A toast to a Great Observatory

A year after a Delta II Heavy rocket blasted into the sky over Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying the last of NASA's Great Observatories into orbit, researchers in the Space Sciences Building met to celebrate their first anniversary, Aug. 25. The observatory, then called the Space Infrared Telescope Facility and now renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope, is returning some of the most impressive images of distant space yet seen. James Houck, left, the Kenneth A. Wallace Professor of Astronomy and the principal investigator for the infrared spectrograph (IRS), the largest of the three instruments on board the observatory, cut an anniversary cake then toasted his colleagues on the IRS team. From Houck's left they are research associates Lei Hao and Keven Uchida, senior research associate Dan Weedman and research associate Vassilis Charmandaris. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography