NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has recently begun sending back the first color images of Pluto and Charon, and they are spectacular. But prior to the probe making its close approach to Pluto on July 14th, scientists have been scouting Pluto’s atmosphere using a 98-inch telescope mounted inside a highly modified Boeing 747SP.
A combined effort between NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the aircraft is called SOFIA (registration N747NA, callsign “NASA747”), which stands for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. SOFIA probably isn’t the best-known 747 belonging to NASA, but it is enabling valuable scientific observations because of its unique capabilities.
via Gizmodo
Image: NASA/Wikicommons
