A space ant fires its lasers 16 May 2018 A rare phenomenon connected to the death of a star has been discovered in observations made by ESA's Herschel space observatory: an unusual laser emission from the spectacular Ant Nebula, which suggests the presence of a double star system hidden at its heart. Read more

Herschel data links mysterious quasar winds to furious starbursts 07 December 2017 Astronomers have used ESA's Herschel Space Observatory to solve a decades-old mystery about the origin of powerful cool gas winds in the hot environs of quasars. The evidence linking these powerful winds to star formation in the quasar host galaxies may also help resolve the mystery of why the size of galaxies in the Universe appears to be capped. Read more

Herschel discovers galaxy merger in the very early Universe 13 November 2017 What seemed at first like a rare instance of a huge, ancient galaxy revealed itself to be an even rarer pair of extremely massive galaxies, seen on the brink of merging when the Universe was only a billion years old. Read more

Science data, discoveries and people: the legacy of ESA's Herschel Space Observatory 21 September 2017 The Herschel mission, a trailblazing space observatory that provided a unique view of our cosmos during its almost four years of operations, leaves a legacy of treasured data, thousands of scientific papers, as well as a new generation of astronomers who cut their professional teeth on this remarkable endeavour. Read more

Herschel's chronicles of galaxy evolution 20 September 2017 Delving deep into the history of our cosmos, the Herschel Space Observatory scrutinised hundreds of thousands of star-forming galaxies, peering back in time to when the Universe was less than one billion years old. Read more