Here's how the universe changes over 12 years.
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04 Looking up in the night sky can be impressive.
00:06 But what about looking at the whole sky
00:07 over the course of 12 years in just a couple of minutes?
00:11 These images were captured by the Near Earth Object Wide
00:13 Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or NEOWISE Space Telescope.
00:17 It was launched as part of a deep space imaging mission
00:19 under the name WISE way back in 2009.
00:22 But now that mission is complete.
00:24 NASA says this data will help astronomers better understand
00:26 how the objects in the universe shift and change over time.
00:29 And this data includes the changes
00:31 of hundreds of millions of objects out in the black.
00:34 The whole sky was recorded every six months
00:36 as the telescope traveled around the sun,
00:38 with experts stitching all that data together
00:40 into one incredible time lapse.
00:42 Here's what NASA astronomer Peter Eisenhardt
00:44 had to say about the mission.
00:45 "We never anticipated that the spacecraft
00:47 would be operating this long.
00:48 And I don't think we could have anticipated the science we'd
00:51 be able to do with this much data."
00:52 They say these images are going to help them better understand
00:55 and identify brown dwarfs, of which 260 have now
00:59 been spotted by NEOWISE.
01:00 But the researchers add, it's also
01:02 helping us discover black holes, one
01:04 of the most elusive phenomena in the universe.
01:08 (upbeat music)
01:10 (upbeat music)