Cower Photo

The Pleiades Nebula

0 California Institute of Technology

Cover Illustrations

~-
Asteroids Collide Stellar Birth

Quasar Telescope in Space

 SIRTF
Space Infrared Telescope Facility

A VMndowon Cossmic Birth

I Written by:

Dr. Nelson J. lrvine

Dr. Cynthia E. lrvine
Dr. Donald Goldsmith
Dr. Michael W. Werner

National Aeronautlcs and

Spdce Administrailon
Ames Research Center
Moffett Field Calliornla 94035
Introduction
I
Each window on the universe - During the past 40 years, as humans have learned new ways to look
each type of light - provides a
unique view which leads to new
understanding and further
questions.
at the universe, we have discovered secrets which were previously
concealed from our view like the pages of an unopened book. Only
visible light and radio waves can pass totally unimpeded through the
atmosphere to observatories on the ground. Before the dawn of the
i
space age, only brief and tantalizing glimpses of the unseen pages were
obtained with instruments carried above the atmosphere by rockets,
balloons, and aircraft. These brief glimpses showed the universe to be
l
rich in objects and phenomena extending far beyond the stars, planets,
and nebulae visible to the human eye and known to early astronomers.

During the past 15 years, an array of orbiting satellites has allowed us

to observe what could never be seen before - a universe full of gamma
rays and X-rays, of ultraviolet and infrared light. The orbiting satellites
have shown how each part of the spectrum of light - from radio waves to
gamma rays - reveals unique aspects of the universe, and that each is
essential for our understanding of the cosmos. The most recent of these
pioneering achievements - the preliminary examination of the universe
using infrared light - concluded with the final observations made by the
Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) on November 21, 1983.

In the future, long-lived orbiting observatories will allow astronomical

observations in all portions of the spectrum of light. For the scientifically
crucial investigations to be carried out with infrared light, the future is the
Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF).

2
 The dark lanes seen in the visible photo of the Milky Way (top) are clouds of dust that
obscure our view of the numerous stars behind them. The real shape of our galaxy is
revealed in the infrared image (below) obtained by IRAS. Infrared light penetrates the
dust clouds and shows that the galaxy appears as a thin disk, just like the edge-on spiral
galaxies we see throughout the cosmos.

Gamma Rays X-rays Ultraviolet I INFRARED 1 Radio Waves

10

C
ecn Complete Atmospheric
2 Absorption
E
m
C

+P
n
"
Visible

Modern astronomy uses all regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.The Earth's atmosphere absorbs most infrared light, as well as gamma rays,
X-rays, arid ultraviolet light. To observe this radiation we must go above our atmosphere.

3
The Horsehead Nebula. A wide variety of molecules are synthesized in the cool, protected interiors of dark clouds such as this.

4
 Infrared light or infrared radiation, sometimes called heat radiation,
what is Infrared - bv- Sir William Herschel. a British
was first identified two centuries aao
astronomer best known for his discovery of the planet Uranus. Herschel
Radiation? sent beams of sunlight through a prism, which dispersed or separated
the light into the rainbow of visible colors: violet, indigo, blue, green,
yellow, orange, and red. He used a thermometer to measure the enerav 1.

Infrared radiation, although
to the carries energy
and information in the same way
that visible light does.
carried by each color of light. But the temperature rose even if the
thermometer was placed in the part of the spectrum beyond the red.
Something was reaching the thermometer - but what?
Herschel realized that something like visible light, but invisible to
human eyes, must have formed part of the beam of sunlight. He called
this “infrared,” radiation beyond the red. Today we recognize that
infrared radiation has longer wavelengths and lower frequencies (fewer
vibrations per second) than red visible light does. Human eyes are blind
to the infrared, but we have made detectors sensitive to infrared
radiation, often composed of crystals of germanium or silicon which are
“doped” with small quantities of other elements. Infrared radiation
shining on these crystals produces electrical signals which allow us to
determine how much infrared is reaching them. An array of thousands of
such detectors provides a sensitive camera for imaging the universe in
the infrared.

