Herschel discovers tip of cosmic iceberg around nearby young star

Using ESA's Herschel Space Observatory to study one of the closest protoplanetary discs to Earth, astronomers have detected cold water vapour for the first time in such an environment. Located in a thin layer at intermediate depths in the disc, the cold vapour hints at a much larger reservoir of water ice hidden deeper in the disc and amounting to several thousand times the mass of water that makes up our planet's oceans. The discovery sheds new light on the presence and role of water in the early formation stages of a planetary system.

Detection of water vapour in the spectrum
of TW Hydrae's protoplanetary disc
© ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Hogerheijde
(Leiden Observatory)

Read the article on ESA's website

Hartley 2 comet - Herschel: a new view on the origin of Earth's oceans

An international team, including four scientists from the Paris Observatory and CNRS, annonced the discovery of the first comet - 103P/Hartley 2 - containing water similar to the Earth oceans. This result, acquired with the ESA's infrared telescope Herschel, renew the discussion about the origine of the water on the bleu planet. The small frozen bodies of the Solar System could have a role in the celestial contribution. The information will be publishe on October 13 in Nature.

This illustration shows the orbit of comet Hartley 2 in relation to those of the five innermost planets of the Solar System. The comet made its latest close pass of Earth on 20 October 2010, coming to 19.45 million km. On this occasion, Herschel observed the comet. The inset on the right side shows the image obtained with Herschel’s PACS instrument. The two lines are the water data from HIFI instrument. Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab; Herschel/HssO Consortium

Read the Press Release on ESA's website

Herschel probes the dusty history of a giant star

About 5 thousand million years from now, our Sun will expand into a red giant, swelling to such a size that it may swallow the Earth. It will then begin to shed huge amounts of dust, surrounding itself with an expanding circumstellar envelope (CSE) that ultimately will become a planetary nebula. New insights into this process have been revealed by ESA's Herschel Space Observatory, with PACS instrument which is providing unprecedented images of the complex, outer structure of a nearby CSE.

Some new features in the circumstellar envelope of IRC+10216 (CW Leonis) are indicated in this annotated image. (A) The arc indicates the location of a bow shock, situated about 1 light year from the star; dust shells, corresponding to the ejection of material from the star at (B) 16 000 years, (C) 12 750 years, (D) 2500 years and (E) 1175 years ago are also indicated. Credit: ESA/PACS/MESS Consortia

Read the article on ESA's website

Stars birth: most of the galaxies don't give birth in pain

ESA's Herschel infrared space observatory has discovered that galaxies do not need to collide with each other to drive vigorous star birth. The finding overturns this long-held assumption and paints a more stately picture of how galaxies evolve. The observations realised by ESA's space telescope Herschel show that the collisions between galaxies only have a secondary role in the star birth process. At the time when the stars were born, the quantities of gas involved in the galaxies were enough to "spontaneously" generate a heavy production of stars. These results, obtained in the GOODS-Herschel international programme framework, which join, on the French side, researchers from CEA, CNRS, and Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris Diderot, Paris Sud and Provence universities, supported by CNES, describe the scenario of the evolution of galaxies less tormented than was thought by scientists. These results are published online on September 13 by Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Artiste's view of a galaxy fed by narrow strems of cold gas taht could explain the stars birth 'normal' mode. © ESA / AOES Medialab

Read the Press Release (in French)
Also read the article on ESA's website

Herschel confirms: Enceladus' plumes are watering the saturnian environment

Observing Saturn, Herschel has detected evidence of water molecules in a huge torus surrounding the planet and centred on the orbit of its small moon, Enceladus. The water plumes on Enceladus, which were detected by the Cassini-Huygens mission, inject the water into the torus and part of it eventually precipitates into Saturn's atmosphere. The new study has identified Enceladus as the primary water supply to Saturn's upper atmosphere; this is the first example in the Solar System of a moon directly influencing the atmosphere of its host planet.

Water plumes emanating from Saturn's moon Enceladus as observed by Cassini - NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Read the complete article on ESA's website

Oxygen molecules detected in the Orion Nebula

Herschel has found the first robust evidence of molecular oxygen in the Orion Nebula. The observed abundance is ten times larger than indicated by previous observations of other molecular clouds, but is still well below theoretical expectations. The results suggest that, in special circumstances, the heat from newborn stars can liberate oxygen frozen out on dust grains, thus increasing the amount of molecular oxygen able to form in warm, dense gas clouds.

