Thursday, July 31, 2014

Citizens Discover Four-Star Planet with NASA's Kepler

Citizens Discover Four-Star Planet with NASA's Kepler:

Artist's concept of a four-star planet
A Four-Star Planet: An artist's illustration of PH1, a planet discovered by volunteers from the Planet Hunters citizen science project. PH1, shown in the foreground, is the first reported case of a planet orbiting a double-star that, in turn, is orbited by a second distant pair of stars. The phenomenon is called a circumbinary planet in a four-star system.
Image credit: Haven Giguere/Yale
› Full image and caption


October 15, 2012

The discovery of planets continues to expand beyond the domain of professional astronomers. A joint effort of amateur astronomers and scientists has led to the first reported case of a planet orbiting a double star that, in turn, is orbited by a second distant pair of stars.


Aided by volunteer citizen scientists using the Planethunters.org website, a Yale-led international team of astronomers identified and confirmed discovery of the phenomenon, called a circumbinary planet in a four-star system. Only six planets are known to orbit two stars but none of these are orbited by a distant binary.


Coined PH1, the planet was identified by the citizen scientists participating in Planet Hunters, a Yale-led program that enlists the public to review astronomical data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft for signs of planet transits of distant stars.


"I celebrate this discovery as a milestone for the Planet Hunters team: discovering their first exoplanet lurking in the Kepler data. I celebrate this discovery for the wow-factor of a planet in a four-star system," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "Most importantly, I celebrate this discovery as the fruit of exemplary human cooperation -- cooperation between scientists and citizens who give of themselves for the love of stars, knowledge and exploration."


A bit larger than Neptune and thought to be a gas giant, PH1 orbits its host stars every 137 days. Beyond the planet's orbit, approximately 900 times the distance between the sun and Earth, a second pair of stars orbits the planetary system.


The research paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal is scheduled to be presented today at the annual meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in Reno, Nev.


To read more about the discovery, visit: http://blog.planethunters.org/2012/10/15/ph1-a-planet-in-a-four-star-system/.


NASA's Ames Research Center manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission's development.


Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with 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 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.


For information about the Kepler Mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html.

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov



2012-324
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A Long and Winding Road: Cassini Celebrates 15 Years

A Long and Winding Road: Cassini Celebrates 15 Years:

This illustrated timeline features milestones in the journey of NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Scroll up to launch Cassini's voyage.
This illustrated timeline features milestones in the journey of NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Scroll up to launch Cassini's voyage. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

› Larger view


October 15, 2012

Today, NASA's Cassini spacecraft celebrates 15 years of uninterrupted drive time, earning it a place among the ultimate interplanetary road warriors.


Since launching on Oct. 15, 1997, the spacecraft has logged more than 3.8 billion miles (6.1 billion kilometers) of exploration - enough to circle Earth more than 152,000 times. After flying by Venus twice, Earth, and then Jupiter on its way to Saturn, Cassini pulled into orbit around the ringed planet in 2004 and has been spending its last eight years weaving around Saturn, its glittering rings and intriguing moons.


And, lest it be accused of refusing to write home, Cassini has sent back some 444 gigabytes of scientific data so far, including more than 300,000 images. More than 2,500 reports have been published in scientific journals based on Cassini data, describing the discovery of the plume of water ice and organic particles spewing from the moon Enceladus; the first views of the hydrocarbon-filled lakes of Saturn's largest moon Titan; the atmospheric upheaval from a rare, monstrous storm on Saturn and many other curious phenomena.


"As Cassini conducts the most in-depth survey of a giant planet to date, the spacecraft has been flying the most complex gravity-assisted trajectory ever attempted," said Robert Mitchell, Cassini program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Each flyby of Titan, for example, is like threading the eye of the needle. And we've done it 87 times so far, with accuracies generally within about one mile [1.6 kilometers], and all controlled from Earth about one billion miles [1.5 billion kilometers] away."


The complexity comes in part from the spacecraft lining up visits to more than a dozen of Saturn's 60-plus moons and sometimes swinging up to get views of poles of the planet and moons. Cassini then works its way back to orbiting around Saturn's equator, while staying on track to hit its next targeted flyby. The turn-by-turn directions that mission planners write also have to factor in the gravitational influences of the moons and a limited fuel supply.


"I'm proud to say Cassini has accomplished all of this every year on-budget, with relatively few health issues," Mitchell said. "Cassini is entering middle age, with the associated signs of the passage of years, but it's doing remarkably well and doesn't require any major surgery."


The smooth, white paint of the high-gain antenna probably now feels rough to the touch, and some of the blankets around the body of the spacecraft are probably pitted with tiny holes from micrometeoroids. But Cassini still retains redundancy on its critical engineering systems, and the team expects it to return millions more bytes of scientific data as it continues to sniff, taste, watch and listen to the Saturn system.


And that's a good thing, because Cassini still has a daring, unique mission ahead of it. Spring has only recently begun to creep over the northern hemisphere of Saturn and its moons, so scientists are only beginning to understand the change wrought by the turning of the seasons. No other spacecraft has been able to observe such a transformation at a giant planet.


