Talk:Herschel Space Observatory

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1 Focal length
2 Launch delay
3 Science goals
4 Detector temperatures
5 Introduction and mission statement

[edit] Focal length

The article lists the focal length as 27000 mm, which seems a little exessive (27 metres?). any idea where this number came from? I assume the correct value is 2.7m, but i cant find a source Modest Genius ^talk 23:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Launch delay

Any ideas why the launch was delayed from 2007 -> 2008 ? --Salsa man 19:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Broad variety of reasons: Problems with the mounting of the subreflector, problems with the initial design of the cryostat, many technical problems in details of all three instruments

[edit] Science goals

The statement that Herschel is only directed towards distant objects is wrong. There are large projects studying the atmospheres of planets in the solar system and on the warm interstellar medium within our Galaxy, i.e. of objects only a few hundred parsecs away.

That depends on what one considers `distant'. I've reconstructed the sentence, now including reference to solar system targets, galactic targets and extragalactic targets. Drawback: this information is basically repeated in the listing of Herschel's science goals. Oh well, at least this section no longer states any false (or ambiguous) information. MHD 12:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Detector temperatures

Only SPIRE and PACS have detector temperatures below 2K. HIFI has a detector temperature between 2 and 3K.

[edit] Introduction and mission statement

Instead of listing all people who contributed to this project in the introduction, perhaps it would be better to include the mission statement and other general information into the introduction?

And perhaps some of the technical data can be rewritten to better explain their purpose to those of us who have little scientific information? Crownsteler (talk) 15:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)