NASA WISE Spacecraft Spots Two New Near-Earth Objects sci-news.com

Astronomers using NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have discovered two celestial objects traveling through our neighborhood: 2016 WF9 and C/2016 U1 NEOWISE. A near-Earth object (NEO) called 2016 WF9 was detected by the NEOWISE project — the asteroid-and-comet-hunting portion of NASA’s WISE mission — on Nov. 27, 2016.

2016 WF9 is relatively large, roughly 0.3 to 0.6 mile (0.5-1 km) across, and is rather dark, reflecting only a few percent of the light that falls on its surface.

The object resembles a comet in its reflectivity and orbit, but appears to lack the characteristic dust and gas cloud that defines a comet.

It is in an orbit that takes it on a scenic tour of the Solar System. At its farthest distance from the Sun, it approaches Jupiter’s orbit.