Herschel intends to study large regions of the Milky Way in its combined Spire-Pacs scanning mode. The instruments will, of course, also work independently.

The mission is due to go into routine operations in the next few weeks. However, its third instrument is currently down after experiencing a fault.

Engineers can switch to a back-up system to reactivate the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HiFi), but they do not intend to do that until they have satisfied themselves the cause the anomaly is properly understood.

The Dutch-led HiFi is a spectrometer that will identify elements and molecules in the clouds of gas and dust which give rise to stars.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk


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