ARC-1988-AC88-0595

Artist: Rick Guidice SIRTF Artwork update - cutaway Space Infrared Telescope Facility's will orbit at 900 kilometers aboard a platform-type spacecraft, providing power, pointing, and communications to Earth. The telescope and its infrared instruments, will reside within a cylindrical cryogen tank. The hollow walls of the tank will contain the superfluid helium that cools the telescope to its operating temperature, a few degrees above absolute zero. SIRTF will carry three versatile instruments to analyze the radiation it collects, the Multiband Imaging Photometer, the Infrared Array Camera, and the Infrared Spectrograph. SIRTF long lifetime - 5 years or more - will permit astronomers of all disciplines to use the facililty to carry out a wide variety of astrophysical programs. It will provide ongoing coverage of variable objects, such as quasars, as well as the capability to study rare and transient events such as comets and supernovae. SIRTF's long lifetime will also allow it to distinguish nearby objects by detecting their gradual motions relative to the more distant background stars.