Friday, July 25, 2014

NASA's OPALS to Beam Data From Space Via Laser

NASA's OPALS to Beam Data From Space Via Laser:

This artist's concept shows how the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) laser will beam data to Earth from the International Space Station.
This artist's concept shows how the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) laser will beam data to Earth from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA.
› Larger image

July 11, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will use the International Space Station to test a new communications technology that could dramatically improve spacecraft communications, enhance commercial missions and strengthen transmission of scientific data.


The Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS), an optical technology demonstration experiment, could improve NASA's data rates for communications with future spacecraft by a factor of 10 to 100. OPALS has arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. It is scheduled to launch to the space station later this year aboard a SpaceX Dragon commercial resupply capsule on the company's Falcon 9 rocket.


"OPALS represents a tangible stepping stone for laser communications, and the International Space Station is a great platform for an experiment like this," said Michael Kokorowski, OPALS project manager at JPL. "Future operational laser communication systems will have the ability to transmit more data from spacecraft down to the ground than they currently do, mitigating a significant bottleneck for scientific investigations and commercial ventures."


OPALS will be mounted on the outside of the International Space Station and communicate with a ground station in Wrightwood, Calif., a mountain town near Los Angeles.


"It's like aiming a laser pointer continuously for two minutes at a dot the diameter of a human hair from 30 feet away while you're walking," explained OPALS systems engineer Bogdan Oaida of JPL.


The OPALS instrument was built at JPL and is slated to fly on the Dragon capsule in late 2013. The mission is expected to run 90 days after installation on the station.


The OPALS Project Office is based at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.


For more information about OPALS, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/10MMPDO .


For more information about the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station .

Stephanie L. Smith 818-393-5464

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

slsmith@jpl.nasa.gov


Joshua Buck 202-358-1100

NASA Headquarters, Washington

jbuck@nasa.gov


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In the Zone: How Scientists Search for Habitable Planets

In the Zone: How Scientists Search for Habitable Planets:

Toxic Wasteland or Lush Paradise?
This artist's concept shows a Super Venus planet on the left, and a Super Earth on the right. Researchers use a concept known as the habitable zone to distinguish between these two types of planets, which exist beyond our solar system. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ames
› Full image and caption

July 17, 2013

There is only one planet we know of, so far, that is drenched with life. That planet is Earth, as you may have guessed, and it has all the right conditions for critters to thrive on its surface. Do other planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, also host life forms?


Astronomers still don't know the answer, but they search for potentially habitable planets using a handful of criteria. Ideally, they want to find planets just like Earth, since we know without a doubt that life took root here. The hunt is on for planets about the size of Earth that orbit at just the right distance from their star - in a region termed the habitable zone.


NASA's Kepler mission is helping scientists in the quest to find these worlds, sometimes called Goldilocks planets after the fairy tale because they orbit where conditions are "just right" for life. Kepler and other telescopes have confirmed a handful so far, all of which are a bit larger than Earth -- the Super Earths. The search for Earth's twin, a habitable-zone planet as small as Earth, is ongoing.


An important part of this research is the continuing investigation into exactly where a star's habitable zone starts and stops.


The habitable zone is the belt around a star where temperatures are ideal for liquid water -- an essential ingredient for life as we know it -- to pool on a planet's surface. Earth lies within the habitable zone of our star, the sun. Beyond this zone, a planet would probably be too cold and frozen for life (though it's possible life could be buried underneath a moon's surface). A planet lying between a star and the habitable zone would likely be too hot and steamy.


That perfect Goldilocks planet within the zone wouldn't necessarily be home to any furry creatures. But it would have the potential for some type of life to abound, if even microbes.


In one new study, researchers based at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, Calif., carefully analyzed the location of both a planet called Kepler-69c and its habitable zone. Their analysis shows that this planet, which is 1.7 times the size of Earth, lies just outside the inner edge of the zone, making it more of a Super Venus than a Super Earth, as previous estimates indicated.


"On the way to finding Earths, Kepler is telling us a lot about the frequency of Venus-like planets in our galaxy," said Stephen Kane, lead author of the new paper on Kepler-69c appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.


To determine the location of a star's habitable zone, one must first learn how much total radiation it emits. Stars more massive than our sun are hotter, and blaze with radiation, so their habitable zones are farther out. Similarly, stars that are smaller and cooler sport tighter belts of habitability than our sun. For example, the Super Earth planet called Kepler-62f, discovered by Kepler to orbit in the middle of a habitable zone around a cool star, orbits closer to its star than Earth. The planet takes just 267 days to complete an orbit, as compared to 365 days for Earth.


Knowing precisely how far away a habitable zone needs to be from a star also depends on chemistry. For example, molecules in a planet's atmosphere will absorb a certain amount of energy from starlight and radiate the rest back out. How much of this energy is trapped can mean the difference between a turquoise sea and erupting volcanoes.


Researchers led by Ravi kumar Kopparapu of Penn State University, University Park, Pa., used this type of chemical information to nudge the habitable zone out a bit farther than previously thought. The team's 2013 Astrophysical Journal study is the current gold standard in determining how a star's total radiation output relates to the location of its habitable zone. Kane and his colleagues used this information to fine-tune the boundaries of Kepler-69c's habitable zone, in addition to careful measurements of the star's total energy output and the orbit of the planet.


"Understanding the properties of the star is critical to determining planetary properties and calculating the extent of the habitable zone in that system," said Kane.


