Launched in December 2009, the Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) ended its mission on July 31, 2024, and, as anticipated, reentered Earth’s ambiance on November 1, burning up. However, whereas NEOWISE is gone, its affect remains to be felt. As Space stories, the NEOWISE group lately did one closing knowledge launch and shared never-before-seen photographs.
NEOWISE’s historical past is an interesting one. Originally launched because the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) in 2009, it operated for 2 years earlier than being shut down and put into hibernation. Two years later, in 2013, scientists reactivated it with a brand new mission: to hunt asteroids that would threaten Earth.
During its lifetime, together with as WISE, NEOWISE performed 21 full sky surveys and captured almost 27 million photographs. Some cosmic objects and areas of the sky have been surveyed by the telescope no less than 220 instances, offering astronomers with a treasure trove of information over time. How objects in deep area change over time provides key insights into their historical past and nature.
“Being in a position to watch the altering sky for almost 15 years has opened a brand new avenue for time-domain science, for every little thing from the closest asteroids to probably the most distant quasars,” says Joe Masiero, Research Scientist at Caltech’s IPAC science heart and the Deputy Principal Investigator of the mission.
NEOWISE studied greater than 3,000 near-Earth objects (NEO) throughout its mission, about 10% of the recognized inhabitants. The closing NEO the telescope considered, 2007 LV8, was seen over 100 instances within the NEOWISE’s closing days.
During the unique two-year interval when NEOWISE was simply WISE, it studied an enormous portion of the night time sky. While a few of these photographs have been shared with the general public again then, many extra weren’t. The public solely ever noticed a fraction of what WISE captured. Now that NEOWISE is gone, scientists are tying up any free ends and placing a bow on the mission. As a part of that course of, the general public now will get to see many extra lovely area pictures.
“The WISE and NEOWISE knowledge releases are constructed for researchers, however additionally they embody a number of the most wonderful photographs of our infrared sky,” explains Robert Hurt, IPAC Visualization Scientist.
“They are really easy to work with it’s virtually too simple to make a wonderful picture from them! That’s why I needed to revisit the archive to find some hidden gems we missed earlier than.”
The group chosen six awe-inspiring, never-before-seen photographs from the archive to share with the general public. The picks are featured all through this text.
“I’m actually grateful for all the individuals at IPAC who’ve put a lot effort into making this one of the best dataset potential, for as we speak and for future generations,” provides Masiero.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPAC
