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[Music throughout]

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Narrator: When it opens its eyes to our universe in the mid-2020s, WFIRST,

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the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, will capture

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images unlike any satellite before it. WFIRST

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will have the same image resolution as Hubble, but will cover an area

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100 times larger. WFIRST will also view the sky

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in carefully selected wavelengths of infrared light which will allow it

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to see through obscuring dust to reveal hidden stars and

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watch the growth of galaxies over the last 10 billion years.

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To see what the sky will look like to WFIRST,

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scientists use special processing techniques to create simulated images.

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In this case, they began with a Hubble mosaic

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of Andromeda, one of the closest galaxies to our own.

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Released in 2015, this mosaic was created out of over

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400 individual Hubble images and took more than three years.

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Because of its enormous coverage, WFIRST

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will be able to create a similar mosaic with just two images, each

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taking about 90 minutes. WFIRST images are

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actually made of 18 separate panels, each one corresponding to

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a single 16-megapixel detector. The arrangement of these

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detectors creates the distinctive WFIRST image shape.

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The simulated image is not just special because of its

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size, however. It also shows Andromeda as it will appear through

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WFIRST’s optics and infrared filters. To achieve

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this, scientists started with Hubble filters that are closest to WFIRST's.

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Then they used software to measure the positions

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and brightnesses of the roughly 100 million stars in those images

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and applied those as input to WFIRST image simulation software

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which added each star back to the image after applying the expected

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effects of the WFIRST optics, filters, and detectors.

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The resulting image reveals many stars

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that were blocked by dust in visible light. It highlights

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WFIRST’s role in providing a more comprehensive view of the stars in the local

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universe. WFIRST will also use its broad view

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to search for planets around other stars in our galaxy and to look for the

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fingerprint of dark matter and dark energy in the distant reaches of the universe.

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With an unprecedented combination of breadth and

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depth, WFIRST will open a new era in

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viewing our universe.

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[Explore: Solar system & beyond]

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[NASA]