19 April 2011 Last updated at 03:12 GMT

Earlier this week, NASA released the data it had gathered from its recent sky-mapping mission. NASA released hundreds of thousands of images that can be accessed by scientists and anyone who has access to the internet. The data was published in their website and featured pictures of galaxies, stars, asteroids and other heavenly bodies to be observed and examined.

Most of the targets in the data published by NASA have already been observed in previous cataloging missions, but the latest catalog revealed several new discoveries. The new images in the website showed more than 33,000 new asteroids and 20 new comets, in the space between Jupiter and Mars. The telescope used was a hundred times more sensitive than the first satellite telescope sent to take images in 1983.

The mission featured the launch of a Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The explorer carried with it a wide field infrared telescope, and was launched in December of 2009. It was launched to take more images with finer detail and accuracy. The explorer mapped the sky one and half times over a period of 14 months. In that time frame the telescope was able to take over two million images from its polar orbit.

Unlike previous spacecrafts, the WISE’s ability to detect heat helped it find and capture cold, dusty and distant objects in space. These objects had been previously invisible to other telescopes that had taken images. The images that were published represent only half of what was captured by the explorer. The rest of the images included in the sky-wide catalog are scheduled to be released next spring.

“If I see a galaxy with highly ionized gas clouds in its outskirts and no infrared evidence of a hidden quasar, that’s a sign that the quasar has essentially shut down in the last 30,000 to 50,000 years,” said William Keel, an astronomer from the University of Alabama. Keel had already begun analyzing the images for quasars. Quasars are small bright heavenly bodies powered by massive black holes.

In October of last year, WISE ran out of coolant and was unable to cool down its heat-sensitive instruments. Without cooling down, the telescope was unable to observe and capture images of far away objects. Instead, the explorer took pictures of closer asteroids and comets that would help scientists determine if they were a threat to our planet. The WISE spacecraft went into hibernation in February of this year.