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https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/powerful-nasa-isro-earth-observing-satellite-coming-together-in-india

Powerful NASA-ISRO Earth Observing Satellite Coming Together in India

Built on opposite sides of the planet, the NISAR satellite will deepen understanding of climate change, deforestation, glacier melt, volcanoes, earthquakes, and more.

Two major components of the NISAR satellite have been combined to create a single spacecraft in Bengaluru, India. Set to launch in early 2024, NISAR – short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar – is being jointly developed by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO, to track movements of Earth’s land and ice surfaces in extremely fine detail. As NISAR monitors nearly every part of our planet at least once every 12 days, the satellite will also help scientists understand, among other observables, the dynamics of forests, wetlands, and agricultural lands.A crane is used to align NISAR’s radar instrument payload, seen partially wrapped in gold-colored thermal blanketing, with the satellite’s spacecraft bus, which is inside blue blanketing, in an ISRO clean room in Bengaluru, India, in June.Credit: Credit: VDOS-URSCAbout the size of an SUV and partially wrapped in gold-colored thermal blanketing, the satellite’s cylindrical radar instrument payload contains two radar systems. The S-band radar is particularly useful for monitoring crop structure and the roughness of land and ice surfaces, while the L-band instrument can penetrate denser forest canopies to study the woody trunks of trees, among other observables. The wavelengths of the S-band and L-band signals are about 4 inches (10 centimeters) and 10 inches (25 centimeters), respectively, and both sensors can see through clouds and collect data day and night.The payload took a roundabout journey to get to this point. The S-band radar was built at the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad in western India, then flown in March 2021 to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where engineers had been developing NISAR’s L-band radar. At JPL, the two systems were fixed to the payload’s barrel-like frame before being flown to the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru in March 2023.In the meantime, engineers and technicians at URSC, collaborating with teams from JPL, were busy developing the spacecraft’s main body, or bus, which is covered in blue blanketing that protects it during assembly and testing prior to launch. The bus, which includes components and systems developed by both ISRO and JPL, will provide power, navigation, pointing control, and communications for the mission.Since the radar payload and bus were joined in a URSC clean room in mid-June, NASA and ISRO teams have been working together to route thousands of feet of cabling between them. Still to be attached: the satellite’s solar panels, as well as the drum-shaped, wire-mesh reflector that will unfold from the end of a 30-foot (9-meter) boom. At nearly 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter, the reflector will be largest radar antenna of its kind ever launched into space.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERThe NISAR satellite is currently undergoing performance testing, to be followed by several rounds of environmental testing to ensure it can withstand the rigors of launch and meet all of its operational requirements once in orbit. Then it will be transported about 220 miles (350 kilometers) eastward to Satish Dhawan Space Centre, where it will be inserted into its launch fairing, mounted atop ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark II rocket, and sent into low Earth orbit.More About the MissionNISAR is an equal collaboration between NASA and ISRO and marks the first time the two agencies have cooperated on hardware development for an Earth-observing mission. JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, leads the U.S. component of the project and is providing the mission’s L-band SAR. NASA is also providing the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem. URSC, which is leading the ISRO component of the mission, is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band SAR electronics, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services and satellite mission operations.To learn more about NISAR, visit:https://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov/NASA-ISRO Science Instruments Arrive in India Ahead of 2024 Launch

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-comet-tale-draws-to-a-successful-close-in-utah-desert

NASA's Comet Tale Draws to a Successful Close in Utah Desert

NASA's Stardust sample return mission returned safely to Earth when the capsule carrying cometary and interstellar particles successfully touched down at 2:10 a.m. Pacific time (3:10 a.m. Mountain time) in the desert salt flats of the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range.

NASA's Stardust sample return mission returned safely to Earth when the capsule carrying cometary and interstellar particles successfully touched down at 2:10 a.m. Pacific time (3:10 a.m. Mountain time) in the desert salt flats of the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range."Ten years of planning and seven years of flight operations were realized early this morning when we successfully picked up our return capsule off of the desert floor in Utah," said Tom Duxbury, Stardust project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The Stardust project has delivered to the international science community material that has been unaltered since the formation of our solar system."Stardust released its sample return capsule at 9:57 p.m. Pacific time (10:57 p.m. Mountain time) last night. The capsule entered the atmosphere four hours later at 1:57 a.m. Pacific time (2:57 a.m. Mountain time). The drogue and main parachutes deployed at 2:00 and 2:05 a.m. Pacific time, respectively (3:00 and 3:05 a.m. Mountain time)."I have been waiting for this day since the early 1980s when Deputy Principal Investigator Dr. Peter Tsou of JPL and I designed a mission to collect comet dust," said Dr. Don Brownlee, Stardust principal investigator from the University of Washington, Seattle. "To see the capsule safely back on its home planet is a thrilling accomplishment."The sample return capsule's science canister and its cargo of comet and interstellar dust particles will be stowed inside a special aluminum carrying case to await transfer to the Johnson Space Center, Houston, where it will be opened. NASA's Stardust mission traveled 2.88 billion miles during its seven-year round-trip odyssey. Scientists believe these precious samples will help provide answers to fundamental questions about comets and the origins of the solar system.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Stardust mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operated the spacecraft.For information about the Stardust mission on the Web, visitwww.nasa.gov/stardust. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/home.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/seawinds-tracks-antarctic-ice-escapades

SeaWinds Tracks Antarctic Ice Escapades

The SeaWinds instrument has changed all that. SeaWinds is a scatterometer flying on NASA's QuikScat satellite. A second SeaWinds instrument will launch on Japan's Advanced Earth Observation Satellite 2 on December 13.

Icebergs can be sneaky. Even the jumbo-sized icebergs of the South Atlantic could, until recently, lurk beneath clouds or in darkness out of sight of most satellite observers.The SeaWinds instrument has changed all that. SeaWinds is a scatterometer flying on NASA's QuikScat satellite. A second SeaWinds instrument will launch on Japan's Advanced Earth Observation Satellite 2 on December 13. A scatterometer sends radar signals to Earth's surface and receives the scattered energy back. The instrument works day and night through clear or cloudy skies. While designed to measure the speed and direction of near-surface ocean winds, SeaWinds has been proven to have another talent: It can track large icebergs and map sea ice.Being able to monitor these floating frozen mountains and vast plains of moving ice has immediate practical applications. Ship captains need to know when an iceberg might drift into their paths and when fast-changing sea ice may make getting in or out of a port impossible.Take the case of the German ship Magdalena Oldendorff trapped in frozen Antarctic waters since June. "We used scatterometer images to map the ice for the Argentinean ice breaker that went down to try to get the ship out," says Cheryl Bertoia, deputy director of the National Ice Center. The center is the U.S. Navy/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agency charged with tracking icebergs in the Southern Hemisphere and mapping sea ice globally. "The ice was very thick and moving rapidly. The ice motion was more powerful than the ships' engines and was forcing the ships to move west when they wanted to move east. We did an animation of QuikScat images of the ice pack to determine the predominant ice motion to help the ships' captains to make navigation decisions."In the end, the icebreaker had to go home alone, and the Magdalena, with its passengers and most of its crew airlifted to safety, awaits the spring thaw. By then, two SeaWinds instruments will be aloft to help map its path to freedom.Tracking and monitoring icebergs and sea ice also has important long-term uses, such as helping to answer some burning questions about climate. For example, scientists have noted that the number of Antarctic icebergs seems to on the rise and wondered if global warming could be the reason. To investigate, Bertoia, Professor David Long and Jarom Ballantyne of Brigham Young University reprocessed data from SeaWinds on QuikScat and earlier scatterometers going back about 30 years."We found that there were icebergs out there that had not been previously counted," says Long, "and that the number of icebergs has remained roughly constant from 1978 to the late 1990s." While global warming is real, says Long, the increase in the number of icebergs reported by the National Ice Center is the result of better tracking methods rather than climate change. The results of the study appeared in the October 15, 2002 issue of EOS Transitions.Long, director of Brigham Young University's Center for Remote Sensing, is a member of the SeaWinds science team. He and his research group were the first to figure out how to reveal the ice details by combining observations from multiple scatterometer passes. "A scatterometer makes an indirect measurement of ocean winds and their direction by looking at surface roughness," explains Long. "The ocean surface is roughened by waves. The more waves, the more wind. But the scatterometer's radar measurements provide information over land as well as the oceans."SeaWinds on QuikScat quickly showed its potential for spotting icebergs. Creating images with the first data they received from the instrument, Long and his group made a startling discovery. "A graduate student said 'there's a big iceberg out there. Shouldn't you tell someone about it,'" says Long. "I assumed that the National Ice Center already knew all about it, but when we called them later to ask for identification, they told us that they didn't know there was an iceberg in that location." It turned out that the center had been tracking the Rhode Island-sized iceberg, called B10A, for several years. However, a few months before SeaWinds spotted it, B10A had eluded traditional tracking methods long enough to drift into a completely new position and was a potential threat to shipping. That was in 1999. Today, Long and his group keep daily track of South Atlantic icebergs with SeaWinds on QuikScat and provide the data to the National Ice Center. "Right now we do more than half of our iceberg tracking with SeaWinds," says Bertoia. "The other sensors that we use are visible and infrared sensors. When it's cloudy or dark, these sensors are not very useful because they cannot image the earth's surface in those conditions. In the South Atlantic, it's cloudy or dark about 70 percent of the time.""We're now tracking about 30 large icebergs and about 20 small ones," says Long. Two of them are giants. The largest, C19, is 31 kilometers by 202 kilometers (17 by 109 nautical miles). Long and the National Ice Center will be watching C19 and its icy colleagues until they break up or melt, a process that can take months or decades. "It depends on the path they take," says Long. "If they get caught in shallow water, they will ground and can be stuck for years at a time. Then suddenly, they can move and disappear within months.""SeaWinds tracking of icebergs is truly paving the way to a major improvement in our knowledge of iceberg production in the Antarctic," says JPL glaciologist Dr. Eric Rignot, "which is at present one of the least well-known components of the mass balance of the ice sheet."

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-dedicates-mars-landmarks-to-columbia-crew

NASA Dedicates Mars Landmarks to Columbia Crew

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe today announced the martian hills, located east of the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover's landing site, would be dedicated to the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-107 crew.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe today announced the martian hills, located east of the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover's landing site, would be dedicated to the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-107 crew."These seven hills on Mars are named for those seven brave souls, the final crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The Columbia crew faced the challenge of space and made the supreme sacrifice in the name of exploration," Administrator O'Keefe said.The Shuttle Columbia was commanded by Rick Husband and piloted by William McCool. The mission specialists were Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark; and the payload specialist was Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon. On February 1, 2003, the Columbia and its crew were lost over the western United States during re-entry into Earth's atmosphereThe 28th and final flight of Columbia was a 16-day mission dedicated to research in physical, life and space sciences. The Columbia crew successfully conducted approximately 80 separate experiments during their mission.NASA will submit the names of the Mars features to the International Astronomical Union for official designation. The organization serves as the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and their surface features.An image taken by the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera of the Columbia Memorial Station and Columbia Hills is available on the Internet at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-images/feb-02-2004/captions/image-10.html.For information about NASA and the Mars mission on the Internet, visit:http://www.nasa.gov.The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Additional information about the project is available on the Internet at:http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/short-term-ocean-cooling-suggests-global-warming-speed-bump

Short-Term Ocean Cooling Suggests Global Warming 'Speed Bump'

The average temperature of the water near the top of Earth's oceans has significantly cooled since 2003. New research suggests global warming trends are not always steady in their effects on ocean temperatures.

