Initial Performance of the NEOWISE Reactivation Mission

Understand

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft has been brought out of hibernation and has resumed surveying the sky at 3.4 and 4.6 um.

• The scientific objectives of the NEOWISE reactivation mission are to detect, track, and characterize near-Earth asteroids and comets.
• The search for minor planets resumed on December 23, 2013, and the first new near-Earth object (NEO) was discovered six days later.
• As an infrared survey, NEOWISE detects asteroids based on their thermal emission and is equally sensitive to high and low albedo objects; consequently, NEOWISE-discovered NEOs tend to be large and dark.