Tag: Spitzer Space Telescope
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A private company has an audacious plan to rescue NASA’s last “Great Observatory”
A Delta II rocket launched the Spitzer Space Telescope two decades ago, boosting it to an Earth-trailing orbit, where it drifted away from our planet at a rate of about 15 million kilometers a year. It was the last of NASA’s four “Great Observatories” put into space from 1990 to 2003. Over its planned five-year…
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NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope goes dark after 16 years, leaving behind a bright infrared legacy
NASA sent its final command to the Spitzer Space Telescope today, ending more than 16 years spent studying alien planets, dusty nebulas and distant galaxies in infrared wavelengths. Spitzer was launched in 2003 as one of NASA’s Great Observatories, and took its place in the ranks of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray…
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Alien megastructure? Nothing to see around formerly weird star, scientists say
This illustration shows a star behind a shattered comet. Observations of the star KIC 8462852 by NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes suggest that its unusual light signals are probably due to dusty comet fragments that blocked the light of the star. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech) Recent infrared observations of a star that once showed…