The Herschel telescope is a classic Cassegrain design with a 3.5-m primary mirror — the largest ever launched into space — and a smaller secondary mirror. This powerful telescope will allow astronomers to look deep into space by detecting light emitted in the far-infrared and sub-millimetre regions of the spectrum. / Image: ESA/NASA
(More images available on the European Space Agency Photo Gallery)
Alberta technology travels to space
It’s not every day that technology created and tested by Alberta scientists gets shot into space and travels more than 1.5 million kilometres from Earth to view what might be the origins of star formations and galaxies.
However, on May 14 at 7 a.m., the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory will carry the largest, most powerful infrared telescope ever launched into space. Herschel will transport three instruments—two of which have Alberta connections through the Institute of Space Imaging Science (ISIS) which includes University of Calgary and University of Lethbridge.
Herschel’s important infrared measurement technology was designed at the U of L by physics and astronomy researcher David Naylor and his team.
Naylor is the Canadian lead investigator for the mission's Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE), a joint Canadian space Agency (CSA) / European Space Agency (ESA) project involving scientists from eight nations. He is responsible for the design and construction of a spectrometer to determine the performance of SPIRE, and for developing the SPIRE data analysis software.
This mission will help us learn how stars and galaxies like our own are formed, says Russ Taylor.
/ Photo: Ken Bendiktsen
“This is a significant mission,” says Russ Taylor, the head of the Institute for Space Imaging Science and also the head of the Physics and Astronomy Department at the U of C. “The Herschel space craft, with the SPIRE instrument, will be able to see heat radiation from the Universe that is only visible from space. This radiation comes from the dark material between the stars, and will help us learn how stars and galaxies like our own are formed.”
The U of C has another connection to Herschel. Rene Plume, an associate professor in Physics and Astronomy at the university, is on the steering committee for HIFI (the Heterodyne Instrument for Far Infrared astronomy), which is another of the three instruments that will fly aboard Herschel. HIFI is also the only other instrument that incorporates Canadian hardware funded by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Its primary mission is to look at the molecular composition of the Universe with unprecedented sensitivity, resolution, and at wavelengths that are impossible to observe from the ground.
“My research focuses on the physics and chemistry of the gas and dust in between the stars, particularly as this material relates to the formation of new stars and planets,” says Plume. “Herschel allows us to find and study many of the molecules that are important to this process, and to the formation of life both here and elsewhere in the Universe.”
The launch can be viewed at this web address by Arianespace:
www.videocorner.tv/videocorner2/live_flv/index.php?langue=en
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May 14, 2009