infrared telescope

1. A telescope, similar in operation to an optical telescope, that is designed to detect infrared radiation. Because infrared radiation is emitted by warm objects, infrared telescopes need to be shielded from local heat sources, as by chilling them with liquid nitrogen or locating them in polar regions. Many are placed on high mountains or are mounted on balloons or satellites in order to place them above the lower atmosphere, where water vapor absorbs much of the incoming infrared radiation.

Example Sentences

Warren, an astrophysicist, is acting as the subcontractor for their rebuilding project, but he also accepted a new job in Hawaii right after the fire as deputy director of NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility at the University of Hawaii.

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"One, they actually do have a little bit of their own temperature. They're actually glowing in the infrared. So if you turn a sensitive infrared telescope to them, you see them. They're also emitting radio frequency radiation. That's how they communicate with each other and with the ground by usually short wave, or microwave radiation," Lowenthal said.

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The team was helped by a British-built infrared telescope based in the Chilean Andes.

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The first pictures from the $10 billion infrared telescope were unveiled last July, six months after its liftoff from French Guiana.

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A later colour change to blue was spotted by NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii, as reported by Cristina Thomas, a planetary scientist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, at a December meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Read more on Scientific American