Detection of molecular oxygen in the Orion Nebula - © ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech

Read the complete article on ESA's website

Herschel Detects a Massive Dust Reservoir in Supernova 1987A

New data from Herschel Space Observatory have revealed surprisingly large amounts of cold dust in the remnant of the famous supernova SN1987A, which exploded 24 years ago in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbouring galaxy of the Milky Way. With this discovery, the astronomers confirm that supernovae are able to produce significant quantities of dust over very short time scales. This may help explain previous observations, by Herschel and other observatories, of abundant dust in the early Universe as seen in high-redshift galaxies. The results are published online in Science Express.

This mosaic shows the region surrounding the remnant of the famous supernova SN1987A as observed by Herschel (on the left) and the Hubble Space Telescope (on the right).
© ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/NASA-JPL/Caltech/UCL/STScI and the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA)

Read the complete article on ESA's website
Read also the publication online on Science Express website

Caught in the act by Herschel: galactic storms sweep away the gas

ESA's Herschel Space Observatory has detected massive amounts of molecular gas gusting at high velocities - in some cases in excess of 1000 kilometres per second - from the centres of a set of merging galaxies. Driven by star formation and central black holes, these powerful storms are strong enough to sweep away billions of solar masses of molecular gas and to interfere with global galactic processes. These observations indicate that, in the galaxies hosting the brightest Active Galactic Nuclei, outflows can clear the entire supply for creating stars and feeding the black hole. This finding provides long-sought-after evidence of highly energetic feedback processes taking place in galaxies as they evolve.

Illustration explaining how outflows of molecular gas can be detected in the spectra of galaxies with Herschel. Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab

Read the complete article on ESA's website

Herschel unravels the thread of star formation in the Gould Belt

An intricate network of filamentary structure, exposed in extraordinary detail by the Herschel Space Observatory, has provided new evidence for how stars form from the diffuse interstellar medium. These filaments, located in giant molecular clouds in the Gould Belt, all exhibit remarkably similar widths - about one third of a light year - but only the densest ones contain pre-stellar cores, the seeds of future stars. These data suggest star formation is a two-step process: first turbulence stirs up the gas, giving rise to a web-like structure, then gravity takes over and governs the further fragmentation of filaments into stars.

This colour-composite image of IC 5146 shows the extended filamentary structure of this star-forming cloud.

This work, colaboration of an international team coordinated by the Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay (CEA/Irfu-Paris Diderot-CNRS) were published on-line in Astronomy and Astrophysics on April 13.

Read the complete article on ESA's website
Read another article about this also on ESA's website

HIFI recovered from cosmic ray hit!

HIFI, one of the three scientific instruments on ESA's Herschel Space Observatory, has taken a hit by a cosmic ray particle in a critical area again. On Monday 28 February a particle presumably hit the electronics of the instrument, which brought HIFI observations to a full stop. However, after switching HIFI off and then on again the instrument came back online. HIFI will now be able to continue its highly successful quest for carbon and water in gas clouds, which sheds new light on the birth and early development of stars and planets.

Read the complete press release

HERSCHEL quantifies the dark matter threshold for starburst galaxies

How much dark matter is needed to trigger a starburst in the cosmic cribs where galaxies are born? A new study, based on data from ESA's Herschel Space Observatory, has revealed that dark matter halos with a mass larger than 300 billion times the Sun's are particularly efficient at igniting massive starbursts, as they house the most active star-forming galaxies in the Universe. Astronomers have discovered this key threshold by measuring small fluctuations in the Cosmic Infrared Background, the integrated diffuse emission produced by the dust from every galaxy that ever existed. These fluctuations trace the distribution of otherwise mostly unresolved star-forming galaxies and of the dark matter halos that enshroud them. These results are reported in the 24 February 2011 issue of Nature and are published online.

