2013 NEOWISE POST-CRYO DATA RELEASE
May 22, 2013

The sky as seen by the WISE All-Sky Survey.

NEOWISE and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) announce the
2013 NEOWISE Post-Cryo Data Release (May 22, 2013).

The 2013 NEOWISE Post-Cryo Release consists of over 900,000 3.4 and 4.6 micron images and a database of over 7.3 billion source detections extracted from those images, acquired by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE; Wright et al. 2010 AJ, 140, 1868) between September 29, 2010 and February 1, 2011 after the satellite's solid hydrogen cryogen was completely exhausted. During this 125 day period, known as the NEOWISE Post-Cryo survey phase, the telescope and payload warmed to approximately 73.5 K, and the 3.4 and 4.6 micron detectors continued to operate with nearly the same sensitivity as in the full cryogenic mission phase with only a small increase in the number of high noise pixels. WISE obtained multiple, independent observations of approximately 70% of the sky during the Post-Cryo phase, completing a survey of the inner Main Asteroid Belt and a second coverage epoch of the inertial sky. WISE Post-Cryo survey operations and science data processing are funded by the NASA Planetary Division as part of the NEOWISE program (Mainzer et al. 2011, ApJ, 731, 53) and as part of a NEOO program grant.

The 2013 NEOWISE Post-Cryo Data Release supersedes the NEOWISE Post-Cryo Preliminary Release made in July 2012. For the 2013 Release, the Post-Cryo data have been completely reprocessed using updated calibrations and reduction algorithms that are optimized for the changing characteristics of the WISE telescope and detectors temperatures increased during the Post-Cryo phase.

The NEOWISE Post-Cryo Release products provide the best individual flux and position measurements for solar system objects that were identified by the NEOWISE Moving Object Pipeline, and they are a resources for studying time-dependent properties of inertial sources found in the WISE All-Sky Release Catalog. The All-Sky Release remains the best compendium of inertial sources of mid-infrared emission over the entire sky.

A quick guide to the NEOWISE Post-Cryo Release data products, data access instructions and supporting documentation is available at http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/postcryo/. Access to the WISE data products is available via the on-line services of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu).

Research using NEOWISE and WISE data products is eligible for support under the NASA ROSES Planetary Mission and Astrophysics Data Analysis Programs.

WISE and NEOWISE are funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NEOWISE is a project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology. WISE is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology.

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