NASA’s solar powered Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, was sent into orbit around 526 kilometres above the Earth earlier this week on a mission to scan the skies.
WISE will see the infrared colours of the whole sky far more clearly than the last infrared sky survey, performed 26 years ago. In fact, WISE’s sensitivity is hundreds of times greater than its predecessor, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, which operated in 1983.
Just about everything in the universe glows in infrared, which means the mission will catalog a variety of astronomical targets including stars in distant galaxies and also potential threats such as near-Earth asteroids. The mission is expected to help answer fundamental questions about the origins of planets, stars and galaxies, and provide a mountain of data for astronomers to pore over for decades to come.
WISE will be circling Earth via the poles about 15 times a day and around 7,500 images will be taken every day at four different infrared wavelengths.
The mission’s sensitive infrared telescope and detectors are kept chilled inside a tank of solid hydrogen that will prevent the craft from picking up the heat signature of its own instrument. The solid hydrogen, called a cryogen, is expected to last about 10 months and will keep the WISE telescope at a rather chilly minus 261 degrees Celsius.
WISE is powered entirely by a single fixed solar panel approximately 2 meters wide by 1.6 meters tall that will produce a maximum 551 watts. The satellite will be always oriented with its solar panel facing the sun to ensure maximum power and to avoid the need for batteries for energy storage. The panel contains 684 solar cells and was manufactured by Spectrolabs, Sylmar, California.
