There’s much excitement in certain sections of the US press over NASA’s latest toy. Although it isn’t a new announcement and it hasn’t done any science yet it is quite cool, so I’re happy to play along.
The toy is question is what you get when you shoehorn a 2.5-metre infrared telescope into a Boeing 747. In NASA lingo: “the world’s largest airborne observatory”, or the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, which will be based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. SOFIA flew over the Bay area for the first time on Monday, startling local residents, and impressing local journalists. “Talk about a souped-up airplane,” gushed The Mercury News.
“It can do science no other NASA observatory can do. It’s almost as good as going into space,” Tom Roellig, the SOFIA project scientist, told the paper.
Interestingly none of the coverage seems to mention the massive cost over runs (see Nature – subscription required). Equally, there is no mention in either the papers or the NASA press release that this is a joint project with Germany, and Germany had to talk NASA out of cancelling the project in 2006 (Nature again). NASA mentions in passing that the telescope is “German-built”, but doesn’t say that it was paid for by the Germans and represents about 20% of the project’s costs.
SOFIA is designed to look at the infrared region of the spectrum. Because water vapour, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases stop infrared radiation from getting down through the atmosphere, as well as from escaping up into space, infrared astronomy is best done from above the atmosphere – or most of it. A mountaintop is one possibility, a satellite another – and a big jet a third, somewhere between the two both in cost and capability. With it’s big infrared eye SOFIA will “hunt for newborn stars in the Orion nebula and probe the violent black hole in the heart of the Milky Way” ( SF Chronicle ).
SOFIA has recently completed structural integrity testing and ‘first light’ science data is expected in early 2009. Regular observation missions are planned for 2011 and full operational capability in about 2014 (NASA press release).
Mind you, if Bay area locals were perturbed by SOFIA, who knows what they’ll make of this beast…
More
Extended NASA article on SOFIA
NASA to fly Google’s plane into meteor shower – Great Beyond entry
Image: SOFIA flying observatory makes a low pass over NASA Ames Research Center prior to landing at Moffett Field / NASA