17, 2009
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Herschel stares into Aquila
Scientists have gathered in Madrid this week to discuss for the first time the data they have received from the new infrared telescope Herschel that was launched in May of this year. Some fantastic images have been produced as part of the first observing programmes, like the one above of an active star forming region in the constellation Aquila. The region was known as a ‘dark cloud’ – meaning that dust was blocking any visible or near-infrared radiation coming from its interior. Until Herschel came along, and switched on the lights. Observing at longer infrared wavelengths, the telescope is sensitive to radiation from cooler and dusty material, allowing it to peer into the cloud’s interior. The image, created from data from two of Herschel’s images, PACS and SPIRE, shows up to 700 dense pockets of cold and dusty material that may eventually condense into stars; around 100 of them have progressed to the protostellar stage where they begin to resemble a young forming star.
ESA has launched a new site to showcase the Herschel images. A little sparsely populated so far, but the first postings are very promising indeed.
Image credit: ESA and the SPIRE & PACS consortia, Ph. André (CEA Saclay) for the Gould’s Belt Key Programme Consortia
Star formation as seen by Herschel October 3, 2009
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The great images from Herschel continue to come in. This week ESA released the first image that combines data from two of its instruments, PACS and SPIRE.While each instrument has its own unique functionality, the true power of a multi-mode observatory like Herschel is often the ability the observe the same region of sky with several of its instruments simultaneously, to offer a richer view of the target than possible with a single instrument.
First light for Planck September 18, 2009
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First images from Planck, overlaid on an optical image of the galactic plane
The European Space Agency yesterday released first light images from its cosmic microwave background experiment, Planck. Planck was launched together with infrared observatory Herschel in May, and these first data show that the little satellite is in excellent working order.