Update as of 5/30/07: Recent analyses have revealed that results from some of the ocean float and shipboard sensor data used in this study were incorrect. As a result, the study's conclusion that the oceans cooled between 2003 and 2005 can not be substantiated at this time. The study authors are currently working to correct these data errors and recompute ocean temperature changes.The average temperature of the water near the top of Earth's oceans has significantly cooled since 2003. New research suggests global warming trends are not always steady in their effects on ocean temperatures.Although the average temperature of the upper oceans has significantly cooled since 2003, the decline is a fraction of the total ocean warming over the previous 48 years."This research suggests global warming isn't always steady, but happens with occasional 'speed bumps'," said Dr. Josh Willis, a co-author of the study at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This cooling is probably natural climate variability. The oceans today are still warmer than they were during the 1980s, and most scientists expect the oceans will eventually continue to warm in response to human-induced climate change."Willis said the findings have significant implications for global sea-level rise. "Average sea level goes up partly due to warming and thermal expansion of the oceans and partly due to runoff from melting glaciers and ice sheets," Willis said. "The recent cooling episode suggests sea level should have actually decreased in the past two years. Despite this, sea level has continued to rise. This may mean that sea level rise has recently shifted from being mostly caused by warming to being dominated by melting. This idea is consistent with recent estimates of ice-mass loss in Antarctica and accelerating ice-mass loss on Greenland."For the study, Dr. John Lyman at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, and his co-authors estimated the heat content of the upper 750 meters (approximately 2,500 feet) of Earth's oceans from 1993 to 2005. This area represents about 20 percent of the global ocean's average depth.Researchers found the average temperature of the upper ocean increased by 0.09 degrees Celcius (0.16 degrees Fahrenheit) from 1993 to 2003, and then fell 0.03 degrees Celcius (0.055 degrees Fahrenheit) from 2003 to 2005. The recent decrease is a dip equal to about one-fifth of the heat gained by the ocean between 1955 and 2003. They analyzed data from a broad array of ocean moorings, floats and shipboard sensors, and supported their results with data from NASA's Jason and Topex/Poseidon satellites.Lyman said the recent cooling is not unprecedented. "While global ocean temperatures have generally increased over the past 50 years, there have also been substantial decadal decreases." "Other studies have shown that a similar rapid cooling took place from 1980 to 1983. But overall, the long-term trend is warming."Monitoring the heat content of the oceans is vital to understanding how Earth's energy balance is changing. "The capacity of Earth's oceans to store the sun's energy is more than 1,000 times that of Earth's atmosphere," Lyman said. "It's important to measure upper ocean temperature, since 84 percent of the heat absorbed by Earth since the mid-1950s has gone toward warming the ocean. Measuring ocean temperature is really measuring the progress of global warming."The recent changes in ocean temperature run deep. A small amount of cooling was detected at the ocean's surface, consistent with global measurements of sea-surface temperature. The maximum amount of cooling was at a depth of 400 meters (about 1,300 feet), but substantial cooling was still observed at 2,500 feet, and the cooling appears to extend deeper.Lyman said the cause of the recent cooling is not yet clear. Research suggests it may be due to a net loss of heat from the Earth. "Further work will be necessary to solve this cooling mystery," he said.Another implication of the study is greater uncertainty in estimates of long-term ocean warming rates. "Understanding decadal rises and dips in Earth's ocean temperature is important in predicting Earth's climate," Lyman said. "Hopefully, the results of our study will help refine the ability of computer models to make these predictions."The study included researchers from NASA, NOAA, and the Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research of the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Results are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/homeAdditional media contacts: Kent Laborde, NOAA, Washington, 202-482-5757; Jim Manke, University of Hawaii, 808-956-4153.JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/successful-ocean-monitoring-satellite-mission-ends

Successful Ocean-Monitoring Satellite Mission Ends

The Jason-2 mission provided unique insight into ocean currents, sea level rise and climate change for 11 years.

The Jason-2/Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM), the third in a U.S.-European series of satellite missions designed to measure sea surface height, successfully ended its science mission on Oct. 1. NASA and its mission partners made the decision to end the mission after detecting deterioration in the spacecraft's power system.Jason-2/OSTM, a joint NASA mission with the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), launched in June 2008. The mission extended the long-term record of sea surface height measurements started by the NASA-CNES TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 missions. Jason-2/OSTM's 11-year lifetime well exceeded its three-year design life. These measurements are being continued by its successor, Jason-3, launched in 2016."Today we celebrate the end of this resoundingly successful international mission," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Jason-2/OSTM has provided unique insight into ocean currents and sea level rise with tangible benefits to marine forecasting, meteorology and our understanding of climate change."Since its launch, Jason-2/OSTM charted nearly 2 inches (5 centimeters) of global sea level rise, a critical measure of climate change. The mission has also resulted in the distribution of over a million data products and the publication of more than 2,100 science papers."Jason-2/OSTM was a high point of operational satellite oceanography as the first Jason mission to formally include EUMETSAT and NOAA as partners," said Steve Volz, assistant administrator of NOAA's Satellite and Information Service. "During its 11-year run, Jason-2/OSTM helped improve NOAA's hurricane intensity forecasts and provided important observations of marine winds and waves and in doing so has anchored these essential ocean altimetry observations in NOAA's operational observing system requirements."With the recent degradation of the spacecraft's power system, mission partners decided to end the mission to decrease risks to other satellites and future altimetry missions, and to comply with French space law. Final decommissioning operations for Jason-2/OSTM are scheduled to be completed by CNES on Oct. 10."With the involvement of EUMETSAT and NOAA, Jason-2 brought high precision monitoring of ocean surface topography and mean sea level to operational status," said Alain Ratier, EUMETSAT's director general. "Its 11-year lifetime in orbit was rewarding for the four program partners and the ocean and climate user community."Jason-2/OSTM's mission might have ended earlier if not for the ingenuity of its mission teams. In July 2017, the degradation of critical onboard components and control systems required that Jason-2/OSTM move from its original science orbit, deplete excess propellant reserves, and be maneuvered into a slightly lower orbit, away from functioning satellites. In close collaboration with the Ocean Surface Topography Science Team, mission partners identified an orbit that would allow for the continuation of the Jason-2/OSTM measurements while still being compatible with orbital-debris mitigation constraints and of scientific benefit.This new orbit resulted in less frequent observations of the same location on Earth, but overall resolution of the data improved because the ground tracks of the observations were closer together. This improved resolution is extremely useful for marine gravity studies and the mapping of seafloor topography. It also allowed for valuable operational oceanographic and science observations."Not only did Jason-2 extend the precise climate record established by TOPEX/Poseidon and continued by Jason-1, it also made invaluable observations for small- to medium-scale ocean studies in its second, interleaved orbit," said CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall. "Even when moved to the 'graveyard' orbit, Jason-2 continued to make unprecedented new observations of the Earth's gravity field, with precise measurements right until the end."The technological advancements proven on Jason-1, Jason-2/OSTM and Jason-3 will be put to use well into future decades. Following Jason-3 will be two future Sentinel-6/Jason-CS satellites, planned for launch in 2020 and 2025.For more information about NASA's Earth science activities, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/earth

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-roman-and-esas-euclid-will-team-up-to-investigate-dark-energy

NASA’s Roman and ESA’s Euclid Will Team Up to Investigate Dark Energy

The two missions will study this as-yet-unexplained phenomenon in complementary ways.

A new space telescope namedEuclid, an ESA (European Space Agency) mission with important contributions from NASA, is set to launch in July to explore why the universe’s expansion is speeding up. Scientists call the unknown cause of this cosmic acceleration “dark energy.” By May 2027,NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescopewill join Euclid to explore this puzzle in ways that have never been possible before.This infographic compares key elements of ESA’s Euclid and NASA’s Roman spacecraft. The two will work in complementary ways to shed light on some of the universe’s most mysterious components.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center“Twenty-five years after its discovery, the universe’s accelerated expansion remains one of the most pressing mysteries in astrophysics,” said Jason Rhodes, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Rhodes is a deputy project scientist for Roman and the U.S. science lead for Euclid. “With these upcoming telescopes, we will measure dark energy in different ways and with far more precision than previously achievable, opening up a new era of exploration into this mystery.”Scientists are unsure whether the universe’s accelerated expansion is caused by an additional energy component or whether it signals that our understanding of gravity needs to be changed in some way. Astronomers will use Roman and Euclid totest both theoriesat the same time, and scientists expect both missions to uncover important information about the underlying workings of the universe.Euclid and Roman are both designed to study cosmic acceleration, but using different and complementary strategies. Both missions will make 3D maps of the universe to answer fundamental questions about the history and structure of the universe. Together, they will be much more powerful than either individually.Euclid will observe a far larger area of the sky – approximately 15,000 square degrees, or about a third of the sky – in both infrared and optical wavelengths of light, but with less detail than Roman. It will peer back 10 billion years to when the universe was about 3 billion years old.Roman’s largest core survey will be capable of probing the universe to a much greater depth and precision, but over a smaller area – about 2,000 square degrees, or one-twentieth of the sky. Its infrared vision will unveil the cosmos when it was 2 billion years old, revealing a larger number of fainter galaxies. While Euclid will focus on cosmology exclusively, Roman will also survey nearby galaxies,findandinvestigateplanets throughout our galaxy, study objects in the outskirts of our solar system, and much more.The Dark Energy HuntThe universe has been expanding ever since its birth – a fact discovered by Belgian astronomer GeorgesLemaîtrein 1927 and Edwin Hubble in 1929. But scientists expected the gravity of the universe’s matter to gradually slow that expansion. In the 1990s, by looking at a particular kind of supernova, scientists discovered that about 6 billion years ago,dark energybegan ramping up its influence on the universe, and no one knows how or why. The fact that it’s speeding up means that our picture of the cosmos is missing something fundamental.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERRoman and Euclid will provide separate streams of compelling new data to fill in gaps in our understanding. They’ll attempt to pin down cosmic acceleration’s cause in a few different ways.First, both Roman and Euclid will study the accumulation of matter using a technique called weak gravitational lensing. This light-bending phenomenon occurs because anything with mass warps the fabric of space-time; the bigger the mass, the greater the warp. Images of a distant source produced by light moving through these warps look distorted, too. When those nearer “lensing” objects are massive galaxies or galaxy clusters, background sources can appear smeared or form multiple images.Less concentrated mass, like clumps ofdark matter,can create more subtle effects. By studying these smaller distortions, Roman and Euclid will each create a 3D dark matter map. That will offer clues about cosmic acceleration because the gravitational attraction of dark matter, acting like a cosmic glue that holds together galaxies and galaxy clusters, counters the universe’s expansion. Tallying up the universe’s dark matter across cosmic time will help scientists better understand the push-and-pull feeding into cosmic acceleration.The two missions will also studythe way galaxies clustered togetherin different cosmic eras. Scientists have detected a pattern in the way galaxies congregate from measurements of the nearby universe. For any galaxy today, we are about twice as likely to find another galaxy about 500 million light-years away than a little nearer or farther.This distance has grown over time due to the expansion of space. By looking farther out into the universe, to earlier cosmic times, astronomers can study the preferred distance between galaxies in different eras. Seeing how it has changed will reveal the expansion history of the universe. Seeing how galaxy clustering varies over time will also enable an accurate test of gravity. This will help astronomers differentiate between an unknown energy component and various modified gravity theories as explanations for cosmic acceleration.Roman will conduct an additional survey to discover many distanttype Ia supernovae– a special type of exploding star. These explosions peak at a similar intrinsic brightness. Because of this, astronomers can determine how far away the supernovae are by simply measuring how bright they appear.Astronomers will use Roman to study the light of these supernovae to find out how quickly they appear to be moving away from us. By comparing how fast they’re receding at different distances, scientists will trace cosmic expansion over time. This will help us better understand whether and how dark energy has changed throughout the history of the universe.A Powerful PairThe two missions’ surveys will overlap, with Euclid likely observing the whole area Roman will scan. That means scientists will be able to use Roman’s more sensitive and precise data to apply corrections to Euclid’s, and extend the corrections over Euclid’s much larger area.“Euclid’s first look at the broad region of sky it will survey will inform the science, analysis, and survey approach for Roman’s deeper dive,” said Mike Seiffert, project scientist for the NASA contribution to Euclid at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.“Together, Euclid and Roman will add up to much more than the sum of their parts,” said Yun Wang, a senior research scientist at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, who has led galaxy clustering science groups for both Euclid and Roman. “Combining their observations will give astronomers a better sense of what’s actually going on in the universe.”More About the MissionsThree NASA-supported science groups are contributing to the Euclid mission. In addition to designing and fabricating Euclid’s Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP) instrument sensor-chip electronics, JPL led the procurement and delivery of the NISP detectors. Those detectors were tested at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The Euclid NASA Science Center at IPAC (ENSCI), at Caltech, will support U.S.-based investigations using Euclid data.For more information about Euclid go to:https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.For more information about Roman go to:https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/hubble-spies-ancient-star-clusters-with-a-violent-past

Hubble Spies Ancient Star Clusters With a Violent Past

A colorful image showing violent star formation triggered when two galaxies bumped into each other has been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

A colorful image showing violent star formation triggered when two galaxies bumped into each other has been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.In the image, the starburst galaxy M82 has a disturbed appearance caused by violent activity after an ancient encounter with its large galactic neighbor, M81. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is online athttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/wfpc.The huge lanes of dust that crisscross M82's disk are another telltale sign of the flurry of star formation. Below the center and to the right, a strong galactic wind is spewing knotty filaments of hydrogen and nitrogen gas. More than 100 super star clusters -- very bright, compact groupings of about 100,000 stars -- appear as white dots sprinkled throughout the galaxy's central area. The dark area just above center is a huge dust cloud.A collaboration of European and American scientists used these clusters to date the interaction between M82 and M81 to about 600 million years ago, when a region called M82 B (the bright area just below and to the left of the central dust cloud) exploded with new stars. Scientists have found that this ancient starburst was triggered by the encounter with M81. The results are published in the February 2001 issue of the Astronomical Journal.This discovery provides evidence linking the birth of super star clusters to violent interaction between galaxies. These clusters also provide insight into the rough-and-tumble universe of long ago, when galaxies bumped into each other more frequently.M82 is located 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. The picture was taken Sept. 15, 1997. The natural-color composite was constructed from three exposures taken with blue, green and red filters.The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., for NASA under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available athttp://www.stsci.edu. More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is available athttp://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-scientists-investigate-ancient-life-in-australia

Mars Scientists Investigate Ancient Life in Australia

Teams with NASA's Mars 2020 and ESA's ExoMars practiced hunting for fossilized microbial life in the Australian Outback in preparation for their Red Planet missions.

