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European Space Agency

Press Release

Space infrared astronomy comes of age

16 April 2003
 
It is 20 years ago this year that Europe, in collaboration with the
United States, launched the first infrared observatory into space.
Its infrared powers revealed a secret universe that, to this day,
continues to fascinate. The more astronomers look, the better the
picture gets... 
 
Everything started when the German-born British astronomer William
Herschel, famous for discovering the planet Uranus, discovered
infrared radiation in 1800. He used a thermometer to measure the
heating power of the Sun's light, having split the light into a
rainbow of colours. He noticed that the temperature increased towards
the red end of the spectrum and continued to increase beyond, even
though no light was visible. Scientists eventually called these
invisible 'heat' rays infrared. 

In 1856, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smythe,
invented infrared astronomy by climbing Mount Teide on Tenerife and
detecting infrared radiation coming from the Moon. However, the
instrumentation was crude by modern standards and little improved for
the next 100 years.

In the latter half of the 20th century, came the next major step in
infrared astronomy. By 1965, astronomers Gerry Neugebauer and Robert
Leighton made the first infrared survey of the cosmos. To do so, they
used a declassified version of the infrared technology developed by
military organisations to build 'night vision' tools. They found ten
objects that were only visible at infrared wavelengths, but four
years later, the list had grown to thousands. Clearly, infrared
astronomy could provide an entirely new insight of a hidden universe,
one that is invisible at optical wavelengths.

The desire to see more triggered the Infrared Astronomical Satellite
(IRAS). A joint project between The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and
United States, it surveyed the Universe for 11 months during 1983 and
detected about 500 000 infrared sources.

Even before the launch of IRAS, ESA was already working on its
successor, the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). Designed to look
more closely at the objects discovered by IRAS, ISO did that and a
lot more. It proved to be the most successful infrared space
telescope to date. Its instruments showed how similar the chemical
composition of our Solar System is to that of other star systems. It
stunned astronomers by revealing that our Solar System contains twice
as many asteroids as previously counted, and that water and organic
molecules are widespread in space. Visible light telescopes would
never have been able to see into dusty regions of space in this way.
 
This month, NASA continues the tradition by launching the Space
Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF). However, as with IRAS before,
ESA is already preparing to build a successor, Herschel. This new
spacecraft will have the most sophisticated infrared telescope ever
built, with a mirror 1.5 times larger than NASA-ESA's famous Hubble
Space Telescope. What dark secrets will it find?

Herschel will reveal the birth of stars and whole galaxies in details
that would astonish early space infrared pioneers. The joint NASA-ESA
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an infrared space telescope to
replace the (largely optical) Hubble Space Telescope, will look at
the sky in infrared also. Even ESA's mission to find Earth-like
planets, the Darwin mission, will consist of infrared instruments.
Why? You can detect a planet's atmosphere and the possible giveaway
signs of life most easily in the infrared region of the spectrum.

We have come a long way since the birth of infrared satellite
astronomy 20 years ago. What surprises will the next 20 years bring?

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