Launched in 2003, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was the fourth and final addition to NASA’s Great Observatory program. Spitzer’s mission was to become NASA’s premier infrared light observatory, offering astronomers the chance to study the universe in this critical part of the electromagnetic spectrum of light with unprecedented clarity and sensitivity.
Circling the sun in its Earth-trailing orbit, Spitzer provided a remote platform for studying our own Solar System. Its sensitive infrared detectors were well-suited to identify and characterize asteroids, image the dusty debris surrounding comments, and even discover Saturn’s largest ring.
One of Spitzer’s design goals was to enable astronomers to study the infrared glow of dust and debris orbiting distant stars. This is the source material for building new planets, and it can provide the tell-tale sign of asteroid belts in systems in which planets have already formed.
Discovering and studying planets that orbit stars other than our sun have become one of the most active areas of astronomy in the past decades. When Spitzer launched in 2003 this was not one of its intended science objectives, but innovations by astronomers and engineers during its mission improved its precision and enabled it to become a critical tool for exoplanet work.
Stars are born in vast clouds of gas and dust that pulled together through the force of gravity. But much of that process is obscured behind thick clouds of dust that visible light telescopes cannot penetrate. Spitzer’s infrared detectors were designed to see deeply into these star-forming regions, and reveal these dark dust clouds as glowing nebulae.
We live within the Milky Way galaxy, a flattened disk of hundreds of billions of other stars, but the Milky Way is but one of trillions of galaxies that fill the observable universe. Spitzer’s infrared vision has helped us to more completely understand these immense objects that come in many shapes and sizes.
In our expanding universe, to look at increasingly distant objects is also like looking back in time to see things as they were billions of years ago. The very expansion of space expands this ancient light, shifting what was once visible to our eyes ever farther into the infrared spectrum. Spitzer was built to give us a way to capture this light from galaxies that formed and grew when the universe was young.
In images from NASA's retired Spitzer Space Telescope, streams of dust thousands of light-years long flow toward the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Andromeda galaxy. It turns out these streams can help explain how black holes billions of times the mass of our Sun satiate their big appetites but remain "quiet" eaters.
A team of scientists led by the Observatory of Munich University and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias have obtained direct visualization of the process of feeding the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Andromeda galaxy. The study reveals the existence of long filamentary structures of gas and dust which move in a spiral starting at a distance from the black hole and ending up at the black hole itself. The results, which have been published in the Astrophysical Journal, were obtained using images from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.
Observations by the MIRI instrument on NASA’s Webb telescope are providing new clues about the time window when planets can form around a young star.
A zoomable panorama from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows us our galaxy's plane all the way around us in infrared light.
The red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 is home to the largest group of roughly Earth-size planets ever found in a single stellar system. Located about 40 light-years away, these seven rocky siblings provide an example of the tremendous variety of planetary systems that likely fill the universe.
On January 30th 2020, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope completed its mission. This page tells its story, showcases new science and highlights its most outstanding achievements during the past 16 years in space.
A collection of cosmic posters for your wall or classroom!
Build your own Spitzer Space Telescope out of paper, legos or 3D computer models.
Add some Spitzer style to your video conference background with these videos and images. Click on a thumbnail to view a larger version, and then save the file to your computer. These images have been optimized to work with Zoom virtual backgrounds.
Try our apps to design your own ghoul or create a selfie from outer space!
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope concluded its 16+ year mission on January 30th, 2020. In recognition of its incredible scientific achievements the “Exoplanet Excursions” VR experience has been updated to include new modules describing the telescope that has enabled so much exoplanet research and discovery.
