May 3rd, 2017 marks the 5,000th day of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission. This video gives us a detailed look at six of these days, showing how an automated observatory like Spitzer, which is effectively an astronomy robot, spends its time. It's overall mission design allows for an unprecedented degree of efficiency, allowing it to study the full range of astronomical phenomena including nearby objects in the solar system, stars in our galaxy, and galaxies out to the edge of the observable universe. Read more
Colourful Calendar Celebrates 12th Anniversary of NASA's Spitzer
Celebrate the 12th anniversary of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope with a new digital calendar showcasing some of the mission's most notable discoveries and popular cosmic eye candy. The calendar follows the life of the mission, with each month highlighting top infrared images and discoveries from successive years -- everything from a dying star resembling the eye of a monster to a star-studded, swirling galaxy. The final month includes a brand new image of the glittery star-making factory known as the Monkey Head nebula. Read more
Ten years after a Delta II rocket launched NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, lighting up the night sky over Cape Canaveral, Fla., the fourth of the agency's four Great Observatories continues to illuminate the dark side of the cosmos with its infrared eyes.
For the last 1000 days the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC), aboard NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, has been operating continuously to probe the universe from its most distant regions to our local solar neighbourhood. The IRAC "warm" program began once Spitzer used up its liquid helium coolant, thus completing its "cold" mission. To commemorate 1000 days of infrared wonders, the program is releasing a gallery of the 10 best IRAC images. Read more
NASA is extending three missions affiliated with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. -- Kepler, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the U.S. portion of the European Space Agency's Planck mission -- as a result of the 2012 Senior Review of Astrophysics Missions. Read more
Public to get access to spectacular infrared images of galaxies
For the first time, the general public will be able to browse detailed infrared images of more than 200 galaxies. The pictures, originating from data from the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, are currently being released to the general public. Dr. George Bendo of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics will highlight the new imagery at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester from 27-30 March. Source
Spitzer 24-160 Micron Data forthe Dwarf Galaxies Survey
Spitzer scientists and engineers are beginning tests to study the feasibility of switching to the spacecraft's Inertial Reference Unit 2. The Inertial Reference Unit contains two gyroscopes, which are used to maintain Spitzer's high precision pointing. Spitzer has two such systems for redundancy. Read more
Artwork inspired by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is making an appearance at this year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia. No, it's not battling other telescopes for the "gold," but its observations are now on display as part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad Festival. Read more
Infrared astronomy, especially from space, explores up a vast portion of the spectrum beyond the red end of visible light. Through this window the universe emits a tremendous variety of information about the physical and chemical composition of various regions, about their energetic states, and about the current and historical activity of star formation. Infrared and submillimeter wavelengths still hold the most promise for studying the earliest moments in the history of the universe when diffuse gas was transformed into the first stars and galaxies. This era is thought to have occurred around the first percent of the age of the universe. Read more
On Friday, Oct. 23, engineers with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope successfully swapped the spacecraft from the main nitrogen thruster string to a backup thruster string. The action was taken because the performance of one of the six thrusters (thruster #6) had been degrading since May 2009, due to an electromagnetic problem with its coil. The backup thrusters were tested successfully after the swap, and there was no disruption in acquiring science data. Read more