But before you purchase real estate in a habitable zone, keep in mind there are other factors that dictate whether a world develops lush greenery and beaches. Eruptions from the surfaces of stars called flares, for example, can wreak havoc on planets.


"There are a lot of unanswered questions about habitability," said Lucianne Walkowicz, a Kepler science team member based at Princeton University, N.J., who studies flaring stars. "If the planet gets zapped with radiation all the time by flares from its parent star, the surface might not be a very pleasant place to live. But on the other hand, if there's liquid water around, that makes a really good shield from high-energy radiation, so maybe life could thrive in the oceans."


Flares can also scrape off the atmospheres of planets, complicating the picture further. This is particularly true for the smaller, cooler stars, which tend to be more hyperactive than stars like our sun.


Ideally, astronomers would like to know more about the atmosphere of potentially habitable planets. That way they could look at the planet's molecular makeup for signs of runaway greenhouse gases that could indicate an inhospitable Venus-like planet. Or, future space telescopes might even be able to pick up signatures of oxygen, water, carbon dioxide and methane -- indicators that the planet might be somebody's home.


NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will bring us closer to this goal, by probing the atmospheres of planets, some of which may lie in habitable zones. The mission won't be able to examine the atmospheres of planets as small as Earth, so we'll have to wait for another future telescope to separate out the Venuses from the Earths.


NASA Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with JPL at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. More information about the Kepler mission is at http://www.nasa.gov/kepler .


More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

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NASA Interplanetary Probes to Take Pictures of Earth

NASA Interplanetary Probes to Take Pictures of Earth:

This simulated view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth on July 19, 2013
This simulated view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth on July 19, 2013, around the time Cassini will take Earth's picture. Cassini will be about 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away from Earth at the time. That distance is nearly 10 times the distance from the sun to Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› View image

July 18, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- Two NASA spacecraft, one studying the Saturn system, the other observing Mercury, are maneuvering into place to take pictures of Earth on July 19 and 20.


The image taken from the Saturn system by NASA's Cassini spacecraft will occur between 2:27 and 2:42 PDT (5:27 and 5:42 p.m. EDT, or 21:27 and 21:42 UTC) Friday, July 19. Cassini will be nearly 900 million miles (nearly 1.5 billion kilometers) away from Earth. NASA is encouraging the public to look and wave in the direction of Saturn at the time of the portrait and share their pictures via the Internet.


The Cassini Earth portrait is part of a more extensive mosaic -- or multi-image picture -- of the Saturn system as it is backlit by the sun. The viewing geometry highlights the tiniest of ring particles and will allow scientists to see patterns within Saturn's dusty rings. Processing of the Earth images is expected to take a few days, and processing of the full Saturn system mosaic will likely take several weeks.


Inspired in part by the Cassini team's plans to obtain a picture of Earth, scientists reexamined the planned observations of NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury. They realized Earth is coincidentally expected to appear in some images taken in a search for natural satellites around Mercury on July 19 and 20. Those images will be taken at 4:49 a.m., 5:38 a.m. and 6:41 a.m. PDT (7:49 a.m., 8:38 a.m. and 9:41 a.m. EDT, or 11:49, 12:38, and 13:41 UTC) on both days. Parts of Earth not illuminated in the Cassini images, including all of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, will appear illuminated in the MESSENGER images. MESSENGER's images also will take a few days to process prior to release.


Details on how to find Saturn in the sky and participate in the event are available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/waveatsaturn .


The public can share pictures by using the hashtag #waveatsaturn on Twitter, or uploading pictures to the event's Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/wave_at_saturn/ .


The event's Facebook page is: http://bit.ly/waveatsaturn .


Cassini mission scientists also will be participating in a live Ustream show on Friday from 2 to 2:30 p.m. PDT (5 to 5:30 p.m. EDT): http://www.ustream.com/nasajpl2 .


For more information about the two NASA spacecraft, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/messenger .

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jccook@jpl.nasa.gov


Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726

NASA Headquarters, Washington

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov


2013-225
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Reports Detail Mars Rover Clues to Atmosphere's Past

Reports Detail Mars Rover Clues to Atmosphere's Past:

Shooting Lasers
This picture shows a lab demonstration of the measurement chamber inside the Tunable Laser Spectrometer, an instrument that is part of the Sample Analysis at Mars investigation on NASA's Curiosity rover. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption

July 18, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. - A pair of new papers report measurements of the Martian atmosphere's composition by NASA's Curiosity rover, providing evidence about loss of much of Mars' original atmosphere.


Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite of laboratory instruments inside the rover has measured the abundances of different gases and different isotopes in several samples of Martian atmosphere. Isotopes are variants of the same chemical element with different atomic weights due to having different numbers of neutrons, such as the most common carbon isotope, carbon-12, and a heavier stable isotope, carbon-13.


SAM checked ratios of heavier to lighter isotopes of carbon and oxygen in the carbon dioxide that makes up most of the planet's atmosphere. Heavy isotopes of carbon and oxygen are both enriched in today's thin Martian atmosphere compared with the proportions in the raw material that formed Mars, as deduced from proportions in the sun and other parts of the solar system. This provides not only supportive evidence for the loss of much of the planet's original atmosphere, but also a clue to how the loss occurred.


"As atmosphere was lost, the signature of the process was embedded in the isotopic ratio," said Paul Mahaffy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. He is the principal investigator for SAM and lead author of one of the two papers about Curiosity results in the July 19 issue of the journal Science.


