WISE: Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. Multimedia Gallery: Images. Science. WISE will survey the entire sky in a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum called the mid-infrared with far greater sensitivity than any previous mission or program ever has.
The WISE survey will consist of over a million images, from which hundreds of millions of astronomical objects will be catalogued, providing a vast storehouse of knowledge about the Solar System, the Milky Way, and the Universe. Within our Solar System, asteroids absorb most of the sunlight that hits them and heat up to glow in the mid-infrared. WISE will be able to measure the diameters of more than 100,000 asteroids.