An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A space observatory, formerly named GLAST, devoted to the study of → gamma rays emitted from astrophysical objects. Developed by NASA in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the United States, Fermi was launched on June 11, 2008. The main instrument, the Large Area Telescope (LAT), is an imaging → camera covering the energy range from about 20 → MeV to more than 300 → GeV. Such gamma rays are emitted only in the most extreme conditions, by particles moving very nearly at the → speed of light. The LAT's → field of view covers about 20% of the sky at any time, and it scans continuously, covering the whole sky every three hours. Another instrument, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) has a field of view several times larger than the LAT and provides → spectral coverage of → gamma-ray burst that extends from the lower limit of the LAT down to 10 → keV.

→ Fermi; → gamma ray; → space; → telescope.

A telescope of 2.4 m in diameter, a joint NASA and ESA project, launched in 1990 into a low-Earth orbit 600 km above the ground. It was equipped with a collection of several science instruments that worked across the entire optical spectrum (from infrared, through the visible, to ultraviolet light). During its lifetime Hubble has become one of the most important science projects ever.

→ Hubble; → space; → telescope.

A large, infrared space telescope with a mirror 6.55 m in diameter, scheduled for launch in 2018. JWST's instruments will work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range (0.6 to 28 μm). The scheduled instruments are Near IR Camera (NIRCam, field of 2.2 x 4.4 arcmin, wavelength range 0.6-5 μm), Near IR Spectrograph (NIRSpec, 3.5 x 3.5 arcmin, 0.6-5 μm, resolving powers of ~ 100, ~1000, and ~3000), Mid IR Instrument (MIRI, 1.4 x 1.9 arcmin, 5-27 μm, R ~ 3000), and Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS, 2.3 x 2.3 arcmin, 0.6-5 μm, R ~ 100). The successor to the → Hubble Space Telescope will be placed in an orbit about 1.5 million km from the Earth, at the → Lagrangian point L2. The JWST project is a → NASA-led international collaboration with the → European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. The scientific goals of JWST can be grouped under four broad topics: first light after the Big Bang; galaxy formation; birth of stars and protoplanetary systems; and planetary systems and the origins of life.

Named in honor of James E. Webb (1906-1992), who headed NASA from 1961 to 1968, overseeing all the manned launches in the Mercury through Gemini programs, until before the first manned Apollo flight; → space; → telescope.

A → NASA funded project to support and provide to the astronomical community a variety of astronomical data archives, with the primary focus on scientifically related data sets in the optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared parts of the spectrum. MAST is a huge database that contains astronomical observations of stars, planets and galaxies from 16 separate NASA space science missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope. It is located at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).

In honor of senator Barbara A. Mikulski for her active support for science, NASA, and the astrophysics community; → archive; → space; → telescope.

A small telescope dedicated entirely to → asterolseismology. MOST is the first space telescope entirely designed and constructed by Canada. It was launched into space in 2003. The satellite weighs only 54 kg and is equipped with an ultra high precision telescope that measures only 15 centimetres in diameter. Despite its tiny size, it is ten times more sensitive than the → Hubble Space Telescope in detecting the minuscule variations in a star's luminosity caused by vibrations that shake its surface. MOST completes one orbit around the Earth every 101 minutes by passing over each of Earth's poles.

MOST, short for Microvariability and Oscillations of STars telescope.

A telescope which is placed in an orbit around the → Earth and operates through commands from sent from the control center on Earth, such as → Hubble space telescope, → Herschel satellite, → Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), → Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), → International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), → Planck Satellaite , → Spitzer Space Telescope.

→ space; → telescope.

An infrared telescope launched by NASA on 25 August 2003, the last in the series of Great Observatories. It was placed into a heliocentric orbit with a period of revolution that causes it to drift away from Earth at a rate of 0.1 → astronomical unit per year. Spitzer has a 85-cm primary mirror, made of beryllium and is equipped with three cryogenically-cooled science instruments: 1) IRAC (Infrared Array Camera), which operates simultaneously on four wavelengths (3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8 µm); 2) IRS (Infrared Spectrograph), with four sub-modules which operate at the wavelengths 5.3-14 µm (low resolution), 10-19.5 µm (high resolution), 14-40 µm (low resolution), and 19-37 µm (high resolution); and 3) MIPS (Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer), three detector arrays in the → far infrared at 24, 70, and 160 µm. So far Spitzer has obtained precious data on all sorts of astronomical objects, thus contributing to all fields of astrophysics. It has also performed two sky surveys: GLIMPS, which covers 300° of the inner Milky Way galaxy, consisting of approximately 444,000 images taken at 4 separate wavelengths with the IRAC, and MIPSGAL a similar survey covering 278° of the Galactic disk at longer wavelengths.The planned nominal mission period was to be 2.5 years with a pre-launch expectation that the mission could extend to five or slightly more years until the onboard liquid helium supply was exhausted. This occurred on 15 May 2009. Without liquid helium to cool the telescope, most instruments are no longer usable. However, the two shortest wavelength modules of the IRAC camera are still operable and will continue to be used in the Spitzer Warm Mission.

Named in honor of Lyman Spitzer (1914-1997), an American theoretical physicist and astronomer best known for his research in star formation and plasma physics, who first suggested (1940s) placing telescopes in orbit to escape interference from the Earth's atmosphere; → space; → telescope.