NRAO/Socorro Colloquium Series

Paul Goldsmith

NASA


EARLY RESULTS FROM THE HERSCHEL SPACE OBSERVATORY


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 the decade in wavelength from 600 to 60 microns, with spectral resolution as high as 2000. HIFI is a single pixel dual-polarization heterodyne spectrometer that covers frequencies between 470 GHz and 1950 GHz (600 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. 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, ranging from studies distant galaxies, to high resolution spectroscopy of molecular clouds in the Milky Way, to observations of objects in our solar system.






October 22, 2010
11:00 am

Array Operations Center Auditorium

All NRAO employees are invited to attend via video, available in Charlottesville Room 230, Green Bank Room 137 and Tucson N525.

Local Host: Bob Dickman