Cardiff Astronomical Society

Next talk: Thursday 3rd September 2026

The Secret History of a Space Telescope - Professor Stephen Eales, Cardiff University

The Secret History of a Space Telescope

The Herschel Space Observatory was launched to answer the fundamental questions of how the stars and galaxies were born. Apart from providing partial answers to these two big questions, Herschel made major discoveries about the structure of interstellar gas, the origin of interstellar dust and the source of the water that flows out of our taps. It was also a lot of fun. Because the mission was so much fun. After it finished I interviewed many of the scientists who had been involved in building and using the observatory. I eventually ended up writing a book about it ('The Ghost in the Telescope').
In my talk, I will describe some of the scientific discoveries made with Herschel and also describe what it was like, for someone who had only ever used telescopes on the ground, to be caught up in a space astronomy mission.

The Speaker

Stephen Eales is an astronomer who also writes about astronomy. After research positions at the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii and the Space Telescope Science Institute, he is now a professor of astrophysics at Cardiff University, where he carries out research into the origin and evolution of galaxies. He has written two books about astronomy for a general audience: 'Origins - the origin of planets, stars, galaxies and the universe'; and 'The Ghost in the Telescope'. He was awarded the Herschel Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society for his contributions to observational astrophysics.