Other factors also suggest Mars once had a much thicker atmosphere, such as evidence of persistent presence of liquid water on the planet's surface long ago even though the atmosphere is too scant for liquid water to persist on the surface now. The enrichment of heavier isotopes measured in the dominant carbon-dioxide gas points to a process of loss from the top of the atmosphere -- favoring loss of lighter isotopes -- rather than a process of the lower atmosphere interacting with the ground.


Curiosity measured the same pattern in isotopes of hydrogen, as well as carbon and oxygen, consistent with a loss of a substantial fraction of Mars' original atmosphere. Enrichment in heavier isotopes in the Martian atmosphere has previously been measured on Mars and in gas bubbles inside meteorites from Mars. Meteorite measurements indicate much of the atmospheric loss may have occurred during the first billion years of the planet's 4.6-billion-year history. The Curiosity measurements reported this week provide more precise measurements to compare with meteorite studies and with models of atmospheric loss.


The Curiosity measurements do not directly measure the current rate of atmospheric escape, but NASA's next mission to Mars, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), will do so. "The current pace of the loss is exactly what the MAVEN mission now scheduled to launch in November of this year is designed to determine," Mahaffy said.


The new reports describe analysis of Martian atmosphere samples with two different SAM instruments during the initial 16 weeks of the rover's mission on Mars, which is now in its 50th week. SAM's mass spectrometer and tunable laser spectrometer independently measured virtually identical ratios of carbon-13 to carbon-12. SAM also includes a gas chromatograph and uses all three instruments to analyze rocks and soil, as well as atmosphere.


"Getting the same result with two very different techniques increased our confidence that there's no unknown systematic error underlying the measurements," said Chris Webster of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. He is the lead scientist for the tunable laser spectrometer and the lead author for one of the two papers. "The accuracy in these new measurements improves the basis for understanding the atmosphere's history."


Curiosity landed inside Mars' Gale Crater on Aug. 6, 2012 Universal Time (on Aug. 5 PDT). The rover this month began a drive of many months from an area where it found evidence for a past environment favorable for microbial life, toward a layered mound, Mount Sharp, where researchers will seek evidence about how the environment changed.


More information about Curiosity is online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .


You can follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov


Nancy Neal Jones 301-286-0039

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov


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NASA's Spitzer Observes Gas Emission From Comet ISON

NASA's Spitzer Observes Gas Emission From Comet ISON:

Spitzer Eyes Comet ISON
These images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of C/2012 S1 (Comet ISON) were taken on June 13, when ISON was 310 million miles (about 500 million kilometers) from the sun. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL/UCF
› Full image and caption

July 23, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have observed what most likely are strong carbon dioxide emissions from Comet ISON ahead of its anticipated pass through the inner solar system later this year.


Images captured June 13 with Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera indicate carbon dioxide is slowly and steadily "fizzing" away from the so-called "soda-pop comet," along with dust, in a tail about 186,400 miles (300,000 kilometers) long.


"We estimate ISON is emitting about 2.2 million pounds (1 million kilograms) of what is most likely carbon dioxide gas and about 120 million pounds (54.4 million kilograms) of dust every day," said Carey Lisse, leader of NASA's Comet ISON Observation Campaign and a senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "Previous observations made by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission and Deep Impact spacecraft gave us only upper limits for any gas emission from ISON. Thanks to Spitzer, we now know for sure the comet's distant activity has been powered by gas."


Comet ISON was about 312 million miles (502 million kilometers) from the sun, 3.35 times farther than Earth, when the observations were made.


"These fabulous observations of ISON are unique and set the stage for more observations and discoveries to follow as part of a comprehensive NASA campaign to observe the comet," said James L. Green, NASA's director of planetary science in Washington. "ISON is very exciting. We believe that data collected from this comet can help explain how and when the solar system first formed."


Comet ISON (officially known as C/2012 S1) is less than 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) in diameter, about the size of a small mountain, and weighs between 7 billion and 7 trillion pounds (3.2 billion and 3.2 trillion kilograms). Because the comet is still very far away, its true size and density have not been determined accurately. Like all comets, ISON is a dirty snowball made up of dust and frozen gases such as water, ammonia, methane and carbon dioxide. These are some of the fundamental building blocks, which scientists believe led to the formation of the planets 4.5 billion years ago.


Comet ISON is believed to be inbound on its first passage from the distant Oort Cloud, a roughly spherical collection of comets and comet-like structures that exists in a space between one-tenth light-year and 1 light-year from the sun. The comet will pass within 724,000 miles (1.16 million kilometers) of the sun on Nov. 28.


It is warming up gradually as it gets closer to the sun. In the process, different gases are heating up to the point of evaporation, revealing themselves to instruments in space and on the ground. Carbon dioxide is thought to be the gas that powers emission for most comets between the orbits of Saturn and the asteroids.


The comet was discovered Sept. 21, roughly between Jupiter and Saturn, by Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok at the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) near Kislovodsk, Russia. This counts as an early detection of a comet, and the strong carbon dioxide emissions may have made the detection possible.


"This observation gives us a good picture of part of the composition of ISON, and, by extension, of the proto-planetary disk from which the planets were formed," said Lisse. "Much of the carbon in the comet appears to be locked up in carbon dioxide ice. We will know even more in late July and August, when the comet begins to warm up near the water-ice line outside of the orbit of Mars, and we can detect the most abundant frozen gas, which is water, as it boils away from the comet."


NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.


