Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Herschel Telescope HIFI

From Spaceflight Now.

The Herschel telescope's highest resolution instrument will begin observing the infrared universe this month after operations were suspended in August due to faulty electronics, according to the mission's project scientist.

The Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared was built to obtain revolutionary new information on dynamic star-forming regions, galactic nuclei and interstellar gas. HIFI will study the motion and composition of material throughout the universe, specifically hunting for water and carbon by observing a single pixel in the sky at a time.