The distribution of the dark matter, obtained from a numerical simulation, at a redshift z~2, or when the Universe was about 3 billion years old. Credit: From Amblard, Cooray, Serra et al., Nature, 2011

Read the complete news on the ESA website
Or read the news on the HERSCHEL France website (in French)
Or, the article in Nature review.

HERSCHEL observes EPOXI-encounter comet Hartley 2

Herschel is taking part in an extraordinary worldwide astronomical campaign to study comet Hartley 2 before, during, and after the flyby by the NASA EPOXI (Extrasolar Planet Observation and Deep Impact Extended Investigation) mission, with closest approach on 4 November 2010. Hartley 2 passed just 0.11 AU (16.4 million km) from Herschel on 20 October 2010.

Herschel has obtained unique sensitive far-infrared continuum images constraining the size of the large dust particles, while spectra reveal the distribution of water molecules released from the nucleus as about 230 kg of ices evaporate every second.

Read the article on the ESA website
Also, see the HssO note for more information
Or, the article: "The Odin satellite observes water in comet 103P/Hartley 2".

Images left to right: montage of EPOXI images (© NASA), SPIRE, PACS, and HIFI images (© ESA/Herschel/HssO Consortium).

New method reveals gravitationally lensed galaxies in Herschel-ATLAS first survey

Astronomers using early data from one of the largest projects to be undertaken with the ESA Herschel Space Observatory have demonstrated that virtually all bright sub-millimetre galaxies in the distant Universe are subject to gravitational lensing, which amplifies their flux thus easing their detection and characterisation. Analysis of less than three per cent of the entire Herschel-ATLAS survey, which probes the distant and hidden Universe, yielded a first sample of five lensed galaxies and paves the way for the compilation, in the near future, of a rich catalogue of distant, star-forming and dust-obscured galaxies. The results are reported in the 5 November 2010 issue of Science.

More details, on the ESA website

The main image shows the first area of sky viewed as part of the Herschel-ATLAS survey. It is around 4 degrees across - 8 times the width of the Full Moon - and located in the constellation of Hydra. There are over 6000 galaxies present in this image, some seen as they were billions of years ago, and almost all so far away that they are seen by Herschel as a single point of light. Also visible, as wispy structures draped across the image, are diffuse clouds of dust in our own Galaxy. This image makes up around 1/30th of the total area which will be observed by Herschel-ATLAS, in which astronomers should eventually find around 250 000 galaxies. The five insets, measuring 14x14 arcminutes, show enlarged views of the five distant galaxies whose images are being gravitationally lensed by foreground galaxies (unseen by Herschel). The distant galaxies are not only very bright, but also very red in colour in this image, showing that they are brighter at the longer wavelengths measured by the SPIRE instrument.
© Herschel – ESA

HERSCHEL Finds Hot Water Vapor Around a Carbon Star

This colour-composite image of CW Leonis, also known as IRC +10216, was obtained with the SPIRE and PACS instruments on the HERSCHEL Space Observatory. It combines observations at wavelengths of 160 µm (blue; PACS), 250 µm (green; SPIRE) and 350 µm (red; SPIRE).
A bow shock, created by the interaction of the stellar wind emitted by the star and the interstellar medium, can be seen to the left of the star.
© ESA/PACS/SPIRE/MESS Consortia

ESA's HERSCHEL Space Observatory has detected water vapour in a location previously thought to be impossible - in the atmosphere of an ageing, red giant carbon star. The rich and detailed data provided by HERSCHEL can be explained within a new framework in which ultraviolet photons play a key role. These results are reported in the 2 September issue of Nature.

More details, in the ESA's article

Publication of a special issue of "Astronomy & Astrophysics" dedicated to Herschel's first scientific results.
These results are published one year after HERSCHEL launch.

More details, in the ESA's article,
and on the review website Astronomy & Astrophysics

HERSCHEL space telescope delivered its first harvest of scientific results

One year after the launch of the European satellite Herschel, a first scientific assessment workshop of the mission was organized from May 4th to 7th, by the European space agency in ESTEC, Netherlands.

These results will be published soon, first on line on Internet, and then running autumn 2010, in a special issue of the Astronomy & Astrophysics review.

