Saturday, August 2, 2014

Planck Mission Peels Back Layers of the Universe

Planck Mission Peels Back Layers of the Universe:

Clumps of Cold Stuff Across the Sky
This map illustrates the numerous star-forming clouds, called cold cores, that Planck observed throughout our Milky Way galaxy. Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption



January 11, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. -- The Planck mission released a new data catalogue Tuesday from initial maps of the entire sky. The catalogue includes thousands of never-before-seen dusty cocoons where stars are forming, and some of the most massive clusters of galaxies ever observed. Planck is a European Space Agency mission with significant contributions from NASA.


"NASA is pleased to support this important mission, and we have eagerly awaited Planck's first discoveries," said Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "We look forward to continued collaboration with ESA and more outstanding science to come."


Planck launched in May 2009 on a mission to detect light from just a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, an explosive event at the dawn of the universe approximately 13.7 billion years ago. The spacecraft's state-of-the-art detectors ultimately will survey the whole sky at least four times, measuring the cosmic microwave background, or radiation left over from the Big Bang. The data will help scientists decipher clues about the evolution, fate and fabric of our universe. While these cosmology results won't be ready for another two years or so, early observations of specific objects in our Milky Way galaxy, as well as more distant galaxies, are being released.


 "The data we're releasing now are from what lies between us and the cosmic microwave background," said Charles Lawrence, the U.S. project scientist for Planck at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. We ultimately will subtract these data out to get at our cosmic microwave background signal. But by themselves, these early observations offer up new information about objects in our universe -- both close and far away, and everything in between."


Planck observes the sky at nine wavelengths of light, ranging from infrared to radio waves. Its technology has greatly improved sensitivity and resolution over its predecessor missions, NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer and Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.


The result is a windfall of data on known and never-before-seen cosmic objects. Planck has catalogued approximately 10,000 star-forming "cold cores," thousands of which are newly discovered. The cores are dark and dusty nurseries where baby stars are just beginning to take shape. They also are some of the coldest places in the universe. Planck's new catalogue includes some of the coldest cores ever seen, with temperatures as low as seven degrees above absolute zero, or minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit. In order to see the coldest gas and dust in the Milky Way, Planck's detectors were chilled to only 0.1 Kelvin.


The new catalogue also contains some of the most massive clusters of galaxies known, including a handful of newfound ones. The most massive of these holds the equivalent of a million billion suns worth of mass, making it one of the most massive galaxy clusters known.


Galaxies in our universe are bound together into these larger clusters, forming a lumpy network across the cosmos. Scientists study the clusters to learn more about the evolution of galaxies and dark matter and dark energy -- the exotic substances that constitute the majority of our universe.


"Because Planck is observing the whole sky, it is giving us a comprehensive look at how all the smaller structures of the universe are connected to the whole," said Jim Bartlett, a U.S. Planck team member at JPL and the Astroparticule et Cosmologie-Universite Paris Diderot in France.




Planck's new catalogue also includes unique data on the pools of hot gas that permeate 189 massive clusters of galaxies; 15,000 objects within and outside our galaxy, in addition to the 10,000 cold cores; the best data yet on the cosmic infrared background, which is made up of light from stars evolving in the early universe; and new observations of extremely energetic galaxies spewing radio jets. The catalogue covers about one-and-a-half sky scans.





More information on Planck is online at http://www.nasa.gov/planck and http://www.esa.int/planck . The NASA Planck data archive is at http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/Missions/planck.htmlhttp://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/Missions/planck.html .


Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA. 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 will work together to analyze the Planck data. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.





Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321

Headquarters, Washington

trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov



2011-010 
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:43 AM 0 comments

Cosmology Standard Candle not so Standard After All

Cosmology Standard Candle not so Standard After All:

Standard Candle in the Wind
This image layout illustrates how NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope was able to show that a "standard candle" used to measure cosmological distances is shrinking -- a finding that affects precise measurements of the age, size and expansion rate of our universe. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Iowa State
› Full image and caption


January 12, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers have turned up the first direct proof that "standard candles" used to illuminate the size of the universe, termed Cepheids, shrink in mass, making them not quite as standard as once thought. The findings, made with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, will help astronomers make even more precise measurements of the size, age and expansion rate of our universe.


Standard candles are astronomical objects that make up the rungs of the so-called cosmic distance ladder, a tool for measuring the distances to farther and farther galaxies. The ladder's first rung consists of pulsating stars called Cepheid variables, or Cepheids for short. Measurements of the distances to these stars from Earth are critical in making precise measurements of even more distant objects. Each rung on the ladder depends on the previous one, so without accurate Cepheid measurements, the whole cosmic distance ladder would come unhinged.


Now, new observations from Spitzer show that keeping this ladder secure requires even more careful attention to Cepheids. The telescope's infrared observations of one particular Cepheid provide the first direct evidence that these stars can lose mass-or essentially shrink. This could affect measurements of their distances.


"We have shown that these particular standard candles are slowly consumed by their wind," said Massimo Marengo of Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, lead author of a recent study on the discovery appearing in the Astronomical Journal. "When using Cepheids as standard candles, we must be extra careful because, much like actual candles, they are consumed as they burn."


The star in the study is Delta Cephei, which is the namesake for the entire class of Cepheids. It was discovered in 1784 in the constellation Cepheus, or the King. Intermediate-mass stars can become Cepheids when they are middle-aged, pulsing with a regular beat that is related to how bright they are. This unique trait allows astronomers to take the pulse of a Cepheid and figure out how bright it is intrinsically-or how bright it would be if you were right next to it. By measuring how bright the star appears in the sky, and comparing this to its intrinsic brightness, it can then be determined how far away it must be.


This calculation was famously performed by astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1924, leading to the revelation that our galaxy is just one of many in a vast cosmic sea. Cepheids also helped in the discovery that our universe is expanding and galaxies are drifting apart.


