Tim Hawarden RIP

It is with great sadness that I’ve learnt of the death of Tim Hawarden. He can be fairly described as one of the godfathers of Herschel thanks to his development of the concept of radiative cooling for space-based infrared telescopes.

As well as being a brilliant astronomer at whichever wavelength he was working in, he was also a truly nice human being. For example, on trips down from Mauna Kea, he’d stop the car and make sure visiting astronomers got to see some of the amazing flora and fauna of the Big Island. I can well remember being astounded when he first showed me the flowers of wild ginger on one such trip.

He’ll be missed.

You can read his obituary at the ROE website, or read some more personal recollections at Andy Lawrence’s blog.

HIFI to make a come back in 2010

A comment from Gert reveals the news that HIFI will be returning to operations in 2010. This is the third instrument on Herschel alongside SPIRE and PACS. It’s been suffering from technical difficulties which have been investigated for the last several months. A fix has now been determined and we hope that it will rapidly return to full operation once it’s been turned back on.

A full report can be found here.

Good news!

And another award!

According to Time Magazine Herschel is in the top 10 best inventions of 2009 – number 7 in fact!

It would be nice if some of these awards came with money

Herschel on the BBC

On Wednesday this week and next week you can get an insight into the workings of a space mission. BBC radio 4 are broadcasting a two episode series called The Herschel Space Telescope about the development and launch of the satellite. Many of those responsible for Herschel and the SPIRE instrument will be featured, possibly even me.

The first show is at 11am on Wednesday 18 November, and the second show a week later. Hopefully those who miss it because they’re at work (like me!) will be able to catch it on Listen Again.

For more information see the BBC webpages for the show.

Best of the Year!

Herschel has been listed as one of the top ten aviation and space projects in Popular Science’s Best of the Year round up.

Thanks very much for the kudos! Hopefully we’ll soon have more results announcements as well!

Smooth Running

Herschel is gently moving from performance verification phase to normal operations via the Science Demonstration phase. Currently various short observations are being made. These have all been offered by the large, Key Programme teams, and represent a the full range of possible observing modes. The idea is to get a set of initial scientific observations to make sure that the whole system is performing well and to get a flavour of the science results that will come from the longer mission.

This is all going rather nicely and it’s already clear that some excellent results are coming. Unfortunately these are all embargoed until ESA has a big meeting in the middle of December to make the first announcement of Herschel science results.

I can nevertheless tell you that good stuff is on its way.

In the meantime those of you in London might like to know about the next if Imperial College’s Great Debates. The subject this time is ‘Human Spaceflight: Science or Spectacle?” with your humble correspondent arguing for ’spectacle’.

Details can be found here.

RSS feed

If you’re having trouble with the RSS feed for this site, the URL you should be using is:

http://herschelmission.wordpress.com/rss

I just checked after a suggestion there was a problem, and it seems to be working fine.

When is science not science?

I was interested to read, via Lord Drayson’s twitter about the IAwards. These have been ‘Launched by the Government to recognise and celebrate the best of British science, innovation and technology’.

Great, I thought. SPIRE is a UK led instrument that is now doing great things on Herschel. We should try to get a nomination.

Then I saw the list of categories:

Life Sciences
Places to Live and Work Sponsored by Building Magazine
A Consumer Product
Best British Inside
Transport
Digital Communications Sponsored by businesszone.co.uk
Cross-application Of Technology Sponsored by Rolls Royce
Energy and Environment
Entertainment and Media Sponsored by The British Library
Best Collaboration
Best Technology Start-up Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
The Next Big Thing Sponsored by Siemens
iaward of the year Sponsored by QinetiQ

Which is rather more technology than science, frankly. And even the science areas (eg. Life Science) have significant restrictions on them: ‘This category is for innovation in any life sciences area which supports society in terms of healthcare and the national challenge of an ageing population.’

So this isn’t exactly looking for the ‘best of British science’ is it? In these terms Nobel Prize Winning British science of the past, clearly among the best of British science, would not be eligible eg. the structure of DNA, the discovery of pulsars, the discovery of fullerenes. I’m sure there are more examples.

This would seem to reflect both a serious misunderstanding of how science works – these awards are much more for technology applications than science – as well as a serious undervaluing of many areas of British science that have been and are still (in spite of funding cuts) still very successful.

If you agree with me you might like to tweet Lord Drayson about this. Meanwhile it looks as if SPIRE will have to look elsewhere for an award…

Visiting academics and the UK

If you host visiting academics to the UK, or are thinking of visiting, you might like to sign this petition…

To: UK Parliament

The UK Home Office has introduced new bureaucratic procedures for
organisations that wish to invite non-EU artists and academics to the UK. As
professionals committed to the principles of internationalism and cultural
exchange, we are dismayed by these new regulations – which will curb our
invitations to non-EU artists and academics to visit the UK for talks,
artist residencies, conferences and temporary exhibitions.

The system is costly to both the host organisation and to the visitor, and
has already meant a number of cancelled exhibitions and concerts. All non-EU
visitors now must apply for a visa in person, and supply biometric data,
electronic fingerprint scans and a digital photograph. The Home Office’s
158-page guideline document also outlines new controls over visitors’
day-to-day activity: visitors must show that they have at least £800 pounds
of personal savings, which have been held for at least three months prior to
the date of their application; the host organisation must keep copies of the
visitor’s passport and their UK Biometric Card, and a history of their
contact details; and if the visitor does not turn up to their studio or
place of work, or their whereabouts is unknown, the organisation is legally
obliged to inform the UK Border Agency.

We, the undersigned, believe that these Home Office restrictions
discriminate against our overseas colleagues on the grounds of their
nationality and financial resources, and will be particularly detrimental to
artists from developing countries, and those with low income. Such
restrictions will damage the vital contribution made by global artists and
scholars to cultural, intellectual and civic life in the UK.

http://www.petitiononline.com/MCvisit/petition.html

Press coverage of the latest Herschel images

Further coverage of the galactic plane images can be found in:

Nature

The Telegraph which includes extensive quotes from the Cardiff SPIRE team

The Scotsman

Physics Today