Spotted by a friend in at Christchurch Airport

[DavidTrap (David)]

A friend from NZ posted this pic on FB - apparently parked outside the US Antarctic facility at Christchurch airport.

It's the Sofia 747 that houses a telescope under a hatch that can be opened in flight. Used for high altitude infra-red imaging.

DT

[bigjoe (JOSEPH)]

Whats NASA secretly been up to once again.Hmmm.
Never A Straight Answer Strikes again!

[DavidTrap (David)]

Secretly??

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Very cool

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Originally Posted by bigjoe

Whats NASA secretly been up to once again.Hmmm.
Never A Straight Answer Strikes again!

No secret . I've been following them on Twitter for sometime and here is the mission page: http://www.sofia.usra.edu/News/news_..._13/index.html

[DavidTrap (David)]

And another link. (Probably very similar to the first link)

DT

[multiweb (Marc)]

How do they keep the whole thing steady enough?

[naskies (Dave)]

Very interesting! Does anyone have a link to technical information about how it works?

[OICURMT]

Originally Posted by multiweb

How do they keep the whole thing steady enough?

Originally Posted by naskies

Very interesting! Does anyone have a link to technical information about how it works?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratos...ared_Astronomy