Date: December 12, 2010
Title: NASA’s Flying Observatory Begins Science Flights
Podcaster: Martin Ratcliffe
Links: For more information about SOFIA, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/sofia and http://www.dlr.de/en/sofia. For information about SOFIA’s science mission, visit: SOFIA and http://www.dsi.uni-stuttgart.de
Description: On the night of November 30 to December 1, the Stratospheric Observatory for InfraRed Astronomy, called SOFIA for short, took flight for its first ever full science mission. Following years of development, engineering difficulties, funding challenges, and even threat of cancellation, SOFIA is now a fully- functioning infra-red observatory.
Bio: Martin Ratcliffe is Director of Professional Development for Sky-Skan, Inc, a leading digital planetarium manufacturer. Martin is a contributing editor for Astronomy magazine, co-writing the Sky Show monthly column for the past 13 years. Martin has published 4 books, including Cosmology and the Evolution of the Universe (Greenwood Books, 2009), The Night Sky Revealed (Barnes and Noble, 2007) and State of the Universe 2008 and 2009 (Praxis-Springer).
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Transcript:
I’m Martin Ratcliffe, and I’m bringing you news of the latest developments with the SOFIA Observatory, with help from Dana Backman and Nick Veronico of the Sofia Education and Public Outreach team.
On the night of November 30 to December 1, the Stratospheric Observatory for InfraRed Astronomy, called SOFIA for short, took flight for its first ever full science mission. Following years of development, engineering difficulties, funding challenges, and even threat of cancellation, SOFIA is now a fully- functioning infra-red observatory.
This initial science flight marks the beginning of 20 years of planned operations for SOFIA.
NASA and the German Aerospace Center have transformed a special performance model of the venerable Boeing 747 from a jetliner into a flying observatory. SOFIA is fitted with a German-designed and built, 17-ton, 100-inch diameter infrared telescope.
While the former airliner was being modified, seven scientific instruments were built specifically for SOFIA, and all are ready or nearly ready to fly. Astronomers will use these instruments on board SOFIA to look at:
• Other galaxies and the center of the Milky Way Galaxy;
• The interstellar medium, especially to investigate the chemistry of compounds that are the building blocks of life;
• The formation of stars and planets; and
• Planets, comets, asteroids and other objects in our solar system
In December 2009, we reported via a podcast on a major milestone in the flying observatory’s development when it flew at 35,000 feet and fully opened the door covering the telescope cavity for the first time in flight. In normal operations SOFIA makes celestial observations at altitudes between 39,000 and 45,000 feet (12 to 14 km), putting the flying observatory above more than 99 percent of the water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere that blocks infrared radiation from the cosmos.
In the months following the open-door test flight, a team of NASA-led scientists, engineers, and flight crew members accomplished SOFIA’s “First Light” flight and completed tests of the observatory’s operating altitude and speed ranges.
SOFIA’s First Light flight (officially designated the “Telescope Assembly Characterization and First Light” flight) was, as the name implies, the first time the telescope was used to image celestial objects at altitude. For that First Light flight, SOFIA used the “Faint Object InfraRed Camera for the SOFIA Telescope”, or FORCAST, designed by a team led by principal investigator Terry Herter from Cornell University. FORCAST images the infrared spectrum at wavelengths from 5 to 40 microns. On the First Light flight, Jupiter and galaxy M82 were imaged at 5.4, 24, and 37 microns – all infrared wavelengths that are difficult or impossible to see using ground-based telescopes. For comparison, the human eye is sensitive to light with wavelengths between 0.4 and 0.7 microns.
Science Flights Now Underway
SOFIA departed its home base at southern California’s Palmdale Airport for its first science flight at the end of November, a 10-hour observing run that was flown over the Pacific Ocean, off the southern and central California coastline. It marks the start of 20 years of exciting astronomy from the stratosphere. SOFIA’s precursor, the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, made a number of significant discoveries during its flying lifetime, including the rings of Uranus.
NASA Astrophysics Division Director Jon Morse said after the flight, “We anticipate a number of important discoveries to come out of this observatory, and we will also use SOFIA to confirm discoveries and extend investigations by space telescopes.”
During its 10-hour initial science flight, SOFIA spent 40 minutes collecting data on the star-forming complex in and around the Orion Nebula, M42. Using infrared wavelengths that do not reach the Earth’s surface and are unavailable to any of today’s space telescopes, SOFIA’s scientific crew imaged the region of the Becklin-Neugebauer (BN) object and the Kleinmann-Low (KL) nebula, the first known protostars discovered in the 1960s. Eric Becklin, the discoverer of the BN object that was named for him and his Ph.D. supervisor Gerry Neugebauer, is now SOFIA’s chief science advisor and was onboard SOFIA for this flight. Other scientific targets included the star-forming region Sharpless 140 and the starburst galaxy M82.
The forthcoming SOFIA’s “Short Science” program will encompass two segments of three flights each. The first segment, now underway, will use the FORCAST camera, and the second segment, beginning in March 2011, will see the German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies instrument, or GREAT, installed on the telescope. GREAT is a spectrometer sensitive to far-infrared radiation with wavelengths from 60 to 200 microns that has been developed by principal investigator Rolf Güsten and his team based at the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany.
Science projects planned by the FORCAST team include multiwavelength imaging of the galactic center, protoplanetary disks, and star formation regions in normal spiral galaxies and active galaxies. Multiwavelength information allows determination of the temperatures, densities, masses, and composition of dust clouds containing the raw material for new planets, as well as the overall morphology and location of energy sources in star-forming regions.
The second instrument, GREAT, is designed to investigate a wide range of astronomical questions by obtaining very high-resolution spectra that yield information about motions and compositions of celestial objects. For example, GREAT will be used to gather data regarding the carbon and water chemistry of the interstellar medium. That in turn will provide clues about the chemical evolution and star formation history of our galaxy and other galaxies.
Looking to the Future
SOFIA program staff are working toward a goal of routine operations with 960 research hours per year, flying two to three nights per week. The initial science flight program marks SOFIA’s transition from testbed to flying observatory, and will now enable dozens of astronomers to make observations not possible from Earth-based telescopes.
Fine Print (optional, but included in total word count)
SOFIA is a joint program between NASA and the German Aerospace Center, Bonn, Germany. The SOFIA program is managed at NASA’s Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility, Palmdale, Calif. NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., manages the SOFIA science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), Columbia, Md., and the Deutsches SOFIA Institut (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart, Germany.
For more information about SOFIA, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/sofia and http://www.dlr.de/en/sofia. For information about SOFIA’s science mission, visit: http://www.sofia.usra.edu and http://www.dsi.uni-stuttgart.de
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365 Days of Astronomy
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