(1914-1997), one of the first people to propose the idea of using telescopes in space. 18, 2003, the SIRTF was renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope in honor of Lyman S. In this orbit, at 0.996 × 1.019 AU, Earth doesn’t hinder observation of potential targets. ![]() 29 and its aperture door opened the next day. The telescope’s dust cover was ejected Aug. 3, the telescope was in an Earth-trailing orbit around the Sun. 25, 2003, sending both the second stage and the observatory into a hyperbolic orbit. The second stage ignited again at 06:13 UT Aug. The initial orbit was 103 × 104 miles (166 × 167 kilometers) at 31.5 degrees. 25, 2003, on a Delta II Heavy (in a two-stage Delta 7925H configuration) inserted the second stage and payload. The CTA was cooled to 5 degrees above absolute zero (minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 268 degrees Celsius) using 95 gallons (360 liters) of liquid helium to ensure that the observatory’s “body heat” did not interfere with the observation of relatively cold cosmic objects. The planned two-and-a-half-year mission was designed to detect infrared radiation from heliocentric orbit. ![]() Credit: NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development (VTAD) It carries a 34-inch (85-centimeter) infrared telescope and three scientific instruments as part of the cryogenic telescope assembly (CTA).Ī 3D model of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility or SIRTF) was the fourth and last of NASA’s “Great Observatories,” after the Hubble Space Telescope (launched in 1990), the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (1991), and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (1999). Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS).Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) Spitzer made the first exoplanet weather map of temperature variations over the surface of a gas exoplanet.In 2009, Spitzer found a ring of Saturn, a wispy, fine structure with 300 times the diameter of the gas giant planet. ![]() Spitzer uses an ultra-sensitive infrared telescope to study asteroids, comets, planets and distant galaxies. NASA's Spitzer was the first telescope to detect light from an exoplanet, or a planet outside our solar system.
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