IRAS
 | |
| COSPAR ID | 1983-004A |
|---|---|
| SATCAT no. | 13777 |
| Website | IRAS website |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 25 Jan 1983 |
The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) was the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths.
Launched on January 25, 1983, its mission lasted ten months. The telescope was a joint project of the United States (NASA), the Netherlands (NIVR), and the United Kingdom (SERC).
IRAS was the first observatory to perform an all-sky survey at infrared wavelenghts. It mapped 96% of the sky four times, at 12, 25, 60 and 100 micrometre wavelengths, with resolutions ranging from 0.5' at 12 micrometers to 2' at 100 micrometers. It discovered about 350,000 sources, many of which are still awaiting identification. About 75,000 of those are believed to be starburst galaxies, still enduring their star-formation stage. Many other sources are normal stars with disks of dust around them, possibly the early stage of a planetary system formation. New discoveries included a dust disk around Vega and the first images of the Milky Way Galaxy's core.
IRAS's life, like most of infrared satellites that followed after IRAS, was limited by its cooling system: to effectively work in the infrared domain, a satellite must be cooled to impressively low temperatures. In IRAS' case, 475 liters of superfluid helium kept the satellite at a temperature of 1.6 kelvins (about −272 °C), keeping the satellite cool by evaporation. When the fluid totally evaporated after 10 months in orbit, the satellite temperature rose, preventing further observations.
IRAS was designed to catalogue fixed sources, so it scanned the same region of sky several times. Jack Meadows led a team at Leicester University, including John Davies and Simon Green, which searched the rejected sources for moving objects. This led to the discovery of three asteroids, including 3200 Phaethon (an Apollo asteroid and the parent body of the Geminid meteor shower), six comets, and a huge dust trail associated with comet Tempel-2. The comets included the periodic comets 126P/IRAS and 161P/Hartley-IRAS and comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock, which made a close approach to the Earth in 1983.
Several space infrared telescopes have continued and greatly expanded the study of the infrared Universe, such as the Infrared Space Observatory launched in 1995, the Spitzer Space Telescope launched in 2003, and the AKARI Space Telescope launched in 2006.
| 3200 Phaethon | October 11 1983 |
| 3728 IRAS | August 23 1983 |
| (10714) 1983 QG | August 31 1983 |