First Image from the new Herschel telecope

Europe's new Herschel space observatory demonstrated its capability with a first image of the iconic Whirlpool Galaxy.

Albrecht Poglitsch, the lead scientist on PACS, said "nobody in their right mind would ever have predicted such a quality at the very first attempt".

Herschel is sensitive to light at long wavelengths - in the far-infrared and sub-millimetre range.

PACS covers the shorter end of the spectrum; the SPIRE (Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver) instrument looks at the longer end.The image of M51 was taken with PACS.

The image below is the same M51 Whirlpool Galaxy taken by the Hubble telescope.

The Herschel telescope is still being calibrated and is in its commissioning phase.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8110345.stm

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