Cepheids have since become reliable rungs on the cosmic distance ladder, but mysteries about these standard candles remain. One question has been whether or not they lose mass. Winds from a Cepheid star could blow off significant amounts of gas and dust, forming a dusty cocoon around the star that would affect how bright it appears. This, in turn, would affect calculations of its distance. Previous research had hinted at such mass loss, but more direct evidence was needed.


Marengo and his colleague used Spitzer's infrared vision to study the dust around Delta Cephei. This particular star is racing along through space at high speeds, pushing interstellar gas and dust into a bow shock up ahead. Luckily for the scientists, a nearby companion star happens to be lighting the area, making the bow shock easier to see. By studying the size and structure of the shock, the team was able to show that a strong, massive wind from the star is pushing against the interstellar gas and dust. In addition, the team calculated that this wind is up to one million times stronger than the wind blown by our sun. This proves that Delta Cephei is shrinking slightly.



Follow-up observations of other Cepheids conducted by the same team using Spitzer have shown that other Cepheids, up to 25 percent observed, are also losing mass.


"Everything crumbles in cosmology studies if you don't start up with the most precise measurements of Cepheids possible," said Pauline Barmby of the University of Western Ontario, Canada, lead author of the follow-up Cepheid study published online Jan. 6 in the Astronomical Journal. "This discovery will allow us to better understand these stars, and use them as ever more precise distance indicators."


Other authors of this study include N. R. Evans and G.G. Fazio of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.; L.D. Matthews of Harvard-Smithsonian and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory, Westford; G. Bono of the Università di Roma Tor Vergata and the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma in Rome, Italy; D.L. Welch of the McMaster University, Ontario, Canada; M. Romaniello of the European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany; D. Huelsman of Harvard-Smithsonian and University of Cincinnati, Ohio; and K. Y. L. Su of the University of Arizona, Tucson.


The Spitzer observations were made before it ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009 and began its warm mission.


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, also in Pasadena. 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


2011-012
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:43 AM 0 comments

Earth-Size Planet Candidates Found in Habitable Zone

Earth-Size Planet Candidates Found in Habitable Zone:

Kepler-11 Planetary System
This artist's concept shows Kepler-11 -- the most tightly packed planetary system yet discovered. Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech › Full image and caption


February 02, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun.

Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets. Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system.

"In one generation we have gone from extraterrestrial planets being a mainstay of science fiction, to the present, where Kepler has helped turn science fiction into today's reality," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "These discoveries underscore the importance of NASA's science missions, which consistently increase understanding of our place in the cosmos."

The discoveries are part of several hundred new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released on Tuesday, Feb. 1. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size; 288 are super-Earth-size; 662 are Neptune-size; 165 are the size of Jupiter and 19 are larger than Jupiter. Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from super-Earth size -- up to twice the size of Earth -- to larger than Jupiter.

The findings are based on the results of observations conducted May 12 to Sept. 17, 2009, of more than 156,000 stars in Kepler's field of view, which covers approximately one four-hundredth of the sky.

"The fact that we've found so many planet candidates in such a tiny fraction of the sky suggests there are countless planets orbiting sun-like stars in our galaxy," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., the mission's science principal investigator. "We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone, some of which could have moons with liquid water."

Among the stars with planetary candidates, 170 show evidence of multiple planetary candidates. Kepler-11, located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth, is the most tightly packed planetary system yet discovered. All six of its confirmed planets have orbits smaller than Venus, and five of the six have orbits smaller than Mercury's. The only other star with more than one confirmed transiting planet is Kepler-9, which has three. The Kepler-11 findings will be published in the Feb. 3 issue of the journal Nature.

"Kepler-11 is a remarkable system whose architecture and dynamics provide clues about its formation," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist and Kepler science team member at Ames. "These six planets are mixtures of rock and gases, possibly including water. The rocky material accounts for most of the planets' mass, while the gas takes up most of their volume. By measuring the sizes and masses of the five inner planets, we determined they are among the lowest-mass confirmed planets beyond our solar system."

All of the planets orbiting Kepler-11 are larger than Earth, with the largest ones being comparable in size to Uranus and Neptune. The innermost planet, Kepler-11b, is 10 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. Moving outward, the other planets are Kepler-11c, Kepler-11d, Kepler-11e, Kepler-11f, and the outermost planet, Kepler-11g, which is half as far from its star as Earth is from the sun.

The planets Kepler-11d, Kepler-11e and Kepler-11f have a significant amount of light gas, which indicates that they formed within a few million years of the system's formation.

"The historic milestones Kepler makes with each new discovery will determine the course of every exoplanet mission to follow," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Kepler, a space telescope, looks for planet signatures by measuring tiny decreases in the brightness of stars caused by planets crossing in front of them. This is known as a transit. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is expected to take three years to locate and verify Earth-size planets orbiting sun-like stars.

The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planetary candidates and other objects of interest the spacecraft finds. The star field that Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets.

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 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. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.


For more information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler . More information about NASA's planet-hunting efforts is online at: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321

Headquarters, Washington

trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov


2011-036
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:41 AM 0 comments

Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars

Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars:

Artist's concept of a free-floating planet
This artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star. Astronomers recently uncovered evidence for 10 such lone worlds, thought to have been "booted," or ejected, from developing solar systems. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption | › See animation


May 18, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers, including a NASA-funded team member, have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds were probably ejected from developing planetary systems.


The discovery is based on a joint Japan-New Zealand survey that scanned the center of the Milky Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had gone undetected until now. The newfound planets are located at an average approximate distance of 10,000 to 20,000 light-years from Earth.


"Although free-floating planets have been predicted, they finally have been detected, holding major implications for planetary formation and evolution models," said Mario Perez, exoplanet program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.


The discovery indicates there are many more free-floating Jupiter-mass planets that can't be seen. The team estimates there are about twice as many of them as stars. In addition, these worlds are thought to be at least as common as planets that orbit stars. This would add up to hundreds of billions of lone planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.


"Our survey is like a population census," said David Bennett, a NASA and National Science Foundation-funded co-author of the study from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. "We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based on these data, can estimate overall numbers in the galaxy."


