Résumé / Abstract Seminaire_IAP
« Exploring the Universe with WISE  »

Ned Wright
Dept. Physics Astron., Univ. California Los Angeles (UCLA) (Los Angeles, California, Etats-Unis d'Amérique)

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a NASA Medium Explorer (MIDEX) that surveyed the entire sky in 4 mid-infrared bands at 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 microns with vastly greater sensitivity than previous all-sky surveys at these wavelengths. WISE surveyed everything more than 1 AU from the Sun, and this includes minor planets, comets, nearby brown dwarfs and star forming regions both in the Milky Way and in distant galaxies. The 12 and 22 microns channels are very powerful for detecting Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies, and WISE has detected some of the most luminous galaxies in the Universe. The WISE short wavelength channels are very powerful for detecting old cold brown dwarfs, and WISE has detected objects at 300 K. WISE reported 3.75 million asteroid observations to the Minor Planet Center, and measured the radiometric diameters from more than 150,000 objects. WISE has a 40 cm cryogenic telescope, 1024x1024 arrays, a scan mirror to freeze images on the arrays while the spacecraft scans continuously, and takes 47'x47' images every 11 seconds in all four bands from an IRAS/COBE style Sun-synchronous nearly polar low Earth orbit. WISE launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on 14 Dec 2009, ejected its cover on 29 Dec 2009, and entered routine survey operations on 14 Jan 2010. It completed full sky coverage on 17 July 2010, and then starting warming up in early August. WISE ran with its 3 shortest bands until the end of September, and then with its two shortest bands until 1 Feb 2011.
vendredi 22 juin 2012 - 11:00
Amphithéâtre Henri Mineur, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
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