Later this month the European Space Agency will launch the Herschel Space Observatory (formerly called Far Infrared and Sub-millimetre Telescope or FIRST) into remote orbit 1.5 million kilometres from Earth (or four times the distance to the moon). The telescope has the largest single mirror ever built for a space telescope. At 3.5-metres in diameter the mirror will collect long-wavelength radiation from some of the coldest and most distant objects in the Universe. In addition, Herschel will be the only space observatory to cover a spectral range from the far infrared to sub-millimetre.
Herschel is only the latest in a list of similar heat sensing telescopes placed in orbit outside of Earth the others being IRAS (1983), ISO (1995-98), Spitzer (2003-09), Akari (2006-2007).
While admiring these efforts to boldly go where no-one has gone before, its almost axoimatic that the large funds spent on space exploration would equally be valuable being focussed on the declining environmental situation back on planet Earth. Its almost ironic that as science explores the outer reaches of space and the formation of the universe, our own home planet is heading for an atmospheric decline which may render much of this exploration as redundant.