The upper panel shows an ordinary optical photograph of a small region of a dust cloud
located near the belt of Orion. An infrared camera using a detector array provided the
infrared image of the same field shown in the lower panel. This reveals many stars unseen
in the ordinary photo, and illustrates the ability of infrared observations to study objects
hidden within dark clouds. Much more powerful imaging capabilities will be provided by
the infrared detector arrays to be used on SIRTF.

0 National Optical Astronomy Observatories

5

Infrared
Astronomy
Observations of the universe with
infrared radiation are uniquely
important for the following
reasons:
1. Infrared observations can examine the universe as it was when it
was only a fraction of its present age. Because of the expansion of the
universe, such a look back through time means that we observe objects
moving away from us at high velocities. As a result their light is stretched
in wavelength or “red-shifted” from visible or ultraviolet wavelengths into
the infrared region of the spectrum.
2. The dust clouds which are found in most astrophysical
environments absorb starlight very efficiently and reradiate the energy
in the infrared. As a result, much of the radiant energy in the universe is
found at infrared wavelengths. Galaxies have been identified which
produce hundreds of times more infrared than visible light energy. Some
generate more than one thousand times the energy output of our entire
galaxy and are among the most energetic objects in the universe.

3. Cool objects radiate primarily at infrared wavelengths. Complete

understanding of the planets, of stars cooler than the Sun, and of clouds
of gas and dust in interstellar space requires infrared observations,
which can also lead to the discovery of new types of cool objects not
seen in any other way.

4. Infrared observations allow us to peer into dusty regions -the

cores of the galaxies and star-forming clouds -to study phenomena
hidden from view in visible light.

5. Atoms and molecules absorb and radiate particular frequencies of

infrared radiation, making “fingerprints” in the radiation we observe.
From these fingerprints we can identify and study atoms and molecules
in planetary atmospheres, interstellar clouds, and distant galaxies.

Energy

Ultra- Visible Near Far

violet Infrared Infrared

Any object warmer than absolute zero emits electromagnetic radiation at all
wavelengths, with a characteristic spectral shape determined by its
temperature. Hot objects, like the Sun, emit most of their radiation in the
visible-light region. Cooler objects, in space or on the Earth, radiate primarily
in the near and far infrared.
6
 Infrared astronomy from the Earth's surface is severely hampered by
the life-givingwater vapor that pervades our atmosphere. To avoid the
absorption produced by water vapor, astronomers have gone to great
lengths - and great heights. They have established infrared
observatories on mountains so high that altitude sickness can be a
problem. They have taken aircraft IO miles above the Earth's surface,
and they have launched balloons to still higher altitudes. These efforts
have yielded improved knowledge of the cosmos, but the full range of
infrared observations can be realized only from space.

The unavoidable infrared brightness of the atmosphere and a warm

telescope drown weak cosmic infrared sources in a sea of local
radiation. As a result, infrared observations from within the atmosphere
are as inefficient as optical observations in broad daylight. In space, free
of the atmosphere, we can cool the telescope to just a few degrees
above absolute zero, so that its own infrared radiation is very weak. The
supercooled telescope in space thus becomes 1,000 to 10,000 times
more sensitive to infrared radiation than the best telescopes on or near
the Earth's surface. IRAS pioneered this advanced technology for
infrared astronomy; SlRTF will bring it to maturity.

Astronomers working from within the atmosphere have made infrared observations using instruments mounted on telescopes at mountaintop
observatories, flown in aircraft, and suspended from balloons.

0Srnithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

7
 In 1983, the great veil of the cosmos was briefly lifted when the
Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) scanned the skies for 10 months.
IRAS, a joint effort of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the
Netherlands, was sensitive to four different frequency regions within the
infrared portion of the spectrum. Helium in its extremely cold superfluid
form was used to cool the telescope and its detectors to 4 degrees
above absolute zero (-454°F). Freed from Earth's interfering
atmosphere, IRAS surveyed almost the entire sky twice between its
launch on January 25, 1983, and November 21, 1983. On that date,
three-quarters of the way through a third sky survey, the supply of helium
coolant was depleted, the IRAS telescope warmed up, and its infrared
detectors ceased to function.

