{"id":1071,"date":"2009-06-23T11:32:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-23T09:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/herschel_opens_its_eyes_and_sees_a_whirlpool\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T00:35:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:35:37","slug":"herschel_opens_its_eyes_and_sees_a_whirlpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/herschel_opens_its_eyes_and_sees_a_whirlpool\/","title":{"rendered":"Herschel otwiera \u2018oczy\u2019 i dostrzega wir"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

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\u2019s Herschel telescope removed its protective \u2018lens cap\u2019. Although it was still being checked out, the mission team decided to bring forward Herschel\u2019s first observations. Their target was one of the most beautiful objects in the sky – M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Herschel\u2019s daring \u2018sneak preview\u2019, made immediately after the telescope\u2019s cover was opened, exceeded everyone\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"M51
M51 Herschel image at 160, 100 and 70 microns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"esa_banner_image":"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2009\/06\/herschel_s_test_view_of_m513\/17893574-2-eng-GB\/Herschel_s_test_view_of_M51.jpg","esa_banner_description":"Herschel's test view of M51","esa_banner_credit":"ESA and the PACS Consortium","esa_banner_licence":"ESA Standard Licence","esa_banner_detail_url":"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/ESA_Multimedia\/Images\/2009\/06\/Herschel_s_test_view_of_M513","esa_external_url":"","esa_external_new_window":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true},"categories":[10,11,21],"tags":[],"panel":[],"language":[],"age":[],"duration":[],"resource_type":[],"audience":[],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learn","category-our-universe","category-stars-and-galaxies"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4833,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions\/4833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"panel","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panel?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"age","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"duration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/duration?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"resource_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_type?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}