As any geologist worth his or her salt will tell you, there are rocks, and then there arerocks. Next July, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are launching rovers to Mars that will search for signs of past microbial life, and to find them, the scientists with NASA's Mars 2020 mission and ESA's ExoMars will need to examine different kinds of rocks that lend compelling insights into the environment in which they were made - all from 100 million miles away."While we expect to find many significant rocksduring both Mars 2020 and ExoMars missions, we also have to leave open the possibility we could find one or morevery specialrocks,the kind whose discovery would not only speak volumes about the history of Mars but contribute significantly to the discussion of life elsewhere in the universe," said Ken Farley, Mars 2020 project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena.Could Mars ever have supported life? In the Australian Outback, scientists from NASA's upcoming Mars 2020 mission and their counterparts from the joint European-Russian ExoMars mission visited the oldest convincing evidence for life on Earth to prepare for their own searches for signs of ancient life on Mars. The field lesson in astrobiology in the Pilbara region is being applied in the near term by NASA, ESA and Roscosmos for mission planning, and will also pay dividends when both rovers begin to send back science data and imagery from the Red Planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechGuided by Martin Van Kranendonk, director of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at the University of New South Wales, members of the two missions' science teams went on an expedition to northwestern Australia's Pilbara region to analyze, discuss and debate stromatolites - structures preserved in rock that formed in water on early Earth and contain a fossilized record of ancient microbial life. Among the science teams' stops: a stromatolite cluster in a grouping of rock called the Dresser Formation that contains some of the oldest known fossilized records of life on our world."Some 3.48 billion years ago, this area was home to a caldera, or collapsed volcano, filled with hot, bubbling seawater," said Van Kranendonk. "At the same time, this location was also home to structures called microbial mats - visible to the naked eye but composed of microscopic organisms. Today you would know them as simple pond scum, but back thenthey were the most complex lifeforms on Earth."Likely powered by photosynthesis, along with the heat and chemical energy in the caldera, these mats lived at the water's edge, secreting a mucous that would trap grains of sediment swirling around in the water. Over time, sheet after sheet of these microbes trapped sediment on top of previous layers. When the seawater receded and the pond scum dried up and disappeared millennia later, what remained was striking evidence of this co-evolution of geology and biology."A stromatolite is quite subtle to the untrained eye," said Van Kranendonk. "But once you know the details, you recognize that these wavy, wrinkly rocks have a structure different from that which can be explained by just geology."Past Life on Mars?Of course, the Outback isn't Mars, but what happened in the Dresser Formation a billion years ago and what happened on the Red Planet at roughly the same time share some eerie similarities.Between 3 billion and 4 billion years ago at the Mars 2020 landing site, Jezero Crater, a river flowed into a body of water the size of Lake Tahoe, depositing delta sediments packed with clay and carbonate minerals. The conditions were ideal for stromatolites to form on the shorelines, which is one key reason the rover team will be touching down there in February 2021. "It's hard to think of a better recipe for life to thrive - and for its record to be preserved - than the one we see at Jezero," said Ken Williford, deputy project scientist for Mars 2020 at JPL.If stromatolites ever existed in Jezero or at Oxia Planum, the ExoMars landing site, the teams need to know what to look for, hence this trip to the Outback. But that's not the only reason they came."I organized this first joint Mars 2020-ExoMars science expedition so scientists from our two great missions could gain a new perspective on these one-of-a-kind stromatolites; a laboratory setting just can't provide the same context," said Mitch Schulte, Mars 2020 program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "That applies to the experience as a whole, too - the conversations, comparing of notes and planning for future exchanges that was done here in the Pilbara will go a long way to advance Mars science."Two Missions, Two RoversWhile the two missions both seek to find evidence of past life, each is approaching the challenge in its own way. Touching down about a week after Mars 2020, the ExoMars rover, otherwise known as the Rosalind Franklin,carries a core drillthat on two or more occasions will bore almost 7 feet (2 meters) into the Martian crust. The rover will analyze the samples onsite with a sophisticated suite of scientific instruments.The coring mechanism on NASA's Mars 2020 rover drills shallower holes but is designed to collect more than 40 rock and soil core samples. There will be on-site analysis of rocks at the coring sites, and the samples themselves will be sealed in metal tubes that will ultimately be deposited by the rover at specific sites. Future missions could then retrieve those samples and return them to Earth for the sort of laboratory analysis that just isn't possible on Mars."These two Mars missions will be revolutionary because they are complementary," said Teresa Fornaro, a science team member for the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer instrument aboard ExoMars. "Two different rovers with two different sets of instruments, exploring at the same time two different landing sites. Some of the capabilities of Mars 2020 in characterizing the surface environment could help guide ExoMars on where to drill. Conversely, knowledge of the alteration of possible organics as a function of depth by ExoMars could help Mars 2020 select the most interesting surface samples to collect for future return to Earth."When the joint Mars 2020-ExoMars science Outback expedition concluded in late August, the science teams went their separate ways. But to those who honed their stromatolite-hunting skills in the Pilbara, the influence of the trip continues."What is happening working out here in the field is also happening in the halls of NASA and ESA," said Schulte. "Finding evidence of life on another world, if it ever existed, will require tenacity and a whole lot of brainpower. If there is a stromatolite in the range of the rovers, I think we have a good chance of finding it ... and we'll find it together. This trip will have helped with that."The launch window for Mars 2020 opens on July 17, 2020. It will land at Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. The launch window for ExoMars opens July 25, 2020. It will land at Oxia Planum in March 2021.JPL is building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. NASA will use Mars 2020 and other missions, including to the Moon, to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. The agency intends to establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA'sArtemis lunar exploration plans. The ExoMars program is a joint endeavor between the European Space Agency and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).For more information about the mission, go to:https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-phoenix-mars-lander-extending-trench

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Extending Trench

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is using its Robotic Arm to enlarge an exposure of hard subsurface material expected to yield a sample of ice-rich soil for analysis in one of the lander's ovens.

TUCSON, Ariz. -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is using its Robotic Arm to enlarge an exposure of hard subsurface material expected to yield a sample of ice-rich soil for analysis in one of the lander's ovens.The trench was about 20 by 30 centimeters (8 by 12 inches) after work by the arm on Saturday. The team sent commands today to extend the longer dimension by about 15 centimeters (6 inches).Experiments with a near-duplicate of the lander in Tucson during the past week indicate that the bigger surface is needed to allow steps planned for collecting an icy sample from the Martian trench informally named "Snow White.""Right now, there is not enough real estate of dark icy soil in the trench to do a sample acquisition test and later a full-up acquisition" for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, said Ray Arvidson, Phoenix's "dig czar," from Washington University in St. Louis. The arm's rasp will kick the icy soil into the scoop through a special capture mechanism, and scientists also want to scoop up any loose material left in the trench from the rasping activity, Arvidson said.Samples of shallower, non-icy soil from the Snow White trench have already been examined in Phoenix's wet chemistry laboratory and optical microscope, and a fork-like probe has checked how well nearby soil conducts electricity and heat."The Phoenix science team is working diligently to analyze the results of the tests from these various instruments," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith. "The preliminary signatures we are seeing are intriguing. Before we release results, we want to verify that our interpretations are correct by conducting laboratory tests."As the Robotic Arm was extracting the fork-like conductivity probe from the soil on Saturday, the arm contacted a rock called "Alice," near the "Snow White" trenching area. The arm is programmed to stop activity when it encounters an obstacle. The team assessed the arm's status on Sunday and decided to resume use of the arm on Monday. Today's commands call for the Robotic Arm to move away from the rock, dump out soil that is in the scoop and extend the Snow White trench approximately 15 centimeters (6 inches) toward the lander.The Phoenix mission is led by Smith of the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For more about Phoenix, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/phoenixandhttp://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/earth-may-have-captured-a-1960s-era-rocket-booster

Earth May Have Captured a 1960s-Era Rocket Booster

In 1966, NASA launched Surveyor 2 to the Moon. Now its rocket booster has apparently returned to near-Earth space.

Earth has captured a tiny object from its orbit around the Sun and will keep it as a temporary satellite for a few months before it escapes back to a solar orbit. But the object is likely not an asteroid; it's probably the Centaur upper stage rocket booster that helped lift NASA's ill-fated Surveyor 2 spacecraft toward the Moon in 1966.This story of celestial catch-and-release begins with the detection of an unknown object by the NASA-fundedPan-STARRS1survey telescope on Maui in September. Astronomers at Pan-STARRS noticed that this object followed a slight but distinctly curved path in the sky, which is a sign of its proximity to Earth. The apparent curvature is caused by the rotation of the observer around Earth's axis as our planet spins. Assumed to be an asteroid orbiting the Sun, the object was given a standard designation by theMinor Planet Centerin Cambridge, Massachusetts: 2020 SO. But scientists at theCenter for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS)at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California saw the object's orbit and suspected it was not a normal asteroid.Get the Latest JPL NewsSubscribe to the NewsletterMost asteroids' orbits are more elongated and tilted relative to Earth's orbit. But the orbit of 2020 SO around the Sun was very similar to that of Earth: It was at about the same distance, nearly circular, and in an orbital plane that almost exactly matched that of our planet - highly unusual for a natural asteroid.As astronomers at Pan-STARRS and around the world made additional observations of 2020 SO, the data also started to reveal the degree to which the Sun's radiation was changing 2020 SO's trajectory - an indication that it may not be an asteroid after all.This 1964 photograph shows a Centaur upper-stage rocket before being mated to an Atlas booster. A similar Centaur was used during the launch of Surveyor 2 two years later.Credit: NASAThe pressure exerted by sunlight is small but continuous, and it has a greater effect on a hollow object than a solid one. A spent rocket is essentially an empty tube and therefore is a low-density object with a large surface area. So it will be pushed around by solar radiation pressure more than a solid, high-density clump of rock - much like an empty soda can will be pushed by the wind more than a small stone."Solar radiation pressure is a non-gravitational force that is caused by light photons emitted by the Sun hitting a natural or artificial object," said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at JPL, who analyzed 2020 SO's trajectory for CNEOS. "The resulting acceleration on the object depends on the so-called area-to-mass ratio, which is greater for small and light, low-density objects."With the analysis of more than 170 detailed measurements of 2020 SO's position over the last three months, including observations made by the NASA-fundedCatalina Sky Surveyin Arizona and ESA's (European Space Agency's)Optical Ground Stationin Tenerife, Spain, the impact of solar radiation pressure became evident and confirmed 2020 SO's low-density nature. The next step was to figure out where the suspected rocket booster could have come from.This 1964 photograph shows a Centaur upper-stage rocket before being mated to an Atlas booster. A similar Centaur was used during the launch of Surveyor 2 two years later.Credit: NASASpace Age ArtifactTheSurveyor 2lunar lander was launched toward the Moon on Sept. 20, 1966, on an Atlas-Centaur rocket. The mission was designed to reconnoiter the lunar surface ahead of the Apollo missions that led to the first crewed lunar landing in 1969. Shortly after lift-off, Surveyor 2 separated from its Centaur upper-stage booster as intended. But control of the spacecraft was lost a day later when one of its thrusters failed to ignite, throwing it into a spin. The spacecraft crashed into the Moon just southeast of Copernicus crater on Sept. 23, 1966. The spent Centaur upper-stage rocket, meanwhile, sailed past the Moon and disappeared into an unknown orbit about the Sun.Suspicious that 2020 SO was a remnant of an old lunar mission, CNEOS Director Paul Chodas "turned back the clock" and ran the object's orbit backward to determine where it had been in the past. Chodas found that 2020 SO had come somewhat close to Earth a few times over the decades, but 2020 SO's approach in late 1966, according to his analysis, would have been close enough that it may have originatedfromEarth."One of the possible paths for 2020 SO brought the object very close to Earth and the Moon in late September 1966," said Chodas. "It was like a eureka moment when a quick check of launch dates for lunar missions showed a match with the Surveyor 2 mission."Now, in 2020, the Centaur appears to have returned to Earth for a brief visit. On Nov. 8, 2020 SO slowly drifted into Earth's sphere of gravitational dominance, a region called the Hill sphere that extends roughly 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet. That's where 2020 SO will remain for about four months before it escapes back into a new orbit around the Sun in March 2021.Before it leaves, 2020 SO will make two large loops around our planet, with its closest approach on Dec. 1. During this period, astronomers will get a closer look and study its composition using spectroscopy to confirm if 2020 SO is indeed an artifact from the early Space Age.JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, hosts CNEOS for NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program that is managed within NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office. More information about CNEOS, asteroids, and near-Earth objects can be found at:https://cneos.jpl.nasa.govFor more information about NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefenseFor asteroid and comet news and updates, follow @AsteroidWatch on Twitter:https://twitter.com/AsteroidWatch

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/volpe-appointed-manager-of-mars-subsurface-technology

Volpe Appointed Manager of Mars Subsurface Technology

Richard Volpe, former manager of robotic autonomy architecture at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has been named manager of JPL's Mars Regional Mobility and Subsurface Access Technology office

Richard Volpe, former manager of robotic autonomy architecture at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has been named manager of JPL's Mars Regional Mobility and Subsurface Access Technology office.In this new role, Volpe will oversee and coordinate the technology and development for next-generation Mars surface and subsurface exploration. This will include overseeing demonstrations of future mission concepts."The intent for these missions is to increase the level of autonomy for the systems, particularly rovers," said Volpe. The Mars Exploration Rovers in 2003 will demonstrate surface mobility, he said. "We hope to use new capabilities like stereo-vision, obstacle avoidance and voyaging away from the landing site."However, Volpe says that the objective is to create rovers that will not need to stop and communicate with operators whenever they encounter problems. "If a rover has problems, it needs to phone home. We want to make it smarter. We want to minimize the detailed level of operator interaction and increase system performance and science data return." With this in mind, Volpe said, he hopes to create a rover that could travel longer distances and carry out operations for several days without communicating with Earth.Volpe has been with JPL for 10 years. He also worked on the Long Range Science Rover Desert Field tests with the rover Rocky 7, which helped to make the proposed 2003 rover mission a possibility. Volpe received his bachelor's degree in physics from Loyola College in Baltimore, Md., and his master's and doctorate in applied physics from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pa. Volpe is a resident of Pasadena.JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/curiosity-rover-exits-safe-mode

Curiosity Rover Exits 'Safe Mode'

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has returned to active status and is on track to resume science investigations, following two days in a precautionary standby status, "safe mode."