For more information about Spitzer, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer . Learn more about NASA's Comet ISON Observing Campaign: http://www.isoncampaign.org . NASA's Comet ISON Toolkit is at: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ison .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


Geoffrey Brown 240-228-5618

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

geoffrey.brown@jhuapl.edu


J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241

Headquarters, Washington

j.d.harrington@nasa.gov


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NASA's Wise Finds Mysterious Centaurs May Be Comets

NASA's Wise Finds Mysterious Centaurs May Be Comets:

NEOWISE Eyes the Enigmatic Centaurs
New observations from NASA's NEOWISE project reveal the hidden nature of centaurs, objects in our solar system that have confounded astronomers for resembling both asteroids and comets. The centaurs, which orbit between Jupiter and Neptune, were named after the mythical half-horse, half-human creatures called centaurs due to their dual nature. This artist's concept shows a centaur creature together with asteroids on the left and comets at right. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption

July 24, 2013

PASADENA, Calf. -- The true identity of centaurs, the small celestial bodies orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Neptune, is one of the enduring mysteries of astrophysics. Are they asteroids or comets? A new study of observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) finds most centaurs are comets.


Until now, astronomers were not certain whether centaurs are asteroids flung out from the inner solar system or comets traveling in toward the sun from afar. Because of their dual nature, they take their name from the creature in Greek mythology whose head and torso are human and legs are those of a horse.


"Just like the mythical creatures, the centaur objects seem to have a double life," said James Bauer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Bauer is lead author of a paper published online July 22 in the Astrophysical Journal. "Our data point to a cometary origin for most of the objects, suggesting they are coming from deeper out in the solar system."


"Cometary origin" means an object likely is made from the same material as a comet, may have been an active comet in the past, and may be active again in the future.


The findings come from the largest infrared survey to date of centaurs and their more distant cousins, called scattered disk objects. NEOWISE, the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission, gathered infrared images of 52 centaurs and scattered disk objects. Fifteen of the 52 are new discoveries. Centaurs and scattered disk objects orbit in an unstable belt. Ultimately, gravity from the giant planets will fling them either closer to the sun or farther away from their current locations.


Although astronomers previously observed some centaurs with dusty halos, a common feature of outgassing comets, and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope also found some evidence for comets in the group, they had not been able to estimate the numbers of comets and asteroids.


Infrared data from NEOWISE provided information on the objects' albedos, or reflectivity, to help astronomers sort the population. NEOWISE can tell whether a centaur has a matte and dark surface or a shiny one that reflects more light. The puzzle pieces fell into place when astronomers combined the albedo information with what was already known about the colors of the objects. Visible-light observations have shown centaurs generally to be either blue-gray or reddish in hue. A blue-gray object could be an asteroid or comet. NEOWISE showed that most of the blue-gray objects are dark, a telltale sign of comets. A reddish object is more likely to be an asteroid.


"Comets have a dark, soot-like coating on their icy surfaces, making them darker than most asteroids," said the study's co-author, Tommy Grav of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz. "Comet surfaces tend to be more like charcoal, while asteroids are usually shinier like the moon."


The results indicate that roughly two-thirds of the centaur population are comets, which come from the frigid outer reaches of our solar system. It is not clear whether the rest are asteroids. The centaur bodies have not lost their mystique entirely, but future research from NEOWISE may reveal their secrets further.


The paper is available online at: http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/773/1/22/ .


JPL, managed by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, managed and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The NEOWISE portion of the project was funded by NASA's Near Earth Object Observation Program. WISE completed its key mission objective, two scans of the entire sky, in 2011 and has been hibernating in space since then.


For more information about the WISE mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/wise .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241

Headquarters, Washington

j.d.harrington@nasa.gov


2013-234
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How Did Earth's Primitive Chemistry Get Kick Started?

How Did Earth's Primitive Chemistry Get Kick Started?:

This image from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean shows a collection of limestone towers known as the 'Lost City.'
This image from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean shows a collection of limestone towers known as the "Lost City." Alkaline hydrothermal vents of this type are suggested to be the birthplace of the first living organisms on the ancient Earth. Scientists are interested in understanding early life on Earth because if we ever hope to find life on other worlds - especially icy worlds with subsurface oceans such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's Enceladus - we need to know what chemical signatures to look for. Image courtesy D. Kelley and M. Elend/University of Washington
› Larger view

July 30, 2013

How did life on Earth get started? Three new papers co-authored by Mike Russell, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., strengthen the case that Earth's first life began at alkaline hydrothermal vents at the bottom of oceans. Scientists are interested in understanding early life on Earth because if we ever hope to find life on other worlds -- especially icy worlds with subsurface oceans such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's Enceladus -- we need to know what chemical signatures to look for.


Two papers published recently in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B provide more detail on the chemical and precursor metabolic reactions that have to take place to pave the pathway for life. Russell and his co-authors describe how the interactions between the earliest oceans and alkaline hydrothermal fluids likely produced acetate (comparable to vinegar). The acetate is a product of methane and hydrogen from the alkaline hydrothermal vents and carbon dioxide dissolved in the surrounding ocean. Once this early chemical pathway was forged, acetate could become the basis of other biological molecules. They also describe how two kinds of "nano-engines" that create organic carbon and polymers -- energy currency of the first cells -- could have been assembled from inorganic minerals.


A paper published in the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta analyzes the structural similarity between the most ancient enzymes of life and minerals precipitated at these alkaline vents, an indication that the first life didn't have to invent its first catalysts and engines.


