ABSTRACT

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a medium class Explorer that was launched on 14 Dec 2009. WISE detected hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies, including millions of ULIRGS and QSOs; more than a hundred thousand asteroids; and thousands of cold brown dwarfs. The telescope cover was ejected on 29 Dec 2009, and the all-sky survey started on 14 Jan 2010. WISE took more the 7000 framesets per day, with each frameset covering 0.6 square degrees in four bands centered at 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 microns. WISE scanned semi-circles on the sky about +95 and -90 degrees in ecliptic longitude from the Sun, and covered about 0.6 percent of the sky each day to a depth of 8 or more exposures, and covered the whole sky in 6 months of surveying. A second pass over the sky continued until the solid hydrogen coolant ran out in two steps: on 5 Aug 2010 the big tank cooling the telescope ran out, which quickly ended the 22 micron survey, while on 30 Sep 2010 the small tank cooling the detectors ran out, ending the 12 micron survey. WISE continued a 2-band survey for asteroids until 1 Feb 2011. WISE observations of solar-system objects were reported to the Minor Planet Center within a few days of the data being taken, leading to the discovery of comets, Near Earth Objects, and many main belt asteroids. The WISE data covering the first 57% of the sky to be observed will be released to the community in April 2011. The final data release will be in March 2012.