WISE/NEOWISE burns up in the atmosphere
NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE, later renamed NEOWISE) has ended its fifteen years in orbit, burning up in the atmosphere on November 1, 2024.
In its initial mission it did an infrared survey of the sky, discovering millions of black holes, many of the most luminous galaxies, and numerous brown dwarfs. It was then repurposed to survey the sky for near Earth objects, asteroids that have the potential to impact the Earth, discovering more than two hundred new asteroids while tracking more precisely another 3,000. It did this by repeating its survey over and over so that moving objects could be spotted.
NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE, later renamed NEOWISE) has ended its fifteen years in orbit, burning up in the atmosphere on November 1, 2024.
In its initial mission it did an infrared survey of the sky, discovering millions of black holes, many of the most luminous galaxies, and numerous brown dwarfs. It was then repurposed to survey the sky for near Earth objects, asteroids that have the potential to impact the Earth, discovering more than two hundred new asteroids while tracking more precisely another 3,000. It did this by repeating its survey over and over so that moving objects could be spotted.