IRAS provided an infrared survey a thousand times more sensitive

than any previously available. In its brief, astoundingly successful
lifespan, IRAS observed a quarter of a million individual sources, only a
few thousand of which had previously been observed in the infrared.
The catalogs of infrared sources compiled from the IRAS observations
contain a myriad of objects and phenomena unknown to astronomers
before 1983.

IRAS's infrared image of Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock revealed an immense tail of dust,

invisible in ordinary light. This comet came within 3 million miles of Earth, the closest
cometary approach to our planet in more than two centuries.

9
 What Among IRAS’s many discoveries, the most exciting were our first
glimpses of what may be solar systems in formation. IRAS found disks of

IRAS Found particles surrounding the nearby stars Vega, Fomalhaut, and Beta
Pictoris. The disks consist of bits of dust, ice, and rocky material, and
they may signal the presence of planet-sized objects around these stars.

Much closer to home, IRAS revealed hitherto undetected matter in the

solar system. Six new comets, each faintly glowing in infrared emission,
revealed themselves to IRAS’s detectors. Mysterious trails of dust were
found to accompany other comets in their orbits around the Sun. IRAS
also found, strewn among the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter,
enormous bands of dust particles, thought to have been created in
countless collisions between asteroids.

IRAS found numerous “protostars” - stars still forming - shrouded in

cocoons of dust. From these dust-laden stellar nurseries, stars like our
own Sun will shine forth to join the hundreds of billions of other stars in
the galaxy.

IRAS also discovered thin wisps of infrared emission from regions

above and below the plane of the Milky Way. Called the “infrared cirrus”
because it resembles terrestrial cirrus clouds, this emission is thought to
be produced in part by large, complex molecules, which must therefore
abound in the interstellar medium.

An artist‘s conception depicts the cloud of dust, ice, and rocks in orbit around the star
Vega.

0 Seth Shostak. Kapteyn Laboratorium (Netherlands)

10

This image of the constellation Orion as seen by
IRAS uses “false colors” to show the infrared
radiation. Within Orion lies a great mass of dust
and gas, from which the young stars in Orion
have formed within the past few million years.
The band of blue at the top traces the location of
warmer ”foreground” dust within the solar
system.
IRAS found bands of dust in orbit around the Sun, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter,
tilted with respect to the orbits of the planets. This dust is thought to be debris from
collisions between asteroids like that shown in the artist’s conception.
Galaxies are the building blocks of the universe. IRAS provided the
first assessment of their total energy output by detecting infrared
radiation from some 20,000 galaxies and showing that most galaxies
like our own shine as brightly in the infrared as in visible light. The IRAS
catalog also contains another class of galaxies, which radiate hundreds
of times more infrared than visible light. These luminous infrared
galaxies radiate as prodigiously as do the distant and mysterious
quasars. Together with IRAS’s discovery of a new population of “infrared
quasars,” this has raised the intriguing possibility of an evolutionary
connection between infrared galaxies and quasars.
IRAS’s spectacular achievement was a beginning, not an end. We
can think of IRAS as a quick, blurry first look through a new window on
the universe. IRAS was primarily intended to survey the infrared sky, not
to make detailed studies of the objects it discovered. A more powerful
infrared observatory in space is needed to answer the questions raised
by IRAS’s discoveries and to continue the exploration of the universe
through the infrared window. The Space Infrared Telescope Facility
(SIRTF), to be launched by NASA in the 199Os, will do this.
11
SIRTF SlRTF will be placed into orbit by the Space Shuttle and then boosted
to an orbital altitude of 900 kilometers by NASA’s Orbital Maneuvering

Will Be a True Vehicle. SlRTF will be operated as an international facility, with

observations conducted from a ground-based control center and
observing time awarded to the best research proposals submitted by
Astmnomikal astronomers from all countries.

Observatory SlRTF will orbit aboard a platform-type spacecraft, possibly one

developed as part of NASA’s Space Station program. The spacecraft
will provide the basic functions - power, pointing, and the
communications link to Earth -that are needed to support the SlRTF
mission. An essential function of the spacecraft is to keep SIRTF’s
telescope oriented so that the Sun’s rays never reach the cold interior
surfaces of the telescope.

