CAYENNE, French Guiana (Reuters) – An Ariane rocket launched two scientific space observatories on Thursday that will help scientists better understand the formation of the universe, space officials said. The rocket blasted off from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) launch centre in Kourou, French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America at 10.12 am.
Twenty-six minutes after lift-off, the rocket released into orbit the Herschel space telescope followed two minutes later by the Planck observatory.
Billed by the ESA as “two of the most sophisticated astronomical spacecraft ever built,” the observatories will begin a 60-day journey to the Lagrange point, an orbital slot 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from earth.
“The instruments aboard are revolutionary,” Jacques Louet, head of science projects for ESA, told Reuters at the Kourou launch site on Wednesday.
“They will be using technologies that have never been applied,” he said.
Largest mirror in space
Herschel has the largest mirror of any space telescope now in orbit. Its 3.5-m (11.5 ft) diameter primary mirror is one-and-a-half-times the size of the Hubble Telescope’s main reflector. The spacecraft is a far-infrared and sub-millimetre telescope which will investigate how stars and galaxies form and how they evolve.
By studying infrared light, it will be able to see through clouds of dust that currently obscure astronomer’s view of star and galaxy formation, to illuminate the processes behind them.
It also will examine the dust ejected by dying stars, which spread the heavy elements necessary for life through the universe, and will analyse the composition of comets and planets the solar system.
Planck will research an even more elemental aspect of astronomy — the period immediately after the Big Bang.
It should provide new insights into how the cosmos came into being, and why it looks the way it does now.
George Efstathiou, a Cambridge University astronomer and member of Planck’s scientific team said: “In addition to learning the physics of the early universe close to the Big Bang, we are hoping to learn about what will happen to the universe in the future.”
“The universe may collapse, expand forever or it may be part of a ‘multi-verse’ and our universe may decay into some different kind of universe. We just don’t know.” he said.
Both satellites will be cooled to near absolute zero in order to function.
Prime contractor for both spacecraft was Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture company between France’s Thales and Italy’s Finmeccanica.
The launch comes as a Nasa shuttle reached Hubble on a repair mission to give it a new lease of life.
