About SOFIA

SOFIA is an 80/20 partnership of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), consisting of an extensively modified Boeing 747SP aircraft carrying a 2.7-meter (106 inch) reflecting telescope (with an effective diameter of 2.5 meters or 100 inches). The aircraft is based at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, Calif. The SOFIA Program Office is at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., which manages SOFIA's science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association (USRA; Columbia, Md.) and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI; University of Stuttgart).

SOFIA Watches a Binary Star System’s Eclipse

R Aquarii resembling a ring of fire over a black field with a purple S flowing through it.

by Anashe Bandari

With its observations of a special pair of stars at a special moment in their lives, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is shedding new light on stardust. Over an interval of 387 days, a giant star in the constellation Aquarius periodically has a dramatic change in its brightness. 

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Planck magnetic streamlines on a Herschel image of Rho Ophiuchi with insets from SOFIA/HAWC+

The magnetic streamlines from Planck superposed on a three-color image of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex from Herschel. The higher-resolution insets from SOFIA/HAWC+ show clearly that the streamlines are oriented perpendicular to the structure. (ESA/Herschel/Planck; J. D. Soler, MPIA; Lee et al. 2021)

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Announcements
Archival Research Funding Available

SOFIA is pleased to invite proposals for SOFIA Archival Research Programs (SARP), aimed at encouraging the use of SOFIA archival observations for impactful science.

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Podcast featuring Jessica Sutter on SOFIA and the far infrared universe

At a press conference on SOFIA at the Winter 2021 meeting of the American Astronomical Association, Jessica Sutter, a postdoctoral researcher at USRA, spoke on “A Map of the Molecular Ring and Arms of a Spiral Galaxy.” That talk sparked the interest of Ethan Siegel, a science communicator and an

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New Public Data Pipeline: HAWC+

We are pleased to announce that the HAWC+ data processing and calibration pipeline is now available to the public for all HAWC+ modes. Users may run the pipeline to better understand the different calibration steps, to customize their own data reductions (e.g.

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Blog
SOFIA Watches a Binary Star System’s Eclipse

by Anashe Bandari

With its observations of a special pair of stars at a special moment in their lives, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is shedding new light on stardust. Over an interval of 387 days, a giant star in the constellation Aquarius periodically has a dramatic change in its brightness. 

Read more
Looking to Jupiter, a Jovial Surprise

by Anashe Bandari

During flights in August 2018 and July 2019, planetary scientists used the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a joint project of NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR, to study the atmospheric circulation on Jupiter – for the first time during the planet’s northern winter. To do so, they looked …

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Make No Bones About It: SOFIA Maps the First Magnetic Fields of a Galactic Bone in Their Entirety

by Anashe Bandari

Most stars in spiral galaxies form within the galaxy’s arms. Building the “skeletons” of these galaxies are galactic bones, long filaments that outline the densest parts of the arms. At the largest scales, the magnetic fields of a galaxy follow its spiral arms. Fields in the bones were accordingly believed to be …

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Science Results