SIRTF’s 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.

SlRTF will carry three versatile instruments to analyze the radiation it

collects. The Multiband Imaging Photometer will measure the intensity of
radiation at all infrared wavelengths. The photometer plus the Infrared
Array Camera will provide infrared images tremendously improved in
detail, allowing the identification and study of objects discovered by
IRAS and carrying out deeper infrared surveys as well. The Infrared
Spectrograph will obtain infrared spectra, dividing the infrared radiation
into its constituent wavelengths and providing unique new information
on the composition, temperature, and motions of both nearby and very
distant objects - including objects discovered in SIRTF’s own surveys.

SIRTF’s long lifetime - 5 years or more -will permit astronomers of all

disciplines to use the facility 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.

13
 SlRTF will be a sophisticated astrophysical facility for the study of the
The o b s e ~ a t ocosmic
~ Sources that emit infrared radiation. SlRTF will build on IRAS’s
success in its use of a superbly instrumented, supercooled telescope in
orbit above the atmosphere. SlRTF will investigate in detail the
phenomena discovered by IRAS. In addition, SIRTF’s powerful
observational capabilities will allow it to study scientific problems
untouched even by IRAS.

The Cone Nebula in the constellation Monoceros contains huge amounts of dust that
absorb visible light. Infrared light from within the nebula can escape with relative ease,
revealing newly formed stars that remain hidden from optical investigations.

0 Anglo-AustralianObservatory

14
 SlRTF will have a mirror 0.85 meter in diameter, with twice the area of IRAS's mirror. In addition, SlRTF will
incorporate the following major advances:

Spectral Coverage SIRTF's detectors will cover infrared wavelengths from 2 to 700 micrometers (25 micrometers equals
one-thousandthof an inch) -a region six times broader than IRAS covered. SIRTF's spectrum of
observationswill be fully 200 times wider than the visible-light spectrum that our eyes can detect.

Sensitivity SIRTFs detectors will reach the fundamental sensitivity limits set by the faint infrared backgrounds
in space. Taking into account as well the larger size of SIRTF's mirror and the longer observation
times available, SIRTF will be able to detect infrared sources thousands of times fainter than those
seen by IRAS.

Imaging Capability SIRTFs larger, more perfect mirror and more stable pointing will allow it to achieve an angular
resolution of one arcsecond and thus to form images hundreds of times sharper than those provided
by IRAS. The large detector arrays to be used on SIRTF can image an entire planet, comet, or galaxy
with this level of detail in a single exposure.

Spectral Resolution SIRTFs spectrographswill be able to discriminate among neighboring spectral wavelengths with a
resolution of better than one part in one thousand - a scale 100 times finer than that achieved by IRAS.

Satellite Lifetime The use of on-orbit cryogen resupply will permit SlRTF to achieve a lifetime in excess of 5 years,
six times IRAS's 10 months of active life.

15
 I
Discovery Except for the planets themselves, most of the objects in our solar
system - planetary satellites, asteroids, and the frozen nuclei of distant 1
comets - are so small that they can be imaged in detail only by deep
Programs: space probes. But these objects may contain the history of the solar
system, history which can be read from the Earth by infrared
observations.
The Solar
Comets in particular are the oldest of all objects in the solar system,
System primordial lumps of rock and ice that accumulated more than 4.6 billion
years ago, as the Sun and its family of orbiting debris condensed from a
rotating pancake of interstellar gas and dust. Many of the smaller
satellites of the giant planets are likewise thought to consist of primordial
ice and rock, perhaps even to be comets captured into their present
orbits billions of years ago. SlRTF will allow us to measure the chemical
composition and the temperature of these most primitive objects in the
solar system, and thus to study what the solar system was like when it
formed. SIRTF’s measurements of the changing appearance of comets
as they approach and recede from the Sun will be particularly useful for
determinations of the structure and composition of cometary nuclei. For
example, SlRTF can study comets like Comet Halley, not only during
their rapid and infrequent passages through the inner solar system, but
also when they are as far from the Sun as the planet Uranus. Charon,
the mysterious moon of Pluto -the largest satellite in proportion to its
planet’s size - will yield some of its secrets to SIRTF’s spectrographs,
possibly to reveal a history unique among all solar-system objects.

