WISE - Science: All-Sky Survey

WISE: Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer

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Important All-Sky Surveys: Long Wavelengths/Low Energies

Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS)
The first version of this visible light (wavelengths: 0.4 - 0.65 microns) sky survey was carried out in the 1950s on Mount Palomar in San Diego, California. In the 1970s the U.K. Schmidt telescope surveyed the southern sky in an identical fashion as the Palomar telescope. The data, which were orginally taken as photographic plates, are now combined together in the Digitized Sky Survey.

Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS)
2MASS is also an all-sky survey carried out with ground-based telescopes (one in Arizona and one in Chile). This survey studied the sky in near-infrared light (wavelenths: 1.25 - 2.17 microns), fully mapping the Milky Way and nearby Universe.

Panoramic view of sky. Almost 100 million stars are shown.

A panoramic view of the entire sky (rendered in an Aitoff projection). Not produced directly from the 2MASS sky images, this view has been compiled from star counts in the 2MASS point source database. Each color represents the local density of stars seen in each of the 3 infrared bands in the survey. Almost 100 million stars appear here.

Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)
COBE was a NASA satellite mission that mapped the entire sky in infrared and microwave wavelengths. One of the instruments aboard, DIRBE, surveyed the sky in the near-infrared (wavelengths: 1.25 - 3.5 microns).

The near-infrared sky as seen by DIRBE (rendered in Aitoff projection). As in other such views of the sky, the image is centered on the Milky Way Galaxy. The central bulge of the Galaxy is clearly visible in near-infrared since such light penetrates the dust and gas that obscures our view in the visible.

Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS)
IRAS was a NASA satellite mission in the 1980s that studied the Universe in the infrared. It conducted an all-sky survey in the infrared (wavelengths: 12 - 100 microns).
:: IRAS at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)

Nearly the entire sky, as seen in infrared wavelengths at one-half degree resolution, assembled from six months of data from IRAS. The bright horizontal band is the plane of the Milky Way, with the center of the Galaxy located at the center of the picture.

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