5 spectacular images of asteroids and comets from NASA’s retired NEOWISE mission

NEOWISE, NASA's retired infrared telescope, has tracked numerous near-Earth objects and discovered a rare comet since 2013.

Updated7 Dec 2024, 02:10 PM IST

NEOWISE is depicted in an artist’s concept in front of an image of the infrared sky that the mission captured. The string of red dots moving across the sky near the center of the image is Holda, the first asteroid the space telescope detected shortly after being reactivated in 2013.(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA’s old and now-retired NEOWISE, an infrared space telescope that hunts asteroids and comets, gathered an impressive haul of observations throughout its decade in service.

Since the reactivation of its mission on 13 December 2013, the space telescope has identified a once-in-a-lifetime comet, tracked over 3,000 near-Earth objects, reinforced international planetary defence initiatives, and aided another NASA mission in a meeting with a distant asteroid, among other achievements.

However, solar activity is causing NEOWISE -- short for Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer -- to fall out of orbit. By early 2025, the spacecraft is expected to drop low enough into Earth’s atmosphere that it will become unusable. Eventually, it will re-enter the atmosphere, entirely burning up.

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Here are 5 NASA images from NEOWISE's major discoveries:

This is a mosaic of the images covering the entire sky as observed by the WISE, part of its All-Sky Data Release.

In the mosaic, the Milky Way Galaxy runs horizontally across this map. The Milky Way is shaped like a disk and our solar system is located in that disk about two-thirds of the way out from the center. So, we see the Milky Way as a band running through the sky.

As we look toward the center of the galaxy, we are looking through more of the disk than when we are looking for at large angles away from the center, and you can see a noticeable increase in stars (colored blue-green) toward the center of the image.

Asteroid 2010 TK7 is circled in green, in this single frame taken by NASA's WISE. The majority of the other dots are stars or galaxies far beyond our solar system

Asteroid 2010 TK7 is circled in green, in this single frame taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The majority of the other dots are stars or galaxies far beyond our solar system.

Astronomers discovered this object -- the first known Earth Trojan asteroid -- after sifting through asteroid candidates identified by WISE. This image was taken in infrared light at a wavelength of 4.6 microns in Oct. 2010.

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The picture was taken by WISE but has been artistically enhanced to illustrate the idea that clumped galaxies will, on average, be surrounded by larger halos of dark matter (represented in purple). Because dark matter, like normal matter, has gravity, it will pull galaxies toward it, causing them to clump.

Active, supermassive black holes at the hearts of galaxies tend to fall into two categories: those that are hidden by dust, and those that are exposed. Data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have shown that galaxies with hidden supermassive black holes tend to clump together in space more than the galaxies with exposed, or unobscured, black holes.

This enhanced image shows galaxies clumped together in the Fornax cluster, located 60 million light-years from Earth.

Blue light indicates warm dust heated by unseen massive stars. Observed in infrared light – a range of wavelengths outside what human eyes can detect – the views were provided by NASA's retired Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which now operates under the moniker NEOWISE.

This new image of the Orion Nebula produced using previously released data from three telescopes shows two enormous caverns carved out by unseen giant stars that can release up to a million times more light than our Sun. All that radiation breaks apart dust grains there, helping to create the pair of cavities.

Much of the remaining dust is swept away when the stars produce wind or when they die explosive deaths as supernovae. This infrared image shows dust but no stars.

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This artist’s concept depicts the current record holder for the most luminous galaxy in the universe. The galaxy, WISE J224607.57-052635.0, is erupting with light equal to more than 300 trillion suns. It was discovered using data from NASA’s WISE mission

A remote galaxy shining with the light of more than 300 trillion suns has been discovered using data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The galaxy is the most luminous galaxy found to date and belongs to a new class of objects recently discovered by WISE — extremely luminous infrared galaxies, or ELIRGs.

The brilliant galaxy, known as WISE J224607.57-052635.0, may have a behemoth black hole at its belly, gorging itself on gas. Supermassive black holes draw gas and matter into a disk around them, heating the disk to roaring temperatures of millions of degrees and blasting out high-energy, visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray light. The light is blocked by surrounding cocoons of dust. As the dust heats up, it radiates infrared light.

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Business News Science News5 spectacular images of asteroids and comets from NASA’s retired NEOWISE mission

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First Published:7 Dec 2024, 11:12 AM IST

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