NASA’s SOFIA airborne observatory takes flight

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, a joint U.S.-German project featuring a 15-tonne telescope mounted on a jumbo jet, is beginning its first full cycle of science flights in an effort to help astronomers better understand how stars form and evolve

BOEING 747SP: Heavily modified former Pan Am airliner

Cockpit
Pressurized cabin
Science instrument (camera)
Pressure bulkhead
Door in fuselage slides open to reveal telescope in unpressurized compartment
Education and public outreach
Mission control and science operations
Telescope: 2.5m-diameter reflector. Aircraft altitude allows infrared observation above obscuring layer of water vapour in atmosphere

HOW A STAR IS BORN
1. Over millions of years, vast clouds of interstellar dustand gas are pulledtogether by forceof gravity

2. Cloud contracts under its own gravity. Centre becomesdenser and hotter,forming protostar – visible in infrared

3. When internal pressure equals gravity pushing in, hydrogen is fusedinto helium and star is born

Constellation of Orion in visible light 
What SOFIA sees in infrared 

Sources: NASA, German Aerospace Centre (DLR)
Picture: Akira Fujii / Infrared Astronomical Satellite