"Our work on alkaline hot springs on the ocean floor makes what we believe is the most plausible case for the origin of the life's building blocks and its energy supply," Russell said. "Our hypothesis is testable, has the right assortment of ingredients and obeys the laws of thermodynamics."


Russell's work was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute through the Icy Worlds team based at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. The NASA Astrobiology Institute, based at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., is a partnership among NASA, 15 U.S. teams and 13 international consortia. The Institute is part of NASA's astrobiology program, which supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on Earth and the potential for life elsewhere.

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jccook@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-235
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Spitzer Discovers Young Stars with a 'Hula Hoop'

Spitzer Discovers Young Stars with a 'Hula Hoop':

In this artist's impression, a disk of dusty material leftover from star formation girds two young stars like a hula hoop
In this artist's impression, a disk of dusty material leftover from star formation girds two young stars like a hula hoop. As the two stars whirl around each other, they periodically peek out from the disk, making the system appear to "blink" every 93 days. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption

July 31, 2013

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have spotted a young stellar system that "blinks" every 93 days. Called YLW 16A, the system likely consists of three developing stars, two of which are surrounded by a disk of material left over from the star-formation process.


As the two inner stars whirl around each other, they periodically peek out from the disk that girds them like a hula hoop. The hoop itself appears to be misaligned from the central star pair, probably due to the disrupting gravitational presence of the third star orbiting at the periphery of the system. The whole system cycles through bright and faint phases, with the central stars playing a sort of cosmic peek-a-boo as the tilted disk twirls around them. It is believed that this disk should go on to spawn planets and the other celestial bodies that make up a solar system.


Spitzer observed infrared light from YLW 16A, emitted by the warmed gas and dust in the disk that still swathes the young stars. Other observations came from the ground-based 2MASS survey, as well as from the NACO instrument at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile.


YLW 16A is the fourth example of a star system known to blink in such a manner, and the second in the same star-forming region Rho Ophiuchus. The finding suggests that these systems might be more common than once thought. Blinking star systems with warped disks offer scientists a way to study how planets form in these environments. The planets can orbit one or both of the stars in the binary star system. The famous science fictional planet Tatooine in "Star Wars" orbits two stars, hence its double sunsets. Such worlds are referred to as circumbinary planets. Astronomers can record how light is absorbed by planet-forming disks during the bright and faint phases of blinking stellar systems, which in turn reveals information about the materials that comprise the disk.


"These blinking systems offer natural probes of the binary and circumbinary planet formation process," said Peter Plavchan, a scientist at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute and Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., and lead author of a new paper accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.


NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

Written by Adam Hadhazy

Contact:

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-236
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 7:56 AM 0 comments

Monster Galaxies Lose Their Appetite With Age

Monster Galaxies Lose Their Appetite With Age:

This image shows two of the galaxy clusters observed by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope missions
This image shows two of the galaxy clusters observed by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope missions. Galaxy clusters are among the most massive structures in the universe. The central and largest galaxy in each grouping, called the brightest cluster galaxy or BCG, is seen at the center of each image. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SDSS/NOAO

› Full image and caption

August 01, 2013

Our universe is filled with gobs of galaxies, bound together by gravity into larger families called clusters. Lying at the heart of most clusters is a monster galaxy thought to grow in size by merging with neighboring galaxies, a process astronomers call galactic cannibalism.


New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is showing that, contrary to previous theories, these gargantuan galaxies appear to slow their growth over time, feeding less and less off neighboring galaxies.


"We've found that these massive galaxies may have started a diet in the last 5 billion years, and therefore have not gained much weight lately," said Yen-Ting Lin of the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, lead author of a study published in the Astrophysical Journal.


Peter Eisenhardt, a co-author from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said, "WISE and Spitzer are letting us see that there is a lot we do understand -- but also a lot we don't understand -- about the mass of the most massive galaxies." Eisenhardt identified the sample of galaxy clusters studied by Spitzer, and is the project scientist for WISE.


The new findings will help researchers understand how galaxy clusters -- among the most massive structures in our universe -- form and evolve.


Galaxy clusters are made up of thousands of galaxies, gathered around their biggest member, what astronomers call the brightest cluster galaxy, or BCG. BCGs can be up to dozens of times the mass of galaxies like our own Milky Way. They plump up in size by cannibalizing other galaxies, as well as assimilating stars that are funneled into the middle of a growing cluster.


To monitor how this process works, the astronomers surveyed nearly 300 galaxy clusters spanning 9 billion years of cosmic time. The farthest cluster dates back to a time when the universe was 4.3 billion years old, and the closest, when the universe was much older, 13 billion years old (our universe is presently 13.8 billion years old).


"You can't watch a galaxy grow, so we took a population census," said Lin. "Our new approach allows us to connect the average properties of clusters we observe in the relatively recent past with ones we observe further back in the history of the universe."


Spitzer and WISE are both infrared telescopes, but they have unique characteristics that complement each other in studies like these. For instance, Spitzer can see more detail than WISE, which enables it to capture the farthest clusters best. On the other hand, WISE, an infrared all-sky survey, is better at capturing images of nearby clusters, thanks to its larger field of view. Spitzer is still up and observing; WISE went into hibernation in 2011 after successfully scanning the sky twice.


The findings showed that BCG growth proceeded along rates predicted by theories until 5 billion years ago, or a time when the universe was about 8 billion years old. After that time, it appears the galaxies, for the most part, stopped munching on other galaxies around them.


The scientists are uncertain about the cause of BCGs' diminished appetites, but the results suggest current models need tinkering.


