Spitzer Space Telescope Releases First Images

jkleint writes "The fourth and final of NASA's Great Observatories, the Spitzer Space Telescope, has just released its first images. Spitzer sees in infrared, allowing it to look through the dust clouds that obscure visible light images like those taken by the ill-fated Hubble. Spitzer has already found hydrocarbon spectra--precursors to carbon-based life--in a galaxy 3.2 billion light years away. The article has a very good writeup outlining the telescope's mission and why space-based infrared imaging is important."

Ahem.

[CanSpice]

"Just released" in this case means three months ago [caltech.edu], of course.

And you can also go read the comments in the first Slashdot story [slashdot.org] released for this press release back in December.

Sure, there's a longer write-up, but the pictures weren't "just released".

Re:Ahem.

[Tomun]

Not to mention the image is 3.2 billion years old..

Info on Lyman Spitzer

[benj_e]

Here's a brief bio [hubblesite.org] on Lyman Spitzer, the "father" of space telescopes

Hydrocarbons

[Tango42]

How significant are these hydrocarbon findings? Are similar spectrums detected in other places (eg. the rest of our Galaxy)?

Re:Hydrocarbons

[Anonymous Coward]

> Dear Grammer Nazi,

"Grammer" is spelled "grammar".

> punctuation is correctly placed inside a quote.

Let's verify with gcc:

% cat nazi.c
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
printf("Hello world\n);"
}

% gcc nazi.c
nazi.c: In function `main':
nazi.c:6: parse error before '}' token

Re:Hydrocarbons

[dnahelix]

> "Grammer" is spelled "grammar".[sic]

Touche'.

However, English grammar rules do not apply to coding, nor vice versa.
So, you've wasted your time writing that silly little "program."
(Notice the correct use of punctuation and quotes)
Also, I'll have you note that orthography and grammar are distinctly different.

Re:Hydrocarbons

[Muhammar]

There is hydrocarbon-based stuff and micro-diamond particles all over in the interstellar space. Their absorbtion bands have been seen in the IR spectra long before. But probably never with such a good resolution.

Carbon is common, so is hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

All Images from Spitzer

[dnahelix]

The post is not entirely correct in that the image presented in the article is not the first image from Spitzer. The Images from Spitzer [caltech.edu] can be seen on CIT's Spitzer Space Telescope [caltech.edu] page. As you can see the first image was the 'aliveness test' image and the first scientifically useful image was that of the Dark Globule in IC 1396. Great images with links to the high-resolution versions.

Also at NASA's photojournal

[ControlFreal]

A comprehensive list can also be found here [nasa.gov].