NEOWISE 2017 Data Release
The Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer at IPAC
The NEOWISE 2017 Data Release
June 1, 2017
Access the Database and Image data via IRSA
Read the Explanatory
Supplement
Top Ten List of things you should know about the NEOWISE Release Products
NEOWISE Project website
NEOWISE mission description paper
Frequently asked questions
(FAQ)
Contact the IRSA Help Desk
The
NEOWISE 2017 Data Release
makes available
the 3.4 and 4.6 μm (W1 and W2) Single-exposure images and extracted source
information that were acquired between December 13, 2015 and December 13, 2016
UTC, the third year of survey operations of the
Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared
Survey Explorer Reactivation Mission
(NEOWISE;
Mainzer et al. 2014, ApJ, 792, 30
).
The third year NEOWISE data products are concatenated with those
from the first two years (originally released on
March 26, 2015
and
March 23, 2016
into a single archive so that all data can be queried easily at one time.
NEOWISE scanned the sky nearly six complete times during the
first three years of survey operations, with six months separating survey
passes. With twelve or more independent exposures made on each
point on the sky during each survey epoch, the NEOWISE archive
is a time-domain resource for extracting multiple thermal flux and
position measurements of solar system small bodies, as well as background
stars and galaxies.
The combined
NEOWISE Data Release
products from the
first three years of survey operations include:
Single-exposure Images - 7,718,110
calibrated
1016x1016 pix @2.75"/pix FITS image sets for the individual 7.7 sec W1 and W2
NEOWISE survey exposures. Each image set consists of two intensity images,
noise maps, and bit-masks indicating pixel use status, one each for the W1
and W2 bands.
Single-exposure Source Database
Time-tagged fluxes, positions and measurement information for
57,790,941,849
source detections extracted from the
Single-exposure images.
Moving Object Tracklets
- Sets of linked
NEOWISE position-time pair measurements of solar system objects that
have been confirmed by the
IAU Minor Planet
Center
. NEOWISE acquired over
450,000
confirmed infrared detections of
23,867
different objects
during the first three years of the survey
Figure 1
).
Known Solar System Object Possible Association List
Database
of asteroids, comets, planets and planetary satellites, known at the time
of data processing, that are predicted to be in the field-of-view of
individual NEOWISE Single-exposure images. This is not a vetted list of
solar system object detections. Refer to the NEOWISE Moving Object Tracklets
for confirmed solar system object detections.
Figure 1 -
Top-down view of the Solar System showing the
position on December 17, 2016 of all Main Belt asteroids (grey circles),
Near Earth asteroids (green circles) and comets (yellow squares)
detected by NEOWISE during the first three years of the Reactivation
survey. The white circles show the objects detected on the final three
days of year three. The blue circles and points indicate the orbits and
locations of Mercury, Venus and Mars. The Earth and its orbit are shown in
cyan.
NEOWISE utilizes the Wide-Field Infrared Explorer (WISE;
Wright et al. 2010, AJ, 140, 1868
spacecraft that surveyed the entire sky in 2010 with a cryogenically cooled
40 cm telescope and four 1kx1k mid-infrared array detectors operating at
3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 μm. WISE continued to survey for four months following
the exhaustion of its solid hydrogen cryogen in September 2010 using its two
short wavelength bands.
After completing a survey of the inner main asteroid belt and a second
coverage of the sky, WISE was placed into hibernation in February
2011.
The WISE spacecraft was brought out of hibernation in September 2013
and renamed NEOWISE with a mission to detect and characterize
asteroids and comets, and to learn more about the population of near-Earth
objects that could pose an impact hazard to the Earth. The spacecraft was
returned to zenith pointing which enabled the telescope and focal plane
to passively cool down to approximately 73 K. Survey operations were
resumed on December 13, 2013 UTC with the W1 and W2 detectors operating
at sensitivities near those of the original cryogenic survey. The first
solar system moving object tracklet
candidates were
reported to the
IAU Minor Planet
Center
on December 26, and tracklet deliveries continue to
be made three times per week. As of May 2017, NEOWISE has made over
500,000 infrared measurements of approximately
26,000 different solar system objects.
The NEOWISE Reactivation Mission is funded by the NASA Planetary Science
Division.
Planetary science research using NEOWISE data is eligible for proposals
to the
NASA ROSES Solar System Workings and Planetary Data Archiving,
Restoration and Tools Programs
. Astrophysics reasearch
using NEOWISE data is eligible for proposals to the
NASA ROSES Astrophysics Data Analysis Program.
Please use this acknowledgement in any published material that makes
use of NEOWISE data products:
"This publication makes use of data products from the Near-Earth Object
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), which is a project of the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology. NEOWISE is
funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."
Last update - 2017 May 18