Starting in November 2016, Cassini will begin a series of orbits that wind it ever closer to Saturn. Those orbits kick off just outside Saturn's F ring, the outermost of the main rings. Then in April 2017, one final close encounter with Titan will put Cassini on a trajectory that will pass by Saturn inside its innermost ring, a whisper away from the top of Saturn's atmosphere. After 22 such close passes, the gravitational perturbation from one final distant Titan encounter will bring Cassini ever closer. On Sept. 15, 2017, after entry into Saturn's atmosphere, the spacecraft will be crushed and vaporized by the pressure and temperature of Saturn's final embrace to protect worlds like Enceladus and Titan, with liquid water oceans under their icy crusts that might harbor conditions for life.


"Cassini has many more miles to go before it sleeps, and many more questions that we scientists want answered," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL. "In fact, its last orbits may be the most thrilling of all, because we'll be able to find out what it's like close in to the planet, with data that cannot be gathered any other way."


A new illustrated timeline of Cassin's 15 years of exploration is available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageId=4646.


The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
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Jupiter: Turmoil from Below, Battering from Above

Jupiter: Turmoil from Below, Battering from Above:

Global Upheaval at Jupiter
Images in the visible-light and infrared parts of the spectrum highlight the massive changes roiling the atmosphere of Jupiter. Image credit: NASA/IRTF/JPL-Caltech/NAOJ/A. Wesley/A. Kazemoto/C. Go
› Full image and caption


October 17, 2012

Jupiter, the mythical god of sky and thunder, would certainly be pleased at all the changes afoot at his namesake planet. As the planet gets peppered continually with small space rocks, wide belts of the atmosphere are changing color, hotspots are vanishing and reappearing, and clouds are gathering over one part of Jupiter, while dissipating over another. The results were presented today by Glenn Orton, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., at the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting in Reno, Nev.


"The changes we're seeing in Jupiter are global in scale," Orton said. "We've seen some of these before, but never with modern instrumentation to clue us in on what's going on. Other changes haven't been seen in decades, and some regions have never been in the state they're appearing in now. At the same time, we've never seen so many things striking Jupiter. Right now, we're trying to figure out why this is all happening."


Orton and colleagues Leigh Fletcher of the University of Oxford, England; Padma Yanamandra-Fisher of the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.; Thomas Greathouse of Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio; and Takuya Fujiyoshi of the Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Hilo, Hawaii, have been taking images and maps of Jupiter at infrared wavelengths from 2009 to 2012 and comparing them with high-quality visible images from the increasingly active amateur astronomy community. Following the fading and return of a prominent brown-colored belt just south of the equator, called the South Equatorial Belt, from 2009 to 2011, the team studied a similar fading and darkening that occurred at a band just north of the equator, known as the North Equatorial Belt. This belt grew whiter in 2011 to an extent not seen in more than a century. In March of this year, that northern band started to darken again.


The team obtained new data from NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea that matched up that activity with infrared observations. Those data showed a simultaneous thickening of the deeper cloud decks, but not necessarily the upper cloud deck, unlike the South Equatorial Belt, where both levels of clouds thickened and then cleared up. The infrared data also resolved brown, elongated features in the whitened area called "brown barges" as distinct features and revealed them to be regions clearer of clouds and probably characterized by downwelling, dry air.


The team was also looking out for a series of blue-gray features along the southern edge of the North Equatorial Belt. Those features appear to be the clearest and driest regions on the planet and show up as apparent hotspots in the infrared view, because they reveal the radiation emerging from a very deep layer of Jupiter's atmosphere. (NASA's Galileo spacecraft sent a probe into one of these hotspots in 1995.) Those hotspots disappeared from 2010 to 2011, but had reestablished themselves by June of this year, coincident with the whitening and re-darkening of the North Equatorial Belt.


While Jupiter's own atmosphere has been churning through change, a number of objects have hurtled into Jupiter's atmosphere, creating fireballs visible to amateur Jupiter watchers on Earth. Three of these objects - probably less than 45 feet (15 meters) in diameter - have been observed since 2010. The latest of these hit Jupiter on Sept. 10, 2012, although Orton and colleagues' infrared investigations of these events showed this one did not cause lasting changes in the atmosphere, unlike those in 1994 or 2009.


"It does appear that Jupiter is taking an unusual beating over the last few years, but we expect that this apparent increase has more to do with an increasing cadre of skilled amateur astronomers training their telescopes on Jupiter and helping scientists keep a closer eye on our biggest planet," Orton said. "It is precisely this coordination between the amateur-astronomy community that we want to foster."


The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, operates the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA.

Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jccook@jpl.nasa.gov


2012-328
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NASA's NuSTAR Spots Flare From Milky Way's Black Hole

NASA's NuSTAR Spots Flare From Milky Way's Black Hole:

Pointing X-ray Eyes at our Resident Supermassive Black Hole
NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has captured these first, focused views of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy in high-energy X-ray light. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption

October 23, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's newest set of X-ray eyes in the sky, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), has caught its first look at the giant black hole parked at the center of our galaxy. The observations show the typically mild-mannered black hole during the middle of a flare-up.


