NASA: Latest Space Telescope Almost Ready

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) – NASA said Monday it has successfully focused a $1.2 billion telescope that was recently launched into space with the goal of viewing faraway celestial objects and the formation of distant solar systems.

The Space Infrared Telescope Facility should begin its science work in about six weeks following a series of delicate adjustments that were made to its secondary mirror, NASA said.

“The science community now has an outstanding observatory with which to study the universe,” said project scientist Michael Werner at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The telescope is the fourth and last in a series of space observatories launched by NASA. The first was the Hubble Space Telescope.

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On the Net: http://sirtf.caltech.edu/