Institut d'astrophysique spatiale

End of life of HFI, the High Frequency Instrument onboard the Planck satellite

After 30 months of flawless operations, the high frequency instrument of the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite has been turned off. For more than 1000 days, its detectors have been among the coldest places in the extraterrestrial universe, with a total lifetime more than the double the expectations.

The “Laboratory of Excellence” Physics of the 2 Infinites and of the Origins (P2IO), of which IAS is a partner, organizes its kick-off meeting on the 11th of January 2012, from 9AM to 6PM, at the Henri Cartan amphitheater (building 427 of Paris-Sud University, Orsay campus).

The simulation of the evolution of interstellar ices in the laboratory is one of the activities of the team « Astrochimie et Origines » at IAS. These experiments have shown that the photochemical evolution of dirty ices lead to the build-up of a large number of complex organic molecules considered to be important for further prebiotic chemistry. Recently, a specific molecule has been detected in the organic residues extracted at the end of the experiment: hydantoïne (figure 1). This molecule is known to behave as a catalyst for the formation of peptide bonds, resulting in the formation of long oligopeptides that may be viewed as proto proteins.

On October 4th, 2011, the European Space Agency (ESA) has chosen Solar Orbiter and Euclid as the first two missions of the Cosmic Vision programme. The Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale is strongly involved in both these space missions.