Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE) was an experiment on NASA's COBE mission, to survey the diffuse infrared sky. The DIRBE instrument was an absolute radiometer with an off-axis folded-Gregorian reflecting telescope, with 19 cm diameter aperture. The goal was to obtain brightness maps of the universe at ten frequency bands ranging from the near to far infrared (1.25 to 240 micrometer). Also, linear polarization was measured at 1.25, 2.2, and 3.5 micrometers. During the mission, the instrument could sample half the celestial sphere each day.
Famous quotes containing the words diffuse, background and/or experiment:
“An oblong puddle inset in the coarse asphalt; like a fancy footprint filled to the brim with quicksilver; like a spatulate hole through which you can see the nether sky. Surrounded, I note, by a diffuse tentacled black dampness where some dull dun dead leaves have stuck. Drowned, I should say, before the puddle had shrunk to its present size.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–370 B.C.)