NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced the end of its NEOWISE orbiting telescope, launched more than 10 years ago to detect distant stars and galaxies and observe comets and asteroids in near-Earth space. According to the statement on the official website, the device is slowly losing altitude and diving deep into the Earth’s atmosphere. Web site JPL.
The WISE (Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer) instrument was sent into space in 2009. Its main mission was to map the universe using infrared cameras. A year later, NASA shut down two of the ship’s four detectors because it ran out of coolant.
After a hiatus of several years, the probe refocused on monitoring potential threats to Earth from space and the mission was renamed NEOWISE. Since 2013, the mission has discovered 215 comets and asteroids using the instrument.
Further work of the orbiting telescope has been disrupted by increased solar activity associated with the upcoming peak of the 11-year solar cycle. Powerful solar flares and coronal mass ejections heat and expand Earth’s atmosphere, dragging the spacecraft lower and lower. According to experts’ calculations, the probe will completely leave orbit and burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere by 2025.
Formerly miniature CUTE probe passed The first accurate data on the atmospheres of planets belonging to the Hot Jupiter class.