The study, led by Takahiro Sumi from Osaka University in Japan, appears in the May 19 issue of the journal Nature.


The survey is not sensitive to planets smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, but theories suggest lower-mass planets like Earth should be ejected from their stars more often. As a result, they are thought to be more common than free-floating Jupiters.


Previous observations spotted a handful of free-floating, planet-like objects within star-forming clusters, with masses three times that of Jupiter. But scientists suspect the gaseous bodies form more like stars than planets. These small, dim orbs, called brown dwarfs, grow from collapsing balls of gas and dust, but lack the mass to ignite their nuclear fuel and shine with starlight. It is thought the smallest brown dwarfs are approximately the size of large planets.


On the other hand, it is likely that some planets are ejected from their early, turbulent solar systems, due to close gravitational encounters with other planets or stars. Without a star to circle, these planets would move through the galaxy as our sun and other stars do, in stable orbits around the galaxy's center. The discovery of 10 free-floating Jupiters supports the ejection scenario, though it's possible both mechanisms are at play.


"If free-floating planets formed like stars, then we would have expected to see only one or two of them in our survey instead of 10," Bennett said. "Our results suggest that planetary systems often become unstable, with planets being kicked out from their places of birth."


The observations cannot rule out the possibility that some of these planets may have very distant orbits around stars, but other research indicates Jupiter-mass planets in such distant orbits are rare.


The survey, the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA), is named in part after a giant wingless, extinct bird family from New Zealand called the moa. A 5.9-foot (1.8-meter) telescope at Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand is used to regularly scan the copious stars at the center of our galaxy for gravitational microlensing events. These occur when something, such as a star or planet, passes in front of another, more distant star. The passing body's gravity warps the light of the background star, causing it to magnify and brighten. Heftier passing bodies, like massive stars, will warp the light of the background star to a greater extent, resulting in brightening events that can last weeks. Small planet-size bodies will cause less of a distortion, and brighten a star for only a few days or less.


A second microlensing survey group, the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), contributed to this discovery using a 4.2-foot (1.3 meter) telescope in Chile. The OGLE group also observed many of the same events, and their observations independently confirmed the analysis of the MOA group.


NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,Calif., manages NASA's Exoplanet Exploration program office. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.


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



Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321

Headquarters,Washington
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov



2011-147
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:40 AM 0 comments

NASA Mission Suggests Sun and Planets Constructed Differently

NASA Mission Suggests Sun and Planets Constructed Differently:

Artist Rendering of the Genesis Spacecraft
Artist Rendering of the Genesis Spacecraft During Collection Phase of Mission. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech


› Larger view


June 23, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. - Researchers analyzing samples returned by NASA's 2004 Genesis mission have discovered that our sun and its inner planets may have formed differently than previously thought.


Data revealed differences between the sun and planets in oxygen and nitrogen, which are two of the most abundant elements in our solar system. Although the difference is slight, the implications could help determine how our solar system evolved.


"We found that Earth, the moon, as well as Martian and other meteorites which are samples of asteroids, have a lower concentration of the O-16 than does the sun," said Kevin McKeegan, a Genesis co-investigator from UCLA, and the lead author of one of two Science papers published this week. "The implication is that we did not form out of the same solar nebula materials that created the sun -- just how and why remains to be discovered."


The air on Earth contains three different kinds of oxygen atoms which are differentiated by the number of neutrons they contain. Nearly 100 percent of oxygen atoms in the solar system are composed of O-16, but there are also tiny amounts of more exotic oxygen isotopes called O-17 and O-18. Researchers studying the oxygen of Genesis samples found that the percentage of O-16 in the sun is slightly higher than on Earth or on other terrestrial planets. The other isotopes' percentages were slightly lower.


Another paper detailed differences between the sun and planets in the element nitrogen. Like oxygen, nitrogen has one isotope, N-14, that makes up nearly 100 percent of the atoms in the solar system, but there is also a tiny amount of N-15. Researchers studying the same samples saw that when compared to Earth's atmosphere, nitrogen in the sun and Jupiter has slightly more N-14, but 40 percent less N-15. Both the sun and Jupiter appear to have the same nitrogen composition. As is the case for oxygen, Earth and the rest of the inner solar system are very different in nitrogen.


"These findings show that all solar system objects including the terrestrial planets, meteorites and comets are anomalous compared to the initial composition of the nebula from which the solar system formed," said Bernard Marty, a Genesis co-investigator from Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques and the lead author of the other new Science paper. "Understanding the cause of such a heterogeneity will impact our view on the formation of the solar system."


Data were obtained from analysis of samples Genesis collected from the solar wind, or material ejected from the outer portion of the sun. This material can be thought of as a fossil of our nebula because the preponderance of scientific evidence suggests that the outer layer of our sun has not changed measurably for billions of years.


"The sun houses more than 99 percent of the material currently in our solar system, so it's a good idea to get to know it better," said Genesis Principal Investigator Don Burnett of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "While it was more challenging than expected, we have answered some important questions, and like all successful missions, generated plenty more."


Genesis launched in August 2000. The spacecraft traveled to Earth's L1 Lagrange Point about 1 million miles from Earth, where it remained for 886 days between 2001 and 2004, passively collecting solar-wind samples.


On Sept. 8, 2004, the spacecraft released a sample return capsule, which entered Earth's atmosphere. Although the capsule made a hard landing as a result of a failed parachute in the Utah Test and Training Range in Dugway, Utah, it marked NASA's first sample return since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972, and the first material collected beyond the moon. NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston curates the samples and supports analysis and sample allocation.


The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., managed the Genesis mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Genesis mission was part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operated the spacecraft. Analysis at the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, Nancy, France, was supported by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, Paris, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France.


For more information on the Genesis mission, visit: http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov .


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


2011-193
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:40 AM 0 comments

NASA Spacecraft to Enter Asteroid's Orbit on July 15

NASA Spacecraft to Enter Asteroid's Orbit on July 15:

Asteroid Vesta
NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of the giant asteroid Vesta with its framing camera on July 9, 2011. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
› Full image and caption


July 14, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. -- On July 15, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will begin a prolonged encounter with the asteroid Vesta, making the mission the first to enter orbit around a main-belt asteroid.


