The European Space Agency’s Universe-ity satellite launch

The European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory and Planck Surveyor satellites contains the SPIRE instrument that Professor Matt Griffin developed as well as other key instruments provided by Professor Peter Ade, both from the School of Physics and Astronomy.

The European Space Agency (ESA), established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states. Headquartered in Paris, ESA has a staff of close to 2,000 with an annual budget of about €10 billion in 2009.

The instruments, developed by teams led by Cardiff University Professors Griffin and Ade, includes a camera, which is able to take extremely detailed images in three sub millimetre ‘colours’.

Professor Griffin commented: “It will offer astronomers a very powerful tool for many astrophysical studies from our own solar system to the most distant galaxies.

“The results will reveal how stars like the Sun are forming in our own galaxy today, how the galaxies grew and evolved over cosmic time, and how planetary systems can develop from the dust and gas around young stars.”

The satellites will use this camera to collect images of the universe at far infrared wavelengths, which will provide detailed information about how the universe began.

Professor Ade, also the UK Instrument Scientist for Planck satellites, said: “The Planck satellite will revolutionise our understanding of how the Universe we live in began in the first split second of the Big Bang, and it will use the early universe as a laboratory for fundamental physics, revealing new insight into the forces of nature.”

After World War II, many European scientists left Western Europe in order to work either in the United States or the Soviet Union. Although the 1950s boom made it possible for Western European countries to invest in research and specifically in space related activities, Western European scientists realised solely national projects would not be able to compete with the two main superpowers.

In 1958, only months after the Sputnik shock, Edoardo Amaldi and Pierre Auger, two prominent members of the western European scientific community at that time, met to discuss the foundation of a common western European space agency. The meeting was attended by scientific representatives from eight countries, including Harrie Massey (UK).

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