Meanwhile, we've been busy putting together the first results from HerMES, a major project on Herschel looking at star formation in hundreds of thousands of very distant galaxies. These were among the many results announced last week at an ESA conference in The Netherlands (which included a media event), and now the HerMES scientific papers are being made available to anyone who enjoys reading that kind of thing, and, indeed to anyone who doesn't. For mere mortals, though, the pretty pictures are on OSHI, the Online Showcase of Herschel Images and on the Herschel blog.

Credit: ESA

At Sussex we're busy getting ready for data from both Herschel and Planck, but it'll be a few months before they reach that distant location known as L2, where they'll start their proper survey observations. So, in the meantime, here are some links...

• ESA launch page
• Another ESA launch page
• Watch the launch live on the Arianespace webcast page or on the ESA webcast page