"BCGs are a bit like blue whales -- both are gigantic and very rare in number. Our census of the population of BCGs is in a way similar to measuring how the whales gain their weight as they age. In our case, the whales aren't gaining as much weight as we thought. Our theories aren't matching what we observed, leading us to new questions," said Lin.


Another possible explanation is that the surveys are missing large numbers of stars in the more mature clusters. Clusters can be violent environments, where stars are stripped from colliding galaxies and flung into space. If the recent observations are not detecting those stars, it's possible that the enormous galaxies are, in fact, continuing to bulk up.


Future studies from Lin and others should reveal more about the feeding habits of one of nature's largest galactic species.


JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .


JPL managed and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Edward Wright is the principal investigator and is at UCLA. The mission was selected competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-239
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 7:55 AM 0 comments

Swapping Motion-Sensing Units

Swapping Motion-Sensing Units:

Artist concept of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA/JPL
Artist concept of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA/JPL
› Full image and caption

August 12, 2013

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Status Report


PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is switching from one motion-sensing device to a duplicate unit onboard.


The veteran orbiter relies on this inertial measurement unit (IMU) for information about changes in orientation. This information is important for maintaining spacecraft attitude and for pointing the orbiter's large antenna and science-observation instruments.


The spacecraft has two identical copies of this motion-sensing device, called IMU-1 and IMU-2. Either of them can be used with either of the spacecraft's redundant main computers. Each contains three gyroscopes and three accelerometers.


"The reason we're doing this is that one of the gyroscopes on IMU-1 is approaching its end of life, so we want to swap to our redundant unit early enough that we still have some useful life preserved in the first unit," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Manager Reid Thomas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.


The orbiter began investigating Mars in 2006. Since completing its primary science phase in 2008, it has continued to work as an extended mission.


The swap has been planned for this week, with procedures expected to take less than two days before the orbiter resumes its normal functions of science observations from orbit and communication relay for Mars rovers.


"To make sure we have a smooth transition, regaining attitude knowledge as quickly as possible, we will power off all instruments, do the IMU swap, maneuver to sun point, do the IMU swap, and then put the spacecraft into safe mode," Thomas said. "The safe-mode process re-initializes the spacecraft's knowledge of its attitude."


IMU-2 has been used previously, but IMU-1 has been used much more. After the swap, IMU-1 will remain available if needed for short periods.


The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has provided more data about Mars than all other earlier and current missions combined. It also relays to Earth information from both of NASA's active Mars rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity, sharing that function with the NASA Mars Odyssey orbiter.


JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter and partners in its daily operation.


More information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is available online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-245
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 7:54 AM 0 comments

If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?

If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?:

Simulated View from Europa's Surface (Artist's Concept)
This artist's concept shows a simulated view from the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. Europa's potentially rough, icy surface, tinged with reddish areas that scientists hope to learn more about, can be seen in the foreground. The giant planet Jupiter looms over the horizon. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

› Full image and caption

August 07, 2013

Most of what scientists know of Jupiter's moon Europa they have gleaned from a dozen or so close flybys from NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979 and NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the mid-to-late 1990s. Even in these fleeting, paparazzi-like encounters, scientists have seen a fractured, ice-covered world with tantalizing signs of a liquid water ocean under its surface. Such an environment could potentially be a hospitable home for microbial life. But what if we got to land on Europa's surface and conduct something along the lines of a more in-depth interview? What would scientists ask? A new study in the journal Astrobiology authored by a NASA-appointed science definition team lays out their consensus on the most important questions to address.


"If one day humans send a robotic lander to the surface of Europa, we need to know what to look for and what tools it should carry," said Robert Pappalardo, the study's lead author, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "There is still a lot of preparation that is needed before we could land on Europa, but studies like these will help us focus on the technologies required to get us there, and on the data needed to help us scout out possible landing locations. Europa is the most likely place in our solar system beyond Earth to have life today, and a landed mission would be the best way to search for signs of life."


The paper was authored by scientists from a number of other NASA centers and universities, including the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.; University of Colorado, Boulder; University of Texas, Austin; and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The team found the most important questions clustered around composition: what makes up the reddish "freckles" and reddish cracks that stain the icy surface? What kind of chemistry is occurring there? Are there organic molecules, which are among the building blocks of life?

Additional priorities involved improving our images of Europa - getting a look around at features on a human scale to provide context for the compositional measurements. Also among the top priorities were questions related to geological activity and the presence of liquid water: how active is the surface? How much rumbling is there from the periodic gravitational squeezes from its planetary host, the giant planet Jupiter? What do these detections tell us about the characteristics of liquid water below the icy surface?


"Landing on the surface of Europa would be a key step in the astrobiological investigation of that world," said Chris McKay, a senior editor of the journal Astrobiology, who is based at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "This paper outlines the science that could be done on such a lander. The hope would be that surface materials, possibly near the linear crack features, include biomarkers carried up from the ocean."


This work was conducted with Europa study funds from NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jccook@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-243
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 7:53 AM 0 comments

Surface impressions of Rosetta's comet

Surface impressions of Rosetta's comet:

Rotating Shape Model of Rosetta's Comet Target
Images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken on July 14, 2014, by the OSIRIS imaging system aboard the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft have allowed scientists to create this three-dimensional shape model of the nucleus. Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

› Full image and caption


July 24, 2014

Surface structures are becoming visible in new images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken by the scientific imaging system OSIRIS onboard the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft. The resolution of these images is now 330 feet (100 meters) per pixel. One of the most striking features is currently found in the comet's neck region. This part of 67P seems to be brighter than the rest of the nucleus.

