Headlines
Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have led to the best assessment yet of our solar system's population of potentially hazardous asteroids. The results reveal new information about their total numbers, origins and the possible dangers they may pose.
Images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) reveal an old star in the throes of a fiery outburst, spraying the cosmos with dust. The findings offer a rare, real-time look at the process by which stars like our sun seed the universe with building blocks for other stars, planets and even life. The star, catalogued as WISE J180956.27-330500.2, was discovered in images taken during the WISE survey in 2010, the most detailed infrared survey to date of the entire celestial sky. It stood out from other objects because it glowed brightly with infrared light. When compared to images taken more than 20 years ago, astronomers found the star was 100 times brighter.
The WISE all-sky image is now available for projection on "Science on a Sphere" (see http://sos.noaa.gov/ for info). Science On a Sphere is a large visualization system that uses computers and video projectors to display animated data onto the outside of a sphere. Said another way, SOS is an animated globe that can show dynamic, animated images of the atmosphere, oceans, and land of a planet.
NASA unveiled a new atlas and catalog of the entire infrared sky today showing more than a half billion stars, galaxies and other objects captured by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.
New observations by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, show there are significantly fewer near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought. The findings also indicate NASA has found more than 90 percent of the largest near-Earth asteroids, meeting a goal agreed to with Congress in 1998.
Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.
Bulletins
ESA, NASA, the Planck Collaboration, and IRSA announce the first release of all sky temperature maps, foreground component maps and cosmology results from the Planck mission. The NASA Planck Archive is hosted at IRSA within IPAC.
Information about NASA's 2009 Decadal Process.
A number of IPAC projects, teams and individuals were honored today with NASA Achievement Awards. These recognitions reflect the dedication and creativity of these individuals and teams as well as the support and contributions by many others at IPAC that make each success possible.
This conference aims to explore the formation and evolution of galaxies using mostly gas tracers. Infrared and submillimeter observations gauge not only the quantity and distribution of gas in galaxies, but also the thermal and dynamical state of its various phases. Star formation and feedback involve physics that can be constrained with long wavelength observations: photoelectric heating, UV excitation, turbulence, cosmic rays, shock waves, atomic and molecular line emission, and thermal emission from dust. The conference will begin with what we know about the physical conditions of gas in the nearby universe out to z = 1, and then push outwards to earlier epochs when galaxies were forming most of their stars.
The National Reconnaissance Observatory (NRO) has recently transferred to NASA optical hardware the equivalent of two Hubble-class optical telescopes. This Notice of Intent is to alert the astrophysical community that the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA HQ intends to release a “Dear Colleague” letter to solicit applications from interested individuals for the formation of a study group for the possible scientific use(s) of the ex- NRO telescope assets for advancing the science priorities of the 2010 Decadal Survey.
The Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech announces the availability of six-month graduate student fellowships beginning in the Spring of 2013. The program is designed to allow students from other institutions to visit IPAC-Caltech and perform astronomical research in close association with an IPAC staff member during Spring 2013.