Infrared image of Saturn at a wavelength chosen so that sunlight is reflectedby the rings
but absorbed by methane in Saturn’s atmosphere.

0 JPL, California Institute of Technology

16

Planetary
*stems
Infrared observations extend the
hunt for planets beyond the
boundaries of our solar system.
IRAS found disks of matter around several nearby stars that suggest
the formation of planetary systems. By applying SIRTF’s high resolution
and sensitivity to the study of circumstellar material around nearby stars,
we can learn how commonly such disks occur, as well as their
dimensions, structure, and chemical composition. By solar-system
standards, the rings have immense sizes. For example, the ring around
Vega has a radius 100 times the distance between the Earth and the
Sun. If smaller rings of warmer matter analogous to the Sun’s own
interplanetary dust cloud occur around nearby stars, SIRTF will be able
to observe them as well.
Even more exciting is the possibility that SlRTF will enable us for the
first time to observe directly a planet around another star. SIRTF could
detect Jupiter-sized objects around the nearest stars, and could detect
“brown dwarfs” - larger planets, with masses a few dozen times Jupiter’s
mass -around stars within a few hundred light-years of the Sun. The
SlRTF data, complemented by other observations, will provide us with
an excellent picture of the nature of planetary systems that are
associated with stars in the vicinity of the Sun. Such studies will help us
to understand whether the circumstances which gave rise to life on the
Earth occur commonly or rarely.
Superimposed on this artist‘s conception of the dust cloud around Vega is a scale that
shows the size of the cloud (1 AU = Earth - Sun distance = 93 million miles: J and P show
the sizes of the orbits of Jupiter and Pluto, respectively) and a box that represents a SIRTF
picture cell or “pixel,”the basic size unit of SIRTF observations. SIRTF will be able to
observe details as small as the pixel size.
17
Birth and
Death of Stars
SlRTF is an ideal instrument for
the study of stars and planetary
systems in formation.
18
Stars continually form and die within our galaxy. Indeed, the galaxy
was more than half its present age before the Sun began to form. SlRTF
is ideally suited for the study of star formation. Stars are born within thick
clouds of interstellar gas and dust. These dust clouds absorb any visible
light from stars which are forming within them, but infrared radiation from
these stars in formation can escape from even the densest cloud. SlRTF
will provide images and spectra of star-forming regions in the
neighborhood of the Sun. These images will greatly increase our
understanding of the chemical, structural, and dynamical evolution of
stars in the earliest stages of their lives. While allowing us to study the
formation of stars like the Sun, SlRTF may also permit us to examine the
early evolution of planetary systems like our own.
Dust shrouds the death as well as the birth of stars. In their death
throes, many stars lie concealed within dense shells of dust and gas.
SIRTF’s intruments will be able to penetrate these dust mantles to
explore the final phases of a star’s life.
This artist‘s conception of a newborn star, still hidden in visible light by the dust clouds
within which it formed, shows matter in orbit around the rotating star. Such leftover debris
may eventually form cornets, planets, satellites, and asteroids. Material “squeezedout” by
the formation process is thought to be ejected along the star’s rotation axis in relatively
narrow, high-velocity streams of matter.
I
l Specfroscopy One of the principal tools of the modern astronomer is the
spectrograph, which separates the radiation from a celestial object into

I and msmic
Chemistry
~ SIRTF’s spectrographs will greatly
I enhance our knowledge of the
chemical and physical conditions
I in space.
its constituent wavelengths or colors and then records this spectrum
electronically. Such a spectrum is a kind of cosmic fingerprint, a pattern
of greater and lesser amounts of radiation at different wavelengths. The
details of such a pattern depend both on the specific types of atoms or
molecules in the object and on the nature of their environment. These
spectral features reveal much about the conditions in the regions giving
rise to the infrared radiation we observe. These conditions include not
only the chemical composition, temperature, and density, but also the
pressure, rotational velocity, and magnetic field strength. SIRTF‘s
spectrographs wi!! record ?heinfrared slgnl,!ures n! nlrmernus a!tgms
and molecules, greatly enhancing our knowledge of the chemical and
physical conditions in planets and stars, in the interstellar medium, and
in distant galaxies.

