Exploring the invisible Universe 2009

Herschel, ESA's cutting-edge space observatory, carries the largest, most powerful infrared telescope ever flown in space. A pioneering mission to study the origin and evolution of stars and galaxies, it is helping scientists 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 is exploring further in the far-infrared than any previous mission, studying otherwise invisible dusty and cold regions of the cosmos, both near and far.

Herschel is 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 3.5m 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 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.

Launch: 14 May 2009

Orbit: Orbiting the second Lagrange point of the Earth-Sun system (L2), a point in space located 1.5 million km from Earth. L2 is a local gravitationally-stable point that is fixed in the Earth-Sun system and is situated on Earth’s night-side.

Mission operations
Monitored and controlled at ESA/ESOC via the DSA-1 ESTRACK deep space station at New Norcia, Australia

Herschel mission operations: Herschel operations

More information: Herschel

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