Space.com: NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), launched in December 2009, is taking on a new missionthe NEOWISE Post-Cryogenic Mission, to study asteroids and comets within our solar systemalthough it has run out of the coolant needed to keep its detectors from warming up. “Two of our four infrared detectors still work even at warmer temperatures, so we can use those bands to continue our hunt for asteroids and comets,” said Amy Mainzer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. To date, the WISE telescope has discovered 19 comets and more than 33 500 asteroids, including 120 near-Earth objects. The space observatory has taken about 1.8 million images of the sky and has completely mapped the sky 1.5 times.
The finding that the Saturnian moon may host layers of icy slush instead of a global ocean could change how planetary scientists think about other icy moons as well.
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
January 29, 2026 12:52 PM
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