Nationalgeographic, By: Andrew Fazekas, 05/03/2013
After nearly four years of glorious service to science, the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory mission has come to the end this week. Running out of helium coolant needed to chill its instruments down to near absolute zero means that it has closed its far-infrared eyes to the Universe for good. After a few final tests, controllers will park the retired probe in a permanent solar orbit.
Its mission was a far-reaching one – to study for the first time some of the coldest regions of space and examine the molecular chemistry of objects across the Universe- from distant galaxies and newborn stars to the atmosphere’s of gas giant planets and comets.
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