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NASA"s new WISE "eye" to search heavens for undiscovered objects
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 09 - 12 - 2009


NASA"s newest "eye" to be launched Friday is a
satellite equipped with unprecedented infrared sensitivity to scope
out cosmic objects unseen by other cameras, according to dpa.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, is to launch
between 1409 and 1423 GMT from Vandenberg Air Force Base in
California.
Over the next nine months in orbit around the north and south
poles, the satellite is to scan the entire sky one and a half times
seeking out the "coolest stars, dark asteroids and the most luminous
galaxies," NASA said.
What sets this "eye" apart from other space cameras such as the
Hubble telescope and deep-space probes is its ability to read four
infrared wavelengths "with sensitivity hundreds to hundreds of
thousands of times greater than its predecessors," NASA"s Pasadena-
based Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.
The resulting pictures will serve as navigation charts for the big
space cameras like the Hubble, NASA"s Spitzer space telescope, the
European Space Agency"s Herschel Space Observatory and NASA"s
upcoming Sofia and James Webb Space Telescope.
"With infrared, we can find the dark asteroids other surveys have
missed and learn about the whole population. Are they mostly big,
small, fluffy or hard?" asked Peter Eisenhardt, the WISE project
scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab.
Brown dwarfs, as failed stars are known, or cool stars, could
possibly be lurking "right under our noses," NASA said, perhaps
nearer than Proxima Centauri, the nearest known star to Earth"s own
solar system.
To keep WISE sensitive to infrared light, it cannot give out any
infrared rays of its own, so its detectors are to be chilled to
ultra-cold temperatures - below 8 degrees Kelvin, or minus 445
degrees Fahrenheit.
"Wise is chilled out," project manager William Irace said.


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