International Ultraviolet Explorer was considered the most successful astronomical satellite ever. The human eye can perceive light with wavelengths between roughly 350 (violet) and 700 (red) nanometres. Ultraviolet light has wavelengths between roughly 10 nm and 350 nm. UV light can be harmful to human beings, and is strongly absorbed by the ozone layer. This makes it impossible to observe UV emission from astronomical objects from the ground. Many types of object emit copious quantities of UV radiation, though: the hottest and most massive stars in the universe can have surface temperatures high enough that the vast majority of their light is emitted
Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation law. This law turned out to be inconsistent yielding the ultraviolet catastrophe. The correct form of the law was found by Max Planck in 1900, assuming quantized emission of radiation, and is termed Planck's law. This marks the advent of quantum mechanics. In a blackbody enclosure that contains electromagnetic radiation with a certain amount of energy at thermodynamic equilibrium, this "photon gas" will have a Planck distribution of energies. One may suppose a second system, a cavity with walls that are opaque, rigid, and not perfectly reflective to any wavelength, to be brought into connection, through an optical filter, with