The main asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dawn will study Vesta for one year, and observations will help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system's history.


As the spacecraft approaches Vesta, surface details are coming into focus, as seen in a recent image taken from a distance of about 26,000 miles (41,000 kilometers). The image is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/dawn-image-070911.html .


Engineers expect the spacecraft to be captured into orbit at approximately 10 p.m. PDT Friday, July 15 (1 a.m. EDT Saturday, July 16). They expect to hear from the spacecraft and confirm that it performed as planned during a scheduled communications pass that starts at approximately 11:30 p.m. PDT on Saturday, July 16 (2:30 a.m. EDT Sunday, July 17). When Vesta captures Dawn into its orbit, engineers estimate there will be approximately 9,900 miles (16,000 kilometers) between them. At that point, the spacecraft and asteroid will be approximately 117 million miles (188 million kilometers) from Earth.


"It has taken nearly four years to get to this point," said Robert Mase, Dawn project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Our latest tests and check-outs show that Dawn is right on target and performing normally."


Engineers have been subtly shaping Dawn's trajectory for years to match Vesta's orbit around the sun. Unlike other missions, where dramatic propulsive burns put spacecraft into orbit around a planet, Dawn will ease up next to Vesta. Then the asteroid's gravity will capture the spacecraft into orbit. However, until Dawn nears Vesta and makes accurate measurements, the asteroid's mass and gravity will only be estimates. So the Dawn team will need a few days to refine the exact moment of orbit capture.


Launched in September 2007, Dawn will depart for its second destination, the dwarf planet Ceres, in July 2012. The spacecraft will be the first to orbit two solar system destinations beyond Earth.


Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are part of the mission team.


For a current image of Vesta and more information about the Dawn mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .You also can follow the mission on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/nasa_dawn .

Priscilla Vega/Jia-Rui Cook 626-298-3290/818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

priscilla.r.vega@jpl.nasa.gov / jccook@jpl.nasa.gov


Dwayne C. Brown 202-358-1726

NASA Headquarters, Washington

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov


2011-208
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:39 AM 0 comments

Spitzer Sees Spider Web of Stars

Spitzer Sees Spider Web of Stars:

Spider Web of Stars in IC 342
IC 342's dust structures show up vividly in red, in this infrared view from Spitzer. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption


July 20, 2011

Those aren't insects trapped in a spider's web -- they're stars in our own Milky Way galaxy, lying between us and another spiral galaxy called IC 342. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured this picture in infrared light, revealing the galaxy's bright patterns of dust.



At a distance of about 10 million light-years from Earth, IC 342 is relatively close by galaxy standards. However, our vantage point places it directly behind the disk of our own Milky Way. The intervening dust makes it difficult to see in visible light, but infrared light penetrates this veil easily. While stars in our own galaxy appear as blue/white dots, the blue haze is from IC 342's collective starlight. Red shows the dust structures, which contain clumps of new stars.



The center of the galaxy, where one might look for a spider, is actually home to an enormous burst of star formation. To either side of the center, a small bar of dust and gas is helping to fuel the new stars.



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. 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


2011-218

Images

A Twisted Star-Forming Web in the Galaxy IC 342

IC 342 has a lower density of stars than what is typical for galaxies, as indicated by a very faint blue haze coming from starlight. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption

enlarge image






Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:38 AM 0 comments

NASA Sets Launch Coverage Events for Mission to Jupiter

NASA Sets Launch Coverage Events for Mission to Jupiter:

NASA's Juno spacecraft passes in front of Jupiter in this artist's depiction.
NASA's Juno spacecraft passes in front of Jupiter in this artist's depiction. Juno, the second mission in NASA's New Frontiers program, will improve our understanding of the solar system by advancing studies of the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

› Full image and caption


July 26, 2011

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's Juno spacecraft is set to launch toward Jupiter aboard a
United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on Aug. 5. The launch window extends from 11:34 a.m. to
12:33 p.m. EDT (8:34 to 9:33 a.m. PDT), and the launch period extends through Aug. 26.


The spacecraft is expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2016, on a mission to investigate the gas giant's
origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. Juno's color camera will provide close-up
images of Jupiter, including the first detailed views of the planets' poles.


NASA will host a prelaunch news conference in the News Center at the agency's Kennedy Space
Center in Florida on Wednesday, Aug. 3, at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT). Conference participants
are:


- Colleen Hartman, assistant associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate
NASA Headquarters, Washington


- Omar Baez, NASA launch director at Kennedy Space Center


- Vernon Thorp, program manager, NASA Missions
United Launch Alliance, Denver


- Jan Chodas, Juno project manager
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.


- Tim Gasparini, Juno program manager
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver


- Clay Flinn, Atlas V launch weather officer
45th Weather Squadron, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.



A Juno mission science briefing will follow the prelaunch news conference. Participants are:


- Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio


- Toby Owen, Juno co-investigator
University of Hawaii


- Jack Connerney, Juno instrument lead
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.


- Andy Ingersol, Juno co-investigator
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena


- Fran Bagenal, Juno co-investigator
University of Colorado, Boulder


- Candy Hansen, Juno co-investigator
Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Ariz.


A news conference will be held at the Kennedy News Center approximately 2.5 hours after launch,
and a news release will be issued as soon as Juno's condition is determined. Spokespersons will be
available for interviews.


NASA Television Coverage

On Aug. 3, NASA Television's Media and Education Channels will carry the Juno prelaunch news
conference live beginning at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT).


On Aug. 5, NASA Television coverage of the launch will begin at 9 a.m. EDT (6 a.m. PDT) and
conclude after spacecraft separation from the Atlas V occurs approximately 53 minutes and 49
seconds after launch.


For NASA Television downlink information, schedule information and streaming video, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .


