Here is an absolutely brilliant article from physicsworld.com, Jan 3rd 2013, by Steve Eales, explaining clearly and interestingly the sub-millimetre (100 micrometers to 1 mm wavelengths) observations made by the JCMT and the Herschel Space Observatory.
In my view, the Herschel Space Observatory was
more important than the Hubble Space Telescope, as a
very large fraction of the universe became observable only when the Herschel Telescope came into action;
most of the universe is extremely cold, yet optically-dark matter at a chilly 10-30 degrees Kelvin "lights up like a christmas tree" in Herschel Telescope images!
In fact, I believe that the loss of the Herschel Space Telescope due to it running out of coolant was
arguably the biggest disaster ever for the science of astronomy;
yes, this was planned for, but
a short mission of only a few years was a colossal waste of a billion dollar 3.5-meter space telescope.
I have converted the article to Microsoft Word 2000 (.doc) format:
Submm Astronomy explained__(Steve Eales__PhysicsWorld__Jan 3rd 2013)Cool dust and baby stars.doc
Cheers,
mad galaxy man
Additional 'higher level' article added in edit :
For those of you who want an intermediate-level article, here is a good paper explaining the
critically important role of the Herschel Space Telescope in figuring out how it is that stars form:
____SF_____NEW__prestellare cores_herschel survey characterised.pdf