NASA's NEOWISE Asteroid-Hunting Space Telescope Gets Two-Year Mission Extension

upstart writes:

NASA's NEOWISE Asteroid-Hunting Space Telescope Gets Two-Year Mission Extension:

For two more years, NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) will continue its hunt for asteroids and comets - including objects that could pose a hazard to Earth. This mission extension means NASA's prolific near-Earth object (NEO) hunting space telescope will continue operations until June 2023.

"At NASA, we're always looking up, surveying the sky daily to find potential hazards and exploring asteroids to help unlock the secrets of the formation of our solar system," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. "Using ground-based telescopes, over 26,000 near-Earth asteroids have already been discovered, but there are many more to be found. We'll enhance our observations with space-based capabilities like NEOWISE and the future, much more capable NEO Surveyor to find the remaining unknown asteroids more quickly and identify potentially-hazardous asteroids and comets before they are a threat to us here on Earth."

Originally launched as the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission in December 2009, the space telescope surveyed the entire sky in infrared wavelengths, detecting asteroids, dim stars, and some of the faintest galaxies visible in deep space. WISE completed its primary mission when it depleted its cryogenic coolant and it was put into hibernation in February 2011. Observations resumed in December 2013 when the space telescope was repurposed by NASA's Planetary Science Division as "NEOWISE" to identify asteroids and comets throughout the solar system, with special attention to those that pass close to Earth's orbit.

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