Spitzer Space Telescope

The Spitzer Space Telescope (English Spitzer Space Telescope, SST ), formerly known as SIRTF (of English. Space Infrared Telescope Facility ) is a named after the astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer infrared telescope. It was launched on 25 August 2003 under the name of SIRTF with a Delta II 7920H - 9.5 - rocket from Cape Canaveral and then renamed. It is next to the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X - Ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory part of the Great Observatory Program of NASA. Spitzer is designed for a service life of 5 years. The coolant for the originally cooled down to minus 271 degrees Celsius detectors has been used since the middle of May 2009, so that so that the main mission of the space telescope is completed. After raising the temperature to 31 Kelvin ( -242 ° C) can still use the two short wavelength channels of the infrared camera IRAC - NASA hopes to 2014 - can be used.

Structure and Mission

The area covered by the Spitzer Space Telescope infrared range is 3-180 microns. This part of the electromagnetic radiation has provided insights into regions through which can pass no visible light. However, the Earth's atmosphere largely prevented in turn penetration of the infrared radiation and therefore, these can not be observed by Earth-based telescopes. The telescope consists of a 0.85 -meter primary mirror and a smaller secondary mirror made ​​of beryllium. The detectors are three instruments on board:

• IRAC (of English. Infrared Array Camera), an infrared camera, which can simultaneously record four channels at wavelengths of 3.6 microns, 4.5 microns, 5.8 microns and 8 microns. The field of view is 5.12 '× 5.12 ' and the resolution is 256 × 256 pixels.

• IRS (of English. Infrared Spectrograph ), an infrared spectrometer with four sub-modules, the wavelength ranges from 5.3 to 14 microns ( low resolution), 10 to 19.5 microns ( high resolution), 14 to 40 microns ( low resolution) and 19 to 37 microns ( high resolution) cover.

• MIPS (of English. Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer ) consists of three detector arrays in the far infrared region ( 128 × 128 pixels at 24 micron, 32 × 32 pixels at 70 microns, 2 × 20 pixels at 160 microns ), in addition to images and spectroscopic data are intended to provide. The field varies between 5 ' x 5 ' at shorter wavelengths and 5 ' x 0.5 ' at longer wavelengths.

To prevent excessive heat radiation to the infrared detectors, the telescope and the instruments are cooled to a temperature as close as possible to absolute zero with a helium cryostat. To avoid the excessive heat radiation from the earth, the telescope does not move in an Earth orbit, but in a heliocentric, Earth's orbit following orbit, so it is not a satellite of the Earth. The solar cell array and heat shields shield the telescope from heat radiation from the sun and the warmer parts of the spacecraft.

In the analyzed from the Spitzer infrared inter alia astrophysical insights into protoplanetary disks and processes in the formation of planetary systems are obtained. Even the understanding of brown dwarfs, infrared galaxies, active galactic nuclei and the processes in the early universe is expected to benefit from the mission.

Achievements

• In the fall of 2005 was obtained from recording in the constellation of the Dragon by filtering out the noise of nearby galaxies a picture of the early universe, which - in accordance with the current theories - shows the clustering earlier star (also see Big Bang, Millennium simulation).
• Beginning of 2006 was obtained by the combinations of several thousand individual images a previously -seen insight into the center of our Milky Way, which is in the visible light (Hubble Space Telescope ) obscured by interstellar dust.
• With the help of recordings of October 2006 could be it (similar to the image of a thermal imaging camera ) create a relatively detailed temperature map of HD 189733b in months.
• May 2007: Within a short time Spitzer has many thousands of previously unknown dwarf galaxies detected. The discovery has been made in the Coma cluster of galaxies at 320 million light years away.
• In early 2008 a protoplanetary disk was found of organic material as well as in the atmosphere of the exoplanet HD 189733b with methane gas at AA Tauri. Such for astronomy and cosmochemistry invaluable evidence of organic material on astronomical objects succeed with the help of IR spectroscopy, similar to the analysis and chemistry.
• After you have failed to detect water in the atmosphere of HD 189733b in February 2007, was found shortly thereafter in July 2007 but water vapor on HD 189733b. In December 2008, Spitzer provided the " best ever proof" of water outside our solar system on this planet.
• In December 2008, an impressive recording showed the destruction of protoplanetary discs of newly formed stars through the solar winds from other massive stars.
• In October 2009 it was announced that a new, huge, extremely thin ring was discovered of ice and dust - parts around the planet Saturn in May 2009.
• In March 2010, two primeval, primitive black holes have been discovered that are 12.7 billion light-years away from Earth. One theory suggests that primordial black holes or quasars are not surrounded by a dusty torus, as is the case in much later formed after the Big Bang, quasars. This discovery is therefore a proof of the theory, because the two black holes are surrounded by dust.
• In July 2010, fullerenes have been detected in space through a telescope for the first time. This was done by infrared images in the planetary nebula Tc 1 These are thus the largest proven molecules in space.
• In July 2012, U.S. researchers discovered through the telescope 's 33 light years distant planet UCF 1:01. Its size should be 2 /3 of the earth and its surface temperature to 600 ° C.