Infrared telescope prepared for launch

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., June 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer called WISE is undergoing final preparations for a planned Nov. 1 launch.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration mission, to lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, will survey the entire sky at infrared wavelengths to create a cosmic clearinghouse of hundreds of millions of objects.

"Most of the sky has never been imaged at these infrared wavelengths with this kind of sensitivity," said Edward Wright, the mission's principal investigator at UCLA. "We are sure to find many surprises."

Researchers said that among expected finds from WISE are hundreds of thousands of asteroids in our solar system's asteroid belt, and hundreds of additional asteroids that come near Earth. Many asteroids have gone undetected because they don't reflect much visible light, but their heat makes them glow in infrared light that WISE can see.

"We know that asteroids occasionally hit Earth, and we'd like to have a better idea of how many there are and their sizes," said Amy Mainzer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission's deputy project scientist. "Whether they are dark or shiny, they all emit infrared light. They can't hide from WISE."