"We got lucky to have captured an outburst from the black hole during our observing campaign," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. "These data will help us better understand the gentle giant at the heart of our galaxy and why it sometimes flares up for a few hours and then returns to slumber."


The new images can be seen by visiting: http://www.nasa.gov/nustar .


NuSTAR, launched June 13, is the only telescope capable of producing focused images of the highest-energy X-rays. For two days in July, the telescope teamed up with other observatories to observe Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star and abbreviated Sgr A*), the name astronomers give to a compact radio source at the center of the Milky Way. Observations show a massive black hole lies at this location. Participating telescopes included NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which sees lower-energy X-ray light; and the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which took infrared images.


Compared to giant black holes at the centers of other galaxies, Sgr A* is relatively quiet. Active black holes tend to gobble up stars and other fuel around them. Sgr A* is thought only to nibble or not eat at all, a process that is not fully understood. When black holes consume fuel -- whether a star, a gas cloud or, as recent Chandra observations have suggested, even an asteroid -- they erupt with extra energy.


In the case of NuSTAR, its state-of-the-art telescope is picking up X-rays emitted by consumed matter being heated up to about 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million degrees Celsius) and originating from regions where particles are boosted very close to the speed of light. Astronomers say these NuSTAR data, when combined with the simultaneous observations taken at other wavelengths, will help them better understand the physics of how black holes snack and grow in size.


"Astronomers have long speculated that the black hole's snacking should produce copious hard X-rays, but NuSTAR is the first telescope with sufficient sensitivity to actually detect them," said NuSTAR team member Chuck Hailey of Columbia University in New York City.


NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., built the spacecraft. Its instrument was built by a consortium including Caltech; JPL; the University of California (UC) Berkeley; Columbia University; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.; and ATK Aerospace Systems of Goleta, Calif.


NuSTAR's mission operations center is at UC Berkeley, with the Italian Space Agency providing an equatorial ground station located at Malindi, Kenya. The mission's outreach program is based at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif. Goddard manages NASA's Explorer Program. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.


For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov .

Alan Buis 818-354-0474

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov


J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241

NASA Headquarters, Washington

j.d.harrington@nasa.gov


2012-333
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NASA's Spitzer Sees Light of Lonesome Stars

NASA's Spitzer Sees Light of Lonesome Stars:

Spitzer Sees Stray Starlight (Artist's Concept)
New research from scientists using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggests that a mysterious infrared glow across our whole sky is coming from stray stars torn from galaxies. When galaxies grow, they merge and become gravitationally tangled in a violent process that results in streams of stars being ripped away from the galaxies. Such streams, called tidal tails, can be seen in this artist's concept. Scientists say that Spitzer is picking up the collective glow of stars such as these, which linger in the spaces between galaxies. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UC Irvine
› Full image and caption

October 24, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. - A new study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggests a cause for the mysterious glow of infrared light seen across the entire sky. It comes from isolated stars beyond the edges of galaxies. These stars are thought to have once belonged to the galaxies before violent galaxy mergers stripped them away into the relatively empty space outside of their former homes.


"The infrared background glow in our sky has been a huge mystery," said Asantha Cooray of the University of California at Irvine, lead author of the new research published in the journal Nature. "We have new evidence this light is from the stars that linger between galaxies. Individually, the stars are too faint to be seen, but we think we are seeing their collective glow."


The findings disagree with another theory explaining the same background infrared light observed by Spitzer. A group led by Alexander "Sasha" Kashlinsky of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., proposed in June this light, which appears in Spitzer images as a blotchy pattern, is coming from the very first stars and galaxies.


In the new study, Cooray and colleagues looked at data from a larger portion of the sky, called the Bootes field, covering an arc equivalent to 50 full Earth moons. These observations were not as sensitive as those from the Kashlinsky group's studies, but the larger scale allowed researchers to analyze better the pattern of the background infrared light.


"We looked at the Bootes field with Spitzer for 250 hours," said co-author Daniel Stern of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Studying the faint infrared background was one of the core goals of our survey, and we carefully designed the observations in order to directly address the important, challenging question of what causes the background glow."


The team concluded the light pattern of the infrared glow is not consistent with theories and computer simulations of the first stars and galaxies. Researchers say the glow is too bright to be from the first galaxies, which are thought not to have been as large or as numerous as the galaxies we see around us today. Instead, the scientists propose a new theory to explain the blotchy light, based on theories of "intracluster" or "intrahalo" starlight.


Theories predict a diffuse smattering of stars beyond the halos, or outer reaches, of galaxies, and in the spaces between clusters of galaxies. The presence of these stars can be attributed to two phenomena. Early in the history of our universe as galaxies grew in size, they collided with other galaxies and gained mass. As the colliding galaxies became tangled gravitationally, strips of stars were shredded and tossed into space. Galaxies also grow by swallowing smaller dwarf galaxies, a messy process that also results in stray stars.


"A light bulb went off when reading some research papers predicting the existence of diffuse stars," Cooray said. "They could explain what we are seeing with Spitzer."


More research is needed to confirm this sprinkling of stars makes up a significant fraction of the background infrared light. For instance, it would be necessary to find a similar pattern in follow-up observations in visible light. NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) might finally settle the matter for good.