Audio only of the prelaunch news conference and the launch coverage will be carried on 321-867-
1220/1240/1260/7135. On launch day, mission audio of launch countdown activities, without
NASA TV commentary, will be carried on 321-867-7135 starting at 7 a.m. EDT (4 a.m. PDT).
Launch audio also will be available on local amateur VHF radio frequency 146.940 MHz heard
within Brevard County.


For extensive prelaunch and launch coverage online, visit: http://www.nasa.gov .


A prelaunch webcast will be streamed at noon EDT (9 a.m. PDT) on Aug. 4. Live countdown
coverage through NASA's Launch Blog begins at 9 a.m. EDT (6 a.m. PDT) on Aug. 5. Coverage
features live updates as countdown milestones occur, as well as streaming video clips highlighting
launch preparations and liftoff. For questions about countdown coverage, contact Jeanne Ryba at
321-867-7824.



To view the webcast and the blog or to learn more about the Juno mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/juno .


The news conferences and launch coverage will be streamed live, with a chat available, at
http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .



The NASA News Twitter feed will be updated throughout the launch countdown at
http://www.twitter.com/nasa .



NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission for the principal
investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part
of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission
is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

DC Agle 818-393-9011

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

agle@jpl.nasa.gov


Trent J. Perrotto 202-358-0321

NASA Headquarters, Washington

trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov


George H. Diller 321-867-2468

Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

george.h.diller@nasa.gov


2011-227
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:37 AM 0 comments

Herschel Telescope Detects Oxygen Molecules in Space

Herschel Telescope Detects Oxygen Molecules in Space:

The inset is an artist's concept of a collection of oxygen molecules. The image of the Orion nebula was taken in infrared light
Herschel found oxygen molecules in a dense patch of gas and dust adjacent to star-forming regions in the Orion nebula. Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption


August 01, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. – The Herschel Space Observatory's large telescope and state-of-the-art infrared detectors have provided the first confirmed finding of oxygen molecules in space. The molecules were discovered in the Orion star-forming complex.


Individual atoms of oxygen are common in space, particularly around massive stars. But molecular oxygen, which makes up about 20 percent of the air we breathe, has eluded astronomers until now.


"Oxygen gas was discovered in the 1770s, but it's taken us more than 230 years to finally say with certainty that this very simple molecule exists in space," said Paul Goldsmith, NASA's Herschel project scientist at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Goldsmith is lead author of a recent paper describing the findings in the Astrophysical Journal. Herschel is a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions.


Astronomers searched for the elusive molecules in space for decades using balloons, as well as ground- and space-based telescopes. The Swedish Odin telescope spotted the molecule in 2007, but the sighting could not be confirmed.


Goldsmith and his colleagues propose that oxygen is locked up in water ice that coats tiny dust grains. They think the oxygen detected by Herschel in the Orion nebula was formed after starlight warmed the icy grains, releasing water, which was converted into oxygen molecules.


"This explains where some of the oxygen might be hiding," said Goldsmith. "But we didn't find large amounts of it, and still don't understand what is so special about the spots where we find it. The universe still holds many secrets."


The researchers plan to continue their hunt for oxygen molecules in other star-forming regions.


"Oxygen is the third most common element in the universe and its molecular form must be abundant in space," said Bill Danchi, Herschel program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Herschel is proving a powerful tool to probe this unsolved mystery. The observatory gives astronomers an innovative tool to look at a whole new set of wavelengths where the tell-tale signature of oxygen may be hiding."


Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes. NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at JPL, which contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, supports the U.S. astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.


For NASA's Herschel website, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/herschel .


For ESA's Herschel website, visit: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/index.html .





Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Trent J. Perrotto 202-358-0321

NASA Headquarters, Washington

trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov


2011-234
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:37 AM 0 comments

NASA's Wise Mission Discovers Coolest Class of Stars

NASA's Wise Mission Discovers Coolest Class of Stars:

Y Dwarf Chillin' in Space
This artist's conception illustrates what a "Y dwarf" might look like. Y dwarfs are the coldest star-like bodies known, with temperatures that can be even cooler than the human body. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption


August 23, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. – Scientists using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have discovered the coldest class of star-like bodies, with temperatures as cool as the human body.


Astronomers hunted these dark orbs, termed Y dwarfs, for more than a decade without success. When viewed with a visible-light telescope, they are nearly impossible to see. WISE's infrared vision allowed the telescope to finally spot the faint glow of six Y dwarfs relatively close to our sun, within a distance of about 40 light-years.


"WISE scanned the entire sky for these and other objects, and was able to spot their feeble light with its highly sensitive infrared vision," said Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "They are 5,000 times brighter at the longer infrared wavelengths WISE observed from space than those observable from the ground."


The Y's are the coldest members of the brown dwarf family. Brown dwarfs are sometimes referred to as "failed" stars. They are too low in mass to fuse atoms at their cores and thus don't burn with the fires that keep stars like our sun shining steadily for billions of years. Instead, these objects cool and fade with time, until what little light they do emit is at infrared wavelengths.


Astronomers study brown dwarfs to better understand how stars form, and to understand the atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system. The atmospheres of brown dwarfs are similar to those of gas-giant planets like Jupiter, but they are easier to observe because they are alone in space, away from the blinding light of a parent star.


So far, WISE data have revealed 100 new brown dwarfs. More discoveries are expected as scientists continue to examine the enormous quantity of data from WISE. The telescope performed the most advanced survey of the sky at infrared wavelengths to date, from Jan. 2010 to Feb. 2011, scanning the entire sky about 1.5 times.


Of the 100 brown dwarfs, six are classified as cool Y's. One of the Y dwarfs, called WISE 1828+2650, is the record holder for the coldest brown dwarf, with an estimated atmospheric temperature cooler than room temperature, or less than about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).


"The brown dwarfs we were turning up before this discovery were more like the temperature of your oven," said Davy Kirkpatrick, a WISE science team member at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "With the discovery of Y dwarfs, we've moved out of the kitchen and into the cooler parts of the house."


Kirkpatrick is lead author of a paper appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, describing the 100 confirmed brown dwarfs. Michael Cushing, a WISE team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is lead author of a paper describing the Y dwarfs in the Astrophysical Journal.