In recent years, astronomers using infrared and microwave

spectrographs have discovered a rich and unexpected variety of
complex molecules in the space between the stars. Chains of carbon
atoms with associated clusters of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen
abound in dark interstellar clouds where they are shielded from
ultraviolet radiation. More durable carbon-ring molecules, complex
versions of familiar substances such as benzene, apparently exist
throughout interstellar space. SIRTF’s spectrographs, studying the
unique spectral fingerprints of each type of molecule, will identify new
molecular species and provide detailed information on the chemical
processes which supply this fascinating cosmic chemical storehouse.
These studies could have unexpected implications for other areas of
science; the types of molecules found in interstellar space are those
thought to have been abundant when primitive life formed in Earth’s
oceans.

I I
1 7
I I 1 I 1
WAVELENGTH +

Composite infrared spectrum of a dust-embedded protostellar source, showing

absorptions due to icy and mineral grains in the interstellar medium. Proposed
identifications for the absorbing species: 1 and 5-water; 2-methyl-isocyanide;
3-carbon monoxide; 4-carbonyl sulfide; 6-methyl alcohol; 7-silicate minerals.

19
 Shrouded in veils of dust, invisible in ordinary light, the dense center
of our galaxy lies some 30,000 light-years from Earth. Infrared radiation
can penetrate the dust to allow detailed investigations of the core of the
galaxy. SIRTF's unprecedented sensitivity and improved resolution will
provide new details of the structure and motions at the galactic center.
These observations may provide further evidence for the massive black
hole suspected to exist at the very heart of the galaxy.

The motions of stars and gas within a few light-years of the center of the galaxy indicate
that a massive black hole with a million times the Sun's mass may lie at the galactic core.
Matter streaming toward the black hole would be heated by high-velocity collisions and
emit radiation before falling completely in.

The concentration of matter and luminosity toward the center of the galaxy is clearly seen
in IRAS's image of the inner few thousand light-years of the galactic plane.

20
Infrared Galaxies dominated
Seen in the infrared, away from the Milky Way, the night sky is
by distant galaxies, each containing billions of stars. IRAS
provided our first infrared glimpse of the realm of the galaxies; SIRTF
will provide the first detailed pictures.

Interacting and colliding galaxies are unusually common among

strong infrared galaxies. How can a collision between two galaxies
power an infrared source which is 10 to 100 times brighter than the
starlight of an entire galaxy? Two competing theories exist: hot stars and
black holes. The infrared emission from these infrared galaxies probably
comes from clouds of warm interstellar dust, which may be heated by
young, short-lived, hot stars which have formed within them. The
collision of two galaxies may trigger intense bursts of star formation,
which in turn produce large amounts of infrared radiation.

The second theory assigns the heating of the dust to an outburst from
the vicinity of a dust-shrouded, supermassive black hole in the center of
the galaxy. Such an outburst in the core of the galaxy could be triggered
by a collision with another galaxy, or even by a near miss that markedly
increases the rate at which matter falls into the galaxy’s central black
hole. SIRTFs detailed imaging and spectroscopic studies of infrared
galaxies should prove crucial in resolving the nature of these objects.

The gravitational forces between these two interacting galaxies have produced the tail-like
shapes that have led to the galaxies’ familiar name among astronomers: “The Mice.”

0 NationalOptical Astronomy Observatories

A computer simulation of colliding galaxies

shows matter drawn into long “tails”by
gravitational interaction.

