Hidden Universe: NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Homes Away From Home? Revisiting the Seven Planets of TRAPPIST-1

One year ago, astronomers announced the discovery that seven roughly Earth-sized worlds orbited around the nearby star TRAPPIST-1. Now a year later, additional data have refined our understanding of these planets.We now know more about the TRAPPIST-1 system than any other solar system other than our own.

Improving Brown Dwarf Weather Forecasts

This artist's concept animation shows a brown dwarf with bands of clouds, thought to resemble those seen on Neptune and the other outer planets in the solar system.

5000 Days in the Life of an Astronomy Robot

May 3rd, 2017 marks the 5,000th day of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission. This video gives us a detailed look at six of these days, showing how an automated observatory like Spitzer, which is effectively an astronomy robot, spends its time. It’s overall mission design allows for an unprecedented degree of efficiency, allowing it to study the full range of astronomical phenomena including nearby objects in the solar system, stars in our galaxy, and galaxies out to the edge of the observable universe.

Spitzer Beyond

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which launched Aug. 25, 2003, will begin an extended mission—the “Beyond” phase—on Oct. 1, 2016.

The Wild Temperature Swings of an Exoplanet

The exoplanet HD80606 b spends most of its time far from its star, but every 111 days it swings in feverishly close. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope measured the planet's extreme temperature swings using infrared light. This allowed astronomers to simulate its atmosphere.