http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22914076
The billion-euro Herschel space telescope has been switched off.
Controllers on Monday emptied the satellite's fuel tanks and commanded the observatory to sever all communications.
The "passivated" spacecraft is now in a slow drift around the Sun, about 2.14 million km from Earth.
With its 3.5m mirror and three state-of-the-art instruments, Herschel was the most powerful observatory of its kind ever put in space.
In its four years of operations, it gathered pictures and other data at far-infrared wavelengths that have transformed our understanding of star formation and galaxy evolution.
The final command to turn off the communications transponder was sent from the European Space Operations Centre (Esoc) in Darmstadt, Germany, at 12:25 GMT.
The billion-euro Herschel space telescope has been switched off.
Controllers on Monday emptied the satellite's fuel tanks and commanded the observatory to sever all communications.
The "passivated" spacecraft is now in a slow drift around the Sun, about 2.14 million km from Earth.
With its 3.5m mirror and three state-of-the-art instruments, Herschel was the most powerful observatory of its kind ever put in space.
In its four years of operations, it gathered pictures and other data at far-infrared wavelengths that have transformed our understanding of star formation and galaxy evolution.
The final command to turn off the communications transponder was sent from the European Space Operations Centre (Esoc) in Darmstadt, Germany, at 12:25 GMT.
