Herschel opens its 'eyes' and sees a whirlpool

The most powerful infrared space observatory ever built has opened its electronic eyes for the first time and captured some stunning views of a spinning star system. On 14 June, a month after liftoff from Kourou, French Guiana, ESA’s Herschel telescope removed its protective ‘lens cap’. Although it was still being checked out, the mission team decided to bring forward Herschel’s first observations. Their target was one of the most beautiful objects in the sky - M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy.

Herschel’s daring ‘sneak preview’, made immediately after the telescope’s cover was opened, exceeded everyone’s expectations. The test images of the famous spiral galaxy were taken in three colours in order to bring out different features. They turned out to be the sharpest pictures of the Whirlpool ever taken in infrared light, and clearly showed the superior performance of Herschel, the largest space telescope ever flown. And this was just a glimpse of things to come.

Discovered in 1773, the Whirlpool was the first galaxy ever seen to have a spiral structure. With its long, trailing arms and a bright nucleus filled with stars, the beautiful galaxy is similar in shape to our Milky Way. It is also a fairly close neighbour, lying about 35 million light years away, in the small northern constellation called Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs).

At the time the images were taken, Herschel was 1,425,000 km from Earth and speeding towards the point in space where it will operate for at least 3 years. Its supercooled instruments will then be used to look back toward the dawn of time.