The Spitzer Space Telescope whizzes in front of a brilliant, infrared view
of the Milky Way galaxy's plane in this artistic depiction.
The mission marks the last of NASA's Great Observatories, a program
that includes the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory
and the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory.
In addition to studying many of the coldest, oldest and most
dust-enshrouded objects and processes in the universe, the
mission will also be an important part of NASA's Origins Program,
which seeks to answer the questions: Where did we come from?
Are we alone?
