2. In 1800 William Herschel discovered “invisible light” It’s energy with all the same characteristics as visible light, but is not sensed by the human eye The light Herschel discovered was just beyond the red part of the spectrum. So it was named “infrared” In 1800 William Herschel discovered “invisible light” It’s energy with all the same characteristics as visible light, but is not sensed by the human eye The light Herschel discovered was just beyond the red part of the spectrum. So it was named “infrared” Infrared Light

3. Visible light is a tiny fraction of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Gamma rays--billions of waves per inch Radio waves--up to miles-long wavelengths Visible light is a tiny fraction of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Gamma rays--billions of waves per inch Radio waves--up to miles-long wavelengths The Spectrum of Light Low Energy Waves High Energy Waves

4. The Physics of Light Objects emit light depending on their temperature. Infrared 33° C (306 Kelvin) Red Light 4,130° C (4,400 Kelvin) White Light 5,230° C (5,500 Kelvin) Ultraviolet Light 30,000° C (30,273 Kelvin) Lightning Bolt Spot Light Electric StoveHuman Hot objects emit primarily short wavelength light. Cool objects emit primarily long wavelength light

5. Infrared light lies just beyond the red portion of the visible spectrum ("below red“). Infrared wavelengths are about 0.7 to 350 microns. (a micron is one-millionth of one meter, or about 1/50th the width of a human hair). Infrared light lies just beyond the red portion of the visible spectrum ("below red“). Infrared wavelengths are about 0.7 to 350 microns. (a micron is one-millionth of one meter, or about 1/50th the width of a human hair). The Range of Infrared Light Near InfraredMid Infrared

6. Infrared + Ned = Infraned Mid-IR Near-IR Visible Emitted Light Reflected Light Reflected Light

7. Getting the WHOLE picture An object can look radically different depending on the type of light collected from it: Since shortly after Herschel discovered infrared light astronomers have been observing astronomical objects in Infrared Light to get a more complete picture An object can look radically different depending on the type of light collected from it: Since shortly after Herschel discovered infrared light astronomers have been observing astronomical objects in Infrared Light to get a more complete picture Visible Light Image Mid-Infrared Light Image

8. Visible Near Infrared Mid-Infrared Visible: dark nebula, heavily obscured by interstellar dust (“Horsehead Nebula”) Near-Infrared: dust is nearly transparent, embedded stars can be observed forming Mid- and Far-Infrared: glow from cool dust is directly observable Visible: dark nebula, heavily obscured by interstellar dust (“Horsehead Nebula”) Near-Infrared: dust is nearly transparent, embedded stars can be observed forming Mid- and Far-Infrared: glow from cool dust is directly observable Why Study Infrared?

9. Constellation Orion Visible Light

10. Mid Infrared Light IRAS Constellation Orion

11. But there’s a Challenge... Earth’s atmospheric water vapor absorbs almost all incoming infrared radiation Even mountain-top observatories get a limited view of the infrared universe Earth’s atmospheric water vapor absorbs almost all incoming infrared radiation Even mountain-top observatories get a limited view of the infrared universe Infrared telescopes need to observe from high altitude or in space

12. NASA’s Infrared Missions Spitzer Space Telescope SOFIA WISE James Webb Space Telescope

13. WISE Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer asteroids Galaxy ULIRGs brown dwarfs WISE will map the sky in infrared light, searching for the nearest and coolest stars, the origins of stellar and planetary systems, and the most luminous galaxies in the Universe. wise.astro.ucla.edu WISE will deliver to the scientific community: Over 1 million images covering the whole sky in 4 infrared wavelengths Catalogs of  500 million objects seen in these 4 wavelengths

14. Two decades ago IRAS gave us what is still our best view of the mid  infrared sky.

15. WISE will map the entire sky with resolution comparable to the view shown here.

16. WISE will survey the sky in two near infrared channels: 3.4 and 4.6 μ m WISE will survey the sky in two mid-infrared channels: 12 and 22 μ m WISE Mission: Wavelengths

17. WISE Mission: Spacecraft A cold 40 cm telescope in Earth orbit Enabled by new megapixel infrared detector arrays By being in space, the 40 cm WISE telescope is as powerful as 6,000 8-meter telescopes on the ground!

18. WISE Mission: Orbit It will orbit Earth cart-wheeling once per orbit to always stay pointing up and will keep its solar panels to the Sun. As Earth orbits the Sun, WISE’s orbit also rotates to maintain the spacecraft’s orientation to Earth and Sun

19. Each image exposure will last 11-sec and is matched to the orbit. Each orbit, a circular strip of the sky is imaged. There will be 8 or more exposures at each position over more than 99% of the sky. WISE Mission: Surveying As the orbit itself rotates, a slightly different strip is imaged. In 6 months, the entire sky is imaged

20. Spitzer 24 m data in Taurus Most of the bright objects are asteroids! Size 0.7 o  WISE field of view WISE Sees Many Asteroids

21. WISE and Asteroids Asteroids are much brighter in the IR than in visible light. They move in the hours between WISE frames. Gaspra Asteroids Move

22. Two rocks. Same size. Same Temperature. Different Composition. Visible Light (reflected)

23. Two rocks. Same size. Same Temperature. Different Composition. Infrared Light (emitted)

24. Near Earth Objects pass within 0.3 AU of Earth. –NASA’s NEO objective is to discover 90% of those larger than 1 km by end of 2008. Approximately 1,100 NEOs larger than 1 km are expected, and more than 700 have been discovered so far. –WISE observations detect known asteroids with diameters larger than 1 km up to 2.8 AU from the Earth (3 AU from the Sun). Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are larger than 150 m in diameter and have orbits that approach within 0.05 AU of Earth's orbit. –There are currently over 1,000 known PHAs. –WISE detects known 150 m PHAs up to 0.7 AU from Earth. WISE finds Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

