NASA project WISE

An article in the New York Times Science Times section wrote by Dennis Overbye revealed that NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is scheduled to launch a new invention twelve years in the making on friday the eleventh of December. Known as WISE, the 320 million dollar NASA creation is planned to launch into orbit friday as early as 9:09 a.m. Eastern time from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. WISE, or the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer is the second of its kind. The first of this kind of invention was the IRAS, Infrared Astronomy Satellite, launched in 1983. The reason for such an invention is do to the fact that a majority of the light produced by stars, planets and other objects in the universe are invisible. The light from these objects come in the form of infrared or heat radiation. Infrared light and heat radiation have wavelengths that are too long in length for our eyes too see. As well, these wavelength are unable to reach our eyes. Unable to see from Earth, NASA had to go to space. Thus NASA created WISE to get a closer look. With a 16-inch telescope, infrared detectors, and a four million pixel camera, WISE is hundreds of times more sensitive than IRAS. The WISE spacecraft will have a polar orbit 300 miles high above the Earth surface, and is planned to circle the Earth taking photographs of the entire sky every six months. Along with being more sensitive than IRAS, WISE will survey and record a vastly larger volume of space. It is hopeful that WISE will be able to capture images of ultra-luminous galaxies believed to be the source “breeding stars copiously inside shrouds of dust.” Brown dwarfs, or cool/cold almost-stars, are also a hopeful object to photograph. Another target of the WISE invention are asteroids. WISE will photograph and help to determine the diameter of the asteroids that are “near-Earth objects” and answer how much of a threat the asteroids pose to civilization. Along with all the abilities WISE has to accomplish the job NASA designed it to do in space WISE is also planned to pave the way for the “giant James Webb Space Telescope” due to launch in 2014. In my opinion this is a interesting advancement that will help to expand our knowledge of space and the objects in space. However I believe that 320 million dollars could have been put to better use when economic times are as hard as they are right now.