Last call for WISE
Today (Feb 17, 2011) at 20h UT I sent the command to turn off the WISE telemetry transmitter. No further telemetry passes are currently planned. The telescope interface flange temperature has risen to 184.1 K (from 73.5 K) due to looking at the Earth for half the orbit since we stopped the survey scans on Feb 1.
nwright
Ned Wright, 65 years old, is a professor at UCLA. He did far-infrared observations using a 102-cm balloon-borne telescope for his PhD thesis, and has since observed with the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, and the space-based COBE, WMAP, Spitzer and WISE missions.
5 Comments
I hope WISE enjoys the rest after so much work! Does the receiver stay on, in case we decide to talk with it again? How long would it stay functional, stabilized, and in orbit?
The receiver is still on, so WISE could be revived if a good project and funding could be found. I know there are good projects, but the funding situation is doubtful.
Ned,
If asteroid YU55 pass to at 200.000 km, Wise Maybe can get an resolution of 1,35 meter per pixel, is best than Arecibo, and the wide field of Wise would help to capture it in the image.
It might be a good opportunity to revive to WISE
Best regards
Rafael
WISE can not resolve it. With a 6 arc-second resolution, WISE resolves 6 km at a 200,000 km range. And any thing that large on the sky and as warm as an asteroid would saturate WISE. 2005 YU55 is 400 meters in diameter so it would not be big enough to be resolved, but it would still be bright enough to saturate our detectors by a factor of 100 or so.
I see that my data are wrong, too bad.
well, we hope that wise has another chance to work.
Thanks for responding
Rafael