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Space Topics

Spitzer Space Telescope

Spitzer Space Telescope

Spitzer, the last of NASA's "Great Observatories," provides scientists with infrared imagery of deep and normally inaccessible regions of space.

Named after the astronomer who first described how a telescope on an orbiting platform would improve on ground-based observing, Spitzer was launched on August 25, 2003. It is the fourth and last telescope in NASA's Great Observatories program, which also includes the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory.

The long-wavelength infrared radiation that Spitzer collects can escape dense clouds of dust that are opaque to the shorter wavelengths of light accessible to Hubble. However, heat from Earth or from the telescope itself could interfere with its observations of low-temperature objects. To avoid Earth's heat, Spitzer was launched into an unusual heliocentric orbit, trailing behind Earth in the same orbit by 8.7 million kilometers (5.4 million miles) and lagging behind at a rate of 15 million kilometers (9.3 million miles) per year.

Spitzer's mission is to observe infrared light from distant objects such as young galaxies in the process of forming, quasars, brown dwarfs, and supernovae. Its imaging, spectroscopy, and photometry instruments are sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light ranging from 3 to 180 microns. Spitzer has revealed the development of new stars and may have recorded a faint image of the youngest star ever observed. It is also used to observe asteroids, comets, and Kuiper belt objects to help determine their sizes. Spitzer's mission was meant to last at least 2.5 and possibly as long as 5 years, with its primary mission ending in 2008.