NASA’s NEOWISE extends legacy with decade of near-Earth object data

Because the infrared space telescope continues its long-duration survey of the universe, it’s creating a novel useful resource for future astronomers to make new discoveries.

NASA’s NEOWISE mission has launched its tenth 12 months of infrared knowledge—the newest in a novel long-duration (or “time-domain”) survey that captures how celestial objects change over lengthy intervals. Time-domain astronomy can assist scientists see how distant variable stars change in brightness and observe faraway black holes flaring as they devour matter. However NEOWISE has a particular give attention to our planet’s native cosmic neighborhood, producing a time-domain infrared survey used for planetary science, with a specific emphasis on asteroids and comets.

Quick for Close to-Earth Object Vast-field Infrared Survey Explorer, NEOWISE is a key part of NASA’s planetary protection technique, serving to the company refine the orbits of asteroids and comets whereas additionally estimating their measurement. One such instance is the doubtless hazardous asteroid Apophis, which can make a detailed method of our planet in 2029.

By repeatedly observing the sky from its location in low-Earth orbit, NEOWISE has made 1.45 million infrared measurements of over 44,000 solar system objects. That features greater than 3,000 NEOs, 215 of which the space telescope found. Twenty-five of these are comets, together with the well-known comet NEOWISE.

“The space telescope has been a workhorse for characterizing NEOs which will pose a hazard to Earth sooner or later,” stated Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE’s principal investigator on the College of Arizona and College of California, Los Angeles. “The information that NEOWISE has generated without cost use by the scientific group pays dividends for generations.”

From knowledge to discovery

Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission sends knowledge 3 times a day to the U.S. Monitoring and Information Relay Satellite tv for pc System (TDRSS) community, which then delivers it to IPAC, an astronomical knowledge analysis heart at Caltech in Pasadena, California. IPAC processes the uncooked knowledge into absolutely calibrated photographs which might be accessible on-line.

It additionally generates NEO detections, sending them to the Minor Planet Middle—the internationally acknowledged clearinghouse for the place measurements of solar system our bodies. By looking out a number of photographs of the identical patch of sky at totally different instances, scientists seize the motions of particular person asteroids and comets.

“The science merchandise we generate establish particular infrared sources within the sky with exactly decided positions and brightnesses that allow discoveries to be made,” stated Roc Cutri, lead scientist for the NEOWISE Science Information System at IPAC. “Probably the most enjoyable factor once I take a look at the info for the primary time is realizing that nobody has seen this earlier than. It places you in a novel place of doing actual exploration.”

IPAC may also produce knowledge merchandise for NASA’s NEO Surveyor, which is concentrating on a launch no sooner than 2027. Managed by JPL, with Mainzer serving as principal investigator, the next-generation space survey telescope will search out a few of the hardest-to-find near-Earth objects, corresponding to darkish asteroids and comets that do not mirror a lot seen mild however shine brighter in infrared mild.

Two missions, one spacecraft

The NEOWISE spacecraft launched in 2009, however as a distinct mission and with a distinct identify: the Vast-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, which got down to survey the whole sky. As an infrared telescope, WISE studied distant galaxies, comparatively cool red dwarf stars, exploding white dwarfs, and outgassing comets, in addition to NEOs.

An infrared telescope requires cryogenic coolant to forestall the spacecraft’s warmth from disrupting its observations. After the WISE telescope’s ran out of coolant and was now not in a position to observe the universe’s coldest objects, NASA put the spacecraft into hibernation in 2011.

However as a result of the telescope may nonetheless detect the infrared glow of comets and asteroids as they’re heated by the sun, Mainzer proposed to restart the spacecraft to control them. The mission was reactivated in 2014 and renamed NEOWISE, extending the lifetime of a spacecraft that was initially deliberate for lower than a 12 months of operation.

“We’re 14 years right into a seven-month mission,” stated Joseph Masiero, NEOWISE’s deputy principal investigator and a scientist at IPAC. He began at JPL as a postdoctoral researcher engaged on WISE simply two months earlier than the spacecraft launched on Dec. 14, 2009. “This little mission has been with me my total profession—it simply stored going, making new discoveries, serving to us higher perceive the universe,” Masiero added. “And if it wasn’t for the tyranny of orbital dynamics, I am certain the spacecraft would proceed to function for years to return.”

Photo voltaic exercise is inflicting NEOWISE to fall out of orbit, and the spacecraft is anticipated to drop low sufficient into Earth’s environment that it’s going to finally change into unusable.

“NEOWISE has lasted well beyond its unique spacecraft design lifetime,” stated Joseph Hunt, NEOWISE venture supervisor at JPL. “However as we did not construct it with a method to attain greater orbits, the spacecraft will naturally drop so low within the environment that it’s going to change into unusable and fully dissipate within the months following decommissioning. Precisely when will depend on the sun’s exercise.”