WISE discovered the first asteroid had not seen

Infrared Space Telescope (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, WISE) discovered his first asteroid, which turned to the same previously unknown. This asteroid is one of hundreds that are expected to be discovered in the course of the mission, whose purpose - to map all visible from Earth space in the infrared range.






It was learned that this asteroid is on a distance of 158 million kilometers from Earth, its diameter is about 1 km away, and it revolves around the sun in an elliptical orbit. This asteroid poses no threat to Earth in the foreseeable future, but nevertheless, scientists continue to watch him.
It is expected that WISE, which has started to work on January 14 found about 100 thousand of previously unknown asteroid main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and hundreds of new near-Earth asteroids and discover millions of new stars and galaxies visible in the infrared range.

Preparation and launch of WISE: