The Herschel Telescope 10th year anniversary conference
ESA campus outside Madrid, Spain. May 2019. © 2019 Michael Clarage
The Herschel telescope is famous for images like this, in the Orion Nebula. Before Herschel we thought this section of the sky was just dark, empty. I guess we now see something different
The astronomical community at large has not caught up to the findings of the Herschel telescope
all stars are connected to other stars
there is no such thing as empty space
there are many mysterious beautiful structures out there in our galaxy - - like what the heck is that blue bubble, and why does it seem to be protruding out from that other batch of bright objects that are not stars but maybe are embryonic stars? (see further comment at the bottom)
Astronomy now is where cellular biology was in the 1990's when we were discovering all the molecular structures & electrical pathways associated with cell function - - all the textbooks need to be re-written. It's not that everything was wrong, it's that everything was incomplete. All science is always incomplete. The strength of Science is that ability to say, "we need to re-write the story because now we see things that we did not see before."
The European scientists I met here are much more open than the average American counterpart. They listen to what you say, they think about what you said, and they respond to what you said. This was such a refreshing change. Often you do not notice something until you travel outside your usual place.
One of the manager's of SOFIA telescope time asked me to submit a proposal, for observations specifically to study electric fields and currents in the interstellar medium. This is a very big deal.
Above, me parking my scooter in the ESAC visitor lot. I had just driven up from Toledo. Right before that picture I actually shouted aloud, "oh my God, I am parking my scooter in the ESA parking lot!" This was my first ESA conference. I have not been so excited in quite some time. To the right is a shot from the conference hall.
Behind me is Ignacio. He and I collaborate on interstellar medium research. He is trying to convince me of some new way we need to analyze the raw data. Behind him is a model of an ESA satellite.
The Herschel mission had no formal document describing scientific objectives. That is unheard of. Policy demands a very long document describing what scientists plan on learning. Of course such lengthy documents are needed when you are spending $500 million of tax payers' money. And, of course, such documents are pointless because any good research project will yield things you never could have predicted. Most of us in the audience shared a moment of silence as we realized that Herschel is by most accounts considered one of THE most successful missions in ESA history.
Many thanks to the Ronin Institute (http://ronininstitute.org/) for a scholarship to help defray my costs.
Toledo is old & layered. Most streets and buildings have four or five distinct layers of stone & style. When you look at one thing you see five. I love it. I needed to see El Greco paintings in person. In particular "Christ and the 12 apostles" and "The burial of the Count of Orgaz". I also needed to ride a scooter through the Spanish country side. Below are a few shots from the streets of Toledo.
Madrid. All the rumors are true, the streets come alive at sunset. Thousands of people out walking, sipping coffee, drinking wine, eating, shopping, talking. And all that continues till about 1:00 AM on a Tuesday night. And yes, almost nothing opens before 10:00AM. I realize now that these photos do not convey how many people were out and about.
The conference group photo