Twelve years of data from WISE
The Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was launched in 2009 with an intended mission of two years, during which it would map the sky looking for asteroids. In 2011 NASA extended the mission, renaming the telescope for inexplicable reasons to NEOWISE (adding “Near-Earth Object” to the beginning).
In the more than a decade since, the telescope has been able to get eighteen repeated scans of the entire sky, allowing scientists to track many changes in a variety of stellar objects over time.
Yesterday NASA issued a press release celebrating this long achievement.
Every six months, NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or NEOWISE, spacecraft completes one trip halfway around the Sun, taking images in all directions. Stitched together, those images form an “all-sky” map showing the location and brightness of hundreds of millions of objects. Using 18 all-sky maps produced by the spacecraft (with the 19th and 20th to be released in March 2023), scientists have created what is essentially a time-lapse movie of the sky, revealing changes that span a decade.
There is a bit of hype in this claim. The data isn’t really useful when looked at across the entire sky. One has to zoom into particular objects to see them evolve over time. Also, many of these changes, such as with variable stars, are well known and tracked by many other telescopes.
Nonetheless, this infrared database is very valuable. It can be used for example by astronomers to identify objects that should be viewed with high resolution in the infrared, by Webb.
Readers!
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The Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was launched in 2009 with an intended mission of two years, during which it would map the sky looking for asteroids. In 2011 NASA extended the mission, renaming the telescope for inexplicable reasons to NEOWISE (adding “Near-Earth Object” to the beginning).
In the more than a decade since, the telescope has been able to get eighteen repeated scans of the entire sky, allowing scientists to track many changes in a variety of stellar objects over time.
Yesterday NASA issued a press release celebrating this long achievement.
Every six months, NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or NEOWISE, spacecraft completes one trip halfway around the Sun, taking images in all directions. Stitched together, those images form an “all-sky” map showing the location and brightness of hundreds of millions of objects. Using 18 all-sky maps produced by the spacecraft (with the 19th and 20th to be released in March 2023), scientists have created what is essentially a time-lapse movie of the sky, revealing changes that span a decade.
There is a bit of hype in this claim. The data isn’t really useful when looked at across the entire sky. One has to zoom into particular objects to see them evolve over time. Also, many of these changes, such as with variable stars, are well known and tracked by many other telescopes.
Nonetheless, this infrared database is very valuable. It can be used for example by astronomers to identify objects that should be viewed with high resolution in the infrared, by Webb.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
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