On December 14, 2009, NASA launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. This space-born telescope has a 16 inch diameter and surveys light in the infrared wavelengths. The telescope’s focal planes and optics are cooled with a two-stage solid-hydrogen cryostat. This gives the mission an expected lifetime of 10 months. Over that time, it will take one image about every 11 seconds for about 1.5 million images in total.
We have posted images from WISE before, and even posted a Cosmic Rosebud. Yesterday the WISE team released another beautiful image of a portion of our universe. WISE has taken an image of Comet C/2008 Q3 (Garradd).
This image from the WISE mission was taken on January 2nd, 2010, during the check-out phase, before the start of the WISE survey. It is a mosaic of 3 individual WISE frames spanning an area on the sky about 7 times
the size of the full Moon in portions of the constellations Bootes and Canes Venatici.
In the lower right portion of the image there is a streak of orange light. This is most likely a human-made satellite, orbiting Earth at a higher altitude than the WISE telescope, which is at 523 km above the surface. WISE sees many of these as it scans the sky.
Just above the satellite in the image is Comet C/2008 Q3 (Garradd).
