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At least 19 records
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NASA NTRS2006

Update on the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a NASA MIDEX mission, will survey the entire sky in four bands from 3.3 to 23 microns with a sensitivity 1000 times greater than the IRAS survey. The WISE survey will extend the Two Micron All Sky Survey into the thermal infrared and will provide an important catalog for the James Webb Space Telescope. Using 1024(sup 2) HgCdTe and Si:As arrays at 3.3, 4.7, 12 and 23 microns, WISE will find the most luminous galaxies in the universe, the closest stars to the Sun, and it will detect most of the main belt asteroids larger than 3 km. The single WISE instrument consists of a 40 cm diamond-turned aluminum afocal telescope, a two-stage solid hydrogen cryostat, a scan mirror mechanism, and reimaging optics giving 5 resolution (full-width-half-maximum). The use of dichroics and beamsplitters allows four color images of a 47' x47' field of view to be taken every 8.8 seconds, synchronized with the orbital motion to provide total sky coverage with overlap between revolutions. WISE will be placed into a Sun-synchronous polar orbit on a Delta 7320-10 launch vehicle. The WISE survey approach is simple and efficient. The three-axis-stabilized spacecraft rotates at a constant rate while the scan mirror freezes the telescope line of sight during each exposure. WISE has completed its mission Preliminary Design Review and its NASA Confirmation Review, and the project is awaiting confirmation from NASA to proceed to the Critical Design phase. Much of the payload hardware is now complete, and assembly of the payload will occur over the next year. WISE is scheduled to launch in late 2009; the project web site can be found at www.wise.ssl.berkeley.edu.

aster↗
NASA NTRS2006

The Mission Operations System for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)

The goal of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission is to perform a highly sensitive all-sky survey in 4 wavebands from 3 to 25(mu)m. Launched on a Delta II rocket into a 500km Sun-synchronous orbit in June 2009, during its 7 months of operations, WISE will acquire about 50GBytes of raw science data every day, which will be down-linked via the TDRSS relay satellite system and processed into an astronomical catalogue and image atlas. The WISE mission operations system is being implemented in collaboration between UCLA, JPL and IPAC (Caltech). In this paper we describe the challenges to manage a high data rate, cryogenic, low earth-orbit mission; maintaining safe on-orbit operations, fast anomaly recoveries (mandated by the desire to provide complete sky coverage in a limited lifetime), production and dissemination of high quality science products, given the constraints imposed by funding profiles for small space missions.

Science Data Processing↗
NASA NTRS2011

The First Hundred Brown Dwarfs Discovered by the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)

We present ground-based spectroscopic verification of six Y dwarfs also Cushing et al.), eighty-nine T dwarfs, eight L dwarfs, and one M dwarf identified by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Eighty of these are cold brown dwarfs with spectral types > or =T6, six of which have been announced earlier in Mainzer et al. and I3urgasser et al. We present color-color and colortype diagrams showing the locus of M, L, T, and Y dwarfs in WISE color space. "

Kirkpatrick, J. Davy↗
NASA NTRS2012

Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer

We present WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) mid-infrared photometry of young stellar object candidates in the Canis Majoris clouds at a distance of 1 kpc. WISE has identified 682 objects with apparent 12 and 22 micron excess emission in a 7 deg x 10 deg field around the CMa Rl cloud . While a substantial fraction of these candidates are likely galaxies, AGB stars, and artifacts from confusion along the galactic plane, others are part of a spectacular cluster of YSOs imaged by WISE along a dark filament in the R1 cloud. Palomar Double Spectrograph observations of several sources in this cluster confirm their identity as young A and B stars with strong emission lines. In this contribution, we plot the optical -mid-infrared spectral energy distribution for the WISE YSO candidates and discuss potential contaminants to the sample . The data demonstrate the utility of WISE in performing wide-area surveys for young stellar objects.

Padgett, Deborah↗
NASA NTRS2010

The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-Orbit Performance

The all sky surveys done by the Palomar Observatory Schmidt, the European Southern Observatory Schmidt, and the United Kingdom Schmidt, the InfraRed Astronomical Satellite and the 2 Micron All Sky Survey have proven to be extremely useful tools for astronomy with value that lasts for decades. The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer is mapping the whole sky following its launch on 14 December 2009. WISE began surveying the sky on 14 Jan 2010 and completed its first full coverage of the sky on July 17. The survey will continue to cover the sky a second time until the cryogen is exhausted (anticipated in November 2010). WISE is achieving 5 sigma point source sensitivities better than 0.08, 0.11, 1 and 6 mJy in unconfused regions on the ecliptic in bands centered at wavelengths of 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 micrometers. Sensitivity improves toward the ecliptic poles due to denser coverage and lower zodiacal background. The angular resolution is 6.1", 6.4", 6.5" and 12.0" at 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 micrometers, and the astrometric precision for high SNR sources is better than 0.15".

Wright, Edward L.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Warm Debris Disks from WISE

"The Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has just completed a sensitive all-sky survey in photometric bands at 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 microns. We report on a preliminary investigation of main sequence Hipparcos and Tycho catalog stars with 22 micron emission in excess of photospheric levels. This warm excess emission traces material in the circumstellar region likely to host terrestrial planets and is preferentially found in young systems with ages < 1 Gyr. Nearly a hundred new warm debris disk candidates are detected among FGK stars and a similar number of A stars within 120 pc. We are in the process of obtaining spectra to determine spectral types and activity level of these stars and are using HST, Herschel and Keck to characterize the dust, multiplicity, and substellar companions of these systems. In this contribution, we will discuss source selection methods and individual examples from among the WISE debris disk candidates. "

Padgett, Deborah L.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Warm Debris Disk Candidates from WISE

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has just completed a sensitive all-sky survey in photometric bands at 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 microns. We report on a preliminary investigation of main sequence Hipparcos and Tycho catalog stars with 22 micron emission in excess of photospheric levels. This warm excess emission traces material in the circumstellar region likely to host terrestrial planets and is preferentially found in young systems with ages < 1 Gyr. Nearly a hundred new warm debris disk candidates are detected among FGK stars and 150 A stars within 120 pc. We are in the process of obtaining spectra to determine spectral types and activity level of these stars and are using HST, Herschel and Keck to characterize the dust, multiplicity, and substellar companions of these systems. In this contribution, we will discuss source selection methods and individual examples from among the WISE debris disk candidates.

Padgett, Deborah↗
NASA NTRS2011

WISE Observations of Comets, Centaurs, & Scattered Disk Objects

The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was luanched on December 14, 2009. WISE imaged more than 99% of the sky in the mid-infrared for a 9-month mission lifetome. In addition to its primary goals of detecting the most luminous infrared galaxies and the nearest brown dwarfs, WISE, detected over 155500 of solar system bodies, 33700 of which were previously unknown. Most of the new objects were main Belt asteriods, and particular emphasis was on the discovery of Near Earth Asteoids. Hundreds of Jupiter Trojans have been imaged by WISE as well. However a substantial number of Centaurs, Scattered Disc Objects (SDOs), & cometary objects, were observed and discovered.

comets↗
NASA NTRS2006

MegaMIR: The Megapixel Mid-Infrared Instrument for the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer

The Megapixel Mid-infrared Instrument (MegaMIR) is a proposed Fizeau-mode camera for the Large Binocular Telescope operating at wavelengths between 5 and 28 micrometers. The camera will be used in conjunction with the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI), a cryogenic optical system that combines the beams from twin 8.4-m telescopes in a phase coherent manner. Unlike other interferometric systems, the co-mounted telescopes on the LBT satisfy the sine condition, providing diffraction-limited resolution over the 40" field of view of the camera. With a 22.8-m baseline, MegaMIR will yield 0.1" angular resolution, making it the highest resolution wide field imager in the thermal infrared for at least the next decade. MegaMIR will utilize a newly developed 1024 x 1024 pixel Si:As detector array that has been optimized for use at high backgrounds. This new detector is a derivative of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) low-background detector. The combination of high angular resolution and wide field imaging will be a unique scientific capability for astronomy. Key benefits will be realized in planetary science, galactic, and extra-galactic astronomy. High angular resolution is essential to disentangle highly complex sources, particularly in star formation regions and external galaxies, and MegaMIR provides this performance over a full field of view. Because of the great impact being made by space observatories like the Spitzer Space Telescope, the number of available targets for study has greatly increased in recent years, and MegaMIR will allow efficient follow up science.

ultraluminous galaxies↗
NASA NTRS2017

The First Brown Dwarf Discovered by the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Citizen Science Project

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a powerful tool for finding nearby brown dwarfs and searching for new planets in the outer solar system, especially with the incorporation of NEOWISE and NEOWISE Reactivation data. However, so far, searches for brown dwarfs in WISE data have yet to take advantage of the full depth of the WISE images. To efficiently search this unexplored space via visual inspection, we have launched anew citizen science project, called "Backyard Worlds: Planet 9," which asks volunteers to examine short animations composed of difference images constructed from time-resolved WISE co adds. We report the first new substellar object discovered by this project, WISEA J110125.95+540052.8, a T5.5 brown dwarf located approximately 34 pc from the Sun with a total proper motion of approx.0. "7/ yr. WISEA J110125.95+540052.8 has a WISE W2 magnitude of W2 = 15.37+/- 0.09; our sensitivity to this source demonstrates the ability of citizen scientists to identify moving objects via visual inspection that are 0.9 mag fainter than the W2 single-exposure sensitivity, a threshold that has limited prior motion-based brown dwarf searches with WISE.

Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)↗
NASA NTRS2014

Herschel/PACS Photometry of Transiting-Planet Host Stars with Candidate Warm Debris Disks

Dust in debris disks is produced by colliding or evaporating planetesimals, which are remnants of the planet formation process. Warm dust disks, known by their emission at less than or equal to 24 micrometer, are rare (4% of FGK main sequence stars) and especially interesting because they trace material in the region likely to host terrestrial planets, where the dust has a very short dynamical lifetime. Statistical analyses of the source counts of excesses as found with the mid-IR Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) suggest that warm-dust candidates found for the Kepler transiting-planet host-star candidates can be explained by extragalactic or galactic background emission aligned by chance with the target stars. These statistical analyses do not exclude the possibility that a given WISE excess could be due to a transient dust population associated with the target. Here we report Herschel/PACS 100 and 160 micron follow-up observations of a sample of Kepler and non-Kepler transiting-planet candidates' host stars, with candidate WISE warm debris disks, aimed at detecting a possible cold debris disk in any one of them. No clear detections were found in any one of the objects at either wavelength. Our upper limits confirm that most objects in the sample do not have a massive debris disk like that in beta Pic. We also show that the planet-hosting star WASP-33 does not have a debris disk comparable to the one around eta Crv. Although the data cannot be used to rule out rare warm disks around the Kepler planet-hosting candidates, the lack of detections and the characteristics of neighboring emission found at far-IR wavelengths support an earlier result suggesting that most of the WISE-selected IR excesses around Kepler candidate host stars are likely due to either chance alignment with background IR-bright galaxies and/or to interstellar emission.

Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)↗
NASA NTRS2016

Disk Detective: Discovery of New Circumstellar Disk Candidates Through Citizen Science

The Disk Detective citizen science project aims to find new stars with 22 micron excess emission from circumstellar dust using data from NASAs Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. Initial cuts on the AllWISE catalog provide an input catalog of 277,686 sources. Volunteers then view images of each source online in 10different bands to identify false positives (galaxies, interstellar matter, image artifacts, etc.). Sources that survive this online vetting are followed up with spectroscopy on the FLWO Tillinghast telescope. This approach should allow us to unleash the full potential of WISE for finding new debris disks and proto planetary disks. We announce a first list of 37 new disk candidates discovered by the project, and we describe our vetting and follow-up process. One of these systems appears to contain the first debris disk discovered around a star with a white dwarf companion: HD 74389. We also report four newly discovered classical Be stars (HD 6612, HD 7406, HD 164137,and HD 218546) and a new detection of 22 micron excess around the previously known debris disk host star HD 22128.

NASAs Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) m↗
NASA NTRS2012

Explanatory Supplement to the WISE All-Sky Release Products

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE; Wright et al. 2010) surveyed the entire sky at 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 microns in 2010, achieving 5-sigma point source sensitivities per band better than 0.08, 0.11, 1 and 6 mJy in unconfused regions on the ecliptic. The WISE All-Sky Data Release, conducted on March 14, 2012, incorporates all data taken during the full cryogenic mission phase, 7 January 2010 to 6 August 20l0,that were processed with improved calibrations and reduction algorithms. Release data products include: (1) an Atlas of 18,240 match-filtered, calibrated and coadded image sets; (2) a Source Catalog containing positions and four-band photometry for over 563 million objects, and (3) an Explanatory Supplement. Ancillary products include a Reject Table that contains 284 million detections that were not selected for the Source Catalog because they are low signal-to-noise ratio or spurious detections of image artifacts, an archive of over 1.5 million sets of calibrated WISE Single-exposure images, and a database of 9.4 billion source extractions from those single images, and moving object tracklets identified by the NEOWISE program (Mainzer et aI. 2011). The WISE All-Sky Data Release products supersede those from the WISE Preliminary Data Release (Cutri et al. 2011). The Explanatory Supplement to the WISE All-Sky Data Release Products is a general guide for users of the WISE data. The Supplement contains an overview of the WISE mission, facilities, and operations, a detailed description of WISE data processing algorithms, a guide to the content and formals of the image and tabular data products, and cautionary notes that describe known limitations of the All-Sky Release products. Instructions for accessing the WISE data products via the services of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive are provided. The Supplement also provides analyses of the achieved sky coverage, photometric and astrometric characteristics and completeness and reliability of the All-Sky Release data products. The WISE All-Sky Release Explanatory Supplement is an on-line document that is updated frequently to provide the most current information for users of the WISE data products. The Explanatory Supplement is maintained at: http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/allsky/expsup/index.html WISE is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NEOWISE is a project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the Planetary Science Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2010

