In 2007 the European Space Agency will launch the Herschel Space Observatory into a deep space orbit 1.5 million kilometres from Earth with a camera designed and built in Ireland - at Maynooth College, Co. Kildare. Dr. Neil Trappe from Maynooth is working on this prestigious project and will describe a completely new area of astronomy that the camera will be designed to probe - "Submillimetre Astronomy" - the title of his talk, which is aimed at the general public. SEEING THROUGH CLOUDS Herschel is a 3.5m diameter reflector with three sophisticated instruments at the focal plane, housed inside an evacuated vessel cooled with liquid helium to allow them to make extremely sensitive and precise measurements of the intensities and spectra in the wavelength range of 0.08 to 0.70 millimetres. Herschel will be particularly suited to observing the tenuous material between stars and will be able to observe stars like our own sun forming deep within clouds of this material. THE DARK AGE OF THE BIG BANG By looking at faint distant galaxies in the far infrared we are also looking back in time. It will thus be possible to use Herschel to observe the formation of galaxies in the Early Universe soon after the Big Bang in a period known as the 'Dark Age'. OUR SOLAR SYSTEM Much closer to home in our own solar system, Herschel will also be used study comets and planetary atmospheres. IRISH CAMERA Known as HIFI, the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared, has a lot of Irish involvement in its design and construction. It will allow interstellar gas and planetary atmospheres to be measured with exquisite precision. A large number of familiar molecules are to be found making up the interstellar gas, not only simple molecules like carbon monoxide but also a large range of organic molecules. ALL WELCOME Everyone is welcome to come along and hear Neil explain what they hope to discover, why this new 'window' on the universe is so important, and how Irish astronomers at Maynooth are opening this window for the first time with a powerful new space telescope. It is a very important Irish project that we hope you will all along come along to hear about: Astronomy Ireland presents this PUBLIC LECTURE "Submillimetre Astronomy" By Dr Neil Trappe Monday June 14 at 8pm in Dublin City University (Henry Grattan Building, beside The Helix) All welcome. Admission 5euro (3euro to AI members, students, unwaged, OAPs) Hoping to see you all there, David Moore, Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 5. Tel (01) 847 0777 www.astronomy.ie info@astronomy.ie