As the Infrared Space Telescope continues its long-term exploration of the Universe, it creates a unique resource for future astronomers to make new discoveries.

NASA’s NEOWISE mission has released 10 years of infrared data, the latest in a unique long-term (or “time domain”) study that captures how celestial objects change over long periods of time. Time-domain astronomy can help scientists see how distant variable stars change their brightness and observe distant black holes that flare up as they consume matter. But NEOWISE pays particular attention to our planet’s local space neighborhood, producing a time-domain infrared survey used for planetary science, with a special focus on asteroids and comets.

NEOWISE, short for Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, is a key component of NASA’s planetary defense strategy, helping the agency identify the orbits of asteroids and comets and estimate their sizes. One such example is the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis, which will come very close to our planet in 2029.

Observing the sky repeatedly from its position in low Earth orbit, NEOWISE took 1.45 million infrared measurements of more than 44,000 objects in the Solar System. This includes more than 3,000 NEOs, 215 of which were discovered by the space telescope. Twenty-five of them are comets, including the famous comet NEOWISE.

“The space telescope has been a powerful tool in characterizing NSOs that may pose a threat to Earth in the future,” said NEOWISE principal investigator Amy Meinzer of the University of Arizona and the University of California, Los Angeles. “The data collected by NEOWISE for the free use of the scientific community will benefit generations.”

From data to discovery

Led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission sends data three times a day to the U.S. Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) network, which then transmits the data to the Caltech Astronomical Data Research Center IPAC in Pasadena, California. IPAC converts raw data into fully calibrated images available online. It also produces NEO detections by sending them to the Minor Planet Center, an internationally recognized data cleaning center for measurements of the positions of Solar System objects. Scientists record the movement of individual asteroids and comets by looking for various images of the same area of ​​the sky at different times.

“The science products we make identify specific infrared sources in the sky with precisely defined locations and brightnesses that enable discoveries,” said Rock Katri, Chief Scientist for NEOWISE Science Data System at IPAC. “The most exciting thing when I look at the data for the first time is knowing that no one has seen it before. “It gives you a unique opportunity to do real research.”

IPAC will also produce information products for NASA’s NEO Surveyor, which is scheduled to launch before 2027. The next-generation space exploration telescope, operated by JPL and with Mainzer serving as principal investigator, will search for some of the hardest to find. Near-Earth objects that do not reflect visible light but shine brighter in infrared light, such as dark asteroids and comets.

Two missions, one spaceship

The NEOWISE spacecraft was launched in 2009, but as a different mission and with a different name: Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, which aims to survey the entire sky. As an infrared telescope, WISE has studied distant galaxies, relatively cool red dwarf stars, exploding white dwarfs, gas-emitting comets, and NSOs.

The infrared telescope requires a cryogenic cooler to prevent the spacecraft’s heat from interfering with its observations. NASA put the spacecraft into hibernation in 2011 after the WISE telescope ran out of coolant and could no longer observe the coldest objects in the universe. But since the telescope could still detect the infrared glow of comets and asteroids heated by the Sun, Meinzer suggested relaunching the spacecraft to keep an eye on them. The mission was revived in 2014 and renamed NEOWISE, extending the life of the spacecraft, which was originally planned to operate for less than a year.

“Ours is a 14-year, seven-month mission,” said Joseph Masiero, NEOWISE deputy principal investigator and IPAC scientist. He began working on WISE at JPL as a postdoctoral researcher just two months before the spacecraft’s launch on December 14, 2009. “This small mission has been with me throughout my career; it continues to make new discoveries, helping us better understand the universe,” Masiero added. “And if it weren’t for the tyranny of orbital dynamics, I’m confident the spacecraft would continue to operate for many years to come.”

Solar activity is causing NEOWISE to fall from orbit, and the spacecraft is expected to sink so low into Earth’s atmosphere that it will eventually become unusable.

“NEOWISE delivered well beyond the original spacecraft design,” said Joseph Hunt, NEOWISE project manager at JPL. “But since we haven’t designed it to go to higher orbits, the spacecraft will naturally sink so low in the atmosphere that it will become unusable and burn up completely within a few months of being decommissioned. “Exactly when it will happen depends on the Sun’s activities.”