Herschel telescope 'in last year' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News, Vancouver

Herschel, Europe's billion-euro space observatory, has entered what is likely to be its last year of operation.

The telescope studies the formation of stars, and has taken some remarkable pictures since its launch in May 2009.

But its detectors require a constant supply of superfluid helium to keep working, and the store of this coolant has now dropped to less than 100kg.

This past week saw Herschel begin what engineers believe will be the final 365 days of its mission life.

"There's quite a bit of uncertainty in all this, of course," said Dr Paul Goldsmith from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17087434

[Jim Lane]

1. I wonered why astronauts couldn't visit and replenish the helium

According to the linked article, Herschel orbits about 900,000 miles from the Earth, so it's much farther away than the Moon.