The final data release for 2MASS occurred in 2003, and is served by the
Infrared Science Archive. The goals of this survey included: • Detection of galaxies in the "
Zone of Avoidance", a strip of sky obscured in visible light by our own galaxy, the
Milky Way. • Detection of brown dwarfs. 2MASS discovered a total of 173, including
2MASS 0939-2448,
2MASS 0415-0935,
2M1207, and
2MASS J04414489+2301513. Numerical descriptions of point sources (
stars,
planets,
asteroids) and extended sources (galaxies, nebulae) were catalogued by automated computer programs to an average limiting
magnitude of about 14. More than 300 million
point sources and 1 million extended sources were cataloged. In November 2003, a team of scientists announced the discovery of the
Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, at that time the closest known satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, based on analysis of 2MASS stellar data. The resulting data and images from the survey are currently in the
public domain, and may be accessed online for free by anyone. There is also a list of 2MASS science publications with links to free pre-publication copies of the papers. 2MASS is sponsored by the
University of Massachusetts Amherst, the
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC, run by
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and
Caltech),
NASA, and the
National Science Foundation (NSF). == References ==