NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, back-end imager optics. This picture shows the imager optics which are mounted at the back of the optical system. The mechanical system shown in front is the scan mirror that is used to freeze the star image, allowing for a longer exposure time. The imager then re-formats the star image from the scan mirror to fit correctly onto the detectors. The imager mirrors have been gold coated and now have the golden hue typical of infrared optics.

JPL manages the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The mission's principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing will take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information is online at http://wise.astro.ucla.edu.