NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission has recently marked its 10th year of operation, providing a decade of infrared data on near-Earth objects (NEOs). This mission has been instrumental in discovering and characterizing NEOs, which include asteroids and comets that could potentially pose a threat to Earth.
NEOWISE was initially launched in December 2009 as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), with the primary mission of surveying the sky in infrared wavelengths. After completing its primary mission in February 2011, the spacecraft was put into hibernation. However, due to its ability to still detect the infrared glow of comets and asteroids as they are heated by the Sun, the mission was reactivated in 2013 with a more specialized role in mind: aiding planetary defense efforts by surveying and studying NEOs.
Surveying and Studying Near-Earth Objects
Since becoming NEOWISE, the mission has scanned the entire sky over 20 times and made 1.45 million infrared measurements of over 44,000 solar system objects, including more than 3,000 NEOs and 25 comets. The mission has also discovered 215 NEOs, with 25 of them being comets, including the famous comet NEOWISE.
Contribution to Planetary Defense
NEOWISE’s forte is characterizing near-Earth asteroids, and it has been a key component of international planetary defense exercises, such as the one focused on the hazardous asteroid Apophis in 2021. The mission’s data has contributed to refining the orbits of these objects while gauging their size and albedo, or how much sunlight their surfaces reflect.