WISE - Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer

[mickw]

New Space Telescope to Begin Test Run

Mission managers are preparing to pop the lid off a space telescope that will provide them with a glimpse of strange objects that lie in the distant cosmos.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) will undergo a one-month checkout before beginning a detailed survey of the entire sky in infrared light. Once activated, researchers will be able to catalog hundreds of millions of objects including dark asteroids, failed stars and luminous galaxies.

More on Space.com

[Rick]

Nasa has published the first images from its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or Wise, which has been scanning the skies since January.

"Wise has worked superbly," said the agency's Ed Weiler in Washington DC.

The images include a comet, a "star factory" 20,000 light years away in our Milky Way galaxy and our nearest large neighbour, the Andromeda spiral galaxy.

Wise will search on until October when its supplies of frozen coolant for chilling instruments will run out.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8521811.stm

[mickw]

NASA's new Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft is mapping the sky like never before.

Latest batch of images here - WISE

[Rick]

These asteroids have all been discovered as part of the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, a space telescope designed to survey the entire sky in the infrared. Asteroids glow in the infrared because they are warm, and thus easier to detect in this way than hoping to catch reflected light from the sun.

Asteroids aren't just important because of their potential threat to life on Earth. Asteroids also contain some key elements for life on Earth to have begun, such as water and amino acids. The history of the solar system, as well as life itself, may be trapped in the myriad of rocks that silently orbit the Sun.

More: http://news.discovery.com/space/wise-discovers-95-new-near-earth-asteroids.html

[mickw]

The blue star near the center of this image is Zeta Ophiuchi. When seen in visible light it appears as a relatively dim red star surrounded by other dim stars and no dust.
However, in this infrared image taken with WISE, a completely different view emerges. Zeta Ophiuchi is actually a very massive, hot, bright blue star plowing its way through a large cloud of interstellar dust and gas.
Astronomers theorize that this stellar juggernaut was likely once part of a binary star system with an even more massive partner. It's believed that when the partner exploded as a supernova, blasting away most of its mass, Zeta Ophiuchi was suddenly freed from its partner's pull and shot away like a bullet moving 24 kilometers per second (54,000 miles per hour). Zeta Ophiuchi is about 20 times more massive and 65,000 times more luminous than the sun. If it weren't surrounded by so much dust, it would be one of the brightest stars in the sky and appear blue to the eye. Like all stars with this kind of extreme mass and power, it subscribes to the 'live fast, die young' motto. It's already about halfway through its very short 8-million-year lifespan. In comparison, the sun is roughly halfway through its 10-billion-year lifespan. While the sun will eventually become a quiet white dwarf, Zeta Ophiuchi, like its ex-partner, will ultimately die in a massive explosion called a supernova.

More:   Zeta O

[mickw]

On the morning of February 1st, 2011, WISE took its last snapshot of the sky. This "last light" image is reminiscent of the "first light" image from WISE, taken only 13 months prior.
WISE's final picture shows thousands of stars in a patch of the Milky Way Galaxy, covering an area 3 times the size of the full Moon, in the constellation Perseus. In the upper left corner, a faint wispy cloud can be seen bending around a pulsating variable star called EV Persei.
After its coolant ran out in October of 2010, WISE warmed up from -260°C to -200°C (-436°F to -328°F). This image contains data from the two detectors largely unaffected by the warm-up: 3.4 and 4.6 microns (the 12 and 22 micron detectors are no longer useful at the warmer temperatures). The color is representational: cyan (blue-green) shows light detected by the 3.4 micron channel of WISE, and red shows light seen by the 4.6 micron channel. This region of the sky had been observed by WISE previously in all four of its detectors as part of its primary survey, and it is hard to see any difference in the quality of the last-light images at 3.4 and 4.6 microns.
In the short 13 months that WISE surveyed, it produced millions of infrared images covering the whole sky in its four bands, and covering it twice at 3.4 and 4.6 microns. Now that the survey is complete, WISE is being put into hibernation. While the satellite sleeps and circles more than 500 kilometers above the Earth's surface, the WISE team is busily preparing its data for two big public releases: one this April, and the final release in the spring of 2012. Even though WISE has taken its last picture, the project will continue to feature some of the best imagery from the survey on a regular basis.


link - High Res Image

[mickw]

A prolific sky-mapping telescope that has spent more than a year scanning the heavens for asteroids, comets and other cosmic objects received its last command today (Feb. 17).

