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>> [Background music] When we fly SOFIA to New Zealand,
we are providing access to astronomical objects
that we don't have access to here in the Northern Hemisphere,
a different part of the sky,
the Magellanic Clouds, Southern Cross.
>> One of my favorite objects in the southern sky is the center
of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
There's a supermassive black hole there,
stars orbiting it, gas clouds around it.
SOFIA will be able to observe these
and study the center of our galaxy.
>> SOFIA stands for stratospheric observatory
for infrared astronomy.
It is a jumbo jet Boeing 747 aircraft
that has been retrofitted with a 2-1/2 meter infrared telescope
that was built by our partner, the German Aerospace Center.
It flies above 99% of the water vapor in the earth's atmosphere
and that is the location that is required
to do infrared astronomy.
>> SOFIA has unique capabilities.
It can detect light in a part of the electromagnetic spectrum
that can't be detected by any other observatory.
>> SOFIA does a lot of unique science.
We look at the formation of stars.
We also study the formation of planetary systems around stars.
We also will do planetary science
within our own solar system
and the Pluto occultation is a perfect example of that.
Conducting an observation of an occultation is probably one
of the more challenging missions that SOFIA can do.
An occultation is essentially a situation where a planet,
in this case Pluto, is passing in front of a background star,
kind of like an eclipse, and when Pluto does that,
we will be able to see the effects of the light
as it passes through Pluto's atmosphere.
And we can use that light to determine what is happening
in Pluto's atmosphere, how deep it is, whether
or not there's winds, and help characterize the situation.
The shadow of this occultation is going to occur
in the middle of the ocean.
There isn't another telescope
that can take advantage of this opportunity.
The aircraft is moving at about 500 miles an hour.
The shadow that is being cast on the surface of the Earth
by Pluto is moving at orbital velocities.
We will really need a teamwork effort in order
to successfully observe Pluto during its occultation.
On the night of the observation, while SOFIA is in flight,
there will be a team of observatories
that will help SOFIA: The Anglo-Australian Telescope,
Lowell Observatory, the Naval Observatory at Flagstaff,
the Discovery Channel Telescope will be making last-minute
observations of Pluto.
They will provide observation data to MIT
and MIT will update their predictive model
of where the shadow of the Pluto occultation is going
to be on the Earth.
We will receive that update.
We will modify our flight plan and position SOFIA
where it needs to be to intercept the shadow.
The data that SOFIA is going to collect
when we observe the Pluto occultation will help
characterize the atmosphere on Pluto
and it'll also provide data that could be used for calibration,
a ground truth source of data
that will enhance the New Horizon's mission
in the following days.
>> NASA New Horizons flyby July 14, 2015, is just two weeks
after this stellar occultation that SOFIA will observe.
That is timely.
It means that we can use the data from SOFIA to correlate
and corroborate the measurements that are made by New Horizons
when it goes up close and personal two weeks later.
We'll probe Pluto's atmosphere to extreme low levels.
SOFIA's infrared capability is the only type of instrumentation
that can equal that measurement.
So by having a measurement of Pluto's atmosphere
from another platform from SOFIA,
taken with almost the same type of sensitivity,
can help us interpret the results
that the New Horizon spacecraft is going
to make two weeks later.
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>> [Background music] In order
to successfully execute a deployment requires a tremendous
amount of planning.
We've been planning for this deployment for several months
and in some cases for almost a year.
Essentially, what we're doing is we're taking all
of our home-base operations
and we're transplanting those operations
to Christchurch, New Zealand.
The last time we were in New Zealand,
we operated with a single instrument
and we were very successful in doing so.
This time around, we're going
to increase our science instrument complement
by a factor of four.
We're going to take four different instruments.
We're going to change them out in location.
We're going to support all of those instruments
and so the tremendous amount of logistics, detail planning
that is required to successfully conduct those operations
that we'd normally do at home is quite challenging.
>> Astronomy demands that we develop very sensitive cameras,
very sensitive optical systems,
the ability to detect faint sources amongst a noisy
background and once we have that capability,
we can apply it in other areas.
It's been used in medical imaging.
It's been used in homeland security,
but the most important reason we study astronomy is to understand
that place in the universe.
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>> I'm looking forward
to a very successful Southern Hemisphere deployment
in the next few weeks.
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