File:Star Galaxies Revealed - Origins of Life Mission ESA-NASA.jpg: Difference between revisions

You are looking at over 140,000 points of light, every one a galaxy containing billions of stars, trillions of planets .... life

Photo credit: ESA - European Space Agency

Herschel Space Observatory

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Space_Observatory

• https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=2009-026A

• http://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Herschel/Caroline_and_William_Herschel_Revealing_the_invisible

(2009) https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/herschel/sneak-preview

Herschel was the fourth and final cornerstone mission in the Horizon 2000 programme, following SOHO/Cluster II, XMM-Newton and Rosetta. NASA is a partner in the Herschel mission, with US participants contributing to the mission; providing mission-enabling instrument technology and sponsoring the NASA Herschel Science Center (NHSC) at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center and the Herschel Data Search at the Infrared Science Archive.

The observatory was carried into orbit in May 2009, reaching the second Lagrangian point (L2) of the Earth–Sun system, 1,500,000 kilometres (930,000 mi) from Earth, about two months later. Herschel is named after Sir William Herschel, the discoverer of the infrared spectrum and planet Uranus, and his sister and collaborator Caroline Herschel.

The observatory was capable of seeing the coldest and dustiest objects in space; for example, cool cocoons where stars form and dusty galaxies just starting to bulk up with new stars.[11] The observatory sifted through star-forming clouds—the "slow cookers" of star ingredients—to trace the path by which potentially life-forming molecules, such as water, form.

http://www.geologyin.com/2020/01/7-billion-year-old-stardust-is-oldest.html