WISE has surveyed the sky in infrared light

Astronomers are soon to have a new map of the canopy of heaven.

 

With this photograph of the open cluster of the Pleiades, WISE celebrates the end of its first world sky observation campaign. The infrared light highlights the gas clouds that surround stars, situated 436 light years from us. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Launched on 14 December 2009 (see this article), NASA’s orbital observatory WISE has finished its first observation campaign: with 1.3 million photographs, the entire sky has been photographed in infrared light!

Another task is just beginning
WISE, apart from its meaning in English, is also NASA’s acronym for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. This space telescope with its main mirror measuring 40 cm in diameter appears very small in comparison to the European giant Herschel with its 3.5 m diameter mirror (see this article) which also studies infrared light! However, the two spacecraft are totally complementary to one another. Herschel is a sort of “super-zoom lens” capable of examining very specific areas of the sky with previously unknown accuracy. Whereas WISE has more of a wide angled approach (the W from WISE meaning “Wide-field”) and having surveyed the whole of the canopy of heaven in infrared light (which Herschel would not have the time to do) is providing astronomers with a global view of the Universe in this light wavelength. This is making it possible, amongst other things, to better detect certain asteroids or comets, those nearby cold stars as well as the galaxies furthest away from us.

Illustration showing WISE against a background of an infrared picture of the sky. Far smaller than the impressive European infrared observatory Herschel, this satellite belonging to NASA is quite complementary. Credit: NASA

WISE is to continue its observations in order to refine the data already gathered, but as of May next year, scientists will have access to measurements relating to 80% of the sky. This is when yet another task will begin, namely the exploitation of the valuable data which will more than probably lead to advances in fields as varied as the distribution of asteroids in the solar system, the way in which planets are formed and even how galaxies were born at the dawning of the Universe. Furthermore, this “full map” in infrared light will enable astronomers to identify particularly interesting areas so that they can then be examined in greater detail by other infrared observatories, such as Herschel for example.

Published on 19 July 2010