News: Spitzer Space Telescope will conclude its mission on 30th January 2020
Facts:
About Spitzer Space Telescope
- Launched in 2003, it is a space-borne observatory and is part of NASA’s “Great Observatories”.
- It uses an ultra-sensitive infrared telescope to study asteroids, comets, planets and distant galaxies.
Achievements:
- First telescope to detect light from an exoplanet
- found a ring of Saturn in 2009
- Made the first exoplanet weather map of temperature variations over the surface of a gas exoplanet.
Additional Information
NASA’s series of Great Observatories satellites:
- They are four large, powerful space-based astronomical telescopes.
- The telescopes other than Spitzer Space Telescope are Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
