Daily Telescope: The flying telescope is bombarded by some planet

Good morning. It's April 1st, and today's photo shows a plane, but it's a private plane with some orbs in the background.

The plane is a shortened version of the Boeing 747 that houses the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, known as SOFIA. This airborne observatory first launched in May 2010 and operated until September 2022. The 2.5-meter telescope flew at an altitude of about 45,000 feet and observed all kinds of phenomena from a vantage point above much of Earth's atmosphere, such as celestial magnetic fields and star-forming regions. Comets, and more.

This photo was taken on the tarmac in New Zealand, where the aircraft was based for approximately two months during the year. It was presented by Chris Johnson, a systems administrator at UCLA, who supported the development of one of the telescope's instruments, FLITECAM.

In the image, we can also see the Moon, Venus and Jupiter at the top.

Source: Chris Johnson

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