page_title: Spitzer Space Telescope
section_title: Instruments
hierarchical_section_title: Spitzer Space Telescope / Instruments
caption_attribution_description: English: Within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a nearby and irregularly-shaped galaxy seen in the Southern Hemisphere, lies a star-forming region heavily obscured by interstellar dust. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has used its infrared eyes to poke through the cosmic veil to reveal a striking nebula where the entire lifecycle of stars is seen in splendid detail. The LMC is a small satellite galaxy gravitationally bound to our own Milky Way. Yet the gravitational effects are tearing the companion to shreds in a long-playing drama of 'intergalactic cannibalism.' These disruptions lead to a recurring cycle of star birth and star death. Astronomers are particularly interested in the LMC because its fractional content of heavy metals is two to five times lower than is seen in our solar neighborhood. [In this context, 'heavy elements' refer to those elements not present in the primordial universe. Such elements as carbon, oxygen and others are produced by nucleosynthesis and are ejected into the interstellar medium via mass loss by stars, including supernova explosions.] As such, the LMC provides a nearby cosmic laboratory that may resemble the distant universe in its chemical composition. The primary Spitzer image, showing the wispy filamentary structure of Henize 206, is a four-color composite mosaic created by combining data from an infrared array camera (IRAC) at near-infrared wavelengths and the mid-infrared data from a multiband imaging photometer (MIPS). Blue represents invisible infrared light at wavelengths of 3.6 and 4.5 microns. Note that most of the stars in the field of view radiate primarily at these short infrared wavelengths. Cyan denotes emission at 5.8 microns, green depicts the 8.0 micron light, and red is used to trace the thermal emission from dust at 24 microns. The separate instrument images are included as insets to the main composite. An inclined ring of emission dominates the central and upper regions of the image. This delineates a bubble of hot, x-ray emitting gas that was blown into space when a massive star died in a supernova explosion millions of years ago. The shock waves from that explosion impacted a cloud of nearby hydrogen gas, compressed it, and started a new generation of star formation. The death of one star led to the birth of many new stars. This is particularly evident in the MIPS inset, where the 24-micron emission peaks correspond to newly formed stars. The ultraviolet and visible-light photons from the new stars are absorbed by surrounding dust and re-radiated at longer infrared wavelengths, where it is detected by Spitzer. This emission nebula was cataloged by Karl Henize (HEN-eyes) while spending 1948-1951 in South Africa doing research for his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Michigan. Henize later became a NASA astronaut and, at age 59, became the oldest rookie to fly on the Space Shuttle during an eight-day flight of the Challenger in 1985. He died just short of his 67th birthday in 1993 while attempting to climb the north face of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak.
context_page_description: The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003 and retired on 30 January 2020.
  The planned 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 to the very low temperatures needed to operate, most of the instruments were no longer usable. However, the two shortest-wavelength modules of the IRAC camera continued to operate with the same sensitivity as before the cryogen was exhausted, and continued to be used into early 2020 in the Spitzer Warm Mission. Pre-launch tests had been conducted to determine the expected performance of the equipment in this state, along with tests at the University of Rochester, confirming the continuing capability of the detectors. During the warm mission, the two short wavelength channels of IRAC operated at 30 K, which was predicted to experience little to no degradation compared to the nominal mission.
context_section_description: Spitzer carries three instruments on board:
  Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
  An infrared camera which operated simultaneously on four wavelengths (3.6 μm, 4.5 μm, 5.8 μm and 8 μm). Each module used a 256×256-pixel detector—the short-wavelength pair used indium antimonide technology, the long-wavelength pair used arsenic-doped silicon impurity band conduction technology. The principal investigator was Giovanni Fazio of Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; the flight hardware was built by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
  Infrared Spectrograph (IRS)
  An infrared spectrometer 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). Each module used a 128×128-pixel detector—the short-wavelength pair used arsenic-doped silicon blocked impurity band technology, the long-wavelength pair used antimony-doped silicon blocked impurity band technology. The principal investigator was James R. Houck of Cornell University; the flight hardware was built by Ball Aerospace.
   Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS)
  Three detector arrays in the far-infrared (128 × 128 pixels at 24 μm, 32 × 32 pixels at 70 μm, 2 × 20 pixels at 160 μm). The 24 μm detector is identical to one of the IRS short-wavelength modules. The 70 μm detector used gallium-doped germanium technology, and the 160 μm detector also used gallium-doped germanium, but with mechanical stress added to each pixel to lower the bandgap and extend sensitivity to this long-wavelength. The principal investigator was George H. Rieke of the University of Arizona; the flight hardware was built by Ball Aerospace.
caption: A Henize 206 viewed by different instruments in March 2004, the separate IRAC and MPIS images are at right.
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