Boatload of Herschel Science Papers Released

By Nancy Atkinson - July 16, 2010 04:50 AM UTC | Observing

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="A part of a Herschel/HIFI spectral scan (the white curve) overlaid on a background Spitzer Space Telescope image (ESA/HIFI/HEXOS/E. Bergin)."]

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Love to read science papers? Here's a batch that will keep you busy for a while.

152 papers

were released this morning highlighting the Herschel telescope's first science results. A few papers describe the observatory and its instruments, and the rest are dedicated to observations of many astronomical targets from bodies in the Solar System to distant galaxies. Herschel is the only space observatory to cover a spectral range from the far infrared to sub-millimeter, so there's a wide range of objects and topics covered, including star formation, galaxy evolution, and cosmology.

And you thought you'd have nothing to do this weekend!

A few highlights:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="570" caption="An area of GOODS-N as observed by Herschel/SPIRE. Inset the famous previous JCMT/SCUBA observation (ESA/SPIRE/HerMES/S. Oliver)."]

[/caption] Herschel has taken a look at the 'Great Observatory Origins Deep Survey' (GOODS), an area of the sky not blocked by foreground objects like stars in our own galaxy or other nearby galaxies, so this area is ideal for observing deep space. While many other telescopes have peered into this region, Herschel's SPIRE instrument has taken a look in submillimeter wavelengths. Each fuzzy blob is a very distant galaxy seen as they were three to ten billion years ago when star formation was very more widespread throughout the Universe. The image is made from the three SPIRE bands, with blue, green, and red, corresponding to 250, 350, and 500 ?m, respectively.

Herschel has imaged (Fig. 2) a stellar nursery around 1000 light-years away in the constellation Aquila (the Eagle). This cloud, 65 light-years across, is so shrouded by dust that no infrared satellite has been able to see into it, until now. Embedded in the dusty filaments are 700 condensations of dust and gas that will eventually become stars. Astronomers estimate that about 100 are 'protostars', that is, celestial objects in the final stages of formation.

An observation the 'sword' in the constellation of Orion shows a star-forming region. A characteristic feature is the spectral richness: among the organic molecules identified in this spectrum are water, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, methanol, dimethyl ether, hydrogen cyanide, sulphur oxide, and sulphur dioxide. This spectrum is the first glimpse of the spectral richness of regions of star and planet formation.

Find all the papers at this Astronomy and Astrophysics webpage.

To follow Herschel, check out the

Herschel Science Centre Latest News webpage

.

Source:

A&A

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com