Exploring The Infrared Universe
http://www.facebook.com/ScienceReason … Science@ESA Vodcast (Episode 3, Part 1): Exploring The Infrared Universe.
In the Science@ESA series Rebecca Barnes will take you on a journey of discovery into the rapidly evolving field of space astronomy and planetary exploration.
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In this third episode of the Science@ESA vodcast series we investigate the infrared Universe, explore discoveries made by ground-breaking infrared space telescopes, and take a look at Herschel – ESA’s pioneering infrared space telescope.
Herschel, ESA’s cutting-edge space observatory, will carry the largest, most powerful infrared telescope ever flown in space. A pioneering mission to study the origin and evolution of stars and galaxies, it will help understand how the Universe came to be what it is today.
The first observatory to cover the entire range from far-infrared to sub-millimetre wavelengths and bridge the two, Herschel will explore further in the far-infrared than any previous mission, studying otherwise invisible dusty and cold regions of the cosmos, both near and far.
Herschel will tap into unexploited wavelengths, seeing phenomena out of reach for other observatories, at a level of detail that has not been captured before. The telescope’s primary mirror is 3.5 m in diameter, more than four times larger than any previous infrared space telescope and almost one and a half times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. The telescope will collect almost twenty times more light than any previous infrared space telescope.
The cutting-edge spacecraft carries three advanced science instruments: two cameras and a very high resolution spectrometer; their detectors are cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero by a sophisticated cryogenic system.
• http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/SEMBM00YUFF_0.html
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