Herschel Space Observatory, European Space Agency (ESA)

Herschel will investigate how stars and galaxies formed and how they continue to form in our own and other galaxies, meanwhile Planck will look back at the dawn of time, helping astronomers to study the birth and evolution of the Universe.

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This animation shows the timeline of over 37 000 scientific observations made by ESA's Herschel space observatory throughout its entire mission, condensed into less than a minute.

The animation was prepared by Pedro Gomez-Alvarez in the Herschel Science Centre Community Support Group and presented by Herschel's Project Scientist G?ran Pilbratt during the opening session of The Universe Explored by Herschel symposium held at ESA's ESTEC facility, in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, last month.

The animation runs from launch, on 14 May 2009, until the infrared observatory made its last observation on 29 April 2013.

Credit: ESA & P. Gomez-Alvarez / music: B. Lynne.

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