cryocoolers rather than liquid helium to cool the mirror to below (versus the or so of a mirror cooled only by radiation like Herschel's) which provides substantially greater sensitivity in the 10–100 μm infrared band (IR band); the telescope was intended to observe infrared light at longer wavelengths than the James Webb Space Telescope. Its sensitivity would have been more than two orders of magnitude over both the Spitzer and Herschel space telescopes. Large-aperture Cryogenic Telescope SPICA would have employed a 2.5 m diameter Ritchey–Chrétien telescope with a field of view of 30 arc minutes. Focal-Plane Instruments SMI (SPICA Mid-infrared Instrument): 12–36 μm SMI-LRS (Low-Resolution Spectroscopy): 17–36 μm. Its aim would have been the detection of PAH dust emission as a clue of distant galaxies and emission of minerals from planet formation regions around stars SMI-MRS (Mid-Resolution Spectroscopy): 18–36 μm. Its high sensitivity for line emission with a relatively high wavelength resolution (R=2000) would have enabled the characterization of distant galaxies and planet formation regions detected by SMI-LRS SMI-HRS (High-Resolution Spectroscopy): 12–18 μm. With its extremely high wavelength resolution (R=28000), SMI-HRS could study the dynamics of molecular gas in planet formation regions around stars SAFARI (SPICA Far-infrared Instrument): 35–230 μm B-BOP (B-BOP stands for "B-fields with BOlometers and Polarizers"): Imaging polarimeter operating in three bands, 100 μm, 200 μm and 350 μm. B-Bop would have enabled the polarimetric mapping of Galactic filamentary structures to study the role of magnetic fields in filaments and star formation. Objectives As in the name, the main objective was to make advancement in the research of cosmology and astrophysics. Specific research fields include: The birth and evolution of galaxies The birth and evolution of stars and planetary systems The evolution of matter Discovery science Setting constraints on the emission of ground state Н2 emission from the first (population III) generation of stars The detection of biomarkers in the mid-infrared spectra of exo-planets and/or the primordial material in protoplanetary disks The detection of Н2 haloes around galaxies in the local Universe With sufficient technical development of coronagraphic techniques: the imaging of any planets in the habitable zone in the nearest few stars The detection of the far infrared transitions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the interstellar medium. The very large molecules thought to comprise the PAHs, and which give rise to the characteristic features in the near-infrared, have vibrational transitions in the far-infrared which are