The WISE Satellite Development: Managing the Risks and the Opportunities

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) MIDEX mission is surveying the entire sky in four infrared bands from 3.4 to 22 micrometers. The WISE instrument consists of a 40 cm telescope, a solid hydrogen cryostat, a scan mirror mechanism, and four 1K x1K infrared detectors. The WISE spacecraft bus provides communication, data handling, and avionics including instrument pointing. A Delta 7920 successfully launched WISE into a Sun-synchronous polar orbit on December 14, 2009. WISE was competitively selected by NASA as a Medium cost Explorer mission (MIDEX) in 2002. MIDEX missions are led by the Principal Investigator who delegates day-to-day management to the Project Manager. Given the tight cost cap and relatively short development schedule, NASA chose to extend the development period one year with an option to cancel the mission if certain criteria were not met. To meet this and other challenges, the WISE management team had to learn to work seamlessly across institutional lines and to recognize risks and opportunities in order to develop the flight hardware within the project resources. In spite of significant technical issues, the WISE satellite was delivered on budget and on schedule. This paper describes our management approach and risk posture, technical issues, and critical decisions made.

Risk Management↗
NASA NTRS2012

Constructing a WISE High Resolution Galaxy Atlas

After eight months of continuous observations, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mapped the entire sky at 3.4 micron, 4.6 micron, 12 micron, and 22 micron. We have begun a dedicated WISE High Resolution Galaxy Atlas project to fully characterize large, nearby galaxies and produce a legacy image atlas and source catalog. Here we summarize the deconvolution techniques used to significantly improve the spatial resolution of WISE imaging, specifically designed to study the internal anatomy of nearby galaxies. As a case study, we present results for the galaxy NGC 1566, comparing the WISE enhanced-resolution image processing to that of Spitzer, Galaxy Evolution Explorer, and ground-based imaging. This is the first paper in a two-part series; results for a larger sample of nearby galaxies are presented in the second paper.

Jarrett, T. H.↗
NASA NTRS2013

A New Population of High-z, Dusty Lyman-alpha Emitters and Blobs Discovered by WISE: Feedback Caught in the Act?

By combining data from the NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission with optical spectroscopy from the W. M. Keck telescope, we discover a mid-IR color criterion that yields a 78% success rate in identifying rare, typically radio-quiet, 1.6 approx. < z approx. < 4.6 dusty Ly-alpha emitters (LAEs). Of these, at least 37% have emission extended on scales of 30-100 kpc and are considered Ly-alpha "blobs" (LABs). The objects have a surface density of only approx.. 0.1 deg(exp -2), making them rare enough that they have been largely missed in deep, small area surveys. We measured spectroscopic redshifts for 92 of these galaxies, and find that the LAEs (LABs) have a median redshift of 2.3 (2.5). The WISE photometry coupled with data from Herschel (Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA) reveals that these galaxies are in the Hyper Luminous IR galaxy regime (L(sub IR) approx. > 10(exp 13)-10(exp 14) Solar L) and have warm colors. They are typically more luminous and warmer than other dusty, z approx.. 2 populations such as submillimeter-selected galaxies and dust-obscured galaxies. These traits are commonly associated with the dust being illuminated by intense active galactic nucleus activity. We hypothesize that the combination of spatially extended Ly-alpha, large amounts of warm IR-luminous dust, and rarity (implying a short-lived phase) can be explained if the galaxies are undergoing brief, intense "feedback" transforming them from an extreme dusty starburst/QSO into a mature galaxy.

Galaxies: ISM↗
NASA NTRS2015

Investigating Trojan Asteroids at the L4/L5 Sun-Earth Lagrange Points

Investigations of Earth's Trojan asteroids will have benefits for science, exploration, and resource utilization. By sending a small spacecraft to the Sun-Earth L4 or L5 Lagrange points to investigate near-Earth objects, Earth's Trojan population can be better understood. This could lead to future missions for larger precursor spacecraft as well as human missions. The presence of objects in the Sun-Earth L4 and L5 Lagrange points has long been suspected, and in 2010 NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) detected a 300 m object. To investigate these Earth Trojan asteroid objects, it is both essential and feasible to send spacecraft to these regions. By exploring a wide field area, a small spacecraft equipped with an IR camera could hunt for Trojan asteroids and other Earth co-orbiting objects at the L4 or L5 Lagrange points in the near-term. By surveying the region, a zeroth-order approximation of the number of objects could be obtained with some rough constraints on their diameters, which may lead to the identification of potential candidates for further study. This would serve as a precursor for additional future robotic and human exploration targets. Depending on the inclination of these potential objects, they could be used as proving areas for future missions in the sense that the delta-V's to get to these targets are relatively low as compared to other rendezvous missions. They can serve as platforms for extended operations in deep space while interacting with a natural object in microgravity. Theoretically, such low inclination Earth Trojan asteroids exist. By sending a spacecraft to L4 or L5, these likely and potentially accessible targets could be identified.

John, K. K.↗