Astronomy for the Jet Set --
Telescopes on Airplanes

Airplanes can be nasty places for sensitive and delicate passengers, especially when those passengers are telescopes! The pain is worth the gain, though, as you will see.

SOFIA will be NASA's newest airborne astronomical observatory. It will consist of a telescope more than 8 feet (2.5 meters) in diameter housed in a Boeing 747. It will observe the heavens from above 40,000 feet (12,000 meters).

So what will it be: coffee, tea, or Milky Way?