Eric E. Becklin 1 Jacqueline Davidson 2
1 Division of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Los Angeles 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1562
2 Universities Space Research Association, Ames Research Center/NASA Mail Stop T3B, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000
The joint US and German Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) will be a 2.7 meter telescope carried aloft in a Boeing 747 SP aircraft. It will fly above 99% of the water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere so as to clearly view the universe for much of the wavelength range spanning 2 um to 1 mm. The telescope is being developed in Germany, while the remainder of the observatory is being developed by a team headed by USRA in the USA under a contract with NASA. The observatory will be based out of Moffett Field in California, with yearly deployments to New Zealand, and will operate for 20 years. First light for the observatory will be in late 2001, with 20% of the observing time assigned to German investigators. This paper will summarize the observatory's expected capabilities, including the capabilities of the complement of science instruments expected to be available for use by the general science community in the first year of operations.
The paper will also summarize the galactic and extra-galactic studies
likely to be carried out on SOFIA. SOFIA's sensitivity (comparable to ISO)
and spatial resolution (
four times better than ISO), together with
SOFIA's large complement of science instruments, will allow this
observatory to study with advantage: major heating sources within
galaxies; the physical and chemical nature of galaxies; and how these
properties vary from galaxy to galaxy.