May 15
Europeans Launch Two Space Telescopes
Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
Two European space telescopes have lifted off atop an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency’s launch center in French Guiana on Thursday, according to MSNBC. The two telescopes will help astronomers learn more about the origins of the universe.
Herschel, an infared telescope, will study the earliest stages of star and galaxy development and search for the presence of water in outer space. Planck, meanwhile, is a microwave telescope that will study the radiation left behind by the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, the report said, in an attempt to learn more about dark matter and dark energy–both of which constitute over 90 percent of the material in space.
“Our previous images of the baby universe were like fuzzy snapshots–now we’ll have the cleanest, deepest and sharpest images ever made of the early universe,” Charles Lawrence, a NASA Planck project scientist, said in a Jet Propulsion Laboratory statement.
On both telescopes, liquid helium will cool the instruments to 459 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, or 0.3 Kelvin (for Herschel) and 0.1 Kelvin (for Planck), in order for both of them to work properly, the report said. Herschel will arrive in orbit in two months, and then four months later will begin its 3.5-year mission. Planck will also reach orbit in two months and start its 15-month mission one month later. The two missions together cost about $2.5 billion. (Image credit: ESA)
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