Disadvantages of Infrared Telescopes

Disadvantages of Infrared Telescopes:

            Although Infrared Telescopes are useful and have led to many discoveries, such as discovering an even bigger ring around Saturn and discovering that Mars is not a dead planet, there are many disadvantages (2,3). One such disadvantage includes placement. An infrared telescope must be placed on a tall and dry mountain to avoid the radiation, coming from space, to be absorbed my water vapor and to avoid picking up Earth bound energy. Even with the altitude, they can still pick up Earth bound energy. Placement is an issue but the telescopes themselves are also an issue. The telescopes must be cool themselves, otherwise, they will pick up themselves. Keeping cool is an expensive process. As a result, signals that are cooler then the telescope itself and are fainter are not picked up and astronomers lose that part of the sky. It could hold something valuable, but it would be lost. To keep the telescopes cool, scientists use liquid helium. The first Infrared Telescope used 127 gallons of liquid helium to keep cool, but the mission only lasted 10 months because the liquid helium ran out (1).

 

Sources

1.      www.ehow.com/info_8619166_disadvantages-infrared-astronomy.html

2.      http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer-20091006.html

3.      http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jan/HQ_09-006_Mars_Methane.html