Check out this telescope
No, seriously it is a telescope...
It's SOFIA mounted inside a 747 in order to do observations from higher up, in the stratosphere.
SOFIA stands for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.
The lower atmosphere distorts infrared radiation levels reaching the surface of the earth, so this plane mounted one gets into the stratosphere for virtually undistorted observations.
That is why we put some telescopes in space, but that has some drawbacks.
Unlike space-based telescopes, SOFIA’s instruments can be exchanged, serviced or upgraded to harness new technologies. Its newest instrument, called the High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera-Plus, or HAWC+, enables studies of celestial magnetic fields with ground-breaking precision.
And then images like the one below can be created that show what is going on magnetically and not just what we can see visually.
I think it's cool they combined the SOFIA data with a VLT image to create this picture. I once heard talk given by people associated with the SOFIA research team, and they actually allow educators to go on the flights when they do the observing as part of an outreach program.
That sounds awesome!
Beautiful picture, like a work of modern art.