An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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NASA's satellite, designed to measure the diffuse infrared and → cosmic microwave background radiation from the early → Universe. It was launched on November 18, 1989 and carried three instruments: DIRBE (the Diffuse InfraRed Experiment), DMR (Differential Microwave Radiometers), and FIRAS (Far-InfraRed Absolute Spectrophotometer). The COBE observations showed that the cosmic microwave background spectrum matches that of a → blackbody of temperature 2.725 ± 0.002 K. COBE also found anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background at a level of a part in 100,000 (→ cosmic microwave background anisotropy). These tiny variations in the intensity of the CMB over the sky show how matter and energy was distributed when the Universe was still very young. Later, through a process still poorly understood, the early structures developed into galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the large scale structure that we see in the Universe today. Two of COBE's principal investigators, George Smoot and John Mather, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for their work on the project.

→ cosmic; → background; → explorer.

A person or thing that explores.

Agent noun of → explore.

A satellite dedicated to spectroscopic observations of astronomical objects in ultraviolet wavelengths, launched in 1978. It was an international collaboration between → NASA, the → European Space Agency (ESA), and the United Kingdom's Science and Engineering Research Council. It operated until September 1996 and collected over 70,000 spectra. IUE consisted of a 45-cm telescope (f/15) equipped with two spectrographs operating in the ranges 1850-3300 Å and 1150-2000 Å. Each spectrograph had a high-resolution and a low-resolution mode with resolutions of about 0.2 Å and 6 Å respectively.

→ international; → ultraviolet; → explorer.

An interplanetary mission currently in development by the → European Space Agency planned for launch in 2020. It is aimed mainly at in-depth studies of three potentially ocean-bearing satellites, → Ganymede, → Europa, and → Callisto. JUICE will complete a unique tour of the Jupiter system including several flybys of each planet-sized world, culminating with orbit insertion around Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System, followed by nine months of operations in its orbit. JUICE will carry the most powerful scientific payload ever flown to the outer Solar System. It consists of 10 state-of-the-art instruments plus one experiment that uses the spacecraft telecommunication system with ground-based instruments.

→ Jupiter; → icy; → explorer; → moon.

A → NASA infrared astronomical → space telescope launched in December 2009 to carry out an → all-sky survey from 3 to 22 → microns. With its 40-cm → telescope telescope and → infrared cameras, WISE aimed at a wide variety of studies ranging from the evolution of → protoplanetary disks to the history of → star formation in normal galaxies. In early October 2010, after completing its prime science mission, the spacecraft ran out of → coolant that keeps its instrumentation cold. However, two of its four infrared cameras remained operational. Hence, NASA extended the NEOWISE portion of the WISE mission by four months, with the primary purpose of hunting for more → asteroids and → comets, and to finish one complete scan of the main → asteroid belt. In August 2013, the WISE telescope's mission was extended for more three years to search for asteroids that could collide with Earth.

→ wide field; → infrared; → survey; → explorer.