Born In The Wake Of A Supernova @sciencemagazine6793

Uploaded February 2010 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

facebook.com/ScienceReason ... The Hidden Universe of the Spitzer Space Telescope (Part 1): Planetary Life After Death.

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, astronomers have found that a whole new solar system may be forming in the wake of a star's violent death.

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The Spitzer Space Telescope is the final mission in NASA's Great Observatories Program - a family of four space-based observatories, each observing the Universe in a different kind of light.

The other missions in the program include the visible-light Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO), and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO).

Spitzer is designed to detect infrared radiation, which is primarily heat radiation. It is comprised of two major components:

The Cryogenic Telescope Assembly, which contains the a 85 centimeter telescope and Spitzer's three scientific instruments

The Spacecraft, which controls the telescope, provides power to the instruments, handles the scientific data and communicates with Earth

It may seem like a contradiction, but NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope must be simultaneously warm and cold to function properly.

Everything in the Cryogenic Telescope Assembly must be cooled to only a few degrees above absolute zero (-459 degrees Fahrenheit, or -273 degrees Celsius).

This is achieved with an onboard tank of liquid helium, or cryogen. Meanwhile, electronic equipment in The Spacecraft portion needs to operate near room temperature.

Spitzer is the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space. Its highly sensitive instruments allow scientists to peer into cosmic regions that are hidden from optical telescopesâincluding dusty stellar nurseries, the centers of galaxies, and newly forming planetary systems.

Spitzer's infrared eyes also allows astronomers see cooler objects in space, like failed stars (brown dwarfs), extrasolar planets, giant molecular clouds, and organic molecules that may hold the secret to life on other planets.

Spitzer was originally built to last for a minimum of 2.5 years, but it is now expected to last for around 5.5 years before running out of coolant. At this stage, "warm Spitzer" is capable of observing with one of its three instruments for several more years. Check out: Fast Facts and Current Status.

• http://spitzer.caltech.edu/
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$NASA Astronomy Pictures Of The Day [Week 6/2010] http://facebook.com/ScienceReason ... NASA Astronomy Pictures of the Day [Week 6/2010] Please SUBSCRIBE to Science & Reason: • http://www.youtube.com/Best0fScience • http://www.youtube.com/ScienceTV • http://www.youtube.com/FFreeThinker • http://www.youtube.com/RationalHumanism ► A Sun Halo Over Cambodia Have you ever seen a halo around the Sun? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100208.html ► Night Launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour Sometimes, the space shuttle launches at night. Pictured above, the space shuttle Endeavour lifted off in yesterdays early morning hours from Launch Pad 39A in Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA, bound for the International Space Station (ISS). A night launch, useful for reaching the space station easily during some times of the year, frequently creates ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100209.html ► M51 Hubble Remix The 51st entry in Charles Messiers famous catalog is perhaps the original spiral nebula - a large galaxy with a well defined spiral structure also cataloged as NGC 5194. Over 60,000 light-years across, M51s spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (top), NGC 5195. Image data from the Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys has been reprocessed to ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091226.html ► Teide Sky Trails The snow capped Teide volcano is reflected in a pool of water in this nearly symmetric night sky view from the Canary Island Tenerife. Bright north star Polaris stands above the peak in an exposure that also captures the brilliant trail of a polar orbiting Iridium satellite. Of course, with the camera fixed to a tripod, the stars themselves produce concentric trails in long exposures, a reflection of the Earths rotation around its axis ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100212.html ► Star Cluster M34 This pretty, open cluster of stars, M34, is about the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Easy to appreciate in small telescopes, it lies some 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. At that distance, M34 physically spans about 15 light-years. Formed at the same time from the same cloud of dust and gas, all the stars of M34 are about 200 million years young. But like any open star cluster ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100211.html ► A Force from Empty Space: The Casimir Effect This tiny ball provides evidence that the universe will expand forever. Measuring slightly over one tenth of a millimeter, the ball moves toward a smooth plate in response to energy fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space. The attraction is known as the Casimir Effect, named for its discoverer, who, 50 years ago, was trying to understand why fluids like mayonnaise move so slowly ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061217.html ► Field of Rosette What surrounds the florid Rosette nebula? To better picture this area of the sky, the famous flowery emission nebula on the far right has been captured recently in a deep and dramatic wide field image that features several other sky highlights. Designated NGC 2237, the center of the Rosette nebula is populated by the bright blue stars of open cluster NGC 2244, whose winds and energetic light are ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100214.html ► A Graceful Arc The graceful arc of the Milky Way begins and ends at two mountain peaks in this solemn night sky panorama. The view was created from a 24 frame mosaic, with exposures tracking Earth and sky separately. In the final composition, northern Californias Mount Lassen was positioned at the left and Mount Shasta at the far right ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091225.html ► Sakurajima Volcano with Lightning Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? The Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting early last month. Magma bubbles so hot they glow shoot away as liquid rock bursts through the Earths surface from below. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100210.html ► Waterway to Orbit The 32nd shuttle mission to the International Space Station, STS-130, left planet Earth on February 8. Its early morning launch to orbit from Kennedy Space Centers pad 39A followed the long, graceful, eastward arc seen in this two minute time exposure ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100213.html • Text authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP); • A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC & Michigan Tech. University • http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/ .$