ABSTRACT:
The delivery of infrared measurements at 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 microns of >158,000 minor planets in our solar system by the WISE spacecraft has offered the opportunity to revise our understanding of them. Through extrapolation of the observed samples, it is possible to obtain rigorous constraints on the numbers, sizes, orbital elements, and compositions of the various small body populations. WISE data have been used to determine the total number and observed fraction of potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids. Radiometrically derived physical properties can also be used to improve understanding of the frequency and ages of asteroid collisions in the Main Belt. Infrared data can also yield cometary dust particle size distributions and gas abundances. The mission, now renamed NEOWISE, has recently been restarted in order to continue discovering and characterizing our solar system's minor planets.