Yes, the Boeing 747 is a big airplane. And because it is both big and reliable, it has been modified to do many amazing things.
That's what this article is about.
Unusual Queens: Top 10 coolest special mission Boeing 747s
Read the article to see all of them; you can probably guess a couple without reading it.
One of these missions is carrying the SOFIA telescope. SOFIA is the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, and having it on a plane high above the Earth is the next best thing to being in space.
The picture below shows the plane, the telescope, and a galaxy (M82) that's forming stars near its center, which is what galaxies do sometimes. (I got the picture from here.)
After 921 flights (Wikipedia told that) the SOFIA mission ended and the plane was put on exhibit at the Pima Air and Space Museum near Tucson, Arizona (Wikipedia told me that, too).
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