25. Asteroids in Other Solar Systems: Debris Disks WISE will find dust created by asteroid belts in other solar systems: Debris disks –The dust we see in debris disks is created by asteroid collisions WISE will find the nearest and brightest debris disk systems –These will be prime targets for follow up with Spitzer and the James Webb Space Telescope Fomalhaut: Hubble Spitzer

26. WISE and Brown Dwarfs Brown Dwarfs (BDs): stars with too little mass to fuse H into He. WISE 3.4 & 4.6 m filters tuned to methane dominated BD spectra. WISE could identify 10 -5 L  BD to 150 light years, a free floating planet like Jupiter to 1 light year, BDs with T > 200 K (10 -8 L  ) if closer than  Centauri.

27. WISE Science: Cool Stars Red and Brown Dwarf stars are the most common type of star. They have lowest masses and are the coolest stars. They emit most of their energy in infrared light and are faint.

28. WISE will image the entire Galactic Plane WISE Science: The Milky Way

29. WISE Science: Extragalactic WISE will image all nearby galaxies Galaxy M81

30. 2MASS Surveyed Large Scale Structure out to 1.3 Billion Light-years (z ~ 0.1) WISE will survey out to 6.7 Billion Light-years (z ~ 0.5) WISE Science: Cosmology

31. WISE will find the most luminous galaxies in the Universe: Ultra-luminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs) WISE Science: Extragalactic ULIRGs are galaxies with dust- enshrouded bursts of star formation. They are often mergers of galaxies.

32. WISE Mission: Payload

33. 1024 2 Si:As Detector 1024 2 HgCdTe Detector in Focal Plane Mount Assembly WISE Mission: Detectors Near Infrared Detector Array Mid Infrared Detector Array

34. WISE Mission: Payload

35. WISE Mission: Cryostat

36. WISE Mission: Payload

37. WISE Mission: Spacecraft

39. WISE Mission: Flight System

40. WISE Mission: Flight System and Science Team

41. WISE Testing Vibration, thermal vacuum, optical performance and acoustic tests are completed. Arrived at VAFB

42. Transporting to the launch pad

43. Staying Cool The cryostat required 24/7 maintenance following completion of the hydrogen fill. Two 500 liter liquid helium dewars were transported to level 5 of the launch tower daily, from Nov 20 to Dec 14.

44. WISE in the Fairing

45. The night before launch Well worth missing sleep

46. WISE Launch: December 14 2009

48. Launch from the viewing site Credit: Bill Hartenstein, ULA

49. WISE cover ejected on Dec. 29 th, 2009

50. Previous Survey in WISE wavelengths DIRBE on COBE surveyed the sky at 3.5 & 5 microns WISE First Light Image

51. Zoom in on DIRBE 1.15 degree field Moon to scale

52. DIRBE 3.5 microns WISE 3.4, 4.6, 12 microns 47’ FOV 2.75” pixels 6” FWHM V482 Car IRAS 12 microns

53. Survey begun on Jan. 14 th, 2009

54. Survey Mode 33 seconds in the life of WISE, 3 of >7000 frames/day

55. Asteroids Observed by WISE Four frames of data taken on 2010 Jan. 8 during in-orbit checkout. Blue = 3.6um; green = 4.6um; red = 12um Circled asteroids are (L to R in the first frame, diameters in km): 17818 MBA D~12.4 153204 MBA D~2.8 22006 MBA D~11.5 87355 MBA D~4.3 80590 MBA D~4.1 Field of view = 34 x 25 arcmin (whole WISE FOV is 47 x 47 arcmin)

56. WISE’s First NEO 2010 AB78 Orbit: –a = 2.302 –e = 0.553 –inc = 33.3 Size, about 1 km Not a Potentially Hazardous Object since its Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance or MOID is large.

57. WISE’s 1 st PHA: 2010 CO1 Makes close approach to Earth March 4, 2011: 0.091 AU

58. Comet P/2010 B2 (WISE) a = 2.993 AU, e = 0.463, i = 8.9 o, P = 5.18 yrs ARO 0.81-m ground-based follow-up (amateur astronomer in Illinois). Measurements made by North Carolina High School Teacher Harlan Devore. WISE 12 microns

59. Pipeline to the MPC On 1 Apr 2010, 14 out of 14 candidate NEOs needing confirmation were WISE discoveries.

60. A small subset of WISE discoveries http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/WISE/WISE-MPECs.html

61. WISE discovers a Brown Dwarf The “green” star: bright in 4.6 microns but faint in 3.4 and 12 microns

62. Coverage up to 20 Jun 2010

63. WISE Images – Comet Siding Spring

64. WISE Images – NGC 3603

65. WISE Images – Andromeda Galaxy

66. WISE Images – Fornax Cluster

67. WISE Images – The Wizard Nebula

68. WISE Images – M3 & Comet Garradd

69. WISE Images – IC 342

70. WISE Images – Heart and Soul Nebula

71. WISE Milestones WISE was initially proposed as Next Generation Sky Survey in 1998 –Selected for Phase A study, but not flight Re-proposed in 2001 Initial Confirmation Review 2004 August 25 Mission Confirmation Review 2006 October 13 Mission Critical Design Review 2007 June 18 – 21 Launch December 14 2009 –1 month In-Orbit Checkout –6 months survey (baseline - 9 months extended) Preliminary data delivery (1st 50% of survey) 6 months after end of survey (~March 2011) Final data delivery 17 months after end of survey (~April 2012) –Image Atlas –Source Catalog –Accessible online via IRSA (InfraRed Science Archive) at IPAC