As earlier images had already shown, 67P may consist of two parts: a smaller head connected to a larger body. The connecting region, the neck, is proving to be especially intriguing. "The only thing we know for sure at this point is that this neck region appears brighter compared to the head and body of the nucleus," says OSIRIS Principal Investigator Holger Sierks from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. This collar-like appearance could be caused by differences in material or grain size, or could be a topographical effect.

Even though the images taken from a distance of 3,400 miles (5,500 kilometers) are still not highly resolved, the scientists are remotely reminded of comet 103P/Hartley, which was visited in a flyby by NASA's EPOXI mission in 2010. While Hartley's ends show a rather rough surface, its middle is much smoother. Scientists believe this waist to be a gravitational low: since it contains the body's center of mass, emitted material that cannot leave the comet's gravitational field is most likely to be re-deposited there.

Whether this also holds true for 67P's neck region is still unclear. Another explanation for the high reflectivity could be a different surface composition. In coming weeks, the OSIRIS team hopes to analyze the spectral data of this region obtained with the help of the imaging system's filters. These can select several wavelength regions from the reflected light, allowing scientists to identify the characteristic fingerprints of certain materials and compositional features.

At the same time, the team is currently modeling the comet's three-dimensional shape from the camera data. Such a model can help to get a better impression of the body's shape.

Rosetta will be the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the sun, and deploy a lander to its surface.

Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by the German Aerospace Center, Cologne; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen; French National Space Agency, Paris; and the Italian Space Agency, Rome. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the U.S. participation in the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Rosetta carries three NASA instruments in its 21-instrument payload.

For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit:

http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov

More information about Rosetta is available at:

http://www.esa.int/rosetta

Preston Dyches

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-7013

preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov


Dwayne Brown

NASA Headquarters

202-358-1726

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov


Markus Bauer
European Space Agency, Noordwijk, Netherlands

011-31-71-565-6799

markus.bauer@esa.int


Birgit Krummheuer

Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research

011-49-551-384-979-462

krummheuer@mps.mpg.de


2014-243
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 7:52 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

NASA Rover Gets Movie as a Mars Moon Passes Another

NASA Rover Gets Movie as a Mars Moon Passes Another:

Illustration Comparing Apparent Sizes of Moons
This illustration provides a comparison for how big the moons of Mars appear to be, as seen from the surface of Mars, in relation to the size that Earth's moon appears to be when seen from the surface of Earth. Earth's moon actually has a diameter more than 100 times greater than the larger Martian moon, Phobos. However, the Martian moons orbit much closer to their planet than the distance between Earth and Earth's moon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M Univ.
› Full image and caption

August 15, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- The larger of the two moons of Mars, Phobos, passes directly in front of the other, Deimos, in a new series of sky-watching images from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.


A video clip assembled from the images is at http://youtu.be/DaVSCmuOJwI .


Large craters on Phobos are clearly visible in these images from the surface of Mars. No previous images from missions on the surface caught one moon eclipsing the other.


The telephoto-lens camera of Curiosity's two-camera Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument recorded the images on Aug. 1. Some of the full-resolution frames were not downlinked until more than a week later, in the data-transmission queue behind higher-priority images being used for planning the rover's drives.


These observations of Phobos and Deimos help researchers make knowledge of the moons' orbits even more precise.


"The ultimate goal is to improve orbit knowledge enough that we can improve the measurement of the tides Phobos raises on the Martian solid surface, giving knowledge of the Martian interior," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station. He is a co-investigator for use of Curiosity's Mastcam. "We may also get data good enough to detect density variations within Phobos and to determine if Deimos' orbit is systematically changing."


The orbit of Phobos is very slowly getting closer to Mars. The orbit of Deimos may be slowly getting farther from the planet.


Lemmon and colleagues determined that the two moons would be visible crossing paths at a time shortly after Curiosity would be awake for transmitting data to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for relay to Earth. That made the moon observations feasible with minimal impact on the rover's energy budget.


Although Phobos has a diameter less than one percent the diameter of Earth's moon, Phobos also orbits much closer to Mars than our moon's distance from Earth. As seen from the surface of Mars, Phobos looks about half as wide as what Earth's moon looks like to viewers on Earth.


NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity and the rover's 10 science instruments to investigate the environmental history within Gale Crater, a location where the project has found that conditions were long ago favorable for microbial life.


Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates Curiosity's Mastcam. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington and built the Navigation Camera and the rover.


More information about the mission is online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .


You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .


For more information about the Multi-Mission Image Processing Laboratory, see:
http://www-mipl.jpl.nasa.gov/mipex.html .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-253
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:29 PM 0 comments

NASA Voyager Statement about Competing Models to Explain Recent Spacecraft Data

NASA Voyager Statement about Competing Models to Explain Recent Spacecraft Data:

Voyager the Explorer
This artist's concept shows NASA's Voyager spacecraft against a field of stars in the darkness of space. The two Voyager spacecraft are traveling farther and farther away from Earth, on a journey to interstellar space, and will eventually circle around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption

August 15, 2013

A newly published paper argues that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has already entered interstellar space. The model described in the paper is new and different from other models used so far to explain the data the spacecraft has been sending back from more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) away from our sun.


