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More First-Light Data From Herschel Space Telescope

Posted by kdawson on from the staring-at-gas dept.

davecl writes "First-light images and spectra have now been released for all three of the instruments on Herschel. (The first images came out a couple of weeks back.) The news is covered on the BBC, on the ESA website, on the Herschel mission blog, and elsewhere. The data all looks fantastic, and is especially impressive since the satellite was only launched about 7 weeks ago. I work on the SPIRE instrument and help maintain the blog; but even I am astounded by the amount of information in the SPIRE images."

3 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. Hershel vs. Hubble by moon3 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Saying that the blurry ESA's image is showing some unseen features is rather strange. It is an IR image, but still.. Hubble shows amazing detail on M74, and I mean amazing.

    Hubble:
    http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071201.html

    Hershel:
    http://www.esa.int/images/SPIRE250_M66_M74_fig1_H.jpg

    1. Re:Hershel vs. Hubble by davecl · · Score: 4, Informative

      Hubble works in the optical at wavelengths more than 100 times smaller than those Herschel is using, so it's not surprising you can see more detail. However, the Herschel images aren't showing stars at all, they're showing cool dust, just 50 or so degrees above absolute zero, material that Hubble just cannot see at all (and to be fair, Herschel can't see the stars that Hubble can see).

      Trying to compare Hubble with Herschel is like comparing a fire with a bucket of liquid nitrogen.

  2. If you want to help, try Galaxy Zoo by Cyberax · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are several community astronomy projects.

    You can contribute to http://www.galaxyzoo.org/ - it's easy, doesn't require any prior knowledge and might help us make interesting discoveries.