After more than 16 years studying the universe in infrared light, revealing new wonders in our solar system, our galaxy and beyond, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope's mission has come to an end. Mission engineers confirmed at about 2:30 p.m. PDT (5:30 p.m. EDT) Thursday the spacecraft was placed in safe mode, ceasing all science operations. After the decommissioning was confirmed, Spitzer Project Manager Joseph Hunt declared the mission had officially ended. Launched in 2003, Spitzer was one of NASA's four Great Observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The Great Observatories program demonstrated the power of using different wavelengths of light to create a fuller picture of the universe.
Among its many scientific contributions, Spitzer studied comets and asteroids in our own solar system and found a previously unidentified ring around Saturn. It studied star and planet formation, the evolution of galaxies from the ancient universe to today, and the composition of interstellar dust. It also proved to be a powerful tool for detecting exoplanets and characterizing their atmospheres. Spitzer's best-known work may be detecting the seven Earth-size planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system - the largest number of terrestrial planets ever found orbiting a single star - and determining their masses and densities. In 2016,following a review of operating astrophysics missions,NASA made a decision to close out the Spitzer mission in 2018 in anticipation of the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which also will observe the universe in infrared light. When Webb's launch was postponed, Spitzer was granted an extension to continue operations until this year. This gave Spitzer additional time to continue producing transformative science, including insights that will pave the way for Webb, which is scheduled to launch in 2021.
Credits:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7588
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