21
Quasars
Since their discovery 25 years
ago, quasars have been one of
the major enigmas and attractions
of astronomy.
22
Quasars are apparently the most distant and the most powerful
sources of radiation yet detected. In the most conservative theories, their
tremendous luminosity comes from vast amounts of matter heated to
enormously high temperatures just before being swallowed by a
supermassive black hole at the center of the quasar. Much more exotic
processes have also been proposed.
The nearby infrared galaxies discovered by IRAS are more powerful
and more numerous than are the quasars in the same volume of space.
If a dust-shrouded black hole is the central powerhouse of such an
infrared galaxy, its radiation could burn through the dust shell. The
region around the black hole itself would then shine forth to appear as a
quasar, overwhelming the starlight from the surrounding galaxy. IRAS
has given further tantalizing hints that this may occur by discovering
“infrared quasars,” which may be the missing link in the evolution of
luminous infrared galaxies into optically bright quasars. SlRTF can
explore this possible evolutionary connection to great depths by detailed
studies of individual objects and by determining how the numbers of
infrared galaxies and infrared quasars have varied as the universe has
evolved.
The most distant known optically visible quasar is receding at 92% of
the speed of light. It is so distant that the light we receive from it has been
traveling through space for approximately 10 billion years. If infrared
quasars similar to those discovered by IRAS are present at greater
distances, SlRTF can observe them and thereby probe still deeper into
space and time.
An artist’s conception shows a quasar as a tremendous outburst in the core of a far-distant
spiral galaxy.
 A portion of SIRTF‘s observing time will be devoted to examining
The sun/ey small areas of the sky at the greatest achievable sensitivity. The results
of this more sensitive survey should be as exciting as those of IRAS. The
Deep Survey may provide our first look at “primordial galaxies,” young
S/RTF will see much deeper into galaxies, seen as they were billions of years ago, in the most distant
space than did IRAS. observable reaches of space. It should also provide us with our first
observations of nearby, but weakly radiating, objects such as brown
dwarfs. Finally, as the results from IRAS show, such a survey at
unprecedented sensitivity levels will lead to the discovery of new and
unexpected phenomena in the universe.

23
Brown marib Astronomers have deduced the total mass of the Milky Way from the
motions of the stars within our galaxy. These motions depend on the
combined gravitational force from all the objects in the galaxy, and
and the reveal the presence of far more gravitational force than the directly
observed dust, gas, and stars can provide. Furthermore, other galaxies
Missing Mass are thought to possess extensive, invisible halos that contain most of
their mass. This “missing mass,” both in our galaxy and in other galaxies
may take the form of brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs are failed, would-be
stars, spheres of gas with too little mass to ignite the fusion reactions that
Most of the mass of our galaxy has power true stars. The heat energy released as a brown dwarf slowly
not yet been properly identified. cools should appear primarily as infrared light. SIRTF may be able to
measure the accumulated infrared radiation of a halo of brown dwarfs
around a nearby galaxy. Even if such objects are not sufficiently
numerous to supply the missing mass, a number of them most likely are
in the near vicinity of the Sun. SIRTFs deep survey should furnish our
first detailed information on the abundance and physical characteristics
of these poorly studied constituents of the universe.

An artist’s conception of a group of faint brown dwarfs silhouetted against the backdrop of the immensely rich star fields of the Milky way.
Brown dwarfs may prove to contain most of the mass of our galaxy and of similar galaxies.

24

About 15 billion years ago, the
universe began its expansion in a
primordial, all-inclusive "big
bang. I'
Beyond the quasars lies a region so remote and so far in the past that
we expect to find galaxies forming out of the original matter created in
the big bang ?hatbegan the expansion of the universe. As a result of the
expansion, the radiation from these events may be so red-shifted as to
be.detectable only from SIRTF. SIRTF offers us the exciting possibility of
witnessing the birth of galaxies near the beginning of time,
approximately 15 billion years ago, beyond the limits of the presently
observable universe.
SlRTF will allow us to observe cosmic birth and evolution at work.
SlRTF can observe enormously distant, and hence tremendously red-
shifted, primordial galaxies. SlRTF and other telescopes can study
similar objects at intermediate distances and nearby examples as well.
SlRTF will therefore allow us to describe the evolution with time of the
physical and chemical properties of galaxies. This will help guide our
understanding of how galaxies develop from massive clouds of
hydrogen and helium into highly organized systems of stars, gas, and
dust that contain a rich variety of chemical elements - a variety required
to produce and sustain what we call life.
This "false color" image shows a quasar (brighter object) interacting with a galaxy (fainter
object) that has apparently been distorted in shape by the gravitational force from the
quasar. Such interacting systems often prove to be strong sources of infrared emission.
25