The Y dwarfs are in our sun's neighborhood, from approximately nine to 40 light-years away. The Y dwarf approximately nine light-years away, WISE 1541-2250, may become the seventh closest star system, bumping Ross 154 back to eighth. By comparison, the star closest to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is about four light-years away.


"Finding brown dwarfs near our sun is like discovering there's a hidden house on your block that you didn't know about," Cushing said. "It's thrilling to me to know we've got neighbors out there yet to be discovered. With WISE, we may even find a brown dwarf closer to us than our closest known star."


Once the WISE team identified brown dwarf candidates, they turned to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to narrow their list. To definitively confirm them, the WISE team used some of the most powerful telescopes on Earth to split apart the objects' light and look for telltale molecular signatures of water, methane and possibly ammonia. For the very coldest of the new Y dwarfs, the team used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The Y dwarfs were identified based on a change in these spectral features compared to other brown dwarfs, indicating they have a lower atmospheric temperature.


The ground-based telescopes used in these studies include the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii; Caltech's Palomar Observatory near San Diego; the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii; and the Magellan Telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, among others.


JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The principal investigator is Edward Wright at UCLA. The WISE satellite was decommissioned in 2011 after completing its sky survey observations. The mission was selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing are at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.


More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise , 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


Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321

Headquarters, Washington

Trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov


2011-263
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:35 AM 0 comments

Cassini Spacecraft Reveals 101 Geysers and More on Icy Saturn Moon

Cassini Spacecraft Reveals 101 Geysers and More on Icy Saturn Moon:

Elevated View of Enceladus' South Pole
This view looks across the geyser basin of Saturn's moon Enceladus, along fractures spewing water vapor and ice particles into space. Cassini scientists have pinpointed the source locations of about 100 geysers and gained new insights into what powers them. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
› Full image and caption


July 28, 2014

Scientists using mission data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have identified 101 distinct geysers erupting on Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. Their analysis suggests it is possible for liquid water to reach from the moon's underground sea all the way to its surface.

These findings, and clues to what powers the geyser eruptions, are presented in two articles published in the current online edition of the Astronomical Journal.

Over a period of almost seven years, Cassini's cameras surveyed the south polar terrain of the small moon, a unique geological basin renowned for its four prominent "tiger stripe" fractures and the geysers of tiny icy particles and water vapor first sighted there nearly 10 years ago. The result of the survey is a map of 101 geysers, each erupting from one of the tiger stripe fractures, and the discovery that individual geysers are coincident with small hot spots. These relationships pointed the way to the geysers' origin.

After the first sighting of the geysers in 2005, scientists suspected that repeated flexing of Enceladus by Saturn's tides as the moon orbits the planet had something to do with their behavior. One suggestion included the back-and-forth rubbing of opposing walls of the fractures generating frictional heat that turned ice into geyser-forming vapor and liquid.

Alternate views held that the opening and closing of the fractures allowed water vapor from below to reach the surface. Before this new study, it was not clear which process was the dominating influence. Nor was it certain whether excess heat emitted by Enceladus was everywhere correlated with geyser activity.

To determine the surface locations of the geysers, researchers employed the same process of triangulation used historically to survey geological features on Earth, such as mountains. When the researchers compared the geysers' locations with low-resolution maps of thermal emission, it became apparent the greatest geyser activity coincided with the greatest thermal radiation. Comparisons between the geysers and tidal stresses revealed similar connections. However, these correlations alone were insufficient to answer the question, "What produces what?"

The answer to this mystery came from comparison of the survey results with high-resolution data collected in 2010 by Cassini's heat-sensing instruments. Individual geysers were found to coincide with small-scale hot spots, only a few dozen feet (or tens of meters) across, which were too small to be produced by frictional heating, but the right size to be the result of condensation of vapor on the near-surface walls of the fractures. This immediately implicated the hot spots as the signature of the geysering process.

"Once we had these results in hand, we knew right away heat was not causing the geysers, but vice versa," said Carolyn Porco, leader of the Cassini imaging team from the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and lead author of the first paper. "It also told us the geysers are not a near-surface phenomenon, but have much deeper roots."

Thanks to recent analysis of Cassini gravity data, the researchers concluded the only plausible source of the material forming the geysers is the sea now known to exist beneath the ice shell. They also found that narrow pathways through the ice shell can remain open from the sea all the way to the surface, if filled with liquid water.

In the companion paper, the authors report the brightness of the plume formed by all the geysers, as seen with Cassini's high-resolution cameras, changes periodically as Enceladus orbits Saturn. Armed with the conclusion that the opening and closing of the fractures modulates the venting, the authors compared the observations with the expected venting schedule due to tides.

They found the simplest model of tidal flexing provides a good match for the brightness variations Cassini observes, but it does not predict the time when the plume begins to brighten. Some other important effect is present and the authors considered several in the course of their work.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, 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. The imaging team consists of scientists from the United States, England, France and Germany. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute.

Additional details, images and an animation are available at:

http://www.ciclops.org/view_event/202

More information about Cassini is available at:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

Preston Dyches

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-7013

preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov


Dwayne Brown

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov


Steve Mullins

Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

720-974-5859

media@ciclops.org


2014-246
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:33 AM 0 comments

Printing the Metals of the Future

Printing the Metals of the Future:

Laser Printing of Gradient Metals
Scientists make a rocket nozzle using a new 3-D printing technique that allows for multiple metallic properties in the same object.
Credit: NASA-JPL/Caltech
› Full image and caption


July 28, 2014

3-D printers can create all kinds of things, from eyeglasses to implantable medical devices, straight from a computer model and without the need for molds. But for making spacecraft, engineers sometimes need custom parts that traditional manufacturing techniques and standard 3-D printers can't create, because they need to have the properties of multiple metals. Now, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are implementing a printing process that transitions from one metal or alloy to another in a single object.

"You can have a continuous transition from alloy to alloy to alloy, and you can study a wide range of potential alloys," said R. Peter Dillon, a technologist at JPL. "We think it's going to change materials research in the future."

