Spitzer Telescope Honored by Aerospace Society

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Spitzer Telescope Honored by Aerospace Society

Spitzer Telescope Honored by Aerospace Society:

SST and the Milky Way, an Artist's Concept

The Spitzer Space Telescope whizzes in front of a brilliant, infrared view of the Milky Way galaxy's plane in this artistic depiction. Image credit:
NASA/JPL
› Full image and caption

August 07, 2014

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has received the 2014 AIAA Space Science Award for its ongoing infrared studies of the hidden cosmos. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, or AIAA, a society for the field of aerospace engineering, established the award in 1961 for "individuals demonstrating leadership of innovative scientific investigation associated with space science missions."

Michael Werner, the project scientist for Spitzer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, accepted the award on behalf of the Spitzer team today, Aug. 7, at the AIAA Space and Astronautics Forum in San Diego.

The citation for the award reads: "For outstanding science producing over 5,000 papers, 75,000+ hours of observation, and significant findings such as the first telescope to directly detect light from extrasolar planets."

Spitzer, which launched into space in 2003, continues to be one of the best telescopes for studying the atmospheres of exoplanets, or extrasolar planets -- planets outside our solar system. In 2005, it made the first-ever measurements of direct light from such a far-off world.

Now, in Spitzer's "warm" phase -- its coolant ran out in 2009 as planned -- Spitzer continues to collect and analyze light from exoplanets, setting the stage for future telescopes to use similar techniques on even smaller worlds more akin to Earth. In addition, the observatory's heat-sensitive infrared vision is used for other types of objects, both in our solar system and billions of light-years away.

"In the coming years, as the mission continues, we will be studying the most distant galaxies, exoplanets orbiting nearby stars, and small bodies in our own solar system," said Werner. "We are continuing to lay the foundation for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope."

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Spitzer, visit:

http://spitzer.caltech.edu

http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

Whitney Clavin

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-4673

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

2014-268

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NASA Photos Photography

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Wednesday, August 13, 2014