The Remarkable Legacy of Spitzer—the Telescope and the Man

For 16 years, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope opened our eyes and made us all more than human.

Out There iconOut There
By Corey S Powell
Jan 29, 2020 6:00 PMMay 20, 2025 1:33 PM
ssc2020-05b Lrg
The Spitzer Space Telescope as it would have appeared to a nearby observer on January 30, 2020, the day its mission ended. At the time it was 264 million kilometers (164 million miles) from Earth, steadily drifting away. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt/IPAC)

Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news
 

If you are a longtime follower of astronomy news, you find yourself learning a lot of weird acronyms. When I was young, I was excited by four letter-jumbles in particular: LST, GRO, AXAF, and SIRTF, the abbreviated names for NASA's four Great Observatories. They would be launched into space to view the universe without the handicap of having to look through our planet's distorting atmosphere, with each observatory taking a unique perspective. LST would look at visible light, GRO at gamma rays, AXAF at x-rays, and SIRTF at infrared radiation, like light but with a longer wavelength.

All four of them eventually turned into real missions with real names. LST (the Large Space Telescope) became the Hubble Space Telescope. GRO (the Gamma Ray Observatory) became Compton. AXAF (the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility) became Chandra. SIRTF—pronounced "SIR-tiff," the Space Infrared Telescope Facility—was the last one to be launched, in 2003, and now it is the latest of the four to come to the end of its life. NASA put it to eternal sleep on January 30, 2020, after 16 triumphant years of discovery.

SIRTF is better known by its final name, the Spitzer Space Telescope, in honor of Lyman Spitzer, Jr. What's in a name? In this case, a lot. Spitzer, the man, was a great visionary of 20th century astronomy. He was one of the first scientists to recognize that our galaxy is a dynamic place, pulsing with hot gas and still forming new stars. He was a pioneer in nuclear fusion research, founding the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab—still one of the world's leading fusion-energy research centers. Most relevant here, he also was the inspiration behind both the Hubble and the Spitzer Space Telescopes.

0 free articles left
Want More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/month

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

0 free articlesSubscribe
Discover Magazine Logo
Want more?

Keep reading for as low as $1.99!

Subscribe

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

Stay Curious

Sign up for our weekly newsletter and unlock one more article for free.

 

View our Privacy Policy


Want more?
Keep reading for as low as $1.99!


Log In or Register

Already a subscriber?
Find my Subscription

More From Discover
Stay Curious
Join
Our List

Sign up for our weekly science updates.

 
Subscribe
To The Magazine

Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine.

Copyright © 2025 LabX Media Group