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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><FONT
face="Times New Roman">The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a
NASA-funded infrared-wavelength astronomical space telescope which was launched
on 14 December 2009. The Earth-orbiting satellite carries a 40 cm (16 inch)
diameter infrared-sensitive telescope, which will survey the entire sky over the
course of six months through images made in the 3 to 25 μm wavelength range. The
telescope's image detectors are designed to make the survey at least 1 000
times more sensitive to infrared sky features than the sky surveys of previous
major infrared space survey telescopes such as the Infrared Astronomical
Satellite (IRAS), AKARI and COBE. The WISE telescope and detectors are kept very
cold (below 15° Centigrade above absolute zero) by a cryostat filled with solid
hydrogen.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">The complete mission will create images of 99% of the
sky, with at least eight images made of each position on the sky in order to
increase accuracy. The spacecraft is in a 525 km, circular, polar,
sun-synchronous orbit for its 10 month mission, during which it will take at
least 1.5 million images, one every 11 seconds. Each image will cover a 47
arcminute field of view, an area of the sky 3 times larger than the full Moon.
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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">Each picture will have one megapixel at each of four
different wavelengths that range from 5 to 35 times longer than the longest
waves the human eye can see. Data taken by WISE will be downloaded by radio
transmission 4 times per day to computers on the ground which will combine the
many images taken by WISE into an atlas covering the entire celestial sphere and
a list of all the detected objects. The image library produced will contain data
on the local Solar System, the Milky Way Galaxy, and the more distant universe.
Among the objects WISE will study are asteroids, cool, dim stars such as brown
dwarfs, and the most luminous infrared galaxies.</FONT></P>
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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">(From the WISE Mission home page </FONT><A
href="http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/index.html"><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/index.html</FONT></A><FONT
size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT><SPAN
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Wikipedia)</SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>