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Comet Gets WISE Treatment
Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Comet Siding Spring and its ghostly tail streak across the sky in one of the first infrared pictures taken by NASA's new Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope, which were released February 17.
The telescope, which launched in December 2009, will scour the sky for objects that give off infrared light.
"What we're able to see that's different with WISE is the cool dust being blown off the comet by the sun," said the WISE telescope's deputy project scientist Amy Mainzer.
Cold objects emit more energy at long infrared wavelengths than warm objects do, so WISE is particularly sensitive to icy comets and cool, rocky asteroids, she added. (See comet and asteroid pictures.)
"We can learn a great deal about the physical properties of comets, such as their size and how big their dust particles are," Mainzer said.The last time the entire sky was mapped in infrared light was in 1983, using the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, or IRAS, which had a 62-pixel sensor. WISE uses a four-million pixel—or four-megapixel—sensor.
"I would say it's the difference between an old-fashioned landline phone and an iPhone," Manzier said.
—Ker Than
Published February 18, 2010
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Star Nursery Spied by WISE
Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
A brood of newborn stars basks in an orange glow in one of the first false-color WISE space telescope images, released February 17.
Star-driven winds and radiation from the stellar nursery, called NGC 3603, warm the cold dust and gas surrounding the nebula. This radiates the stars' energy as infrared light and forms a green halo.
"You're seeing dust that's been heated up by all the new stars," said WISE's Mainzer.
Because NASA's WISE has such a large field of view, it can capture the "big picture" in a way that other telescopes can't, she added.
For example, the WISE picture is 2,500 times larger than the inset taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, which shows giant stars located at NGC 3603's heart.
Published February 18, 2010
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Andromeda, the WISE Way
Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
The fiery swirl of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbor, Andromeda, is captured by NASA's WISE space telescope in this picture released February 17, 2010. The warm, glowing dust in the galaxy's spiral arms is especially visible in the infrared image.
"You can see that it's not a smooth spiral like you might expect," WISE's Mainzer said. "It looks like a hubcap that's been in an accident, and that's one way scientists can tell that our nearest neighbor probably has been in an accident with another galaxy."
Unlike NASA's other infrared space observatories that use telephoto lenses—such as the NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the ESA's Herschel space observatory—WISE is designed to take wide-angle images of the sky. (Related: "Birth of an Earthlike Planet Spied By Spitzer.")
"A wide-angle lens can quickly cover a lot of area," WISE's Mainzer said, "and find the most interesting things to point your zoom lens at."
Published February 18, 2010
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