You Have To Check Out This Amazing Time-lapse of the Universe!

Here's how the universe changes over 12 years.

Transcript

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)