Location: Room E

Time: 16:00 hrs

The Herschel Space Observatory, launched in May of 2009, offers an unprecedented view of the universe at far-infrared and sub-millimetre wavelengths. The design and construction of one of Herschel's three science instruments, HIFI, was led by the Netherlands, with important contributions from TU Delft. In this talk I will highlight some of the initial science results to come out of HIFI. In particular, I will focus on the high-resolution spectroscopy of water in low-mass protostars, as carried out in the Guaranteed-Time Key Programme "Water in Star-Forming Regions with Herschel" (WISH). Thanks to HIFI's high spectral resolution, we can now use water as a sensitive tracer of the energetic and dynamic processes that take place during the formation of stars like our own Sun.