New satellite blasts off for space mapping

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched Monday a new breed of satellite called WISE on a mission to orbit Earth and map the skies to find elusive cosmic objects, including potentially dangerous asteroids.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) will use infrared rays to map the locations and sizes of roughly 200,000 asteroids and give scientists a clearer idea of how many space rocks loom and what danger they pose.

“When we find them, we will give the information to policy-makers to decide what to do to try to prevent these near-Earth asteroids colliding with our planet,” NASA public affairs officer J. D. Harrington told AFP.

The launch went ahead flawlessly at 6:09 a.m. (10:09 p.m. in Manila) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. WISE will orbit 500 kilometers above Earth’s surface for 10 months as it hunts for and collects data on dim objects such as dust clouds, brown dwarf stars and asteroids in the dark spaces between planets and stars.

The satellite will map the cosmos in infrared light, covering the whole sky one-and-a-half times – one orbit of Earth will take six months – and snapping pictures of everything.