"The keen infrared vision of the James Webb Telescope will be able to see some of the earliest stars and galaxies directly, as well as the stray stars lurking between the outskirts of nearby galaxies," said Eric Smith, JWST's deputy program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The mystery objects making up the background infrared light may finally be exposed."


Other authors include Joseph Smidt, Francesco De Bernardis, Yan Gong and Christopher C. Frazer of UC Irvine; Matthew L. N. Ashby of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass; Peter R. Eisenhardt of JPL; Anthony H. Gonzalez of the University of Florida in Gainesville; Christopher S. Kochanek of Ohio State University in Columbus; Szymon Koz?owski of Ohio State and the Warsaw University Observatory in Poland; and Edward L. Wright of the University of California, Los Angeles.


JPL 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 .

Alan Buis 818-354-0474

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov


J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241

NASA Headquarters, Washington

j.d.harrington@nasa.gov


2012-334
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NASA's Cassini Sees Burp at Saturn After Large Storm

NASA's Cassini Sees Burp at Saturn After Large Storm:

These red, orange and green clouds (false color) in Saturn's northern hemisphere indicate the tail end of a massive storm
These red, orange and green clouds (false color) in Saturn's northern hemisphere indicate the tail end of a massive storm that started in December 2010. Even after visible signs of the storm started to fade, infrared measurements continued to reveal powerful effects at work in Saturn's stratosphere. Image credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
› Full image and caption

October 25, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft has tracked the aftermath of a rare massive storm on Saturn. Data reveal record-setting disturbances in the planet's upper atmosphere long after the visible signs of the storm abated, in addition to an indication the storm was more forceful than scientists previously thought.


Data from Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) instrument revealed the storm's powerful discharge sent the temperature in Saturn's stratosphere soaring 150 degrees Fahrenheit (83 kelvins) above normal. At the same time, researchers at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md., detected a huge increase in the amount of ethylene gas, the origin of which is a mystery. Ethylene, an odorless, colorless gas, isn't typically observed on Saturn. On Earth, it is created by natural and man-made sources.


Goddard scientists describe the unprecedented belch of energy in a paper to be published in the Nov. 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.


"This temperature spike is so extreme it's almost unbelievable, especially in this part of Saturn's atmosphere, which typically is very stable," said Brigette Hesman, the study's lead author and a University of Maryland scientist who works at Goddard. "To get a temperature change of the same scale on Earth, you'd be going from the depths of winter in Fairbanks, Alaska, to the height of summer in the Mojave Desert."


First detected by Cassini in Saturn's northern hemisphere on Dec. 5, 2010, the storm grew so large that an equivalent storm on Earth would blanket most of North America from north to south and wrap around our planet many times. This type of giant disturbance on Saturn typically occurs every 30 Earth years, or once every Saturn year.


Not only was this the first storm of its kind to be studied by a spacecraft in orbit around the planet, but it was the first to be observed at thermal infrared wavelengths. Infrared data from CIRS allowed scientists to take the temperature of Saturn's atmosphere and to track phenomena that are invisible to the naked eye.


Temperature measurements by the composite infrared spectrometer, first published in May 2011, revealed two unusual beacons of warmer-than-normal air shining brightly in the stratosphere. These indicated a massive release of energy into the atmosphere. After the visible signs of the storm started to fade, the instrument's data revealed the two beacons had merged. The temperature of this combined air mass shot up to more than minus 64 degrees Fahrenheit (above 220 kelvins).


According to Hesman, the huge spike of ethylene generated at the same time peaked with 100 times more of the gas than scientists thought possible for Saturn. Goddard scientists confirmed the release of ethylene using the Celeste spectrometer mounted on the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona.


The team still is exploring the origin of the ethylene, but has ruled out a large reservoir deep in the atmosphere.

"We've really never been able to see ethylene on Saturn before, so this was a complete surprise," said Goddard's Michael Flasar, the CIRS team lead.


A complementary paper led by Cassini team associate Leigh Fletcher of Oxford University, England, describes how the two stratospheric beacons merged to become the largest and hottest stratospheric vortex ever detected in our solar system. Initially, it was larger than Jupiter's Great Red Spot.


Their paper in the journal Icarus, which combines CIRS data with additional infrared images from other Earth-based telescopes, including NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, also reports a powerful collar of clockwise winds -- encompassing a bizarre soup of gases -- around the vortex.


"These studies will give us new insight into some of the photochemical processes at work in the stratospheres of Saturn, other giants in our solar system, and beyond," said Scott Edgington, Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.


The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Hesman's work was funded in part by NASA's Planetary Astronomy Program in Washington. The CIRS instrument and Celeste spectrometer were built at Goddard. JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.


To read more about the Fletcher paper, visit: http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMLPIMFL8H_index_0.html.


For information about Cassini and this observation, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jccook@jpl.nasa.gov


Elizabeth Zubritsky/Nancy Neal-Jones 301-614-5438/301-286-0039

Goddard Space Flight, Center, Greenbelt, Md.

elizabeth.a.zubritsky@nasa.gov /nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov


Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726

NASA Headquarters, Washington

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov


2012-335
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Mars Longevity Champ Switching Computers

Mars Longevity Champ Switching Computers:

NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept.
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. Image credit: NASA/JPL

› Full image and caption


November 01, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, already the longest-working spacecraft ever sent to Mars, will switch to some fresh, redundant equipment next week that has not been used since before launch in 2001.


