April 30, 2013
Observatory makes startling discoveries:
Waterloo innovation on the Herschel Space Observatory helped advance space exploration, says astronomy professor.
Mike Fich has bid farewell to a faithful colleague.
The Herschel Space Observatory, launched in May 2009 with technology from the University of Waterloo on board, has taken its last gulp of liquid helium. Helium super-cools instruments that enabled the telescope to send back incredible information as it viewed space in the far-infrared to submillimetre frequencies for the first time.
“It’s been terrific. It’s amazing the stuff we’ve gotten out of it,” says Fich, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Waterloo.
Fich says the science world has been well served by Herschel. Researchers got extra time out of the observatory, which was designed to have a three-and-a-half year lifetime.
Fich’s research group developed a device to help the telescope tune across desired frequencies as it looks at dying stars, emerging planets and other distant events that occurred millions of years ago. COMDEV International built the tuner in Cambridge, Ontario.
Clues from a comet
Fich is the lead Canadian researcher on the HIFI instrument team for the Herschel project, a collaboration of agencies and academic institutions around the world operating under the European Space Agency.
Among Herschel’s startling discoveries: a comet of the right type and water composition to support a theory that comet collisions formed the Earth’s oceans. The information and images Herschel provides will keep scientists busy for years.
In addition to the scientific and commercial advantages of Herschel, he sees another that is often overlooked. “When we start doing real rocket science in Canada, in Waterloo, it encourages kids to think about careers in science. That’s a very real benefit to Canada.”
Through his group, Waterloo-developed innovation will advance the exploration of space long after Herschel has sent its last dispatch. Fich is involved in the CCAT Observatory, a telescope to be built by the end of the decade in the Andes mountains in Chile.
And he is working on another project expected to head into space in 2035.
“I’ll be retired before it launches,” he says. “Some things take a really long time.”
