Before it was decommissioned on Jan. 30, 2020, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope made a final, important science observation. The telescope carefully measured the dust found within our own Solar system, and then made a vital calibration measurement by closing a shutter that had been open since launch.
With more than 16 years of operations averaging 7,000 observation hours per year, Spitzer's data archives will be a source of ongoing discovery, providing the scientific foundations of future missions for decades to come.