Pick up to 4 telescopes to compare side-by-side. State lives in the URL — share the link and the comparison loads exactly as you left it.
Space telescope data has underpinned 1.5 million+ scientific papers since 1990.
| Attribute | |
|---|---|
| Agency | NASA |
| Status | Retired |
| Wavelength band | infrared |
| Launch year | 2003 – 2020 |
| Orbit | Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit |
| Mirror / aperture | 0.85 mas of [1] |
| Mass | 950 kgas of [1] |
| Wavelength range | 3.6–160 μm (mid-to-far infrared) |
| Key missions |
|
| Summary | NASA's infrared Great Observatory, operating 2003–2020. Best known for discovering the TRAPPIST-1 system of 7 Earth-sized planets, including 3 in the habitable zone (with ground telescopes). Ran out of cryogen in 2009 but continued 'warm mission' until retirement in January 2020. |
All 9 major space telescopes with primary-source citations from NASA, ESA, STScI, and JPL. Pure URL state — bookmark or share the link and the comparison reproduces exactly.