NASA's SOFIA observatory completes first science flight

[News_Editor]

NASA's SOFIA observatory completes first science flight

2010-12-02 02:05:42 GMT+7 (ICT)

MOFFETT FIELD, CALIFORNIA (BNO NEWS) -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Wednesday announced that its Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) completed its first science flight.

SOFIA completed the first of three science flights to demonstrate the aircraft's potential to make discoveries about the infrared universe. The flight took off from Air Force runway in Palmdale, California, on November 30 and flew for about ten hours.

"These initial science flights mark a significant milestone in SOFIA's development and ability to conduct peer-reviewed science observations," said NASA Astrophysics Division Director Jon Morse.

The airborne observatory is an international collaboration between NASA and the German Aerospace Center, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR). SOFIA is a heavily modified Boeing 747SP that cruises at altitudes between 39,000 and 45,000 feet.

The aircraft will allow astronomers to better understand a wide range of astronomical phenomena including how stars and planets are born, how organic substances form in interstellar space, and how supermassive black holes feed and grow.

"We anticipate a number of important discoveries from this unique observatory, as well as extended investigations of discoveries by other space telescopes," added Morse.

SOFIA is equipped with a 100-inch diameter airborne infrared telescope. Its instruments can analyze light from a wide range of celestial objects, including warm interstellar gas and dust of bright star forming regions, by observing wavelengths between 0.3 and 1,600 microns (one micron equals one millionth of a meter).

The three science flights will employ the Faint Object InfraRed Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) instrument developed by Cornell University and led by principal investigator Terry Herter. FORCAST observes the mid-infrared spectrum from five to 40 microns.

Researchers used the FORCAST camera to produce infrared images of areas within the Orion star-formation complex during a test flight two weeks ago.

"The early science flight program serves to validate SOFIA's capabilities and demonstrate the observatory's ability to make observations not possible from Earth-based telescopes," said Bob Meyer, NASA's SOFIA program manager.

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