The NEOWISE mission uses a space telescope (WISE) to hunt for asteroids and comets,
including those that could pose a threat to Earth. Launched in December 2009 as the
Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the space telescope was originally
designed to survey the sky in infrared, detecting asteroids, stars and some of the
faintest galaxies in space. It did so successfully until completing its primary
mission in February 2011. Observations resumed in December 2013, when the telescope
was taken out of hibernation and re-purposed for the NEOWISE project as an instrument
to study near-Earth objects, or NEOs, as well as more distant asteroids and comets.