The newest space telescopes by NASA have found almost 25,000 asteroids in just six months. These asteroids were never seen before and about 95 of these are very close to Earth only 48 million kilometers of earth. But NASA assures that this is not a range to cause any threat to Earth. These objects were discovered in the telescope’s first rotation that lasted six months and its second inspection will start very soon.
NASA named the telescope WISE (English acronym for Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer). In its inspection WISE also came across 15 new comets, and the possibility of a more Ultraluminous galaxy 10,000 million light years away, formed by collisions of galaxies.
The rare feet were achieved by the telescope as its make allows it to see beyond the thick layer of clouds. This quality has enabled it to discover objects that even though very close to the Earth were hidden to all other telescopes that were used till date. The total mission costed the space agency 320 dollars. The telescope was developed by Space Dynamics Laboratory of the University of Utah with a size of 40 centimeters, which orbits the Earth at 480 kilometers and takes pictures every 11 seconds the entire sky. WISE can record the brightness of objects invisible to regular telescopes and hence within the short time span it has discovered so many objects around the earth.
In another six months that is by the end of the telescopes second rotation scientist hope for a cosmic census of millions of new objects. Further these discoveries could go a long way to answer questions about the formation of planets, stars and galaxies that have baffled researchers.
The galaxy detected by WISE is 10,000 million light years away, formed by collisions of galaxies and is ultra luminous. 20 brown dwarfs are also among the discoveries of WISE.
Detection of asteroids was the primary mission of WISE. At the time of its launch in December 2009, it was a step toward monitoring the surprise that the falling asteroids cause us. Till recently very scant attention was devoted to programs for protection of our planet from external threats such as asteroids. These are small rocks that impact Earth on average once every five years. The problem is that we do not know till the last moment of the impact and hence cant be prepared for it. WISE is a major “cookies” to prevent these hazards.