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Last of the Great Observatories to Launch

Posted by michael on from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

jqpublic writes "The last in NASA's Great Observatory Program, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), is set to launch in the wee hours on Monday. The launch can viewed live on NASA's Countdown web site. Interestingly, SIRTF will not be in Earth orbit, but will drift away from Earth by about 15 million kilometers per year. This allows the telescope to cool to very low temperatures (30K), which reduces dramatically the amount of cryogens it needs to carry."

6 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. Norms Observation by Yanray · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe now we will finally be able to see that exact duplicate of the earth orbiting opposite us.

    Maybe thier they will all spell just like me.

    Could it be the Planet of the Apes?
    \. *.*

    --
    --"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
    DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
    1. Re:Norms Observation by RCO · · Score: 2, Funny

      I thought that was where we were...

      If not, why do I keep meeting all these hairy women? Oh god, they're lying to me, ahhhhhhg, now I need a shower.

      --
      'And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo Every day you meet quite a few...'
    2. Re:Norms Observation by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, it'll be Gor.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  2. Crash coming soon by henrygb · · Score: 2, Funny

    If SIRTF will drift away from Earth on a heliocentric orbit at the rate of ~ 0.1 AU/year then after about 31.4 years it may crash into Earth from the other side.

  3. Re:It's new name... by baywulf · · Score: 3, Funny

    The only problem is that when they name it the Sagan telescope, Sagan will roll over in his grave and sue them. They will promptly have to rename it "butthead astromoner."

  4. the last... by eglamkowski · · Score: 2, Funny

    The last in NASA's Great Observatory Program,

    The year is 1987 and NASA launches the last of America's deep space probes....
    :-)

    --
    Government IS the problem.