NASA shut down its WISE spacecraft – short for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer – at 3:00 p.m. EST (2000 UTC) today. The mission's principal investigator, Ned Wright of the University of California in Los Angeles, sent the final command to the now-hibernating spacecraft, according to an update from the WISE mission's official Twitter account.

"The WISE spacecraft will remain in hibernation without ground contacts awaiting possible future use," NASA officials said via Twitter.

More:   Hibernation

[Rick]

NASA's WISE Mission Captures Black Hole's Wildly Flaring Jet

Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.

Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes. Much has been learned about the material feeding black holes, called accretion disks, and the jets themselves, through studies using X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. But key measurements of the brightest part of the jets, located at their bases, have been difficult despite decades of work. WISE is offering a new window into this missing link through its infrared observations.

More: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110920.html

[mickw]

A space telescope has added to its list of spectacular finds, spotting millions of supermassive black holes and blisteringly hot, "extreme" galaxies.

The finds, by US space agency Nasa's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (Wise), once lay obscured behind dust.

But Wise can see in wavelengths correlated with heat, seeing for the first time some of the brightest objects in the Universe.

More:   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19421453

[Rick]

NASA's WISE Colors in Unknowns on Jupiter Asteroids

Scientists using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have uncovered new clues in the ongoing mystery of the Jovian Trojans -- asteroids that orbit the sun on the same path as Jupiter. Like racehorses, the asteroids travel in packs, with one group leading the way in front of the gas giant, and a second group trailing behind.

The observations are the first to get a detailed look at the Trojans' colors: both the leading and trailing packs are made up of predominantly dark, reddish rocks with a matte, non-reflecting surface. What's more, the data verify the previous suspicion that the leading pack of Trojans outnumbers the trailing bunch.

The new results offer clues in the puzzle of the asteroids' origins. Where did the Trojans come from? What are they made of? WISE has shown that the two packs of rocks are strikingly similar and do not harbor any "out-of-towners," or interlopers, from other parts of the solar system. The Trojans do not resemble the asteroids from the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, nor the Kuiper belt family of objects from the icier, outer regions near Pluto.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-322

[Rick]

NEOWISE Spies Its First Comet

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft has spotted a never-before-seen comet -- its first such discovery since coming out of hibernation late last year.

Officially named "C/2014 C3 (NEOWISE)", the first comet discovery of the renewed mission came on Feb. 14 when the comet was about 143 million miles (230 million kilometers) from Earth.

Originally called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the spacecraft was shut down in 2011 after its primary mission was completed. In September 2013, it was reactivated, renamed NEOWISE and assigned a new mission to assist NASA's efforts to identify the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-067

[Rick]

NASA's Spitzer and WISE Telescopes Find Close, Cold Neighbor of Sun

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered what appears to be the coldest "brown dwarf" known -- a dim, star-like body that  surprisingly is as frosty as Earth's North Pole.

Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object's distance to 7.2 light-years away, earning it the title for fourth closest system to our sun. The closest system, a trio of stars, is Alpha Centauri, at about 4 light-years away.

"It's very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close," said Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University's Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, University Park. "And given its extreme temperature, it should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures."

More: http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/wise/spitzer-coldest-brown-dwarf-20140425/

[Rick]

NEOWISE Spots a Comet That Looked Like an Asteroid

Comet C/2013 UQ4 (Catalina) has been observed by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft just one day after passing through its closest approach to the sun. The comet glows brightly in infrared wavelengths, with a dust tail streaking more than 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) across the sky. Its spectacular activity is driven by the vaporization of ice that has been preserved from the time of planet formation 4.5 billion years ago.

"The tail forms a faint fan as the smaller dust particles are more easily pushed away from the sun by the radiation pressure of the sunlight," said James Bauer, researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-241

[Rick]

NEOWISE: A Yearlong Look at the Sky

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft discovered and characterized 40 near-Earth objects (NEOs) in the first year after the mission was re-started in December 2013. Eight of the discoveries have been classified as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), based on their size and how close their orbits could come to Earth's orbit.

