The Herschel Space Observatory: Early Results and Mission Status

Computer Science – Performance

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Herschel is a cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), with major involvement from NASA. The PACS and SPIRE instruments are moderate resolution imaging spectrometers and photometers that together cover over a decade in wavelength from 670 to 57 microns, with spectral resolution as high as 2000. HIFI is a single pixel dual-polarization heterodyne spectrometer that covers frequencies between 470 GHz and 2000 GHz (640 microns to 150 microns wavelength) with a maximum spectral resolution in excess of 1 million. At the present time, instrumental performance is close to or better than that expected before launch. Herschel was launched on May 14, 2009 (along with the Planck cosmology mission). A science lifetime of 3 years in anticipated, limited by the liquid helium supply. In this talk I review the characteristics of the Herschel Space Observatory and the capabilities of its three science instruments. I will also summarize the early results from Herschel. The access with a suite of high sensitivity imaging and spectroscopy systems to a largely unexplored portion of the electromagnetic spectrum has resulted in an exceptionally wide range of astronomical discoveries, in areas ranging from distant galaxies, to high-resolution spectroscopy of molecular clouds in the Milky Way, to observations of objects in our solar system. The final opportunity to submit observing proposals will be in Summer 2011.

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