![]() ![]() The spacecraft is derived from the Ball Aerospace & Technologies RS-300 spacecraft architecture, particularly the NEXTSat spacecraft built for the successful Orbital Express mission launched on 9 March 2007. The WISE satellite bus was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies in Boulder, Colorado. WISE satellite was expected to find at least 1,000 of those proto-planetary discs. On this wavelength the interstellar gas clouds are also detectable, as well as proto-planetary discs. In addition, galaxies of the young Universe and interacting galaxies, where star formation is intensive, are bright in infrared. Examples of such embedded star clusters are Camargo 18, Camargo 440, Majaess 101, and Majaess 116. Infrared measurements from the WISE astronomical survey have been particularly effective at unveiling previously undiscovered star clusters. Star formation, which are covered by interstellar dust, are detectable in infrared, since at this wavelength electromagnetic radiation can penetrate the dust. WISE would detect each typical Solar System object 10–12 times over about 36 hours in intervals of 3 hours. The peak of magnitude distribution for NEOs will be about 21–22 V. That translates to about 1000 new main-belt asteroids per day, and 1–3 NEOs per day. Īt the time of planning, it was estimated that WISE would detect about 300,000 main-belt asteroids, of which approximately 100,000 will be new, and some 700 Near-Earth objects (NEO) including about 300 undiscovered. A larger object of 2–3 Jupiter masses would be visible at a distance of up to 7–10 light years. ![]() A Neptune-sized object would be detectable out to 700 Astronomical unit (AU), a Jupiter mass object out to 1 light year (63,000 AU), where it would still be within the Sun's zone of gravitational control. It was able to detect any objects warmer than 70–100 K. Pluto is the only Kuiper belt object that was detected. WISE was not able to detect Kuiper belt objects, because their temperatures are too low. Among the objects WISE studied are asteroids, cool and dim stars such as brown dwarfs, and the most luminous infrared galaxies. The produced image library contains data on the local Solar System, the Milky Way, and the more distant Universe. Each area of the sky was scanned at least 10 times at the equator the poles were scanned at theoretically every revolution due to the overlapping of the images. ![]() Each image covers a 47 arcminute field of view (FoV), which means a 6 arcsecond resolution. The satellite orbited above the terminator, its telescope pointing always to the opposite direction to the Earth, except for pointing towards the Moon, which was avoided, and its solar cells towards the Sun. The spacecraft was placed in a 525 km (326 mi), circular, polar, Sun-synchronous orbit for its ten-month mission, during which it has taken 1.5 million images, one every 11 seconds. The mission was planned to create infrared images of 99% of the sky, with at least eight images made of each position on the sky in order to increase accuracy. In July 2021, NASA extended the NEOWISE mission until at least June 2023. Science operations and data processing for WISE and NEOWISE take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. In August 2013, NASA announced it would reactivate the WISE telescope for a new three-year mission to search for asteroids that could collide with Earth. The WISE All-Sky (WISEA) data, including processed images, source catalogs and raw data, was released to the public on 14 March 2012, and is available at the Infrared Science Archive. After its solid hydrogen coolant depleted, a four-month mission extension called NEOWISE was conducted to search for near-Earth objects (NEO) such as comets and asteroids using its remaining capability. WISE performed an all-sky astronomical survey with images in 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 μm wavelength range bands, over ten months using a 40 cm (16 in) diameter infrared telescope in Earth orbit. ![]() Its observations also supported the discovery of the first Y-type brown dwarf and Earth trojan asteroid. WISE discovered thousands of minor planets and numerous star clusters. It was launched in December 2009, and placed in hibernation mode in February 2011, before being re-activated in 2013 and renamed the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE). Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer ( WISE, observatory code C51, Explorer 92 and SMEX-6) is a NASA infrared astronomy space telescope in the Explorers Program. ![]()
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