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has returned to active status and is on track to resume science investigations, following two days in a precautionary standby status, "safe mode."Next steps will include checking the rover's active computer, the B-side computer, by commanding a preliminary free-space move of the arm. The B-side computer was provided information last week about the position of the robotic arm, which was last moved by the redundant A-side computer.The rover was switched from the A-side to the B-side by engineers on Feb. 28 in response to a memory glitch on the A-side. The A-side now is available as a back-up if needed."We expect to get back to sample-analysis science by the end of the week," said Curiosity Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.Engineers quickly diagnosed the software issue that prompted the safe mode on March 16 and know how to prevent it from happening again.Other upcoming activities include preparations for a moratorium on transmitting commands to Curiosity during most of April, when Mars will be passing nearly directly behind the sun from Earth's perspective. The moratorium is a precaution against interference by the sun corrupting a command sent to the rover.NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity and the rover's 10 science instruments to investigate environmental history within Gale Crater, a location where the project has found that conditions were long ago favorable for microbial life. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.More information about Curiosity is online athttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl,http://www.nasa.gov/mslandhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. You can follow the mission on Facebook at:http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosityand on Twitter at:http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/kepler-beyond-planets-finding-exploding-stars

Kepler Beyond Planets: Finding Exploding Stars

The Kepler space telescope, famous for finding exoplanets, has also been valuable in tracking exploding stars known as supernovae.

Fast Facts:› The Kepler space telescope, famous for finding exoplanets, has also been valuable in tracking exploding stars known as supernovae› Supernovae forge heavy elements -- materials that make up the world in which we live -- and distribute them› Through creative engineering, Kepler has had a second life in finding both exoplanets and other astrophysical phenomena› Kepler's current observing campaign is a rare opportunity to coordinate with ground-based telescopes to look for supernovaeAstronomer Ed Shaya was in his office looking at data from NASA's Kepler space telescope in 2012 when he noticed something unusual: The light from a galaxy had quickly brightened by 10 percent. The sudden bump in light got Shaya instantly excited, but also nervous. The effect could be explained by the massive explosion of a star -- a supernova! -- or, more troublingly, a computer error."I just remember on that day, not knowing whether I should believe it or not," he remembers. Rather than celebrate, he thought, "Did I make a mistake? Am I doing this all wrong?"This animation shows a kind of stellar explosion called a Fast-Evolving Luminous Transient. In this case, a giant star "burps" out a shell of gas and dust about a year before exploding. Most of the energy from the supernova turns into light when it hits this previously ejected material, resulting in a short, but brilliant burst of radiation. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechStellar explosions forge and distribute materials that make up the world in which we live, and also hold clues to how fast the universe is expanding. By understanding supernovae, scientists can unlock mysteries that are key to what we are made of and the fate of our universe. But to get the full picture, scientists must observe supernovae from a variety of perspectives, especially in the first moments of the explosion. That's really difficult -- there's no telling when or where a supernova might happen next.A small group of astronomers, including Shaya, realized Kepler could offer a new technique for supernova-hunting. Launched in 2009, Kepler is best known for having discovered thousands of exoplanets. But as a telescope that stares at single patches of space for long periods of time, it can capture a vast trove of other cosmic treasures --especially the kind that change rapidly or pop in and out of view, like supernovae."Kepler opened up a new way of looking at the sky," said Jessie Dotson, Kepler's project scientist, based at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "It was designed to do one thing really well, which was to find planets around other stars. In order to do that, it had to deliver high-precision, continuous data, which has been valuable for other areas of astronomy."Originally, Shaya and colleagues were looking for active galactic nuclei in their Kepler data. An active galactic nucleus is an extremely bright area at the center of a galaxy where a voracious black hole is surrounded by a disk of hot gas. They had thought about searching for supernovae, but since supernovae are such rare events, they didn't mention it in their proposal. "It was too iffy," Shaya said.Unsure if the supernova signal he found was real, Shaya and his University of Maryland colleague Robert Olling spent months developing software to better calibrate Kepler data, taking into account variations in temperature and pointing of the instrument. Still, the supernova signal persisted. In fact, they found five more supernovae in their Kepler sample of more than 400 galaxies. When Olling showed one of the signals to Armin Rest, who is now an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltlimore, Rest's jaw dropped. "I started to drool," he said. The door had opened to a new way of tracking and understanding stellar explosions.Today, these astronomers are part of the Kepler Extra-Galactic Survey, a collaboration between seven scientists in the United States, Australia and Chile looking for supernovae and active galactic nuclei to explore the physics of our universe. To date, they have found more than 20 supernovae using data from the Kepler spacecraft, including an exotic type reported by Rest in anew study in Nature Astronomy. Many more are currently being recorded by Kepler's ongoing observations."We have some of the best-understood supernovae," said Brad Tucker, astronomer at the Mt. Stromlo Observatory at the Australian National University, who is part of the Kepler Extra-Galactic Survey.This animation shows the explosion of a white dwarf, an extremely dense remnant of a star that can no longer burn nuclear fuel at its core. In this "type Ia" supernova, white dwarf's gravity steals material away from a nearby stellar companion. When the white dwarf reaches an estimated 1.4 times the current mass of the Sun, it can no longer sustain its own weight, and blows up. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechWhy do we care about supernovae?A longstanding mystery in astrophysics is how and why stars explode in different ways. One kind of supernova happens when a dense, dead star called a white dwarf explodes. A second kind happens when a single gigantic star nears the end of its life, and its core can no longer withstand the gravitational forces acting on it. The details of these general categories are still being worked out.The first kind, called "type Ia" (pronounced as "one a") is special because the intrinsic brightness of each of these supernovae is almost the same. Astronomers have used this standard property to measure the expansion of the universe and found the more distant supernovae were less bright than expected. This indicated they were farther away than scientists had thought, as the light had become stretched out over expanding space. This proved that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate and earned those researchers the Nobel Prize in 2011. The leading theory is that a mysterious force called "dark energy" is pushing everything in the universe apart from everything else, faster and faster.But as astronomers find more and more examples of type Ia explosions, including with Kepler, they realize not all are created equal. While some of these supernovae happen when a white dwarf robs its companion of too much matter, others are the result of two white dwarfs merging. In fact, the white dwarf mergers may be more common. More supernova research with Kepler will help astronomers on a quest to find out if different type Ia mechanisms result in some supernovae being brighter than others -- which would throw a wrench into how they are used to measure the universe's expansion."To get a better idea of constraining dark energy, we have to understand better how these type Ia supernovae are formed," Rest said.This animation shows the merger of two white dwarfs. A white dwarf is an extremely dense remnant of a star that can no longer burn nuclear fuel at its core. This is another way that a "type Ia" supernova occurs. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechAnother kind of supernova, the "core collapse" variety, happens when a massive star ends its life in an explosion. This includes "Type II" supernovae. These supernovae have a characteristic shockwave called the "shock breakout," which was captured for the first time in optical light by Kepler. The Kepler Extra-Galactic Survey team, led by team member Peter Garnavich, an astrophysics professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana,spotted this shock breakoutin 2011 Kepler data from a supernova called KSN 2011d, an explosion from a star roughly 500 times the size of our Sun. Surprisingly, the team did not find a shock breakout in a smaller type II supernova called KSN 2011a, whose star was 300 times the size of the Sun -- but instead found the supernova nestled in a layer of dust, suggesting that there is diversity in type II stellar explosions, too.Kepler data have revealed other mysteries about supernovae. The new study led by Rest in Nature Astronomy describes a supernova from data captured by Kepler's extended mission, called K2, that reaches its peak brightness in just a little over two days, about 10 times less than others take. It is the most extreme known example of a "fast-evolving luminous transient" (FELT) supernova. FELTs are about as bright as the type Ia variety, but rise in less than 10 days and fade in about 30. It is possible that the star spewed out a dense shell of gas about a year before the explosion, and when the supernova happened, ejected material hit the shell. The energy released in that collision would explain the quick brightening.Why Kepler?Telescopes on Earth offer a lot of information about exploding stars, but only over short periods of time -- and only when the Sun goes down and the sky is clear - so it's hard to document the "before" and "after" effects of these explosions. Kepler, on the other hand, offers astronomers the rare opportunity to monitor single patches of sky continuously for months, like a car's dashboard camera that is always recording. In fact, the primary Kepler mission, which ran from 2009 to 2013, delivered four years of observations of the same field of view, snapping a picture about every 30 minutes. In the extended K2 mission, the telescope is holding its gaze steady for up to about three months.This animation shows a gigantic star exploding in a "core collapse" supernova. As atoms fuse inside the star, eventually the star can't support its own weight anymore. Gravity makes the star collapse on itself. Core collapse supernovae are called type Ib, Ic, or II depending on the chemical elements present. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechWith ground-based telescopes, astronomers can tell the supernova's color and how it changes with time, which lets them figure out what chemicals are present in the explosion. The supernova's composition helps determine the type of star that exploded. Kepler, on the other hand, reveals how and why the star explodes, and the details of how the explosion progresses. Using the two datasets together, astronomers can get fuller pictures of supernovae behavior than ever before.Kepler mission plannersrevivedthe telescope in 2013, after the malfunction of the second of its four reaction wheels -- devices that help control the orientation of the spacecraft. In the configuration called K2, it needs to rotate every three months or so -- marking observing "campaigns." Members of the Kepler Extra-Galactic Survey made the case that in the K2 mission, Kepler could still monitor supernovae and other exotic, distant astrophysical objects, in addition to exoplanets.The possibilities were so exciting that the Kepler team devised two K2 observing campaigns especially useful for coordinating supernovae studies with ground-based telescopes. Campaign 16, which began on Dec. 7, 2017, and ended Feb. 25, 2018,included 9,000 galaxies. There are about 14,000 in Campaign 17, which is just beginning now. In both campaigns, Kepler faces in the direction of Earth so that observers on the ground can see the same patch of sky as the spacecraft. The campaigns have excited a community of researchers who can advantage of this rare coordination between Kepler and telescopes on the ground.Infographic› Larger viewA recent possible sighting got astronomers riled up on Super Bowl Sunday this year, even if they weren't into the game. On that "super" day, the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASASSN) reported a supernova in the same nearby galaxy Kepler was monitoring. This is just one of many candidate events that scientists are excited to follow up on and perhaps use to better understand the secrets of the universe.A few more supernovae may come from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, (TESS) which is expected to launch on April 16. In the meantime, scientists will have a lot of work ahead of them once they receive the full dataset from K2's supernova-focused campaigns."It will be a treasure trove of supernova information for years to come," Tucker said.Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/kepler

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasas-new-earth-space-mission

Methane ‘Super-Emitters’ Mapped by NASA’s New Earth Space Mission

Built to help scientists understand how dust affects climate, the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation can also pinpoint emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.

NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission is mapping the prevalence of key minerals in the planet’s dust-producing deserts – information that will advance our understanding of airborne dust’s effects on climate. But EMIT has demonstrated another crucial capability: detecting the presence of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.In the data EMIT has collected since being installed on the International Space Station in July, the science team has identified more than 50 “super-emitters” in Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Southwestern United States. Super-emitters are facilities, equipment, and other infrastructure, typically in the fossil-fuel, waste, or agriculture sectors, that emit methane at high rates.“Reining in methane emissions is key to limiting global warming. This exciting new development will not only help researchers better pinpoint where methane leaks are coming from, but also provide insight on how they can be addressed – quickly,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The International Space Station and NASA’s more than two dozen satellites and instruments in space have long been invaluable in determining changes to the Earth’s climate. EMIT is proving to be a critical tool in our toolbox to measure this potent greenhouse gas – and stop it at the source.”Methane absorbs infrared light in a unique pattern – called a spectral fingerprint – that EMIT’s imaging spectrometer can discern with high accuracy and precision. The instrument can also measure carbon dioxide.The cube (left) shows methane plumes (purple, orange, yellow) over Turkmenistan. The rainbow colors are the spectral fingerprints from corresponding spots in the front image. The blue line in the graph (right) shows the methane fingerprint EMIT detected; the red line is the expected fingerprint based on an atmospheric simulation.Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechThe new observations stem from the broad coverage of the planet afforded by the space station’s orbit, as well as from EMIT’s ability to scan swaths of Earth’s surface dozens of miles wide while resolving areas as small as a soccer field.“These results are exceptional, and they demonstrate the value of pairing global-scale perspective with the resolution required to identify methane point sources, down to the facility scale,” said David Thompson, EMIT’s instrument scientist and a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. “It’s a unique capability that will raise the bar on efforts to attribute methane sources and mitigate emissions from human activities.”Relative to carbon dioxide, methane makes up a fraction of human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions, but it’s estimated to be 80 times more effective, ton for ton, at trapping heat in the atmosphere in the 20 years after release. Moreover, wherecarbon dioxide lingersfor centuries, methane persists for about a decade, meaning that if emissions are reduced, the atmosphere will respond in a similar timeframe, leading to slower near-term warming.Identifying methane point sources can be a key step in the process. With knowledge of the locations of big emitters, operators of facilities, equipment, and infrastructure giving off the gas can quickly act to limit emissions.Watch video of EMIT’s launch and “first light”EMIT’s methane observations came as scientists verified theaccuracy of the imaging spectrometer’s mineral data. Over its mission, EMIT will collect measurements of surface minerals in arid regions of Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Australia. The data will help researchers better understand airborne dust particles’ role in heating and cooling Earth’s atmosphere and surface.“We have been eager to see how EMIT’s mineral data will improve climate modeling,” said Kate Calvin, NASA’s chief scientist and senior climate advisor. “This additional methane-detecting capability offers a remarkable opportunity to measure and monitor greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.”Detecting Methane PlumesThe mission’s study area coincides with known methane hotspots around the world, enabling researchers to look for the gas in those regions to test the capability of the imaging spectrometer.“Some of the plumes EMIT detected are among the largest ever seen – unlike anything that has ever been observed from space,” said Andrew Thorpe, a research technologist at JPL leading the EMIT methane effort. “What we’ve found in a just a short time already exceeds our expectations.”Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERFor example, the instrument detected a plume about 2 miles (3.3 kilometers) long southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the Permian Basin. One of the largest oilfields in the world, the Permian spans parts of southeastern New Mexico and western Texas.In Turkmenistan, EMIT identified 12 plumes from oil and gas infrastructure east of the Caspian Sea port city of Hazar. Blowing to the west, some plumes stretch more than 20 miles (32 kilometers).The team also identified a methane plume south of Tehran, Iran, at least 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) long, from a major waste-processing complex. Methane is a byproduct of decomposition, and landfills can be a major source.Scientists estimate flow rates of about 40,300 pounds (18,300 kilograms) per hour at the Permian site, 111,000 pounds (50,400 kilograms) per hour in total for the Turkmenistan sources, and 18,700 pounds (8,500 kilograms) per hour at the Iran site.The Turkmenistan sources together have a similar flow rate to the 2015 Aliso Canyon gas leak, which exceeded 110,000 pounds (50,000 kilograms) per hour at times. The Los Angeles-area disaster was among the largest methane releases in U.S. history.With wide, repeated coverage from its vantage point on the space station, EMIT will potentially find hundreds of super-emitters – some of them previously spotted through air-, space-, or ground-based measurement, and others that were unknown.“As it continues to survey the planet, EMIT will observe places in which no one thought to look for greenhouse-gas emitters before, and it will find plumes that no one expects,” said Robert Green, EMIT’s principal investigator at JPL.EMIT is the first of a new class of spaceborne imaging spectrometers to study Earth. One example is Carbon Plume Mapper (CPM), an instrument in development at JPL that’s designed to detect methane and carbon dioxide. JPL is working with a nonprofit,Carbon Mapper, along with other partners, to launch two satellites equipped with CPM in late 2023.More About the MissionEMIT was selected from the Earth Venture Instrument-4 solicitation under the Earth Science Division of NASA Science Mission Directorate and was developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California. It launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon resupply spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 14, 2022. The instrument’s data will be delivered to the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) for use by other researchers and the public.The International Space Station hosts seven instruments for NASA Earth Science that are providing novel information for understanding our changing planet.To learn more about the mission, visit:https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/radar-clicks-asteroids-pic

Radar Clicks Asteroid's Pic

Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 was "imaged" by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico on April 19.

Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 was "imaged" by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico on April 19. Data collected during Arecibo's observation of 2005 YU55 allowed the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to refine the space rock's orbit, allowing scientists to rule out any possibility of an Earth impact for the next 100 years.The space rock was about 2.3 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Earth at the time this image of the radar echo was generated. The ghostly image has a resolution of 7.5 meters (25 feet) per pixel. It reveals 2005 YU55 as a spherical object about 400 meters (1,300 feet) in size.Not only can the radar provide data on an asteroid's dimensions, but also on its exact location in space. Using Arecibo's high-precision radar astrometry capability, scientists were able to reduce orbit uncertainties for YU55 by 50 percent."At one time we had classified 2005 YU55 as a potential threat," said Steve Chesley, a scientist at JPL's Near-Earth Object Program Office. Prior to the Arecibo radar passes on April 19 thru 21, we had eliminated almost all upcoming Earth flybys as possibilities of impact. But there were a few that had a low remaining probability of impact. After incorporating the data from Arecibo, we were able to rule impacts out entirely for the next 100 years."With more observations in the coming years, scientists may be able to accurately plot 2005 YU55's orbit even further out.NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/las-big-squeeze-continues-straining-earthquakes

LA's 'Big Squeeze' Continues, Straining Earthquakes

New NASA research confirms that northern metropolitan Los Angeles is being squeezed at a rate of 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) a year, straining an area between two earthquake faults that serve as geologic bookends north and south of the affected region.

New NASA research confirms that northern metropolitan Los Angeles is being squeezed at a rate of 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) a year, straining an area between two earthquake faults that serve as geologic bookends north and south of the affected region.The compression of the Los Angeles landscape is being monitored by a network of more than 250 precision global positioning system receivers known as the Southern California Integrated Global Positioning System Network, as well as by measurements from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) satellites operated by the European Space Agency.Information from these two sources of precision ground deformation measurements is accumulating and enhancing our knowledge of the forces shaping the land surface in the Los Angeles region. These forces include motion along faults due to motions of the North American and Pacific tectonic plates and ground movement caused by human activities, such as oil drilling and pumping water into and out of local aquifers.A team led by Dr. Donald Argus of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., that includes scientists from the University of California at Los Angeles, set out to distinguish between motions induced by human activity and those generated by movements of Earth's tectonic plates. Their results, recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, indicate the human-caused motions are very slow and could not account for the significant ground shift observed in northern Los Angeles.The new study used space-based navigation to determine the exact position of hundreds of points around the metropolitan area to measure the strain building up across faults. Scientists believe the strain will ultimately be released in earthquakes much like the 1994 Northridge temblor. The study also suggests which faults might be most likely to rupture."These findings remove uncertainty about the rate at which strain is building up in northern metropolitan Los Angeles," Argus said. "In addition, by taking into account the effects of humans and observations from the many new global positioning system sites established in the past few years, we can identify the areas where strain is building the fastest."He cautioned, however, that more studies are needed, since scientists do not yet fully understand the consequences and risks of this stress accumulation. "Nevertheless, these data have important implications for hazard management and retrofitting strategies," Argus said.The study finds strain is rapidly accumulating within an area 12 to 25 kilometers (7.5 to 15.5 miles) south of the San Gabriel Mountains, primarily in the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys and nearby hills. The region is located between the Puente Hills fault, which begins south of downtown Los Angeles and extends east, and the Sierra Madre fault, which runs along the base of the San Gabriel Mountains.The new analysis indicates the crust above the Los Angeles segment of the Puente Hills Fault is being squeezed the most. The finding suggests that the Puente Hills Fault and nearby faults in the area, such as the upper Elysian Park Fault, may be more likely to break than those elsewhere in metropolitan Los Angeles. Previous studies have estimated the Puente Hills Fault might generate an earthquake of magnitude 6.6 to 7.5.The researchers constructed models of the accumulating strain, varying which faults "creep" (move continuously without producing earthquakes), how fast they creep, and the depths at which the faults go from being "locked" in place (and building strain) to creeping. The model that best fit their actual global positioning system observations is one where a thrust fault (a fault where one block of Earth shifts up or down relative to the other) is locked above 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) deep and creeps at about 9 millimeters (0.4 inches) a year beneath that depth. From that model, they inferred that the deep part of the Los Angeles segment of the Puente Hills Fault is creeping, as is a deep unknown buried fault east of downtown that lies north of the Whittier Fault and south of the Sierra Madre Fault. The model does not allow scientists to infer which fault segments are locked, however.Argus said a significant discrepancy exists between the relatively shallow locking depth of their model and the historical record showing that earthquakes that struck the region in 1971 and 1994 were much deeper. Scientists speculate the discrepancy may be due to the presence of sediments filling parts of the Los Angeles basin. Further studies are planned to examine how these sediments may be affecting fault strain in the region.The study used InSAR data collected from 1992 to 2000 from the European Space Agency's European Remote Sensing satellites to estimate vertical ground motion. Horizontal strain buildup measurements were made from Southern California Integrated Global Positioning System Network observations from 1994 to 2004.JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-odyssey-mission-status-7

Mars Odyssey Mission Status

Flight controllers for NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft sent commands overnight to raise the spacecraft up out of the atmosphere and conclude the aerobraking phase of the mission.

Flight controllers for NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft sent commands overnight to raise the spacecraft up out of the atmosphere and conclude the aerobraking phase of the mission.At 12:18 a.m. Pacific time Jan. 11, Odyssey fired its small thrusters for 244 seconds, changing its speed by 20 meters per second (45 miles per hour) and raising its orbit by 85 kilometers (53 miles). The closest point in Odyssey's orbit, called the periapsis, is now 201 kilometers (125 miles) above the surface of Mars. The farthest point in the orbit, called the apoapsis, is at an altitude of 500 kilometers (311 miles). During the next few weeks, flight controllers will refine the orbit until the spacecraft reaches its final mapping altitude, a 400-kilometer (249-mile) circular orbit."The successful completion of the aerobraking phase is a major milestone for the project. Aerobraking is the most complex phase of the entire mission and the team came through it without a hitch," said David A. Spencer, Odyssey's mission manager at JPL. "During the next month, we will be reconfiguring the spacecraft to begin the science mapping mission." The science mission is expected to begin in late February.During the aerobraking phase, Odyssey skimmed through the upper reaches of the martian atmosphere 332 times. By using the atmosphere of Mars to slow down the spacecraft in its orbit rather than firing its engine or thrusters, Odyssey was able to save more than 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of propellant. This reduction in spacecraft weight enabled the mission to be launched on a Delta II 7925 launch vehicle, rather than a larger, more expensive launcher.JPL manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Principal investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, operate the science instruments. Additional science investigators are located at the Russian Space Research Institute and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., is providing aerobraking support to JPL's navigation team during mission operations.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-cassini-spacecraft-marks-mission-halfway-point

NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Marks Mission Halfway Point

As the Cassini spacecraft reaches the halfway mark in its four-year tour of the Saturn system, discoveries made during the first half of the mission have scientists revved up to find out what's in store for the second act.

As the Cassini spacecraft reaches the halfway mark in its four-year tour of the Saturn system, discoveries made during the first half of the mission have scientists revved up to find out what's in store for the second act. Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since June 30, 2004, studying the planet, its rings and moons."The spacecraft has spent a considerable amount of time studying the moon Titan during 15 separate flybys so far. In the second half of its prime mission, ending June 2008, Cassini will swing by Titan 30 more times," said Robert T. Mitchell, Cassini program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The past two years have been just like a warm-up.""We especially focused on Titan because we thought it could tell us something about the early Earth," said Dr. Toby Owen, Cassini interdisciplinary scientist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.Owen added, "Examining this world frozen in time, we find evidence that Earth may have begun with the same methane-ammonia atmosphere that marked the birth of Titan. Because of our world's closeness to the Sun, Earth has oceans of liquid water, which Titan lacks. The resulting chemistry in Earth's warm environment ultimately led to the origin of life, whereas on Titan we find only a frozen echo of early Earth: methane, nitrogen, and a suite of small organic molecules. Our planet's carefully balanced, warm global climate is the underlying reason that we are investigating Titan, instead of Titanians investigating Earth."Cassini's tour of the Saturnian system is about to take on a new pace. "This summer we will begin our express-ticket ride. That's 11 months with 17 Titan encounters and 51 spacecraft maneuvers to adjust the flight path, more than one maneuver per week," said Jerry Jones, Cassini chief navigator at JPL. The first of these encounters will be a Titan flyby on July 2, followed by the closest Titan encounter yet on July 22, at 950 kilometers (590 miles) above the surface.Later in July, navigators will begin to flip the spacecraft's orbit orientation with respect to the sun by nearly 180 degrees, resulting in a bird's-eye view of Saturn's glorious rings. This gradual transfer will take about one year. "One of the biggest mysteries confronting Cassini is the changes we've seen in Saturn's radio emissions" said Dr. Bill Kurth, Cassini scientist at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. "We've seen the radio period, the frequency of emissions that tell scientists how fast or slow the planet is rotating, change by as much as one percent (or a few minutes) over just 10 years, and we don't know why. Pinning down how long the day is on Saturn is key to understanding other things, such as wind speed."Cassini has quite a job to do during the second half of the mission to match the potpourri of discoveries in its first half.The wealth of information from the Cassini spacecraft and the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which descended through Titan's murky atmosphere to its surface, shows that Titan is remarkably Earth-like. There is evidence for methane rain, erosion, drainage channels, dry lake beds, possible volcanoes and vast dune fields that run for miles.In addition to the Titan findings, Cassini also discovered three new moons, and some of the previously-known moons provided surprises. One of the most bizarre discoveries is a giant mountain range that runs the full length around the equator of Saturn's moon Iapetus. The mountains rival Olympus Mons on Mars, which is nearly three times the height of Mt. Everest. Other moons look like rubble piles.Cassini also acquired the highest resolution images ever taken of the planet's rings. Strange structures in the rings became apparent on the first day of the tour. Waves rip through the rings, while knots and banded structures shape them. Clumps of ice several kilometers wide are now appearing.Scientists also witnessed moons influencing the rings. The moon Prometheus was caught stealing particles from the F-ring, while Enceladus seems to be contributing particles to Saturn's expansive E-ring. A whole new class of small moonlets may lie within Saturn's rings. New rings have also appeared, which may indicate the presence of tiny moonlets.The true showstopper was the discovery of giant, icy geysers gushing from the surface of Enceladus. This evidence leads some scientists to believe there may be liquid water close to the surface.With all these discoveries in the first two years, it's little wonder Cassini scientists are anxiously waiting to see what else remains for their instruments to reveal in the next two years.For images and more information, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/cassiniandhttp://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The 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 was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/a-first-nasa-spots-single-methane-leak-from-space

A First: NASA Spots Single Methane Leak from Space

For the first time, an instrument onboard an orbiting spacecraft has measured the methane emissions from a single, specific leaking facility on Earth's surface.

