Spitzer Leads NASA’s Great Observatories to Uncover Black Holes, Other Hidden Objects in the Distant Universe

Astronomers unveiled the deepest images from NASA’s new Spitzer
Space Telescope today, and announced the detection of distant objects
— including several supermassive black holes — that are nearly
invisible in even the deepest images from telescopes operating at
other wavelengths.

The Spitzer Space Telescope is a mission managed by NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spitzer science operations are
conducted at the California Institute of Technology. The Space Telescope
Science Institute (STScI), Baltimore, Md. is operated by the Association
of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), for NASA, under
contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble
Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA
and the European Space Agency (ESA). NASA’s Marshall Space Flight
Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Office
of Space Science, Washington. Northrop Grumman of Redondo Beach, Calif.,
formerly TRW, Inc., was the prime development contractor for the
observatory. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science
and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass.

Electronic images and additional information are available at:
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu
http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/19
http://www.chandra.harvard.edu