Results
On average, ISO performed 45 observations in each 24 hour orbit. Throughout its lifetime of over 900 orbits ISO performed more than 26,000 successful scientific observations. The huge amounts of scientific data generated by ISO was subject to extensive archiving activities up to 2006. The full data-set has been available to the scientific community since 1998 and many discoveries have been made, with probably many more still to come:
- ISO detected the presence of water vapour in starforming regions, in the vicinity of stars at the end of their lives, in sources very close to the galactic centre, in the atmospheres of planets in the Solar System and in the Orion Nebula.
- Planet formation was detected around old, dying stars. This discovery contradicted theories that planet formation was only possible around young stars.
- Hydrogen fluoride gas was for the first time detected in interstellar gas clouds.
- The first ever detection of the earliest stages of stellar formation. The pre-stellar core L1689B was found and studied in great detail with ISO's LWS instrument.
- ISO discovered large amounts of cosmic dust in the previously thought empty space between galaxies.
- Observations of the most-luminous object in the universe, Arp 220, revealed that the source for its enormous emission of infrared radiation is an outburst of star formation.
- Observations with the LWS instrument confirmed the previous discovery by IRAS of large cloud-like structures of very cold hydrocarbons radiating primarily in the infrared. These infrared cirrus clouds affect the energy balance of the entire universe, acting as a kind of galactic refrigerator.
- ISO searched for, and found several protoplanetary disks: rings or disks of material around stars which are considered to be the first stage of planet formation.
- ISO pointed its sensitive instruments on several of the planets in our own Solar system to determine the chemical composition of their atmospheres.
Read more about this topic: Infrared Space Observatory
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