NASA WISE Telescope Starts Taking Pics

coondoggie writes "NASA said its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer spacecraft successfully popped the cover off its infrared telescope and began 'celestial treasure hunt' mission of sending back what will be millions of images of space. The WISE lens cap served as a safety system keeping the ultra-sensitive lens and telescope system safe until the spacecraft positioned itself correctly in orbit. The cap also served as the top to a 'bottle' that chille the instrument and detectors. This cryostat is a Thermos-like tank of solid hydrogen."

Comments

Re:Will hopefully find lots of dark asteroids

[Jerry Smith]

I understand that WISE is particularly well suited for finding asteroids (its an infra-red telescope so can pick up warm objects and its a survey scope). If this telescope finds an asteroid with our name on it with enough time to do something about it, it will make all the money spent on the space program by all the countries of the world seem like spare change.

(I wonder if this is first post. If so, it'll be my first.).

First rule in First Post: don't talk about First Post. Secondly the fact that a projectile has been diagnosed as hurtling towards Earth might not be so god for humanity, people that just found out that they have only a few days left to live tend to do weird things. Like "ending" neighbourly quarrels, letting dark emotions go loose, you name it. It's not like the Earth could dodge a projectile Matrix-style.