After more than two years of hibernation, NASA is putting its asteroid hunting spacecraft, known as the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), back to work.
Starting in September, WISE will once again be tasked with discovering and characterizing near-Earth objects (NEOs), or space rocks found orbiting within 28 million miles from Earth's orbit.
NASA says it anticipates using the spacecraft and its 16-inch telescope and infrared cameras to discover an estimated 150 previously unknown NEOs in addition to characterizing the size, albedo (ratio of light reflected by a body to the amount of light it receives) and thermal properties of 2,000 others.
In doing so, officials say WISE may end up identifying candidates for the agency's recently announced initiative of capturing and relocating an asteroid for further study.
Launched in 2009, WISE was responsible for discovering and characterizing tens of thousands of asteroids throughout the solar system, producing some 7,500 images every day during its primary mission, which lasted from Jan. 2010 to Feb. 2011. The spacecraft is also attributed with creating the most accurate survey to date of NEOs, as a result of its project called NEOWISE.
All told, the WISE prime mission included capturing more than 2.7 million images in multiple infrared wavelengths and cataloging more than 560 million objects, ranging from faraway galaxies to nearby comets.
"The data collected by NEOWISE two years ago have proven to be a gold mine for the discovery and characterization of the NEO population," said Lindley Johnson, NASA's NEOWISE program executive in Washington. "It is important that we accumulate as much of this type of data as possible while the WISE spacecraft remains a viable asset."
According to Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., those behind the project are well prepared for the upcoming reinstatement of WISE.
"The team is ready and after a quick checkout, we're going to hit the ground running," she said.