Astronomical modeling predicts there should be stars closer to our own solar system than the nearest known system to our own, Alpha Centauri. Maybe we don't see them because they are "dark stars, meaning they didn't quite explode into full suns," Ames said.

While not brightly lit, these objects, denoted brown dwarfs, put out a great deal of heat. WISE could discover them by the infrared glow.

The telescope also will search for galaxies that are billions of years old, whose starlight began traveling through space "long before Earth ever coalesced into Earth," he added.

"We'll be looking at how galaxies have evolved and how solar systems have evolved."

Asked the reason that WISE will be so much more sensitive than previous infrared survey projects, Ames said it is because of "just a 22-year improvement in computers and in infrared focal planes."

The telescope itself will be relatively small, with a diameter of just under 20 inches. It will be inexpensive for a NASA observatory, $208 million, compared with the price of the Hubble orbiting telescope. Ames said that visible-light telescope cost billions of dollars.

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