The Herschel space observatory is a scientific mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). The space telescope is dedicated to the study of the cold universe by performing astronomical observations in the far infrared and submillimetre parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.


Herschel was successfully launched together with Planck on 14 May 2009. Science observing started in autumn 2009 and continued until 29 April 2013, when end-of-helium took place in DTCP#1447 after successfully performing all observing scheduled for OD#1446.


The HOBYS guaranteed time key programme for the study of star formation with the PACS and SPIRE instruments focuses on imaging star-forming regions in giant molecular clouds across the Milky Way. Regions such Orion, Vela and Cygnus X will be studied. 120 hours are devoted to these programmes.

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The best Herschel images & results

A GALACTIC BUBBLE

It’s a Galactic bubble with a large surprise. How large? At least 8 times the mass of the Sun. Nestled in the shell around this large bubble is an embryonic star that looks set to turn into one of the brightest stars in the Galaxy.

THE SPINE OF SWAN

This image shows the DR21 ridge, a very massive filamentary structure oriented north-south in the extremely active star-forming region Cygnus X. It resides at a distance of about 4500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan.

STELLAR WINDS

Chaotic networks of dust and gas signpost the next generations of massive stars in this stunning new image of the Cygnus-X star-nursery captured by ESA’s Herschel space observatory.

NESTS OF STARS

The Vela Molecular Ridge is a vast star-forming complex in the plane of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. Observing this region at far-infrared wavelengths, ESA's Herschel Space Observatory has obtained an extraordinarily detailed image of the most massive component of this molecular complex, known as Vela-C.

THE PROJECT

With its unprecedented spatial resolution in the critical 75-500 microns wavelength range, Herschel will provide a unique opportunity to determine, for the first time, the fundamental properties of the precursors of OB stars at distances out to a few kpc. The imaging speed of SPIRE and PACS in the parallel mode will enable us to map the entire extent of massive cloud complexes and detect the massive young stellar objects which have been overlooked by IRAS and Spitzer, i.e. the high-mass infrared-quiet protostars and pre-stellar cores.

We propose to use SPIRE and PACS to image essentially all of the regions forming OB-type stars at distances 3 kpc from the Sun (total area of 22 deg2). To complement this imaging survey, we propose to take smaller photometric and spectroscopic maps with PACS toward a handful of isolated regions that display triggered star formation. The 75/110/170-micron PACS and 250/350/500-micron SPIRE images of this project will provide an unbiased census of both massive pre-stellar cores and massive Class 0-like protostars, and will trace the large-scale emission of the surrounding clouds.

This survey will yield for the first time accurate far-infrared photometry, and thus good luminosity and mass estimates, for a comprehensive, homogeneous sample of OB-type young stellar objects at all evolutionary stages. The multi-wavelength imaging will also reveal spatial variations of the cloud temperature close to HII regions and OB associations. These data, along with the detailed photometric and spectroscopic study of a few prototypical regions of induced star formation, will allow us to determine the importance of external triggers for high-mass star formation in the nearest massive molecular cloud complexes.

This Herschel Key Programme is crucially needed to better understand the formation of OB-type stars and will provide the basis for many follow-up studies. In addition, the data will provide templates for galactic studies of star formation, both in our Galaxy and others.

Coordinators

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Frédérique Motte
Annie Zavagno
Sylvain Bontemps

Members

A. Abergel, P. Ade, Ph. André, J.-P. Baluteau, J.-P. Bernard, L. Cambrésy, P. Cox, L. Deharveng, J. Di Francesco, A. Di Giorgio, T. Giannini, M. Griffin, P. Hargrave,  M. Hennemann, T. Hill, M. Huang, J. Kirk, S. Leeks, J. Li, A. Marston, P. Martin, A. Men’schikov, V. Minier, S. Molinari, G. Olofsson, A. Omont, P. Persi, S. Pezzuto, D. Russeil, P. Saraceno, M. Sauvage, N. Schneider, B. Sibthorpe,L. Spinoglio, L. Testi, D. Teyssier, R. Vavrek, D. Ward-Thompson, G. White, C. Wilson, A. Woodcraft
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