For more details, read the article on CNES website (in French)
ESA's article

Herschel First Results Symposium at ESA ESTEC

Registration for the Herschel First Results Symposium has opened: http://www.congrex.nl/10A10.
The meeting will take place on 4-7 May 2010, in ESTEC Conference Centre, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

This meeting is the first major scientific symposium presenting Herschel scientific results.

For more details please visit: http://www.congrex.nl/10A10

Herschel HIFI is now in Routine phase for some observation modes

HIFI spectrum of water and organics in the Orion Nebula
Credit: ESA, HEXOS and the HIFI consortium

The spectrum, one of the first to be obtained with HIFI since it returned to full health in January 2010 following technical difficulties, clearly demonstrates that the instrument is working well. Striking features in the HIFI spectrum include a rich, dense pattern of "spikes", each representing the emission of light from a specific molecule in the Orion Nebula. This nebula is known to be one of the most prolific chemical factories in space, although the full extent of its chemistry and the pathways for molecule formation are not well understood. By sifting through the pattern of spikes in this spectrum, astronomers have identified a few common molecules that appear everywhere in the spectrum. The identification of the many other emission lines is currently ongoing.

For more details please visit: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=46651

CNES, CEA and INSU created an HERSCHEL FRANCE website

The main purpose of this French scientific website, for wide audience, is to present and explain the results of importance of HERSCHEL mission, and more particularly those from French scientists involved in Herschel data exploitation programmes.
Besides feature articles, it will provide illustrations (movies, animations, images...) as well as podcasts.
The realisation of a mirror website in english is expected soon but with a more limited content.

Access to the website: http://www.herschel.fr/ (in French for now)

HIFI back on duty

On 3 August 2009 it was discovered that the HIFI Local Oscillator Control unit (LCU) had developed an anomaly leading to HIFI shutting down. Since then the HIFI consortium has been intensely investigated the nature of the problem.

HIFI is a very high resolution spectrometer which is functioning in the submillimetre wavelength spectral domain. That makes possible the detection and the measurement of some chemical components in the universe.

5 months after this breakdown, the problem has been identified, new software has been written to prevent a similar event. On the 10th of January, the painstaking reactivation sequence was started, using Herschel's backup LCU.

Now, the instrument is fully functional once again, and the verification of the instrument performances are now beginning. HIFI will be used extensively in "routine" mode in march 2010, and during the coming months to study star forming regions in our Galaxy.

Read the article...

First scientific results for HERSCHEL

A workshop of early results was held in Madrid, Spain 17 - 18 Dec 2009

Presentations containing some of the spectacular results and status reports are posted here :
http://herschel.esac.esa.int/SDP_IR_wkshop.shtml

Herschel was successfully launched together with Planck on 14 May 2009

After a successful Commissioning Phase (COP), the Performance Verification Phase (PVP) commenced in mid-July. An approximate overview of the early mission phases includes Commissioning Phase (COP) 2 months, Performance Verification Phase (PVP) 3 months, followed by the Science Demonstration Phase (SDP) and a gradual transition into Routine Science Phase (RSP). Currently, as of late December, except for HIFI, the PVP activities have basically been completed, SDP is nearly completed, and more and more RSP observations are being executed. Ended, on 3 August 2009 it was discovered an HIFI anomaly leading to the instrument shutting down. Since then the HIFI consortium and ESA have been intensely investigating the nature of the problem. After this extensive investigation, the cause of the failure is understood. HIFI will resume checkout and operations in early January 2010.

Some additional details resulting from the Madrid workshop :

SDP completion almost 60%, of what’s left : ~50% is HIFI and ~50% is non-released PACS & SPIRE AOTs – mainly spectroscopy.
HIFI activities to re-commence in January 2010 ; HIFI to be allocated ~50% of Herschel time in early 2010 ; HIFI Priority Science Programme (PSP) to be executed in February-April 2010,
Taking into account the He quantity at the beginning of the SDP, and the He consumption (2,668 mg/s), the total mission lifetime is estimated at 3.8 years (until the end of March 2013), a little more than the nominal lifetime (3.5 years),
The Mission lifetime is 3.5-4 years, and the routine science phase duration will be 3-3.5 years. This corresponds to about 6600 hours science time per year. For the Key Programmes, the allocated time is ~11000 hours or ~1.7 years, so the time available to be allocated is ~1.3-1.8 years. It will be reasonable to have 2 AOs ; with an AO early 2010.

