NASA's NEOWISE spacecraft takes 12-year time-lapse movie of full sky: Watch

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) scans the sky every six months to search for asteroids and other near-Earth objects (NEOs), including those that could pose a threat to Earth. Combining more than 10 years of NEOWISE observations and 18 all-sky images, scientists have created a time-lapse movie of the entire sky, revealing changes in the Universe.

"If you go outside and look at the night sky, it might seem like nothing ever changes, but that's not the case. Stars are flaring and exploding. Asteroids are whizzing by. Black holes are tearing stars apart. The universe is a really busy, active place," said Amy Mainzer, principal investigator for NEOWISE at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Check out this movie by NEOWISE that includes previously hidden brown dwarfs, a feeding black hole, a dying star, a star-forming region, and a brightening star.

The NEOWISE mission was originally named the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and was repurposed in 2013 to find and study comets, asteroids and other NEOs. The infrared telescope has improved scientists' understanding of objects outside our solar system as well as black holes.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA-JPL) in Pasadena, California, manages and operates the NEOWISE mission.