MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. – It takes a 747 to bring the world of infrared astronomy into plain sight.

Soaring high above the atmospheric water vapor that makes ground-based infrared astronomy all but impossible, a modified Boeing 747-SP jet will carry astronomers and the largest airborne telescope in the world on 140, eight-to-nine hour flights a year.

The airborne observatory will search the galaxy measuring infrared radiation otherwise blocked by Earth’s atmosphere before it reaches our planet’s surface. To learn more about the science behind SOFIA, click here.
     

The nighttime sorties of the $350 million flying mission, formally called the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), will allow the astronomers on board an unfettered view of the heavens through the plane’s 99-inch (2.5-meter) telescope.

And unlike telescopes tied to the ground atop mountains in places such as Arizona, Hawaii and Chile, SOFIA will be free to flit across the globe, practically at the drop of a hat.

"It will be," said SOFIA spokesman Michael Bennett, "the world’s largest portable telescope."

The telescope will peer from a cavity cut in the side of the plane, which in a previous life made more than 10,000 takeoffs and landings while ferrying passengers for Pan Am and later United Airlines. The jet is expected to fly for at least 20 years.

An open-door policy will – literally – dictate the use of the jet, which will cruise at altitudes ranging as high as 45,000 feet (13.5 kilometers) to make its observations. For once the jet climbs to altitude, the door shielding the telescope will roll back, exposing the instrument to the sky.