For more information, see:

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HERSCHEL's splendid spectra

Herschel spectroscopy takes centre stage today as new spectra, obtained with the SPIRE, PACS and HIFI instruments during the performance verification phase, are released by ESA and the instrument teams. Taken together with earlier images the observatory is now on the way to demonstrating that the promised imaging and spectroscopic capabilities are being met.

In contrast to images that reveal the distribution of light across the field of view, spectra provide an astronomical fingerprint of the objects being studied. Detailed analyses of these spectra provide insight into the physical and chemical composition of the objects.

The newly issued Herschel spectra, obtained with the SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer, the PACS integral field spectrometer, and the HIFI heterodyne instrument touch on a number of key science goals for the mission and are an early demonstration of the capabilities of the observatory.

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HERSCHEL designated 7 best invention of year 2009 by Time

The Time published a list of the 50 Best Inventions of 2009. Nasa's new rocket Ares is in first position. The European Space Agency Herschel space telescope arrives in 7th position. Renamed "the telescope for invisible stars", Herschel will lift the dust curtain which masks the birth of stars in the galaxies molecular clouds.

Complete list

HERSCHEL views deep-space pearls on a cosmic string

Herschel has delivered spectacular vistas of cold gas clouds lying near the plane of the Milky Way, revealing intense, unexpected activity. The dark, cool region is dotted with stellar factories, like pearls on a cosmic string.

On 3 September, Herschel aimed its telescope at a reservoir of cold gas in the constellation of the Southern Cross near the Galactic Plane. As the telescope scanned the sky, the spacecraft's Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver, SPIRE, and Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer, PACS instruments snapped the pictures. The region is located about 60° from the Galactic Centre, thousands of light-years from Earth.

The five original infrared wavelengths have been colour-coded to allow scientists to differentiate extremely cold material (red) from the surrounding, slightly warmer stuff (blue).

Five-colour infrared image of a reservoir of cold gas in the constellation of the Southern Cross. The region is located about 60° from the Galactic Centre, thousands of light-years from Earth. The images cover an area of 2°x2° on the sky.
The SPIRE and PACS images have been combined to a single composite; here blue denotes 70 micron and green 160 micron emission, while red is the combination of the emission from all three SPIRE bands at 250, 350 and 500 microns.
Credits: ESA and the SPIRE & PACS consortia

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HERSCHEL operates today and realises its first observations

HERSCHEL space observatory, European Space Agency (ESA) mission, launched on May 14 by Ariane 5 from Kourou, arrived at its final orbit at 1 500 000 kms from the Earth. The three on board instruments have been turned on and supplied their first data: a step awaited by french scientists with great expectations for this mission.

The first tests periode of HIFI, PACS and SPIRE instruments ended on July 7, exactely as planned. The programme for the next months will consist in the verification of the fin tunning to bring the instruments to their expected performances.

The scientific observations should begin during the autumn, a rendez-vous is taken for May 2010, when the first scientific results will be disclosed.

The first observations can be seen on the following pages:
HIFI : http://herschel.cesr.fr PACS and SPIRE : http://herschel.cea.fr

Herschel opened its 'eyes' on 14 June and the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer obtained images of M51, ‘the whirlpool galaxy’ for a first test observation. Scientists obtained composite images in three wavelength (70, 100 and 160 µm) which clearly demonstrate the superiority of Herschel on other infrared space systems. Herschel is the largest space telescope ever flown.

Test image of M51 galaxy acquired by PACS instrument © ESA and Consortium PACS

These images of the Universs in the submillimetric infrared, with an unparallel resolution sharpness, have been acquired by the bolometric camera of PACS instrument, designed and realised by the Service d'astrophysique/Irfu of CEA, in partnership with CNES.
The emission collected comes from interstellar dust clouds heated by the numerous region of stellar formation and the massive star clusters present in the spiral arms as well as at the center of the Galaxy.
This image have been possible even if none of the systems used is properly calibrated, which augures of the real performances of Herschel, as soon as all the systems will be optimized, which is underway.

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