For the first time, an instrument onboard an orbiting spacecraft has measured the methane emissions from a single, specific leaking facility on Earth's surface. The observation -- by the Hyperion spectrometer on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) -- is an important breakthrough in our ability to eventually measure and monitor emissions of this potent greenhouse gas from space.In a new paper accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a research team with scientist David R. Thompson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, detailed the observation, which occurred over Aliso Canyon, near Porter Ranch, California. The Hyperion instrument successfully detected the methane leak on three separate overpasses during the winter of 2015-16. The research was part of an investigation of the large accidental Aliso Canyon methane release last fall and winter.The orbital observations from Hyperion were consistent with airborne measurements made by NASA's Airborne/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) imager flying onboard a NASA ER-2 aircraft."This is the first time the methane emissions from a single facility have been observed from space," said Thompson. "The percentage of atmospheric methane produced through human activities remains poorly understood. Future instruments with much greater sensitivity on orbiting satellites can help resolve this question by surveying the biggest sources around the world, so that we can better understand and address this unknown factor in greenhouse gas emissions."Other institutions participating in the study include Caltech, Pasadena, California; Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany; and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.Part of NASA's New Millennium Program, EO-1 is an advanced land-imaging mission designed to demonstrate new instruments and spacecraft systems. Launched in 2000, EO-1 has validated technologies for the Operational Land Imager used on the Landsat-8 satellite mission and future imaging spectrometer missions, and supported disaster-response applications. The mission is managed by NASA Goddard. A joint initiative between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, Landsat represents the world's longest continuously acquired collection of space-based moderate-resolution land remote sensing data.For more information on EO-1, visit:http://science.nasa.gov/missions/eo-1/For more information on AVIRIS, visit:http://aviris.jpl.nasa.gov/NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.For more information about NASA's Earth science activities, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/earth

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/four-other-things-ecostress-can-see

Four Other Things ECOSTRESS Can See

ECOSTRESS will track heat stress in plants, but heat is a warning sign in other areas, too. Here are four other fields where the super-precise temperature data could help.

NASA's Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) is designed to study how plants respond to heat and water stress by measuring the temperature of Earth's vegetation at all times of day with an accuracy of a few tenths of a degree.Unusual heat can be a warning sign of important changes and concerns in many fields of research besides botany. Here are four other areas where ECOSTRESS's precise temperature measurements could make a difference.FiresECOSTRESS's radiometer can detect all kinds of fires, but it may be most useful in recording small fires -- new wildfires that are just beginning to grow, and small agricultural fires that only burn for a day. These have proven hard to study from satellite observations. Many satellite sensors make one single measurement of energy averaged over a large area of Earth's surface (pixel), and "If a fire does not occupy enough of the area, it may not be detected," said ECOSTRESS Principal Investigator Simon Hook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.ECOSTRESS has a pixel size of only 130 by 230 feet (40 by 70 meters), offering a much sharper view. "We'll be able to see a bonfire on a beach," Hook said.ECOSTRESS's orbit is also an advantage in finding fires. Sun-synchronous satellites pass over the equator -- and therefore over most of Earth's vegetation -- in mid-morning, but agricultural fires are often not lit until then or later, and they usually die out naturally the same night. So even the highest-resolution sensor in Sun-synchronous orbit is likely to be in the right place at the wrong time to see these burns. Additionally, most high-resolution satellite sensors image the same location only once every couple of weeks. From the vantage point of the International Space Station, ECOSTRESS images the same spot every few days.VolcanoesIf you watched news coverage of the recent Kilauea eruption in Hawaii, you may have noticed images from NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer. ASTER is one of the more versatile satellite imagers for volcanic eruptions because it can observe both heat and sulfur dioxide plumes, which can signal an impending eruption. ECOSTRESS's thermal infrared imager has the same observational capabilities, plus the advantage of a faster revisit time. Passing over a volcano every few days, it will be able to spot new fissures and hotspots many days sooner than the older ASTER.Urban heatThe heat generated by a large city can compound the health hazards of heat waves, particularly for the oldest and youngest city dwellers. Which neighborhoods suffer from heat the most? Which mitigations work best? "With the very detailed images from ECOSTRESS, which will be the highest-spatial-resolution thermal infrared space instrument at the moment, we'll be able to see which mitigation efforts are keeping neighborhoods cool," Hook said. These data could help a city assess the relative effectiveness of mitigation techniques.Coastal and inland watersAlong coastlines and in large lakes, wind can push surface water aside to the extent that cold water from the depths is able to rise to the surface, bringing nutrients with it. These upwellings of cold water are important sources of nutrition for the coastal and lake plants and animals. However, researchers who want to study these upwellings with satellite data are hampered by the same two drawbacks that limit their ability to spot small fires: either the spatial resolution is too coarse to detect the events, or the revisits are too infrequent to catch incidents that last only a few days (or both). ECOSTRESS can detect these smaller upwellings, providing valuable information for understanding how the colder, nutrient-rich material moves and dissipates.As a pathfinder instrument, ECOSTRESS has a limited one-year prime mission on the space station. However, the uses described here and its primary purpose of studying vegetation health were named as priorities for space-based observations in both the last and the current Earth Science Decadal Survey from the National Academy of Sciences. ECOSTRESS measurements will help guide the planning for future observations identified in these surveys.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-ozone-study-may-benefit-air-standards-climate

NASA Ozone Study May Benefit Air Standards, Climate

A new NASA-led study finds that when it comes to combating global warming caused by emissions of ozone-forming chemicals, location matters.

PASADENA, Calif. - A new NASA-led study finds that when it comes to combating global warming caused by emissions of ozone-forming chemicals, location matters.Ozone is both a major air pollutant with known adverse health effects and a greenhouse gas that traps heat from escaping Earth's atmosphere. Scientists and policy analysts are interested in learning how curbing the emissions of these chemicals can improve human health and also help mitigate climate change.Research scientists Kevin Bowman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Daven Henze of the University of Colorado, Boulder, set out to quantify, down to areas the size of large metropolitan regions, how the climate-altering impacts of these chemical emissions vary around the world. The chemicals, which are produced from sources such as planes, factories and automobiles, are converted to ozone in the presence of sunlight and subsequently transported by wind around our planet. Among these chemicals are nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and non-methane hydrocarbons.By combining satellite observations of how much heat ozone absorbs in Earth's atmosphere with a model of how chemicals are transported in the atmosphere, the researchers discovered significant regional variability - in some places by more than a factor of 10 -- in how efficiently ozone trapped heat in Earth's atmosphere, depending upon where the ozone-forming chemical emissions were located. This variability was found within individual continents and even among different regions with similar emission levels within individual countries. High-latitude regions such as Europe had a smaller impact than lower-latitude regions like North America. Ozone was observed to be a more efficient greenhouse gas over hot regions like the tropics or relatively cloud-free regions like the Middle East. The satellite data were collected by the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer instrument on NASA's Aura spacecraft."When it comes to reducing ozone levels, emission reductions in one part of the world may drive greenhouse warming more than a similar level of emission reductions elsewhere," said Bowman, lead author of the study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "Where you clean up ozone precursor emissions makes a big difference. It's all about -- to use a real estate analogy -- location, location, location."Variations in chemicals that lead to the production of ozone are driven by industry and human population. For example, the U.S. Northeast has much higher ozone precursor emission levels than, say, Wisconsin."We show that, for example, even though Chicago has a level of ozone precursor emissions three times larger than the levels in Atlanta, reducing emissions by 10 percent in the Atlanta region has the same impact on climate as reducing emissions by 10 percent in Chicago," Bowman added. "This is because Atlanta is a much more efficient place than Chicago for affecting climate through ozone."The researchers found that the top 15 regional contributors to global ozone greenhouse gas levels were predominantly located in China and the United States, including the regions that encompass New Orleans, Atlanta and Houston.Bowman and Henze found considerable variability in how different types of emissions contribute to ozone's greenhouse gas effect. For example, compared to all nitrogen dioxide emissions -- both human-produced and natural -- industrial and transportation sources make up a quarter of the total greenhouse gas effect, whereas airplanes make up only one percent. They also found that nitrogen dioxide contributes about two-thirds of the ozone greenhouse gas effect compared to carbon monoxide and non-methane hydrocarbons.Bowman said the research suggests that solutions to improve air quality and combat climate change should be tailored for the regions in which they are to be executed."One question that's getting a lot of interest in policy initiatives such as the United Nations' Environment Programme Climate and Clean Air Coalition is controlling short-lived greenhouse gases like methane and ozone as part of a short-term strategy for mitigating climate change," Bowman said. "Our study could enable policy researchers to calculate the relative health and climate benefits of air pollution control and pinpoint where emission reductions will have the greatest impacts. This wasn't really possible to do at these scales before now. This is particularly important in developing countries like China, where severe air pollution problems are of greater concern to public officials than climate change mitigation in the short term.""Our study is an important step forward in this field because we've built a special model capable of looking at the effects of location at a very high resolution," said Henze. "The model simulations are based upon actual observations of ozone warming effects measured by NASA's Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer satellite instrument. This is the first time we've been able to separate observed heat trapping due to ozone into its natural versus human sources, and even into specific types of human sources, such as fossil fuels versus biofuels. This information can be used to mitigate climate change while improving air quality."For more information on TES, visit:http://tes.jpl.nasa.gov. You can follow JPL News on Facebook at:http://www.facebook.com/nasajpland on Twitter at:http://www.twitter.com/nasajpl.The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-invites-public-to-share-excitement-of-mars-2020-perseverance-rover-launch

NASA Invites Public to Share Excitement of Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Launch

A Mars photo booth, augmented-reality filters, and a virtual launch packet are just some of the ways to celebrate the July 30 launch of the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission.

NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities and events ahead of the launch of the agency'sMars 2020 Perseverance rover, which is targeted for 7:50 a.m. EDT (4:50 a.m. PDT) Thursday, July 30, on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.Live coverage and countdown commentary will begin at 7 a.m. EDT (4 a.m. PDT) on NASA Television and the agency'swebsite, as well asYouTube,Twitter,Facebook,LinkedIn,Twitch,Daily Motion, andTheta.TV. As part of the broadcast, Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Gregory Porter will perform a special rendition of "America the Beautiful."Perseverance is NASA's latest Red Planet rover, designed to search for astrobiological evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars. Following a seven-month journey, it will land atJezero Crateron Feb. 18, 2021. There, Perseverance will gather rock and soil samples for future return to Earth. It also will characterize the planet's climate and geology and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet. The robotic scientist, which weighs just under 2,300 pounds (1,043 kilograms), also will carry theIngenuity Mars Helicopter, a technology demonstration that marks the first attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet.Members of the public can attend the launch virtually, receiving mission updates and opportunities normally received by on-site guests. NASA's virtual launch experience for Mars 2020 Perseverance rover includes: a behind-the-scenes look at the mission; augmented reality filters; access to an engaging NASA social community; an invitation to submit videos to be part of the televised launch broadcast; toolkits for students; a chance to take a souvenir photo in our Mars Photo Booth; and the opportunity to send your name to Mars!"More than 112,000 people registered to be our virtual guests for NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 test flight launch in May, which was the first time the agency had offered this type of launch experience to the public," said NASA Associate Administrator for Communications Bettina Inclán. "For our Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launch, we hope even more people will join us as we #CountdownToMars!"To participate, members of the public canregisterto stay up to date on mission information, mission highlights, and interaction opportunities. To find out more, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/beourguestMembers of the public also can share in the journey through a variety of activities, including:Virtual NASA SocialNASA will host a global "NASA Social," an opportunity for social media users to get a behind-the-scenes view of the Perseverance launch. The NASA Social will be held virtually via a public Facebook group, so people of all ages from all over the world can request permission to join us for a behind-the-scenes look at the mission. Registration is open on Facebook. All social applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Live opportunities will begin one day prior to the launch date. Learn more at:https://www.nasa.gov/social/countdowntomarsSend Your Name to Mars, Again!When Perseverance launches to Mars, it will carry three dime-size chips with 10.9 million names submitted by people all over the world. Those who already submitted their names can get a special "Now Boarding" stamp on their boarding passes and anyone can sign up to send their name on a future Mars mission at:https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/mars2020#CountdownToMarsBe a part of the countdown to by recording a launch countdown video clip and tagging it on social media using #CountdownToMars. Selected clips will be featured on NASA social media or even on launch day during NASA's launch coverage. Learn more at:https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/countdown-to-mars/Virtual Launch PacketThis interactive booklet is packed with info about the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launch and all the print products for the mission. Flip through theinteractive packet, or download aPDF version.Mars Photo BoothWhile sharing the Mars launch with friends and family, take a souvenir photo with NASA's virtual Mars Photo Booth. You can pose next to the mighty Atlas V rocket that will launch the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, strike a pose on the Red Planet, or put yourself next to the rover in the clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the rover was assembled. Just upload your favorite picture, choose a background, and download the new image:https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/photo-booth/Augmented Reality FiltersVirtually join our #CountdownToMars with our new Facebook and Instagram Augmented Reality Filters. Take a virtual trip to Mars with the immersive Put Yourself on Mars filter, give the official countdown to launch as a flight director with the Mission Control filter, or bring the mission to any environment with the Mars Rover 3D filter.Mars:https://www.instagram.com/ar/270228570705016/Mission Control:https://www.instagram.com/ar/694585304450501/3D Rover:https://www.instagram.com/ar/304928364011381/Get a Front Row SeatGet a free front row seat to the #CountdownToMars launch broadcast with Oculus virtual reality technology on Facebook.https://www.oculus.com/experiences/event/661301651125913/Spacecraft 3D Rover ExperienceExplore the intricate features of Perseverance with this interactive 3D feature that lets you zoom, rotate, and mouse over the rover to learn about its various components:https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/Activities and Lessons for StudentsLaunch rockets, build robots, and explore worlds beyond our own! This collection of projects, toolkit and contests will take you into space without ever leaving Earth:https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/tag/search/MarsIn addition, a variety of Mars-themed lessons are available from JPL's education website:https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/tag/search/MarsMars 2020 STEM ToolkitBring the exciting engineering and science of this mission to students in the classroom and at home with STEM lessons and do-it-yourself projects covering topics such as biology, geology, physics, mathematics, engineering, coding and language arts.https://www.nasa.gov/stem/nextgenstem/moon_to_mars/mars2020stemtoolkitAsk Experts AnythingExperts from NASA, United Launch Alliance (ULA), the Department of Energy (DOE), and more will answer public questions about the mission in a Reddit Ask Me Anything on Monday, July 27, at 4:30 p.m. EDT (1:30 p.m. PDT). For updates, check back regularly at:https://www.reddit.com/r/askscienceWatch and Engage on Social MediaStay connected with the mission on social media, and let people know you're following it on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram using the hashtag #CountdownToMars. Follow and tag these accounts:Twitter:@NASA,@NASAPersevere,@NASAMarsFacebook:NASA,NASAPersevere,NASAMarsInstagram:NASANASA Television CoverageIn addition to social media coverage, NASA Television will air a number of events leading up to, including, and following the launch. Coverage of the launch begins at 7 a.m. EDT (4 a.m. PDT) Thursday, July 30.The following events currently are scheduled to air live (all times Eastern). Please check theNASA TV schedulefor the latest updates:Wednesday, July 223 p.m. - NASA Science Live: Perseverance Mars Rover & the Search for Ancient LifeMonday, July 271 p.m. - Mars 2020 Pre-Launch News Conference3 p.m. - Mars 2020 Mission Engineering/Science BriefingTuesday, July 282 p.m. - Mars 2020 Mars Sample Return Briefing4 p.m. - Mars 2020 Mission Tech and Humans to Mars BriefingThursday, July 307 a.m. - Mars 2020 Perseverance launch broadcast11:30 a.m. - Mars 2020 Perseverance post-launch news conferenceMars 2020 Perseverance is part of America's larger Moon to Mars exploration approach that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with sending the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA'sArtemis program.Learn more about the Mars 2020 mission at:https://www.nasa.gov/mars2020For more about America's Moon to Mars exploration approach, visit:https://nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/swot-satellite-helps-gauge-the-depth-of-death-valleys-temporary-lake

SWOT Satellite Helps Gauge the Depth of Death Valley’s Temporary Lake

Data from the international Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission helped researchers to calculate the depth of water in this transient freshwater body.

California’s Death Valley, the driest place in North America, has hosted an ephemeral lake since late 2023. A NASA-led analysis recently calculated water depths in the temporary lake over several weeks in February and March 2024, demonstrating the capabilities of the U.S.-French Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite, whichlaunchedin December 2022.The analysis found that water depths in the lake ranged from about 3 feet (1 meter) to less than 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) over the course of about 6 weeks. This period included a series of storms that swept across California, bringing record amounts of rainfall.To estimate the depth of the lake, known informally asLake Manly, researchers used water level data collected by SWOT and subtracted corresponding U.S. Geological Survey land elevation information for Badwater Basin.Your browser cannot play the provided video file(s).Using data from SWOT, this video shows changes in water depth for Death Valley’s temporary lake from February into March of this year. Depths ranged between about 3 feet (1 meter) deep (dark blue) to less than 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep (light yellow).Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechThe researchers found that the water levels varied across space and time in the roughly 10-day period between SWOT observations. In the visualization above, water depths of about 3 feet (1 meter) appear dark blue; those of less than 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) appear light yellow. Right after a series of storms in early February, the temporary lake was about 6 miles (10 kilometers) long and 3 miles (5 kilometers) wide. Each pixel in the image represents an area that is about 330 feet by 330 feet (100 meters by 100 meters).“This is a really cool example of how SWOT can track how unique lake systems work,” said Tamlin Pavelsky, the NASA freshwater science lead for SWOT and a hydrologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.Need Some Space?SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERUnlike many lakes around the world, Death Valley’s lake is temporary, relatively shallow, and strong winds are enough to move the freshwater body a couple of miles, as happened from Feb. 29 to March 2. Since there isn’t typically water in Badwater Basin, researchers don’t have permanent instruments in place for studying water in this area. SWOT can fill the data gap for when places like this, and others around the world, become inundated.Since shortly after launch, SWOT has been measuring the height ofnearly all wateron Earth’s surface, developing one of the most detailed and comprehensive views of the planet’s oceans and freshwater lakes and rivers. Not only can the satellite detect the extent of water, as other satellites can, but SWOT is also able to measure water surface levels. Combined with other types of information, SWOT measurements can yield water depth data for inland features like lakes and rivers.The SWOT science team makes its measurements using the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument. With two antennas spread 33 feet (10 meters) apart on a boom, KaRIn produces a pair of data swaths as it circles the globe, bouncing radar pulses off water surfaces to collect surface-height information.“We’ve never flown a Ka-band radar like the KaRIn instrument on a satellite before,” said Pavelsky, so the data represented by the graphic above is also important for scientists and engineers to better understand how this kind of radar works from orbit.More About the MissionLaunchedin December 2022 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in central California, SWOT is now in its operations phase, collecting data that will be used for research and other purposes.SWOT was jointly developed by NASA and the French space agency, CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES provided the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations. CSA provided the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA provided the launch vehicle and the agency’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, managed the associated launch services.To learn more about SWOT, visit:https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-to-host-briefing-to-preview-first-mars-helicopter-flights

NASA to Host Briefing to Preview First Mars Helicopter Flights

Members of the projects will lay out the steps necessary before the helicopter attempts its historic test flights.

NASA will hold a virtual media briefing at 1:30 p.m. EDT (10:30 a.m. PDT) Tuesday, March 23, to discuss upcoming activities for the agency’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter. The teams operating Ingenuity and NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover have chosen the flight zone where the helicopter will attempt the first powered, controlled flights on another planet.The briefing will air live onNASA Television, theNASA app, and the agency’swebsiteand will livestream on multiple agency social media platforms, including theYouTubeandFacebookchannels for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.Briefing participants include:Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, NASA HeadquartersBobby Braun, director for planetary science, JPLJ. (Bob) Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer, JPLHåvard Grip, Ingenuity chief pilot, JPLFarah Alibay, Perseverance integration lead for Ingenuity, JPLGet the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERMembers of the media and the public also may ask questions on social media during the briefing using #MarsHelicopter.Ingenuity’s test flights are expected to begin no earlier than the first week of April. The exact timing of the first flight will remain fluid as engineers work out details on the timeline for deployments and vehicle positioning of Perseverance and Ingenuity. Photos showing some of the progress are available on Perseverance’sraw images website.Perseverance – with Ingenuity attached to its belly – landed inJezero CraterFeb. 18. Ingenuity is a technology demonstration with a limited test flight duration of up to 31 days (30 Mars days, or sols). The rover will deploy the helicopter and provide environmental monitoring and imaging support. It also hosts Ingenuity’s base station, enabling communication with mission controllers on Earth.An Ingenuity press kit, with more information about the helicopter, is available at:https://go.nasa.gov/ingenuity-press-kitMore information is also available on the Ingenuity website:https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopterTo learn more about Perseverance, visit:https://nasa.gov/perseveranceandhttps://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/deadline-closing-for-names-to-fly-on-nasas-next-mars-rover

Deadline Closing for Names to Fly on NASA's Next Mars Rover

You have until Sept. 30 to send your names to Mars aboard the Mars 2020 rover.

It's the final boarding call for you to stow your name on NASA's Mars 2020 rover before it launches to the Red Planet. The Sept. 30 deadline for NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign gives the mission enough time to stencil the submitted names - over 9.4 million so far - on a chip that will be affixed to the Mars 2020 rover.This rover is scheduled to launch as early as July 2020 and expected to touch down on Mars in February 2021. The Mars 2020 rover represents the initial leg of humanity's first planned round trip to another planet.With this robotic scientist weighing 2,300 pounds (1,040 kilograms), the Mars 2020 mission will search for signs of past microbial life, characterize the planet's climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet."As we get ready to launch this historic Mars mission, we want everyone to share in this journey of exploration," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "It's an exciting time for NASA as we embark on this voyage to answer profound questions about our neighboring planet, and even the origins of life itself."The opportunity to send your name to Mars, which opened on May 21, 2019, comes with a souvenir boarding pass and "frequent flyer" points. This is part of a public engagement campaign to highlight missions involved with NASA's journey from the Moon to Mars. Miles (or kilometers) are awarded for each "flight," with corresponding digital mission patches available for download. More than 2 million names flew on NASA's InSight mission to Mars, giving each "flyer" about 300 million frequent flyer miles (nearly 500 million frequent flyer kilometers).You can add your name to the list and obtain a souvenir boarding pass to Mars here:https://go.nasa.gov/Mars2020PassThe Microdevices Laboratory at JPL will use an electron beam to stencil the submitted names onto a silicon chip with lines of text smaller than one-thousandth the width of a human hair (75 nanometers). At that size, millions of names can be written on a single dime-size chip. The chip will ride on the rover under a glass cover.NASA will use Mars 2020 and other missions, including to the Moon, to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, the agency intends to establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans.The Mars 2020 Project at JPL manages rover development for SMD. NASA's Launch Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management. Mars 2020 will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.Kids in U.S. schools in grades K-12 also have a chance to name the rover itself. For details on the contest, which closes Nov. 1, visit:https://go.nasa.gov/name2020For more information on Mars 2020, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/mars2020https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020For more about NASA's Moon to Mars plans, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/dawn-obtains-first-low-altitude-images-of-vesta

Dawn Obtains First Low Altitude Images of Vesta

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back the first images of the giant asteroid Vesta from its low-altitude mapping orbit.

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back the first images of the giant asteroid Vesta from its low-altitude mapping orbit. The images, obtained by the framing camera, show the stippled and lumpy surface in detail never seen before, piquing the curiosity of scientists who are studying Vesta for clues about the solar system's early history.At this detailed resolution, the surface shows abundant small craters, and textures such as small grooves and lineaments that are reminiscent of the structures seen in low-resolution data from the higher-altitude orbits. Also, this fine scale highlights small outcrops of bright and dark material.A gallery of images can be found online at:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/gallery-index.html.The images were returned to Earth on Dec. 13.  Dawn scientists plan to acquire data in the low-altitude mapping orbit for at least 10 weeks. The primary science objectives in this orbit are to learn about the elemental composition of Vesta's surface with the gamma ray and neutron detector and to probe the interior structure of the asteroid by measuring the gravity field.The Dawn mission to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn Framing Cameras have been developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR, and NASA/JPL.More information about the Dawn mission is online at:http://www.nasa.gov/dawnandhttp://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/dawn-spirals-closer-to-ceres-returns-a-new-view

Dawn Spirals Closer to Ceres, Returns a New View

A new view of Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 23, shows finer detail is becoming visible on the dwarf planet.

