Ultraballer2000

how many space is there?

Looking in the infrared is awesome when your sources are enshrouded by dust, which prevents you from observing in the visible of ultraviolet wavelengths.

There are large quantities of dust inbetween us and the galactic center (we're on the outer parts of the Galaxy so think of the spiral arms). So it's impossible to observe the center in visible wavelengths; however, in the IR we're able to see through all of that dust and find out what's going on (see the picture!)

Like a G

SOFIA is really an amazing feat of engineering. It is literally a 2.5 meter telescope mounted in the fuselage of a Boeing 747. The project was in the works for over 10 years since they had to strip down the airplane and retrofit it with new electronics to operate the telescope and run the instruments made for it.

It is really cool--the best thing is that they have little flight cards like they do on regular planes with emergency procedures and whatnot.