WISE spots its first asteroid, shown here as a red dot. Click for a slightly larger image. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Ok, the picture might not look like much at first glance however it does represent something quite extraordinary: the WISE spacecraft has spotted its first asteroid and it is named 2010 AB78. The red dot in the center of the image is the asteroid.

No, the asteroid is not going to hit the Earth or anything, to me it’s a proof of concept of a sort, WISE made numerous observations over a day and the software picked out the moving asteroid and the University of Hawaii followed up on the sighting with its 2.2 meter telescope atop Mauna Kea.

I should mention the asteroid is about a kilometer (a bit over a half mile) in diameter and it was spotted at a distance of 98 million miles or 150 million km! This is the first of many such findings from this remarkable spacecraft.

Oh and if you are wondering, 2010 AB78 won’t come close to Earth at least for a few centuries.

Below is the caption from NASA and the WISE mission page:

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.
The image shows three infrared wavelengths, with red representing the longest wavelength of 12 microns, and green and blue showing 4.6- and 3.4-micron light, respectively. The asteroid appears redder than the rest of the background stars because it is cooler and emits most of its light at longer infrared wavelengths. In visible light, this space rock is very faint and difficult to see.
WISE, which began its all-sky survey on Jan. 14, 2010, is expected to find about one hundred thousand previously undiscovered asteroids in the Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter, and hundreds of new near-Earth asteroids. It will also spot millions of new stars and galaxies.