Witch Nebula Casts Starry Spell

This 2013 image taken by NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, captures a nebula that looks like a witch screaming. Perhaps that imagined scream is a creation spell, for the Witch Hat nebula’s billowy clouds are a star nursery. We can see these clouds thanks to massive stars lighting them up; dust in the cloud is being hit with starlight, causing it to glow with infrared light, which was picked up by WISE’s detectors.

WISE launched to near-Earth orbit on Dec. 14, 2009, and surveyed the full sky in four infrared wavelength bands until the frozen hydrogen cooling the telescope was depleted in September 2010. The spacecraft was placed into hibernation in February 2011, having completed its primary astrophysics mission.

In late 2013, the spacecraft was resurrected – no incantation needed – when NASA’s Planetary Science Division gave it a new mission and a new name: NEOWISE. The spacecraft began helping NASA identify and describe near-Earth objects (NEOs). NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged into orbits that allow them to enter Earth’s neighborhood. NEOWISE was decommissioned Aug. 8, 2024, and placed into hibernation for the last time, ending its career as an active asteroid hunter.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech