WEBVTT

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There are billions of stars in the universe. We can see some of these with

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earth-based telescopes, but not completely because the atmosphere

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distorts images seen through telescopes and filters out a major portion of the

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infrareds, ultraviolets, x-rays, and gamma rays. It is these invisible radiations

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that could tell astronomers how stars are created and give clues to the origin

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of the universe. This is the orbiting astronomical observatory OAO,

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shown here in the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland.

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It will soon be launched 500 miles out in space to take a close-up look at the

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stars, views never before seen by man. The more than 2 ton OAO spacecraft is this

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country's heaviest unmanned satellite. It will carry 9 telescopes, 5 in one end,

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4 in the other. OAO will transmit its stored observations in numerical form

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rather than as pictures. Computers on the ground then processe the data for use

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by astronomers. The OAO is a precise optical package so steady it can fix on

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an object the size of a golf ball 100 miles away. One of the unique tasks on

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this first flight will be to map the entire sky by measuring ultraviolet

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light. If the orbiting astronomical observatory is successful in its mission,

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astronomers will have a powerful new tool for studying how matter and energy

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interact to generate the elements, the stars, and the galaxies, and better

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understand the origin of the universe.

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This has been an Aeronautics and Space report presented by NASA, the National

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Aeronautics and Space Administration,