The Herschel Space Observatory - uncovering the hidden universe

Approximately half the energy in the extragalactic background is emitted between the wavelengths of 60 and 600 microns, implying that roughly half of the optical light emittted by all the objects in the universe since the big bang has been absorbed by dust and then rerardiated at longer wavelengths. Nevertheless, despite its importance in energy terms, this part of the electromagnectic spectrum has been barely explored for astronomy. This will soon change with the launch of the Herschel Space Observatory late in 2008. I will describe the main key survey projects that will be carried out with Herschel, including the largest two largest projects: HERMES and the Herschel ATLAS. HERMES is a set of six nested surveys with the main aim of uncovering the history of star formation during the last 10 billion years. The Herschel ATLAS is a survey of 600 square degrees, five times larger than all the other Herschel surveys combined, which has multiple science aims ranging from cosmology to protostars