Retirement in the sun for Herschel, the largest telescope sent ... - Zebulon.fr

After four years in the Space for ESA Herschel infrared telescope retiring in orbit around the sun.

Herschel: the brilliant career of a giant telescope

Sent into space in May 2009 on an Ariane 5 launcher, the Herschel telescope was launched into orbit to study in detail various stellar phenomena, particularly the development or evolution of stars, galaxies formations. Being the largest and most powerful telescope ever sent by humans in space, it has largely fulfilled its task, its initial life has been estimated at a little over 3 years.

He has achieved numerous data about the universe of 25,000 hours of recordings. The final deactivation command was sent by the controllers of the ESA on Monday at 12:25 GMT. Satisfied with the results provided by Herschel, Göran Pilbratt, project scientist, has also said: “ Herschel gave us a completely new view of the universe, and the opportunity to scrutinize the dark regions cold of the universe that were invisible to other telescopes “

Telescope Herschel. 4 years of loyal service

The end of service Herschel telescope is not an early retirement. He instead fulfilled its task to the end, even in his last moments. Honoring the name borrowed from the physicist William Herschel, who discovered Uranus two centuries ago, this infrared telescope blind since late April, even a guinea pig to ESA engineers to test different software. Note that these tests, for budgetary reasons, would have been too risky to carry on active satellites.

On this decision, Jean Jacques Dordain, Director General of ESA states that “Herschel was off, but it is not a surprise since it was programmed. There are more than cryogenic liquid on board so it warms up, and as soon as it warms up, it becomes useless. So we turned off the transponder Herschel . ” To avoid discomfort or pollution, it was placed in heliocentric orbit around the sun.