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Science 6 April 1984:
Vol. 224. no. 4644, pp. 14 - 21
DOI: 10.1126/science.224.4644.14
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Articles

Early Results from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite

G. Neugebauer 1, C. A. Beichman 2, B. T. Soifer 1, H. H. Aumann 2, T. J. Chester 2, T. N. Gautier 3, F. C. Gillett 4, M. G. Hauser 5, J. R. Houck 6, C. J. Lonsdale 2, F. J. Low 7, and E. T. Young 7

1 The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena 91125.
2 The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena 91011
3 The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena 91011., (National Research Council resident research associate).
4 Kitt Peak National Observatory, Tucson, Arizona 85725.
5 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771.
6 Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853.
7 The University of Arizona, Tucson 85721.

For 10 months the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) provided astronomers with what might be termed their first view of the infrared sky on a clear, dark night. Without IRAS, atmospheric absorption and the thermal emission from both the atmosphere and Earthbound telescopes make the task of the infrared astronomer comparable to what an optical astronomer would face if required to work only on cloudy afternoons. IRAS observations are serving astronomers in the same manner as the photographic plates of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey; just as the optical survey has been used by all astronomers for over three decades, as a source of quantitative information about the sky and as a "roadmap" for future observations, the results of IRAS will be studied for years to come. IRAS has demonstrated the power of infrared astronomy from space. Already, from a brief look at a miniscule fraction of the data available, we have learned much about the solar system, about nearby stars, about the Galaxy as a whole and about distant extragalactic systems. Comets are much dustier than previously thought. Solid particles, presumably the remnants of the star-formation process, orbit around Vega and other stars and may provide the raw material for planetary systems. Emission from cool interstellar material has been traced throughout the Galaxy all the way to the galactic poles. Both the clumpiness and breadth of the distribution of this material were previously unsuspected. The far-infrared sky away from the galactic plane has been found to be dominated by spiral galaxies, some of which emit more than 50 percent and as much as 98 percent of their energy in the infrared—an exciting and surprising revelation. The IRAS mission is clearly the pathfinder for future missions that, to a large extent, will be devoted to the discoveries revealed by IRAS.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Astronomical Imaging with Infrared Array Detectors.
I. GATLEY, D. L. DEPOY, and A. M. FOWLER (1988)
Science 242, 1264-1270
   Abstract »    PDF »
Infrared Astronomy After IRAS.
G. H. RIEKE, M. W. WERNER, R. I. THOMPSON, E. E. BECKLIN, W. F. HOFFMANN, J. R. HOUCK, F. J. LOW, W. A. STEIN, and F. C. WITTEBORN (1986)
Science 231, 807-814
   Abstract »    PDF »
Colliding and Merging Galaxies.
F. SCHWEIZER (1986)
Science 231, 227-234
   Abstract »    PDF »


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