Like many spacecraft, this orbiter carries a pair of redundant main computers, so that a backup is available if one fails. Odyssey's "A-side" computer and "B-side" computer each have several other redundant subsystems linked to just that computer. The Odyssey team has decided to switch to the B-side computer to begin using the B-side's inertial measurement unit. This gyroscope-containing mechanism senses changes in the spacecraft's orientation, providing important information for control of pointing the antenna, solar arrays and instruments.


"We have been on the A side for more than 11 years. Everything on the A side still works, but the inertial measurement unit on that side has been showing signs of wearing out," said Odyssey Mission Manager Chris Potts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We will swap to the B side on Nov. 5 so that we still have some life available in reserve on the A side."


In many potential problem situations, the Odyssey's autonomous fault-protection response would switch the spacecraft from the active side to the other side. By preserving the capability of switching back to a fully functional A side, the mission continues to have the available protection of switching sides temporarily and correcting any fixable anomaly on the B side.


"The spare inertial measurement unit is factory new, last operated on the day before launch," Potts said.


Odyssey launched April 7, 2001, began orbiting Mars on Oct. 24 of that year, began systematic science observations of Mars in early 2002, and broke the previous record for longest-working Mars spacecraft in December 2010.


The side swap on Nov. 5 will intentionally put Odyssey into a reduced-activity status called "safe mode." As the team and the spacecraft verify all systems can operate well over the following several days, the orbiter will return to full operations, conducting its own science observations, as well as serving as a communications relay for NASA's active Mars rovers Opportunity and Curiosity.


The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which shares the data relay return responsibility for the rovers at Mars, will carry the full burden of relay support for both rovers -- Opportunity and Curiosity -- during Odyssey's side-swap period. There will be a reduction in the total amount of relay data returned from Mars. The rover teams will reduce the amount of data planned for downlinking until Odyssey returns to full capacity after the side swap is complete, and will maintain near-normal tactical operations in the interim.


Odyssey's longevity enables continued science, including the monitoring of seasonal changes on Mars from year to year, and continued communication-relay service.


Odyssey is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. JPL and Lockheed Martin collaborate on operating the spacecraft. For more about the Mars Odyssey mission, visit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
November 1, 2012
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov


2012-347
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Scientists Monitor Comet Breakup

Scientists Monitor Comet Breakup:

Comet 168P-Hergenrother was imaged by the NOAO/Gemini telescope on Nov. 2, 2011 at about 6 a.m. UTC.
Comet 168P-Hergenrother was imaged by the NOAO/Gemini telescope on Nov. 2, 2011 at about 6 a.m. UTC. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NOAO/Gemini

› Full image


November 02, 2012

The Hergenrother comet is currently traversing the inner-solar system. Amateur and professional astronomers alike have been following the icy-dirt ball over the past several weeks as it has been generating a series of impressive outbursts of cometary-dust material. Now comes word that the comet's nucleus has taken the next step in its relationship with Mother Nature.


"Comet Hergenrother is splitting apart," said Rachel Stevenson, a post-doctoral fellow working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Using the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Gemini North Telescope on top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, we have resolved that the nucleus of the comet has separated into at least four distinct pieces resulting in a large increase in dust material in its coma."


With more material to reflect the sun's rays, the comet's coma has brightened considerably.


"The comet fragments are considerably fainter than the nucleus," said James Bauer, the deputy principal investigator for NASA's NEOWISE mission, from the California Institute of Technology. "This is suggestive of chunks of material being ejected from the surface."


The comet's fragmentation event was initially detected on Oct. 26 by a team of astronomers from the Remanzacco Observatory, using the Faulkes Telescope North in Haleakala, Hawaii. The initial fragment was also imaged by the WIYN telescope group at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.


For those interested in viewing Hergenrother, with a larger-sized telescope and a dark sky, the comet can be seen in between the constellations of Andromeda and Lacerta.


The orbit of comet 168P/Hergenrother comet is well understood. The comet, nor any of its fragments, are a threat to Earth.

DC Agle 818-393-9011

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

agle@jpl.nasa.gov


2012-349
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A Scroll Through Memory Lane With Cassini

A Scroll Through Memory Lane With Cassini:

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A new interactive timeline of NASA's Cassini mission at Saturn
A new interactive timeline features milestones in the journey of NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
› Launch interactive timeline


November 09, 2012

A new, interactive version of a timeline of NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn is now available online. The journey starts with launch on Oct. 15, 1997, and presents illustrated milestones and discoveries since then, including the finding of geysers on the moon Enceladus and lakes on the moon Titan. The timeline runs through the expected completion of the mission in 2017.


Experience Cassini here: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/interactive/missiontimeline.


Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

2012-353
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 12:45 PM 0 comments

NASA Study Examines Antarctic Sea Ice Increases

NASA Study Examines Antarctic Sea Ice Increases:

View of Sheldon Glacier with Mount Barre in the background
View of Sheldon Glacier with Mount Barre in the background, seen from Ryder Bay near Rothera Research Station, Adelaide Island, Antarctica. A new NASA/British Antarctic Survey study examines why Antarctic sea ice cover has increased under the effects of climate change over the past two decades.
› Full image and caption


November 12, 2012

NASA and British Antarctic Survey scientists have reported the first direct evidence that marked changes to Antarctic sea ice drift caused by changing winds are responsible for observed increases in Antarctic sea ice cover in the past two decades. The results help explain why, unlike the dramatic sea ice losses being reported in the Arctic, Antarctic sea ice cover has increased under the effects of climate change.


Research scientists Ron Kwok of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Paul Holland of the Natural Environment Research Council's British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom, used maps created by JPL from more than five million individual daily ice-motion measurements. The data, captured over a period of 19 years by four U.S. Defense Meteorological satellites, show, for the first time, long-term changes in sea ice drift around Antarctica.


"Until now, these changes in ice drift were only speculated upon, using computer models of Antarctic winds," said Holland, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature Geosciences. "This study of direct satellite observations shows the complexity of climate change. The total Antarctic sea ice cover is increasing slowly, but individual regions are actually experiencing much larger gains and losses that are almost offsetting each other overall.


"We now know that these regional changes are caused by changes in the winds, which, in turn, affect the ice cover through changes in both ice drift and air temperature," he continued. "The changes in ice drift also suggest large changes in the ocean surrounding Antarctica, which is very sensitive to the cold and salty water produced by sea ice growth."


Holland said sea ice around Antarctica is constantly being blown away from the continent by strong northward winds. "Since 1992, this ice drift has changed," he said. "In some areas, the export of ice away from Antarctica has doubled, while in others it has decreased significantly."


Sea ice plays a key role in Earth's environment, reflecting heat from the sun and providing a habitat for marine life. At both poles, sea ice cover is at its minimum during late summer. However, during the winter freeze in Antarctica, this ice cover expands to an area roughly twice the size of Europe. Ranging in thickness from less than three feet (a meter) to several meters, the ice insulates the warm ocean from the frigid atmosphere above.


This new research also helps explain why observed changes in the amount of sea ice cover are so different in the two polar regions. The Arctic has experienced dramatic ice losses in recent decades, while the overall ice extent in the Antarctic has increased slightly. However, this small Antarctic increase is actually the result of much larger regional increases and decreases, which are now shown to be caused by wind-driven changes. In places, increased northward winds have caused the sea ice cover to expand outwards from Antarctica. In contrast, the Arctic Ocean is surrounded by land, so changed winds cannot cause Arctic ice to expand in the same way.


"The Antarctic sea ice cover interacts with the global climate system very differently than that of the Arctic, and these results highlight the sensitivity of the Antarctic ice coverage to changes in the strength of the winds around the continent," said Kwok.


Climate change has had contrasting impacts across Antarctica in recent decades. The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed as much as anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere, while East Antarctica has shown little change or even a small cooling around the coast. The new research improves understanding of present and future climate change. The authors note it is important to distinguish between the Antarctic Ice Sheet - glacial ice - which is losing volume, and Antarctic sea ice - frozen seawater - which is expanding.


The research was funded by NASA and the Natural Environment Research Council.


For more information and supporting graphics, see the full British Antarctic Survey news release at: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=1967 .

Alan Buis 818-354-0474/Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov


Audrey Stevens 44-0-1223-221414 (office); 07736-921693 (cell)

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom

auev@bas.ac.uk


2012-355
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 12:45 PM 0 comments

Planck Spots Colossal Intergalactic Bridge

Planck Spots Colossal Intergalactic Bridge:

Bridging Cities of Galaxies
Planck has discovered a bridge of hot gas that connects galaxy clusters Abell 399 (lower center) and Abell 401 (top left). The galaxy pair is located about a billion light-years from Earth, and the gas bridge extends approximately 10 million light-years between them. Image credits: Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect: ESA Planck Collaboration; optical image: STScI Digitized Sky Survey
› Full image and caption


November 20, 2012

The Planck space telescope has made the first conclusive detection of a bridge of hot gas connecting a pair of galaxy clusters across 10 million light-years of intergalactic space.


"Planck is helping to reveal hidden material between galaxy clusters that we couldn't see clearly before," said James Bartlett of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a member of the U.S. Planck science team. Planck is a European Space Agency mission with significant participation from NASA.


The mission's primary task is to capture the most ancient light of the cosmos, the cosmic microwave background. As this faint light traverses the universe, it encounters different types of structure, including galaxies and galaxy clusters -- assemblies of hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity.


If the cosmic microwave background light interacts with the hot gas permeating these huge cosmic structures, its energy distribution is modified in a characteristic way, a phenomenon known as the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, after the scientists who discovered it.


Astronomers using Planck and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect were able to discover a bridge of hot gas connecting the clusters Abell 399 and Abell 401, each containing hundreds of galaxies.


The presence of hot gas between the clusters, which are billions of light years away, was first hinted at in X-ray data from ESA's XMM-Newton, and the new Planck data confirm the observation.


