The largest infrared space telescope ever launched has run out of cryogenic coolant, permanently ending its science operations.


The marvelous effects of massive star formation in the Carina Nebula appear in this Herschel image. Stellar winds and radiation have carved pillars and bubbles in the dense, dusty gas clouds. This image is a compilation of observations at 70, 160, and 250 microns.
ESA / PACS / SPIRE /T. Preibisch (Universitäts-Sternwarte München, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
The European Space Agency announced today that its infrared Herschel Space Observatory has finally kicked the light bucket.

Herschel launched May 14, 2009 with the Planck satellite and was the first space observatory to cover far-infrared to submillimeter wavelengths, its observations spanning 55 to 672 microns. Both spacecraft went to L2, the second Lagrange point in the Sun-Earth gravitational system where a small mass can basically “hover” without being pulled this way or that.

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