NASA's Sky-Mapping Space Scope Launches

Posted by on 14 December 2009 | 0 Comments

In the News...

Fox News.  December 14, 2009.

The $320 million WISE telescope has an ambitious 10-month mission to map the entire sky in infrared in unprecedented detail. Once in orbit above Earth, the observatory is expected to scan the sky 1 1/2 times in nine months before completing its mission.

SLIDESHOW: WISE Gets Ready to Photograph the Universe

"Mission managers implemented a plan to completely resolve the anomaly," NASA officials said in a status update last week. That plan included removing a suspect part in the steering thruster on WISE's Delta 2 rocket and replacing it with a new one.

Scientists have said the infrared-scanning WISE is capable of detecting objects that would otherwise be hidden to visible light instruments.

Among their targets: dark asteroids lurking in the solar system; oddball brown dwarfs that are neither stars, nor planets; and distant galaxies that shine ultra-bright in infrared, but are invisible to visible light instruments because they are shrouded by interstellar dust.

Cataloging hard-to-spot asteroids within the solar system is vital to safeguarding the Earth, researchers said. "We can help protect our Earth by learning more about the diversity of potentially hazardous asteroids and comets," said Amy Mainzer, deputy project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.  Read More

Donnie's Remarks...

First, some facts:  The earth has had a violent history of impacts and, every day, there is a 1 in 20,000 chance of a meteor collision with earth.  Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood. Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.  NEO Scientists are challenged to find the object, calculate its orbit and predict if it will collide with the earth.

Every time I read an article about preventing asteroids from hitting our beloved earth, my mind immediately races to the Book of Revelation.  2000 years ago the Bible predicted that immediately before Jesus returns, the earth will be struck, not once, but twice, by highly destructive asteroids or comets.

Revelation 8:8-11 (ESV)

[8] The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. [9] A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

[10] The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. [11] The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

I truly appreciate the scientists attempt to safeguard the earth, but I also look forward to the return of Jesus Christ.  I suppose there will come a day when we are forced to realize the conflicting nature of these points of view.

See Prophecy Sign #18