Guess the name for a new NASA telescope

2001/09/11 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Astronautika
• Astronomia

NASA has organized a contest to sign up for the new telescope to orbit in 2002.

The large Hubble, Chandra and Compton telescopes are already underway outside the atmosphere. The first analyzes the normal light, the second the X-rays and the third the gamma rays. Now NASA wants to put in orbit around the Earth one of those great telescopes that explores infrared rays.

It will not be the first one, since since forty years ago aerostatic balloons have launched a lot of "spectators" of infrared rays. However, NASA has not yet found the proper name. The current telescope is called SIRFT, an acronym extracted from the Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility. But they want to put aside the acronyms and guess some more useful name.

For this purpose, it has organized a contest open to all, whose bases can be consulted on the following website:

http://sirtf.caltech.edu/namingcontest