* Astronomy

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or Wise, is now perched atop its rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base, north of Santa Barbara, Calif. The mission, which will scan the whole sky in infrared light, is scheduled to blast off on Dec. 9. It was hoisted to the top of its United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket on Friday, Nov. 20.
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WISE Is Chilling
Engineers are busy cooling the science instrument on NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The spacecraft is scheduled to blast into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Dec. 7, 2009. It will map the entire sky in infrared light, uncovering all sorts of hidden treasures -- everything from the coolest stars to dark asteroids and the most luminous galaxies.
To see infrared light from the cosmos, WISE must be chilled to out-of-this-world cold temperatures. This prevents the telescope from picking up its own infrared glow, or heat. A bottle-like chamber, called a cryostat, surrounds and cools the telescope and detectors. The cryostat will be filled with frozen hydrogen, which slowly evaporates away over a period of about 10 months -- enough time for WISE to scan the sky one-and-a-half times.

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There are thousands of dark and dim asteroids that lurk in the vast dark spaces between the planets in our solar system. Some of these malicious cosmic goblins may even pose a threat to our planet. NASA will soon begin a hunt for these goblins by launching an infrared telescope called WISE in December.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, will scan the entire sky at infrared wavelengths, creating the most comprehensive catalogue yet of dark and dim objects in the cosmos: vast dust clouds, brown dwarf stars, asteroids -- even large nearby asteroids that could someday be on a collision course with Earth.
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