First of Many Asteroid Finds  › Higher resolution jpeg (323 Kb)
The red dot at the center of this image is the first near-Earth
asteroid discovered by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey
Explorer, or WISE -- an all-sky mapping infrared mission
designed to see all sorts of cosmic objects.  Near-Earth objects
are asteroids and comets with orbits that come close to Earth's
path around the sun. This particular asteroid, called 2010 AB78,
is roughly one kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter, and is
currently about 158 million kilometers (98 million miles) away
from Earth. Its elliptical-shaped orbit takes it out beyond Mars
and back in about as close to the sun as Earth. Because the
asteroid's orbit is tilted relative to the plane of our solar
system, astronomers do not think it poses a hazard to our
planet. As with all near-Earth objects, 2010 AB78 will continue
to be monitored.   WISE, which began its all-sky survey on Jan.
14, 2010, is expected to find about one hundred thousand
previously undiscovered asteroids in