Although gradient alloys have been created in the past in research and development settings, this is the first time these composite materials have been used in making objects, such as a mount for a mirror, said John Paul Borgonia, a JPL mechanical engineer.

Why would you need to make a machine part like this? Say you want a metal object where you would like the ends to have different properties. One side could have a high melting temperature and the other a low density, or one side could be magnetic and the other not. Of course, you could separately make both halves of the object from their respective metals and then weld them together. But the weld itself may be brittle, so that your new object might fall apart under stress. That's not a good idea if you are constructing an interplanetary spacecraft, for example, which cannot be fixed once it is deployed.

JPL scientists have been developing a technique to address this problem since 2010. An effort to improve the methods of combining parts made of different materials in NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, which safely landed the Curiosity rover on the Red Planet in 2012, inspired a project to 3-D print components with multiple alloy compositions.

Researchers from JPL, the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and Pennsylvania State University, University Park, joined forces to tackle the issue. The result has implications for space travel and machinery on our own planet.

"We're taking a standard 3-D printing process and combining the ability to change the metal powder that the part is being built with on the fly," said Douglas Hofmann, a researcher in material science and metallurgy at JPL, and visiting associate at Caltech. "You can constantly be changing the composition of the material."

In their new technique, Hofmann and his colleagues deposit layers of metal on a rotating rod, thus transitioning metals from the inside out, rather than adding layers from bottom to top, as in the more traditional 3-D printing technique. A laser melts metal powder to create the layers.

Future space missions may incorporate parts made with this technique. The auto industry and the commercial aerospace industry may also find it useful, Hofmann said.

A report on this work was published in Scientific Reports on June 19. Coauthors include Douglas Hofmann; Scott Roberts, Joanna Kolodziejska and Andrew A. Shapiro from Caltech and JPL; R. Peter Dillon, Jong-ook Suh, and John-Paul Borgonia from JPL; and Richard Otis and Zi-Kui Liu from Pennsylvania State University. The work was funded by NASA. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Elizabeth Landau

818-354-6425

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov


Caltech science writer Cynthia Eller contributed to this release.


2014-247
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:32 AM 0 comments

New NASA Studies to Examine Climate/Vegetation Links

New NASA Studies to Examine Climate/Vegetation Links:

Two new spaceborne Earth-observing instruments will help scientists better understand how global forests
Two new spaceborne Earth-observing instruments will help scientists better understand how global forests and ecosystems are affected by changes in climate and land use change. This image of the Amazon rainforest is from a 2010 global map of the height of the world's forests based on multiple satellite datasets. Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory
› Larger image


July 30, 2014

NASA has selected proposals for two new instruments, including one from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, that will observe changes in global vegetation from the International Space Station. The sensors will give scientists new ways to see how forests and ecosystems are affected by changes in climate or in land use.

A high-resolution, multiple-wavelength imaging spectrometer from JPL will study the effectiveness of water use by vegetation. This instrument will be completed in 2018 and will not cost more than $30 million. A laser-based system from the University of Maryland, College Park, will observe the structure of forest canopy. This instrument will be completed in 2019 and will not cost more than $94 million.

"We are excited to expand the use of the International Space Station to make critical Earth observations that will help scientists understand the diversity of forests and vegetation and their response to a changing climate," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "These innovative Earth Venture Instruments will join a growing suite of NASA Earth-observing sensors to be deployed to the station starting this year."

The instruments were competitively selected from 20 proposals submitted to NASA's Earth Venture Instrument program. Part of the Earth System Science Pathfinder program, Earth Venture investigations are small, targeted science investigations that complement NASA's larger research missions. The National Research Council recommended in 2007 that NASA undertake this type of regularly solicited, quick-turnaround project. The program's first selection was awarded in 2010.

Simon Hook of JPL is the principal investigator for the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS). This project will use a high-resolution thermal infrared radiometer to measure plant evapotranspiration, the loss of water from growing leaves and evaporation from the soil. These data will reveal how ecosystems change with climate and provide a critical link between the water cycle and effectiveness of plant growth, both natural and agricultural.

The ECOSTRESS team has extensive experience in development and analysis of thermal infrared spectroscopic images of Earth's surface. Hook has served as project scientist for the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Earth Observing System Terra satellite and has been involved in numerous suborbital field campaigns. The team includes partnerships with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland, and Maricopa, Arizona; Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey; and the University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.

Ralph Dubayah, of the University of Maryland, is the principal investigator for the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) Lidar. This project will use a laser-based system to study a range of climates, including the observation of the forest canopy structure over the tropics, and the tundra in high northern latitudes. These data will help scientists better understand the changes in natural carbon storage within the carbon cycle from both human-influenced activities and natural climate variations.

The GEDI team has extensive experience in observing and modeling forest and vegetation dynamics. Dubayah has led numerous vegetation lidar observations from suborbital platforms throughout his career. The team includes partnerships with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; Woods Hole Research Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts; the U.S. Forest Service, Ogden, Utah; and Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

The International Space Station provides several in-orbit capabilities useful to both instruments. The space station's orbit is inclined relative to the poles, providing more observation time of forests and vegetation over temperate land masses than possible from the polar orbits commonly used for other types of Earth observations. The GEDI laser requires significant power resources, which the space station can provide. Also, the relatively low altitude of the station's orbit, about 260 miles (418 kilometers) up, benefits GEDI by ensuring a higher return energy for laser pulses reflected from the ground.

In 2012, NASA selected the first Earth Venture Instrument investigation, the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) mission. TEMPO will be the first space-based sensor to monitor major air pollutants across North America hourly during daytime. It will share a ride on a commercial satellite as a hosted payload and orbit about 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) above the equator.

NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, manages the Earth System Science Pathfinder program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The missions in this program provide an innovative approach to address Earth science research with periodic windows of opportunity to accommodate new scientific priorities. For more information, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/MKvgJO

Alan Buis

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

818-354-0474

alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov


Steve Cole

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-0918

stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov


2014-249
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:32 AM 0 comments

Mars 2020 Rover's PIXL to Focus X-Rays on Tiny Targets

Mars 2020 Rover's PIXL to Focus X-Rays on Tiny Targets:

Artist's concept of the payload for NASA's Mars 2020 rover
This diagram shows components of the investigations payload for NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

› Full image and caption


July 31, 2014

One of seven instruments selected for a Mars rover that NASA is developing for launch in 2020 would be able to identify chemical elements in target spots as small as a grain of table salt.

PIXL, for Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry, would be mounted at the end of the rover's robotic arm so that it can be placed next to a rock or soil target. It is designed to provide finer-scale identification of elemental composition than ever before possible on Mars.

The instrument's capabilities would help NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission accomplish its goals, which include seeking evidence for past life on Mars.

"If you are looking for signs of ancient life, you want to look at a small scale and get detailed information about chemical elements present," said PIXL Principal Investigator Abigail Allwood of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

PIXL will be fast. Its intended use is to spend a few seconds to 2 minutes with the instrument's X-ray focused on each spot to be analyzed, then move the beam to another spot, working in a linear or grid pattern to produce a detailed map of the elements in the rock or soil target. The mapped area would be up to about the size of a postage stamp.

The element-identification method is X-ray fluorescence. It reads the X-rays distinctively emitted by various types of atoms when they are excited by X-rays coming from the instrument.

PIXL's design also incorporates a high-resolution camera so that the map of elemental composition can be analyzed in conjunction with visible characteristics of the target area.

"We can correlate fine-scale textures and features with very detailed information about the chemistry," Allwood said. "Understanding these relationships is crucial for investigation goals such as searching for microbial biosignatures."

NASA announced selection of PIXL and six other investigations for the Mars 2020 rover's payload on July 31, 2014.

The Mars 2020 mission will be based on the design of the highly successful Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, which landed almost two years ago and currently is operating on Mars. The new rover will carry more sophisticated, upgraded hardware and new instruments to conduct geological assessments of the rover's landing site, determine the potential habitability of the environment, and directly search for signs of ancient Martian life.

Scientists will use the Mars 2020 rover to identify and select a collection of rock and soil samples that will be stored for potential return to Earth by a future mission. The Mars 2020 mission is responsive to the science objectives recommended by the National Research Council's 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey.

The Mars 2020 rover also will help advance our knowledge of how future human explorers could use natural resources available on the surface of the Red Planet. An ability to live off the Martian land would transform future exploration of the planet. Designers of future human expeditions can use this mission to understand the hazards posed by Martian dust and demonstrate technology to process carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to produce oxygen. These experiments will help engineers learn how to use Martian resources to produce oxygen for human respiration and potentially for use as an oxidizer for rocket fuel.

The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages JPL for NASA.

Guy Webster

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6278

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov



2014-253
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 6:31 AM 0 comments

SHERLOC to Micro-Map Mars Minerals and Carbon Rings

SHERLOC to Micro-Map Mars Minerals and Carbon Rings:

Artist's concept of the payload for NASA's Mars 2020 rover
This diagram shows components of the investigations payload for NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech


› Full image and caption


July 31, 2014

An ultraviolet-light instrument on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars 2020 rover will use two types of ultraviolet-light spectroscopy, plus a versatile camera, to help meet the mission's ambitious goals, including a search for signs of past life on Mars and selection of rock samples for possible return to Earth.

It is called SHERLOC, for Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals.

"This instrument uses two distinct detection strategies," said its principal investigator, Luther Beegle of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "It can detect an important class of carbon molecules with high sensitivity, and it also identifies minerals that provide information about ancient aqueous environments."

SHERLOC will shine a tiny dot of ultraviolet laser light at a target. This causes two different spectral phenomena to occur, which the instrument captures for analysis. The first is a distinctive fluorescence, or glow, from molecules that contain rings of carbon atoms. Such molecules may be clues to whether evidence of past life has been preserved. The second is an effect called Raman scattering, which can identify certain minerals, including ones formed from evaporation of salty water, and organic compounds. This dual use enables powerful analysis of many different compounds on the identical spot.

A moving mirror in the instrument will shift pointing of the ultraviolet laser beam in a scanning pattern to provide a map of the ingredients at a microscopic scale. The laser beam has a diameter of 50 microns -- about half the thickness of a piece of paper. It will provide information on that scale within a target area about half the breadth of a dime.

In addition, the instrument will include a contextual camera utilizing hardware originally developed by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. This context imager will enable researchers to correlate the composition information with visible features in the target, resulting in more information than composition alone.

Beegle said, "We'll be able not just to detect these chemicals and minerals with high sensitivity, but we will produce powerful chemical maps. For example, we can see whether organics are clumped together or diffuse, and we can correlate minerals with visible veins or grains in the rock. This also allows us to integrate our results with the other instruments for even more informational content on the samples."

NASA announced selection of SHERLOC and six other investigations for the Mars 2020 rover's payload on July 31, 2014.

The Mars 2020 mission will be based on the design of the highly successful Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, which landed almost two years ago, and currently is operating on Mars. The new rover will carry more sophisticated, upgraded hardware and new instruments to conduct geological assessments of the rover's landing site, determine the potential habitability of the environment, and directly search for signs of ancient Martian life.

Scientists will use the Mars 2020 rover to identify and select a collection of rock and soil samples that will be stored for potential return to Earth by a future mission. The Mars 2020 mission is responsive to the science objectives recommended by the National Research Council's 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey.

The Mars 2020 rover also will help advance our knowledge of how future human explorers could use natural resources available on the surface of the Red Planet. An ability to live off the Martian land would transform future exploration of the planet. Designers of future human expeditions can use this mission to understand the hazards posed by Martian dust and demonstrate technology to process carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to produce oxygen. These experiments will help engineers learn how to use Martian resources to produce oxygen for human respiration and potentially for use as an oxidizer for rocket fuel.

The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages JPL for NASA.

Guy Webster

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6278

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov



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