NASA's Voyager project scientist, Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, explains:


"Details of a new model have just been published that lead the scientists who created the model to argue that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft data can be consistent with entering interstellar space in 2012. In describing on a fine scale how magnetic field lines from the sun and magnetic field lines from interstellar space can connect to each other, they conclude Voyager 1 has been detecting the interstellar magnetic field since July 27, 2012. Their model would mean that the interstellar magnetic field direction is the same as that which originates from our sun.


Other models envision the interstellar magnetic field draped around our solar bubble and predict that the direction of the interstellar magnetic field is different from the solar magnetic field inside. By that interpretation, Voyager 1 would still be inside our solar bubble.


The fine-scale magnetic connection model will become part of the discussion among scientists as they try to reconcile what may be happening on a fine scale with what happens on a larger scale.


The Voyager 1 spacecraft is exploring a region no spacecraft has ever been to before. We will continue to look for any further developments over the coming months and years as Voyager explores an uncharted frontier."


The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Voyager missions are a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.


For more information about Voyager, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager and
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov .

Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jccook@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-251
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:28 PM 0 comments

Radar Images of Asteroid 2005 WK4

Radar Images of Asteroid 2005 WK4:

Radar images of asteroid 2005 WK4 were obtained on Aug. 8, 2013.
Radar images of asteroid 2005 WK4 were obtained on Aug. 8, 2013. The asteroid is between 660 - 980 feet (200 - 300 meters) in diameter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR
› Larger image

August 15, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- A collage of radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2005 WK4 was generated by NASA scientists using the 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., on Aug. 8, 2013.


The asteroid is between 660 and 980 feet (200 and 300 meters) in diameter; it has a rounded and slightly asymmetric shape. As it rotates, a number of features are evident that suggest the presence of some flat regions and a bulge near the equator.


The radar observations of 2005 WK4 were led by scientist Lance Benner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The data were obtained between 12:40 and 7:10 a.m. PDT (3:40 and 10:10 a.m. EDT). At the time of the observations, the asteroid's distance was about 1.93 million miles (3.1 million kilometers) from Earth, which is 8.2 lunar distances away. The data were obtained over an interval of 6.5 hours as the asteroid completed about 2.4 rotations. The resolution is 12 feet (3.75 meters) per pixel.


Radar is a powerful technique for studying an asteroid's size, shape, rotation state, surface features and surface roughness, and for improving the calculation of asteroid orbits. Radar measurements of asteroid distances and velocities often enable computation of asteroid orbits much further into the future than if radar observations weren't available.


NASA places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home planet from them. In fact, the United States has the most robust and productive survey and detection program for discovering near-Earth objects. To date, U.S. assets have discovered more than 98 percent of the known near-Earth Objects.


In addition to the resources NASA puts into understanding asteroids, it also partners with other U.S. government agencies, university-based astronomers, and space science institutes across the country that are working to track and understand these objects better, often with grants, interagency transfers and other contracts from NASA.


In 2016, NASA will launch a robotic probe to one of the most potentially hazardous of the known near-Earth objects. The OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid (101955) Bennu will be a pathfinder for future spacecraft designed to perform reconnaissance on any newly discovered threatening objects. Aside from monitoring potential threats, the study of asteroids and comets enables a valuable opportunity to learn more about the origins of our solar system, the source of water on Earth, and even the origin of organic molecules that led to the development of life.


NASA recently announced development of a first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid for human exploration. Using game-changing technologies, this mission would mark an unprecedented technological achievement that raises the bar of what humans can do in space.


NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington, manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of asteroids and comets whose orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.


More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is available at: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ , http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch and via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/asteroidwatch .


More information about asteroid radar research is at: http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/ .


More information about the Deep Space Network is at: http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn .

DC Agle 818-393-9011

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

agle@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-254
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:28 PM 0 comments

Cassini Releases Image of Earth Waving at Saturn

Cassini Releases Image of Earth Waving at Saturn:

Earth Waves at Cassini
From more than 40 countries and 30 U.S. states, people around the world shared more than 1,400 images of themselves as part of the Wave at Saturn event organized by NASA's Cassini mission. That event on July 19, 2013, marked the day the Cassini spacecraft turned back toward Earth to take our picture as part of a larger mosaic of the Saturn system. The images came via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Google+ and email. The mission has assembled this collage from the shared images, using an image of Earth as the base image.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

› Larger image

August 21, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. - People around the world shared more than 1,400 images of themselves as part of the Wave at Saturn event organized by NASA's Cassini mission on July 19 -- the day the Cassini spacecraft turned back toward Earth to take our picture. The mission has assembled a collage from those images. The collage is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/collage2013.html .


"Thanks to all of you, near and far, old and young, who joined the Cassini mission in marking the first time inhabitants of Earth had advance notice that our picture was being taken from interplanetary distances," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "While Earth is too small in the images Cassini obtained to distinguish any individual human beings, the mission has put together this collage so that we can celebrate all your waving hands, uplifted paws, smiling faces and artwork."


The images came from 40 countries and 30 U.S. states via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Google+ and email.


From its perch in the Saturn system, Cassini took a picture of Earth as part of a larger set of images it was collecting of the Saturn system. Scientists are busy putting together the color mosaic of the Saturn system, which they expect will take at least several more weeks to complete. The scientists who study Saturn's rings are poring over visible-light and infrared data obtained during that campaign.


For more information on the Wave at Saturn campaign, visit: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/waveatsaturn .


The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.


For more information about the Cassini mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jccook@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-256
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:27 PM 0 comments
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