ESA en route to the origins of the Universe

[Bill McBlueState]

Source: European Space Agency

Two of the most ambitious missions ever attempted to unveil the secrets of the darkest, coldest and oldest parts of the Universe got off to a successful start this afternoon with the dual launch of ESA’s far infrared space telescope Herschel and cosmic background mapper Planck on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

Herschel, equipped with the largest mirror ever launched into space, will observe a mostly uncharted part of the electromagnetic spectrum so as to study the birth of stars and galaxies as well as dust clouds and planet-forming discs around stars. In addition, it will be the most effective tool ever devised to look for the presence of water in remote parts of the Universe.

Planck is designed to map tiny irregularities in fossil radiation left over from the very first light in the Universe, emitted shortly after the Big Bang. Planck will have enough sensitivity to reach the experimental limits of what can be observed, thus peering into the early Universe and studying its constituents such as the elusive dark matter and dark energy that continue to be a puzzle to the science community worldwide.

Both of these highly sophisticated spacecraft were lofted into space atop an Ariane 5 ECA vehicle from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 13:12 UTC (15:12 CEST) today, Thursday 14 May 2009. Almost 26 minutes later, and about two minutes from each other, they were released separately on an escape trajectory toward a virtual point in space, called L2, some 1.5 million kilometres from Earth in the opposite direction to the Sun.

Read more: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/herschelplanck/SEMK2AZVNUF_0.html

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What a relief! I'm going to be using Herschel to study star formation in Orion, so I'm very happy to see a successful launch. But there's a lot that still has to happen before the data start coming in. Thinking more broadly, the collaboration between ESA and NASA is going really well. It's nice that some aspects of international collaboration survived the Bush era intact.

[villager]

1. they have telescopes that can look back in time 6,000 years!?

n/t

[KansDem]

4. Yes! They're for use in the field of "Palinology" (nt)

[WhiteTara]

2. what exciting work!

With these and the repaired Hubble we will incredible views into the cosmos.

[KansDem]

3. Didn't we use to do this kind of thing?

With all the emphasis on the space shuttle, it seems all we've done is turn NASA into a kind of glorified Federal Express...

[Bill McBlueState]

5. NASA has a key role in Herschel

(and possibly Planck, although I know less about Planck)

A lot of American astronomers are leading key projects with Herschel, and NASA is coordinating all their efforts and serving as the go-between with ESA.

But it's true; NASA has lost some of the prominence it once had relative to other countries. I don't mind the increased international collaboration, though.

[tocqueville]

8. here about Planck

Planck is a space observatory designed to observe the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) over the entire sky, using high sensitivity and angular resolution. Planck was built in the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center and created as the third Medium-Sized Mission (M3) of the European Space Agency (ESA) Horizon 2000 Scientific Programme. The project--initially called COBRAS/SAMBA after its approval--is named in honour of the German scientist Max Planck (1858-1947), who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918.

The mission will complement and improve upon observations made by the NASA WMAP probe, which has measured the anisotropies at larger angular scales and lower sensitivity than Planck. Planck will provide a major source of information relevant to several cosmological and astrophysical issues, such as testing theories of the Early Universe and the origin of cosmic structure.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_(spacecraft)

both satellites will enter a Lissajous orbit of 400,000 km radius around the second Lagrangian point (L2) of the Earth-Sun system, 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth.<2>

[Soylent Brice]

6. cool!

can't wait to see pics, and all the info to come out of this.

[konnichi wa]

7. So...they've located the Bottom Turtle?!!!??

:D :rofl:

[sofa king]

9. Oh, you can't fool me. It's turtles all the way down!

[tocqueville]

10. cool animation here

http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&type=VA&mission=Herschel&single=y&start=10

see here too

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/herschel/herschelplanck-20090514.html

[GodlessBiker]

11. They are heading "toward a virtual point in space, called L2"? Isn't that a real point in space?

How does a real object occupy a virtual point? Anyway, this is a very cool thing.

[Bill McBlueState]

12. yeah, I think a lot of people don't actually know

what "virtual" means.

[tocqueville]

13. virtual in the sense of "a position"

The Lagrange points mark positions where the combined gravitational pull of the two large masses provides precisely the centripetal force required to rotate with them. They are analogous to geostationary orbits in that they allow an object to be in a "fixed" position in space rather than an orbit in which its relative position changes continuously.

A more precise but technical definition is that the Lagrangian points are the stationary solutions of the circular restricted three-body problem.<1> For example, given two massive bodies in circular orbits around their common center of mass, there are five positions in space where a third body, of comparatively negligible mass, could be placed which would then maintain its position relative to the two massive bodies. As seen in a rotating reference frame with the same period as the two co-orbiting bodies, the gravitational fields of two massive bodies combined with the centrifugal force are in balance at the Lagrangian points, allowing the third body to be stationary with respect to the first two bodies.

besides

The Lagrangian point orbits have unique characteristics that have made them a good choice for performing some kinds of missions. These missions generally orbit the points rather than occupy them directly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_points