from the doorsteD of the solar
system to the fringes of the
universe, SlRTF will reveal objects
and events never before observed.
26
SlRTF will provide us with unique opportunities to examine the
processes of cosmic birth over an enormous range of physical scales
and environments.
SlRTF can study small bodies in the outer solar system, bodies into
which the history of the formation of the solar system may literally be
frozen.
SIRTF can reveal the presence of planetary systems, both already
formed and in the process of formation, that may exist around nearby
stars. Such observations will provide further insights into the birth of our
own solar system.
All along the spiral arms of our Milky Way galaxy, new generations of
stars are being born, hidden from the view of optical telescopes by
cocoons of interstellar dust. SlRTF will allow us to probe our galaxy's
stellar nurseries and provide us with a new understanding of the birth of
stars.
Through observation of distant primordial galaxies, SlRTF will allow us
to see the birth of galaxies, and thus to understand how the Milky Way
itself came into existence.
SIRTF will provide the detailed data that we need to begin to
understand the birth processes of planetary systems, of stars, and of
galaxies. By revealing the details of how these objects are born and
evolve, SIRTF will add to our knowledge of how the universe is an
understanding of how the universe came to
A computer-generated picture modeling the infrared radiation from distant galaxies.
Images like this will be obtained by SIRTF's infrared detector arrays in studies of the
evolution of galaxies over billions of years.
0 E. L. Wright, UCLA
Epilogue
With the evaporation of IRAS’s coolant in November 1983, astronomy
once again became nearly blind in much of the infrared. IRAS’s
remarkable results dramatize both the scientific promise and the urgency
of NASA’s next step in infrared astronomy: SIRTF.

SIRTF is one of the family of Great Observatories scheduled to

become operational in space during the 1990s. Other family members
ai2 Hl;b& Space Telescope (for vi&qe-!igh? 2nd u!!:a;#i$e!
observations),the Gamma Ray Observatory, and the Advanced X-Ray
Astrophysics Facility. Working together, this family of observatories will
cover all of the electromagnetic spectrum from gamma rays through the
far infrared. A decade from now, for the first time in our history, we should
have continuous coverage of the spectrum of celestial radiation.

The new family of orbiting observatories will unseal the hidden pages
of the book of cosmic electromagnetic radiation. Once we can read all
the pages of that book, we can expect to find a profoundly exciting story,
one even more fascinating than the partially told tale we have already
uncovered.

H. G. Wells wrote:
“. . . the past is but the beginning of the beginning, and all that
is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn . . . . A day will
come when beings who are now latent in our?houghts shall
stand upon the earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall
laugh and reach out their hands amid the stars. ”

SIRTF, which will open the infrared frontier, represents a key step in
humanity’s effort to know the cosmos - and to bring this vision to reality.

27
SIRTF Science Working Group
Dr. Giovanni Fazio ....................................................................... Principal Investigator, Infrared Array Camera
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Dr. James Houck ......................................................................... Principal Investigator, Infrared Spectrograph
Cornell University
Dr. Michael Jura.. ................................................................................................... Interdisciplinary Scientist
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Frank Low .................................................................................................................... Facility Scientist
University of Arizona
Dr. George Rieke ............................................................... Principal Investigator, Multiband Imaging Photometer
University of Arizona
Dr. Edward Wright ................................................................................................. Interdisciplinary Scientist
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Michael Werner ............................................................................................................ Project Scientist
NASA Ames Research Center

Participating Institutions
NASA Headquarters Pennsylvania State University
NASA Ames Research Center Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Steward Observatory, University of Arizona
California Institute of Technology University of California, Berkeley
Cornell University University of California, Los Angeles
Jet Propulsion Laboratory University of Rochester

All photographs are NASA photographs unless credited otherwise.

The SlRTF Program is managed by Ames Research Center for the Astrophysics Division, office Of space Sciences
and Applications, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

28
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