A NASA satellite launched 2009 December into polar orbit around the Earth to perform an imaging survey of the sky at mid-infrared wavelengths from 3.4 to 22 μ‎m with a 0.4-m telescope. WISE searched for objects ranging from asteroids and comets to nearby brown dwarfs, planet-forming disks around other stars, and ultra-luminous galaxies, producing a reference catalogue of objects for the James Webb Space Telescope. WISE ceased observations in 2011 February but was reactivated in 2013 September specifically to search for near-Earth objects and was renamed NEOWISE.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/main/index.html Official NASA mission page.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wise/ Mission page at JPL.