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First Herschel Science!

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Lots of new Herschel science will be released over the next few days by ESA. The first new result is an image of a region in Acquilla (not the Eagle Nebula as I originally stated – apologies!) taken with the PACS and SPIRE instruments.

The Eagle Nebula image reveals the dust and young stars obscured from observation by telescopes, such as HST, working at shorter wavelengths. Much structure is seen in this image, revealing the complex turbulent interactions behind star and planet formation.

More images and science results are coming. There should be several more releases over the next few days, coinciding with the early Herschel science meeting currently underway in Madrid (I’m not there so can’t report live). ESA have set up a central resource for all new Herschel images – the OSHI – online showcase of Herschel images. There’s not much there at the moment, but it’ll soon be filling up!

This entry was posted on December 16, 2009 at 3:16 pm and is filed under astronomy, ESA, Herschel, In the media, PACS, science, spire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “First Herschel Science!”

  1. Pasquale Says:
    December 16, 2009 at 4:55 pm | Reply

    Hi Dave,

    I can’t see in the ESA site any detail about which SPIRE/PACS bands were used and how they were coded in colors. Do you have any further detail?

  2. Dave Says:
    December 16, 2009 at 4:59 pm | Reply

    I’m afraid not – I’ve just taken this from the ESA website. Maybe you could ask Phillipe?

    • Pasquale Says:
      December 16, 2009 at 5:27 pm | Reply

      I think Phillipe is in Madrid to present those results… I’ll ask here around if anybody knows more on it and report back!

  3. Mark McCaughrean Says:
    December 16, 2009 at 7:50 pm | Reply

    Dave et al.;

    This is a PACS+SPIRE composite, 70+160+500 microns. Philippe wasn’t here today to present, unfortunately, but will be here tomorrow for the science meeting, I gather. Matt Griffin showed the image instead … The colour processing was done by us at ESA, for what it’s worth 🙂

    An error that’s propagated to Slashdot from your blog, however, is that this is an image of the Eagle Nebula: it’s not. It’s a piece of the constellation Aquila, or Eagle, showing the star-forming regions Westerhout 40 and Sharpless 62 (based on my own sleuthing). The Eagle Nebula, M16, is quite something else and is in Serpens which is the next door constellation, I believe.

    • Dave Says:
      December 16, 2009 at 8:41 pm | Reply

      Thanks for the information and the correction. The confusion with Eagle Nebula and Aquilla is probably mine – too much latin at school. Not sure how easy it will be to re-educate the slashdotters at this point though. I’ll edit this blog accordingly.

  4. Anthony Smith Says:
    December 17, 2009 at 10:25 am | Reply

    Pasquale – I *think* they said 70, 160 and 500 microns in the presentation.

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