Read the full story from the European Space Agency at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Planck/SEMRT791M9H_0.html .


NASA's Planck Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for both of Planck's science instruments. European, Canadian and U.S. Planck scientists work together to analyze the Planck data. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/planck and http://www.esa.int/planck .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


2012-365
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 12:44 PM 0 comments

Cassini Finds a Video Gamers' Paradise at Saturn

Cassini Finds a Video Gamers' Paradise at Saturn:

Pac-Man-like features on Saturn's moons Tethys and Mimas
Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have spotted two features shaped like the 1980s video game icon "Pac-Man" on moons of Saturn. One was observed on the moon Mimas in 2010 and the latest was observed on the moon Tethys. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/SWRI

› Full image and caption


November 26, 2012

You could call this "Pac-Man, the Sequel." Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have spotted a second feature shaped like the 1980s video game icon in the Saturn system, this time on the moon Tethys. (The first was found on Mimas in 2010). The pattern appears in thermal data obtained by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer, with warmer areas making up the Pac-Man shape.


"Finding a second Pac-Man in the Saturn system tells us that the processes creating these Pac-Men are more widespread than previously thought," said Carly Howett, the lead author of a paper recently released online in the journal Icarus. "The Saturn system - and even the Jupiter system - could turn out to be a veritable arcade of these characters."


Scientists theorize that the Pac-Man thermal shape on the Saturnian moons occurs because of the way high-energy electrons bombard low latitudes on the side of the moon that faces forward as it orbits around Saturn. The bombardment turns that part of the fluffy surface into hard-packed ice. As a result, the altered surface does not heat as rapidly in the sunshine or cool down as quickly at night as the rest of the surface, similar to how a boardwalk at the beach feels cooler during the day but warmer at night than the nearby sand. Finding another Pac-Man on Tethys confirms that high-energy electrons can dramatically alter the surface of an icy moon. Also, because the altered region on Tethys, unlike on Mimas, is also bombarded by icy particles from Enceladus' plumes, it implies the surface alteration is occurring more quickly than its recoating by plume particles.


"Studies at infrared wavelengths give us a tremendous amount of information about the processes that shape planets and moons," said Mike Flasar, the spectrometer's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "A result like this underscores just how powerful these observations are."


Scientists saw the new Pac-Man on Tethys in data obtained on Sept. 14, 2011, where daytime temperatures inside the mouth of Pac-Man were seen to be cooler than their surroundings by 29 degrees Fahrenheit (15 kelvins). The warmest temperature recorded was a chilly minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit (90 kelvins), which is actually slightly cooler than the warmest temperature at Mimas (about minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit, or 95 kelvins). At Tethys, unlike Mimas, the Pac-Man pattern can also be seen subtly in visible-light images of the surface, as a dark lens-shaped region. This brightness variation was first noticed by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in 1980.


"Finding a new Pac-Man demonstrates the diversity of processes at work in the Saturn system," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Future Cassini observations may reveal other new phenomena that will surprise us and help us better understand the evolution of moons in the Saturn system and beyond."


The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where the instrument was built.


More information about the Cassini-Huygens mission is at: 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

Elizabeth Zubritsky 301-614-5438

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

elizabeth.a.zubritsky@nasa.gov

2012-367
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 12:44 PM 0 comments

NASA to Host Dec. 3 Teleconference About Voyager Mission

NASA to Host Dec. 3 Teleconference About Voyager Mission:

Artist's concept of NASA's Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Artist's concept of NASA's Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

› Full image and caption


November 29, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) on Monday, Dec. 3, to discuss the latest findings and travels of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft.


Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, have been speeding through the outer reaches of our solar system and sending back unprecedented data about the bubble of charged particles around our sun. They were launched in 1977 and have traveled farther from Earth than any other spacecraft.


Audio and visuals of the event will be streamed live online at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .


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

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

2012-379b
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 12:43 PM 0 comments

NASA hosts Dec. 13 Telecon on Twin Probes' Mission-Ending Moon Impact

NASA hosts Dec. 13 Telecon on Twin Probes' Mission-Ending Moon Impact:

Artist concept of GRAIL mission. Grail will fly twin spacecraft in tandem orbits around the moon to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail.
Artist concept of GRAIL mission. Grail will fly twin spacecraft in tandem orbits around the moon to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail. Image credit: NASA/JPL

› Larger image


December 10, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 10:30 a.m. PST (1:30 p.m. EST) Thursday, Dec. 13, to provide an overview of events leading up to twin spacecraft being commanded to impact the moon's surface on Dec. 17 at approximately 2:28 p.m. PST (5:28 p.m. EST).


NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, whose two washing machine-sized probes were named Ebb and Flow by elementary school students in Bozeman, Mont., via a nationwide contest, have successfully completed their prime missions and have only days to go on their extended mission science collection. As planned, the duo is running low on fuel. They have been orbiting the moon since New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, respectively, giving scientists unprecedented detail about the moon's internal structure and composition.


Visuals will be available at the start of the event at: http://bit.ly/grail20121213 .


