- The Spitzer Space Telescope is the final mission in NASA’s Great Observatories Program – a family of four space-based observatories, each observing the Universe in a different kind of light.
- The other missions in the program include the visible-light Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO), and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO).
- The Spitzer Space Telescope was launched in the year 2003. It is a space-borne, cryogenically-cooled infrared observatory capable of studying objects ranging from the Solar System to the distant reaches of the Universe.
- It captures infrared light, which is often emitted by ‘warm’ objects that are not quite hot enough to radiate visible light.