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back to article NASA's WISE loses its chill

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, aka WISE, has finally run out of the frozen hydrogen cryogen which kept its infrared detectors nicely chilled as it surveyed the heavens. Since launching in December last year on its mission to map the entire sky in search of "millions of hidden objects, including asteroids, 'failed …

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  1. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    203°C = "warmer temperatures"?

    Where do *they* go for their summer holidays? Hell?

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    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge
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      Coat

      Quite an achievement

      That's not bad, that some of the detectors operate at -265°C, and even with the instrument at 203°C, some of it still works! Or is there a confusion of units all over again?

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    2. Richard Drinkwater
      Reply Icon

      RE: 203°C = "warmer temperatures"?

      I think you'll find there is a '-' symbol on the previous line so it actually says "-203°C". For some reason they have been separated.

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  2. ShaggyDoggy

    10 months

    It lasted 10 months then - the iPhone of space objects

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    1. Steven Knox
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      Coat

      Could've been worse

      It could have been the Kin of space objects -- lasting for two months and then simply disappearing overnight.

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    2. lglethal Silver badge
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      You seem to have missed a bit...

      You seem to have missed the bit where they said it had finished its primary mission (photographing the entire sky in 4 wavelengths), and was now about to start its secondary mission of searching for asteroids, comets and near earth objects in 2 wavelengths...

      So it hasnt finished after 10 months at all... Its only just begun...

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  3. bugalugs
    Paris Hilton

    tilted

    If Absolute zero = -273.~ and -203 is as cool as it gets in a

    near-earth orbit, WISE is earth-bathing ! *

    The gallery is ________beautiful_________data.

    * a bit

    cash for IR pics of paris

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