NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) will continue its hunt for asteroids and comets including objects that could pose a hazard to Earth for two more years.
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This mission extension means NASA’s prolific near-Earth object (NEO) hunting space telescope will continue operations until June 2023.
Originally launched as the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission in December 2009, the space telescope surveyed the entire sky in infrared wavelengths, detecting asteroids, dim stars, and some of the faintest galaxies visible in deep space.
WISE completed its primary mission when it depleted its cryogenic coolant and it was put into hibernation in February 2011.
Observations resumed in December 2013 when the space telescope was repurposed by NASA’s Planetary Science Division as “NEOWISE” to identify asteroids and comets throughout the solar system, with special attention to those that pass close to Earth’s orbit.