Audio and visuals of the event will be streamed live online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio and http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

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

DC Agle 818-393-9011

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

agle@jpl.nasa.gov


Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726

NASA Headquarters, Washington

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov


2012-391b
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 12:42 PM 0 comments

Shot Away from its Companion, Giant Star Makes Waves

Shot Away from its Companion, Giant Star Makes Waves:

Massive Star Makes Waves
The giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is having a "shocking" effect on the surrounding dust clouds in this infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Stellar winds flowing out from this fast-moving star are making ripples in the dust as it approaches, creating a bow shock seen as glowing gossamer threads, which, for this star, are only seen in infrared light. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption


December 18, 2012

Like a ship plowing through still waters, the giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is speeding through space, making waves in the dust ahead. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a dramatic, infrared portrait of these glowing waves, also known as a bow shock.


Astronomers theorize that this star was once sitting pretty next to a companion star even heftier than itself. But when that star exploded, Zeta Ophiuchi was kicked away and sent flying. Zeta Ophiuchi, which is 20 times more massive and 80,000 times brighter than our sun, is racing along at about 54,000 mph (24 kilometers per second).


In this view, infrared light that we can't see with our eyes has been assigned visible colors. Zeta Ophiuchi appears as the bright blue star at center. As it charges through the dust, which appears green, fierce stellar winds push the material into waves. Where the waves are the most compressed, and the warmest, they appear red. This bow shock is analogous to the ripples that precede the bow of a ship as it moves through the water, or the pileup of air ahead of a supersonic airplane that results in a sonic boom.


NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, released a similar picture of the same object in 2011. WISE sees infrared light as does Spitzer, but WISE was an all-sky survey designed to take snapshots of the entire sky. Spitzer, by contrast, observes less of the sky, but in more detail. The WISE image can be seen at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2011-026 .


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 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 .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


2013-403
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 12:40 PM 0 comments

From Cassini for the Holidays: A Splendor Seldom Seen

From Cassini for the Holidays: A Splendor Seldom Seen:

A Splendor Seldom Seen
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has delivered a glorious view of Saturn, taken while the spacecraft was in Saturn's shadow. The cameras were turned toward Saturn and the sun so that the planet and rings are backlit. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
› Full image and caption


December 18, 2012

PASADENA, Calif -- Just in time for the holidays, NASA's Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn for more than eight years now, has delivered another glorious, backlit view of the planet Saturn and its rings.


On Oct. 17, 2012, during its 174th orbit around the gas giant, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn's shadow, a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the sun and take a backlit view of the rings and the dark side of the planet. Looking back towards the sun is a geometry referred to by planetary scientists as "high solar phase;" near the center of your target's shadow is the highest phase possible. This is a very scientifically advantageous and coveted viewing position, as it can reveal details about both the rings and atmosphere that cannot be seen in lower solar phase.


The last time Cassini had such an unusual perspective on Saturn and its rings, at sufficient distance and with sufficient time to make a full system mosaic, occurred in September 2006, when it captured a mosaic, processed to look like natural color, entitled "In Saturn's Shadow" (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA08329). In that mosaic, planet Earth put in a special appearance, making "In Saturn's Shadow" one of the most popular Cassini images to date.


The mosaic being released today by the mission and the imaging team, in celebration of the 2012 holiday season, does not contain Earth; along with the sun, our planet is hidden behind Saturn. However, it was taken when Cassini was closer to Saturn and therefore shows more detail in the rings than the one taken in 2006.


The new processed mosaic, composed of 60 images taken in the violet, visible and near infrared part of the spectrum, can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://ciclops.org .


"Of all the many glorious images we have received from Saturn, none are more strikingly unusual than those taken from Saturn's shadow," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini's imaging team lead based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.


The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the U.S., England, France and Germany. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jccook@jpl.nasa.gov


Steve Mullins 720-974-5859

Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

media@ciclops.org


2012-402
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 12:40 PM 0 comments

One Million Downloads for JPL Space Images App

One Million Downloads for JPL Space Images App:

1 Million Downloads Caption text
NASA/JPL's popular mobile app continues to amass many exciting images including the Mars Curiosity Rover, dying stars, moons of Saturn and giant asteroids. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Larger image


December 20, 2012

Space Images, the mobile image application from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that puts visuals direct from space missions at users' fingertips, has reached 1 million downloads.


Just this year the app amassed a cadre of exciting images from many of the laboratory's missions including the Mars Curiosity rover, which made a dramatic landing on Mars in August and has sent back many novel views of the Red Planet.
Vibrant explosions from dying stars, the elegant choreography of Saturn's moons, and the scarred and cratered surface of a giant asteroid are just a few of the other scenes users can discover by downloading the app.


Chosen as a Staff Favorite in the Apple App Store shortly after its release in 2010, Space Images is now in Version 2, featuring videos and 3-D image collections and more extensive sharing options. The app is available free on both Android and Apple devices as well as online on the Space Images website at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/.


Visit http://bit.ly/Ym9ir1 to download Space Images for Apple devices and http://bit.ly/T85EfG for Android devices. Explore more mobile offerings from JPL at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/apps.

Elena Mejia 818-393-5467

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Elena.Mejia@jpl.nasa.gov

2012-407
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 12:40 PM 0 comments
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