16 Nov 2016

SOFIA gets in the game...with a wealth of activities! 2017 will be a busy year for the flying infrared observatory known as SOFIA, a joint project between NASA and DLR - the German space agency - designed to scan the near and far skies using eight instruments, from a privileged perspective. According to the plans, the telescope is loaded onto a specially modified Boeing 747 that can fly to an altitude of 13,000 metres.

In the near future, the telescope will be spending half its time observing planets, comets, asteroids and super-massive black holes in the centre of other galaxies, and the other half studying the creation of new stars and the interstellar medium. Imminent targets will include Neptune's giant moon, Triton, and the water plumes spotted by Hubble on Europa, one of Jupiter's satellites. Triton - to be observed during a voyage planned for next October - will be the closest celestial object to be studied by SOFIA, while a black hole located 12 billion light years away from Earth will be the most distant. SOFIA owes its sharp “sight” to its on-board technology and flight methods that let it intercept infrared light, soaring in the stratosphere above 99% of the water vapour in the Earth's atmosphere that blocks most infrared rays.