Many other sources are normal stars with disks of dust around them, possibly the early stage of planetary system formation.

In IRAS's case, 73 kilograms (161 lb) of superfluid helium kept the telescope at a temperature of 2 K (−271 °C; −456 °F), keeping the satellite cool by evaporation.

[11] The on-board supply of liquid helium was depleted after 10 months on 21 November 1983, causing the telescope temperature to rise, preventing further observations.

Jack Meadows led a team at Leicester University, including John K. Davies and Simon F. Green, which searched the rejected sources for moving objects.

[15][16] During its mission, IRAS (and later the Spitzer Space Telescope) detected odd infrared signatures around several stars.

In 2014, using new image processing techniques on the Hubble data, researchers discovered planetary disks around these stars.

Known as WISE, the telescope provided results hundreds of times more sensitive than IRAS at the shorter wavelengths; it also had an extended mission dubbed NEOWISE beginning in October 2010 after its coolant supply ran out.

Further complications arose from the fact that GGSE-4 was outfitted with an 18 meter long stabilization boom that was in an unknown orientation and may have struck the satellite even if the spacecraft's main body did not.