Astronomy of a Different Color: New Wavelengths Open New Windows

In intermediate wavelengths, such as the ultraviolet and infrared, a vast storehouse of information on stars and galaxies awaits. Stars in their infancy emit strongly in the infrared, but are extremely faint in the optical, while the very brightest, hottest stars emit most strongly in the ultraviolet. Using these wavelengths, we can understand much about galaxies' star-formation rates, and star-formation history, far more than we can learn from the optical alone.

Currently, two new instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope provide ultraviolet and infrared capabilities, the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrograph (NICMOS). These instruments will provide critical insight into early stellar evolution, and particularly early galaxy evolution.

Astronomy has become a bird of many colors, colors from radio to gamma-ray, not just red to blue. Seeing in all these different colors provides vital information on the physical properties of astronomical objects -- from planets to stars to black holes to quasars. Coming years promise great advances in observing at these wavelengths: these observations will provide tremendous new insights into today's most vexing astrophysical riddles.

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