The mission has further observed and characterized 245 previously known near-Earth objects. From December 2013 to December 2014, NEOWISE discovered three new comets and observed 32 others. One of the others has turned into the brightest comet in Earth's night sky in early 2015, comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy).

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4444

[Rick]

Number of Known Accessible Near-Earth Asteroids Doubles Since 2010

NASA performed the first Near-Earth Object Human Space Flight Accessible Targets Study (NHATS) in September/October of 2010, and 666 of the known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) were identified as meeting the NHATS criteria for mission accessibility (classifying those NEAs as "NHATS-compliant"). These are asteroids in near-Earth orbits that are more dynamically accessible (requiring less time and energy to visit) than round-trip spacecraft missions to Mars.

At that time, just over 7,000 NEAs had been discovered, while today we know of over 12,000 NEAs, an increase of 70%. The percentage increase in the number of accessible asteroids in the catalog has been even greater: On January 18, 2015 - a little over four years since the NHATS assessments began - the 1332nd NHATS-compliant asteroid was identified, doubling the number of known accessible NEAs.

More: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news189.html

[Rick]

NASA's WISE Spacecraft Discovers Most Luminous Galaxy in Universe

A remote galaxy shining with the light of more than 300 trillion suns has been discovered using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The galaxy is the most luminous galaxy found to date and belongs to a new class of objects recently discovered by WISE -- extremely luminous infrared galaxies, or ELIRGs.

"We are looking at a very intense phase of galaxy evolution," said Chao-Wei Tsai of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, lead author of a new report appearing in the May 22 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. "This dazzling light may be from the main growth spurt of the galaxy's black hole."

The brilliant galaxy, known as WISE J224607.57-052635.0, may have a behemoth black hole at its belly, gorging itself on gas. Supermassive black holes draw gas and matter into a disk around them, heating the disk to roaring temperatures of millions of degrees and blasting out high-energy, visible, ultraviolet and X-ray light. The light is blocked by surrounding cocoons of dust. As the dust heats up, it radiates infrared light.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4593

[Rick]

Tracking A Mysterious Group of Asteroid Outcasts

High above the plane of our solar system, near the asteroid-rich abyss between Mars and Jupiter, scientists have found a unique family of space rocks. These interplanetary oddballs are the Euphrosyne (pronounced you-FROH-seh-nee) asteroids, and by any measure they have been distant, dark and mysterious -- until now.

Distributed at the outer edge of the asteroid belt, the Euphrosynes have an unusual orbital path that juts well above the ecliptic, the equator of the solar system. The asteroid after which they are named, Euphrosyne -- for an ancient Greek goddess of mirth -- is about 156 miles (260 kilometers) across and is one of the 10 largest asteroids in the main belt. Current-day Euphrosyne is thought to be a remnant of a massive collision about 700 million years ago that formed the family of smaller asteroids bearing its name. Scientists think this event was one of the last great collisions in the solar system.

A new study conducted by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, used the agency's orbiting Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) telescope to look at these unusual asteroids to learn more about Near Earth Objects, or NEOs, and their potential threat to Earth.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4678

[Rick]

Secondhand Spacecraft Has Firsthand Asteroid Experience

NEOWISE is one of 54 ongoing projects supported by the NEO Observations Program in fiscal year 2015. NASA-funded survey projects have found 98 percent of the known catalogue of more than 13,000 NEOs. NASA-funded surveys are currently finding NEOs at a rate of about 1,500 per year.

The NEOWISE mission uses a repurposed NASA spacecraft to find and characterize asteroids. Launched in December 2009, WISE was tasked with documenting in infrared light some of the most remote objects in not only our galaxy, but our universe. Less than two years later, WISE had done just that, scanning the entire sky not once, but twice. From galaxies, to stars, to black holes, WISE collected data on over 750 million celestial targets of interest. With its mission a complete success after a year of operations, WISE was put into hibernation. In December 2014, the space telescope was revived with an updated mission and a new name. Its job was to find and collect the infrared signatures on some of our closest celestial neighbors - asteroids, comets and near-Earth objects. Now led by Principal Investigator Amy Mainzer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., the mission was named Near-Earth Object WISE, or NEOWISE.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4767