Jacques van Oene
October 21st 04, 08:22 AM
Contact: Whitney Clavin (818) 354-4673
News Release: 2004-252
October 6, 2004
NASA Approves Mission To Seek Nearest Stars, Brightest Galaxies
A new NASA mission will scan the entire sky in infrared light in search of
nearby cool stars, planetary construction zones and the brightest galaxies
in the universe.
Called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the mission has been
approved to proceed into the preliminary design phase as the next in NASA's
Medium-class Explorer program of lower cost, highly focused,
rapid-development scientific spacecraft. It is scheduled to launch in 2008.
Like a powerful set of night vision goggles, the new space-based telescope
will survey the cosmos with infrared detectors up to 500,000 times more
sensitive than previous survey missions. It will reveal hundreds of cool, or
failed, stars, called brown dwarfs, some of which may lie closer to us than
any known stars.
"Approximately two-thirds of nearby stars are too cool to be detected with
visible light," said Principal Investigator Dr. Edward Wright of the
University of California, Los Angeles, who proposed the new mission to NASA.
"The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer will see most of them."
The telescope will also provide a complete inventory of dusty planet-forming
discs around nearby stars, and find colliding galaxies that emit more
light - specifically infrared light - than any other galaxies in the
universe. In the end, the survey will consist of more than one million
images, from which hundreds of millions of space objects will be catalogued.
"The mission will complete the basic reconnaissance of the universe in
mid-infrared wavelengths, providing a vast storehouse of knowledge that will
endure for decades," said Dr. Peter Eisenhardt, project scientist for the
mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This
catalogue of data will also provide NASA's future James Webb Space Telescope
with a comprehensive list of targets."
JPL will manage the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer at a total cost to
NASA of approximately $208 million. William Irace of JPL is the project
manager. The cryogenic instrument will be built by the Space Dynamics
Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft will be built by Ball Aerospace
and Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colorado. Science operations and data
processing will take place at the JPL/Caltech Infrared Processing and
Analysis Center, Pasadena. Calif. JPL is a division of Caltech.
More than 70 U.S. and cooperative international scientific space missions
have been part of NASA's Explorer program. The missions are characterized by
relatively moderate cost, and by small- to medium-sized missions that are
capable of being built, tested and launched in a short time interval
compared to the large observatories. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorer program for the Science Mission
Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington.
For more information, visit http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/wise/ or
http://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov .
-end-
--
---------------------------
Jacques :-)
www.spacepatches.info
News Release: 2004-252
October 6, 2004
NASA Approves Mission To Seek Nearest Stars, Brightest Galaxies
A new NASA mission will scan the entire sky in infrared light in search of
nearby cool stars, planetary construction zones and the brightest galaxies
in the universe.
Called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the mission has been
approved to proceed into the preliminary design phase as the next in NASA's
Medium-class Explorer program of lower cost, highly focused,
rapid-development scientific spacecraft. It is scheduled to launch in 2008.
Like a powerful set of night vision goggles, the new space-based telescope
will survey the cosmos with infrared detectors up to 500,000 times more
sensitive than previous survey missions. It will reveal hundreds of cool, or
failed, stars, called brown dwarfs, some of which may lie closer to us than
any known stars.
"Approximately two-thirds of nearby stars are too cool to be detected with
visible light," said Principal Investigator Dr. Edward Wright of the
University of California, Los Angeles, who proposed the new mission to NASA.
"The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer will see most of them."
The telescope will also provide a complete inventory of dusty planet-forming
discs around nearby stars, and find colliding galaxies that emit more
light - specifically infrared light - than any other galaxies in the
universe. In the end, the survey will consist of more than one million
images, from which hundreds of millions of space objects will be catalogued.
"The mission will complete the basic reconnaissance of the universe in
mid-infrared wavelengths, providing a vast storehouse of knowledge that will
endure for decades," said Dr. Peter Eisenhardt, project scientist for the
mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This
catalogue of data will also provide NASA's future James Webb Space Telescope
with a comprehensive list of targets."
JPL will manage the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer at a total cost to
NASA of approximately $208 million. William Irace of JPL is the project
manager. The cryogenic instrument will be built by the Space Dynamics
Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft will be built by Ball Aerospace
and Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colorado. Science operations and data
processing will take place at the JPL/Caltech Infrared Processing and
Analysis Center, Pasadena. Calif. JPL is a division of Caltech.
More than 70 U.S. and cooperative international scientific space missions
have been part of NASA's Explorer program. The missions are characterized by
relatively moderate cost, and by small- to medium-sized missions that are
capable of being built, tested and launched in a short time interval
compared to the large observatories. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorer program for the Science Mission
Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington.
For more information, visit http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/wise/ or
http://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov .
-end-
--
---------------------------
Jacques :-)
www.spacepatches.info