Herschel’s infrared eyes

What is it about?

Look – there’s a model of the Herschel! This is the largest infrared telescope which – thanks to research – is still floating in space with ‘eyes’ made by researchers from Groningen. The telescope searched for exotic solar systems at the edge of the Universe. It detected light waves that have taken billions of years to reach Earth. Herschel collected vast amounts of data for scientists to analyse!

How do scientists use this knowledge?

SRON has a department here in Groningen. You can think of it as the Dutch equivalent of NASA. SRON’s researchers study the Universe and, together with physicists and astronomers from the University of Groningen and elsewhere, they produced one of the measurement instruments that Herschel used to explore the Universe.

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