A new view of Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 23, shows finer detail is becoming visible on the dwarf planet. The spacecraft snapped the image at a distance of 3,200 miles (5,100 kilometers) with a resolution of 1,600 feet (480 meters) per pixel. The image is part of a sequence taken for navigational purposes.Image is available at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA19065After transmitting these images to Earth on May 23, Dawn resumed ion-thrusting toward its second mapping orbit. On June 3, Dawn will enter this orbit and spend the rest of the month observing Ceres from 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above the surface. Each orbit during this time will be about three days, allowing the spacecraft to conduct an intensive study of Ceres.Dawn is the first mission to visit a dwarf planet, and the first to orbit two distinct solar system targets. It studied the protoplanet Vesta for 14 months in 2011 and 2012, and arrived at Ceres on March 6, 2015.Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. For a complete list of mission participants, visit:http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/missionMore information about Dawn is available at the following sites:http://dawn.jpl.nasa.govhttp://www.nasa.gov/dawn

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/charlie-kohlhase-long-time-mission-manager

Charlie Kohlhase, long-time mission manager

After spending a career in planetary exploration, Charley Kohlhase dreams not of the past, but of the future. What does he envision someday? Humans living on Mars, continuing to study the planet in great detail.

After spending a career in planetary exploration, Charley Kohlhase dreams not of the past, but of the future. What does he envision someday? Humans living on Mars, continuing to study the planet in great detail. Of course, NASA has a lot of work to do before human missions are possible, but today's robotic missions are paving the way by helping us understand the Martian environment and its potential impact on human health. Once we learn more, Kohlhase believes, the spirit of exploration will make Mars an irresistible destination for future astronauts."Like all pioneers, humans are curious to know what other worlds are like," says Kohlhase. "Exploring is deeply rooted in our very nature."Because Kohlhase can't go to Mars himself, he uses computer programs to create artistic, futuristic scenes of what Mars exploration could be like far in the future. One of his most recent images is called "Canyon City, Mars, Circa 2130." The image depicts an otherworldly family gardening scene. A spacesuited father and daughter, five generations from now, tend to a sheltered cactus plant on the surface of Mars. It evokes the simple pioneering spirit of working the land in a new world, while suggesting the fantastic possibilities of people from Earth actually residing on another planet.He describes the vision that led him to create the work: "In 2130, the leaders of my imagined Canyon City will hopefully be young scientists who will conduct the first plant experiments in special field-controlled domes. They will search for ways to leave the red planet both Mars-like and Earth-like if at all possible. They must have food, of course, much of which can be grown in hydroponic greenhouses, but they will also yearn for natural fruit, perhaps from desert-like plants that remind them of Earth."A longtime space explorer himself, Kohlhase's childhood imagination was enriched by adventure stories and books of science fiction and science fact. He built model airplanes and dreamed of flying. At age 11, he taught himself Boolean algebra and used it to design a small puzzle-solving machine. His studies of math and physics were fueled by his wonderment at nature and visions of what might be possible in future explorations of the universe.As a relatively new employee at JPL in 1960, he presented the first feasible flight path for a mission to Mars to then-director William Pickering and rocket innovator Wernher von Braun. Kohlhase lived the dream of flying such a mission in the mid-1960s with the Mariner 4 Mars mission, again in the late 1960s with Mariners 6 and 7, and in the mid-1970s, with the Viking mission to Mars.He was the mission design manager for the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 project, the historic robotic spacecraft mission that completed the so-called "Grand Tour" of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The spacecraft, still operating, are now well beyond the planets and on the interstellar leg of their mission, nearing the boundary of the Sun's influence. After the Voyager mission, Kohlhase was the science and mission design manager for the Cassini mission to Saturn launched in 1997 and set to arrive at Saturn in 2004. Though now "retired," he is currently a member of the Mars Program Systems Engineering Team, helping to improve the resiliency and future of the Mars Exploration Program.A frame from an animation showing your flight as it banks and barnstorms its path through the experimental forest station. Reflections of the human facilities can be seen in the underside of the huge lens used to concentrate the weak sunlight at Mars on the emerging forest.Artistically, he is a devoted and experienced photographer of forty years, with creative digital imagery added to his repertoire within the past decade. Kohlhase's images have appeared in numerous venues including Sierra Magazine and other Sierra Club outlets, several one-year installations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Pacific Design Center Showcase Idea House, 1994 Best of Photography Annual, various public buildings and private galleries. As in his "Canyon City" image, much of his artwork draws upon his scientific and engineering expertise as the basis for imaginative depictions of future explorations.Kohlhase has frequently collaborated with educational organizations to help inspire science and math teaching. He is a frequent speaker at NASA conferences for educators, and often uses his artwork and the work of others to help teachers build bridges that will lead more students to appreciate and study science and math.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/futuristic-software-demonstrated-on-deep-space-1-wins-nasa-award

Futuristic Software Demonstrated On Deep Space 1 Wins NASA Award

Remote Agent, the first artificial intelligence software in history to command a spacecraft, recently was named co-winner of NASA's 1999 Software of the Year award. Remote Agent shared the honor with Genoa, a software package that can predict aging and failure of materials, including those used in airplanes, cars, engines and bridges.

Remote Agent, the first artificial intelligence software in history to command a spacecraft, recently was named co-winner of NASA's 1999 Software of the Year award. Remote Agent shared the honor with Genoa, a software package that can predict aging and failure of materials, including those used in airplanes, cars, engines and bridges.Award winners, judged on innovation, impact and usability, were selected from a field of 50 entries representing more than 150 corporations, universities and government laboratories.NASA scientists say the Remote Agent artificial intelligence used on NASA's Deep Space 1 is the precursor for self-aware, self-controlled and self-operated robots, exploring rovers and intelligent machines.Over three days last May, Remote Agent controlled Deep Space 1, a feat previously accomplished only in science fiction. The software package took command of Deep Space 1 during a flight experiment, and the artificial intelligence more than met expectations. The software detected, diagnosed and fixed problems, showing that it can make decisions to keep a mission on track."This technology will allow us to pursue Solar System exploration missions that only a few years ago would have been considered too elaborate, too costly or too dependent on teams of Earth-bound controllers," said Dr. Doug Bernard, Remote Agent manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA."The Remote Agent approach to spacecraft autonomy signals the dawn of a new era in space exploration," said Dr. Pandu Nayak, deputy manager of Remote Agent development the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA. "Remote Agent will enable new classes of missions and more effective use of existing resources, and it will enable today's ground operations teams to operate significantly more missions." Remote Agent and its components are already being considered for a variety of NASA missions, he said.Experts from JPL and Ames pooled their expertise to conduct the Remote Agent experiment, designed to push the limits of spacecraft autonomy. Their efforts proved that this sophisticated artificial intelligence software is capable of commanding the spacecraft with "high-level" goals, such as "communicate with the Earth on the agreed-upon schedule" or "fire the main engine as needed to stay on the desired trajectory."To demonstrate Remote Agent's versatility, the tests threw unique challenges in the software's path: scientists created four simulated failures designed to test Remote Agent's abilities. During one of the simulated failures, the spacecraft's camera appeared to be stuck in the "on" position. In response, Remote Agent formulated and executed a new plan that accounted for the fact that the camera could not be turned off, thus impacting total spacecraft power availability.An Internet web page contains the log of events from Deep Space 1 during the ambitious artificial intelligence test:http://rax.arc.nasa.govLaunched October 24, 1998, Deep Space 1 has validated 12 new technologies, including Remote Agent, so scientists can confidently use them during science missions of the 21st century. The project has exceeded all of its technology validation success criteria.The other software co-winner, is Genoa, a Progressive Failure Analysis Software System developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, OH. Genoa is used to model aging and failure in structural materials, including high-tech alloys and ceramics.The event is cosponsored by the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board and the NASA Chief Information Officer. NASA officials will officially present the awards at special ceremonies later this year. Information about the winning team and other finalists is available from:http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codei/swy99win.htmlRemote Agent was developed at JPL and at the NASA Ames Research Center. Deep Space 1 is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC, by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/seasat-mission

Seasat Mission

When rocket rose into the sky north of Los Angeles in dazzling evening launch 10 years ago this week, the satellite it carried was destined to usher in new era of space research focusing on unsolved questions of the world's oceans and weather.

When rocket rose into the sky north of Los Angeles in dazzling evening launch 10 years ago this week, the satellite it carried was destined to usher in new era of space research focusing on unsolved questions of the world's oceans and weather.The satellite, Seasat, tested payload of advanced sensing instruments. During its 3-1/2-month mission, Seasat collected what scientists have called an explosion of oceanographic information -- comparable to century's worth of observations from fleet of ships.Because of the way it showed how space sensors could be used in oceanography, Seasat also became parent to new generation of missions planned by handful of countries.Those missions could provide answers to some of the world's most baffling -- and threatening -- weather phenomena.Seasat's influence has reached beyond oceanography to affect other research work at JPL. Instruments derived from the 10-year-old mission are due to fly to Venus and Mars on interplanetary probes in next year's Magellan mission and 1992's Mars Observer.An international symposium celebrating Seasat's launch anniversary will be hosted in London next Tuesday through Thursday (June 28-30) by the British National Space Centre. Gene Giberson, JPL's project manager for Seasat, and Peter Woiceshyn, JPL scientist who has worked on Seasat continuously since its inception, will be featured speakers."The impacts Seasat has had on both Earth science studies and even deep-space research at JPL have been remarkable," said Giberson. "This single mission has produced offspring that have shaped the future direction of many of our programs."Launched on June 26, 1978, on an Atlas-Agena rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Seasat carried payload of five scientific instruments unlike any package on any previous remote-sensing satellite.Previous Earth remote-sensing satellites were generally equipped with camera and perhaps one or two other passive instruments.Seasat, on the other hand, carried complex array of active sensing devices, such as radars and other microwave instruments, to monitor broad range of oceanographic phenomena.(Passive sensors simply collect natural energy such as sunlight reflected by the Earth -- similar to camera taking pictures in available light. Active sensors such as radars emit energy of their own to collect data -- somewhat like camera equipped with its own flash attachment.)Among the experimental instruments Seasat pioneered were synthetic aperture radar, which provided highly detailed images of ocean and land surfaces; radar scatterometer, to measure near-surface wind speed and direction; radar altimeter, to measure the height of the ocean surface and waves; and scanning multichannel microwave radiometer, to measure surface temperature, wind speeds and sea ice cover. The satellite also carried passive visual and infrared radiometer to provide supporting data for the other four experiments.With Seasat's proof that the instruments would work as intended, other projects at JPL and at space centers around the world have borrowed from the mission's concepts.Key among them is host of international projects scheduled over the next decade to probe the world's oceans and weather in unprecedented detail. Scientists say those missions can help solve currently baffling questions that would provide variety of benefits with possibly enormous cost savings -- and could avert potential disasters.El Nino, an unusual water warming in the eastern Pacific Ocean in 1982 and 1983, for example, caused billions of dollars in damage and considerable loss of life. Scientists have also been puzzled by an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which could have severe consequences on plants and animal life. Missions derived from Seasat are expected to help scientists understand both phenomena.In addition, the new generation of oceanographic missions is expected to provide important, cost-saving aids for such industries as fishing, shipping and offshore oil production, and for agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Navy.Among the new projects are two NASA efforts managed by JPL -- TOPEX/Poseidon and the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT).TOPEX/Poseidon, joint satellite mission with the French space agency, is scheduled for late 1991 launch on an Ariane rocket. It will map the circulation of the world's oceans using radar altimeter.NSCAT is second-generation instrument being developed to measure wind speed and direction over the oceans' surfaces. proposal to fly NSCAT as part of the payload on Japan's planned Advanced Earth Observation Satellite (ADEOS) is currently under review.Both TOPEX/Poseidon and NSCAT are intended to support oceanographic studies during the 1990s under the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and the Tropical Oceans Global Atmospheres Experiment (TOGA). These decade- long programs, sponsored by the World Climate Research Program, involve studies at and below the ocean surface in all parts of the world's seas.Still another U.S. mission whose heritage can be traced to Seasat is Geosat, U.S. Navy satellite launched in 1985 with an altimeter similar to Seasat's.International projects scheduled for the near future include the European Space Agency's first remote- sensing satellite, Earth Resources Satellite 1 (E-ERS-1), due for launch in 1990; Japan's Earth Resources Satellite 1 (J-ERS-1), scheduled for 1992 launch; Japan's ADEOS, proposed for launch in 1993; and the international Radarsat, a proposed 1994 mission that would be cooperative venture between Canada and the United States.Seasat's impacts, however, have not been limited to satellite oceanography. Instruments that are direct descendants of those in Seasat's payload have found their way into variety of other NASA missions at JPL.One of the most prominent is JPL's Shuttle Imaging Radar (SIR), series of synthetic aperture radar experiments flown on NASA's Space Shuttle. They are direct follow-ons of Seasat's synthetic aperture radar, which marked the first time NASA had flown that advanced radar instrument in space.The first and second experiments in the series -- SIR-A, which flew on shuttle mission in 1981, and SIR-B, shuttle payload in 1984 -- offered scientists several unexpected discoveries. During airborne tests, for example, SIR-A pierced cloud-covered rain forests of Guatemala to reveal previously unknown agricultural canals dug by the ancient Maya. SIR-B "saw" through the sands of Egypt to produce picture of riverbed buried for many centuries.JPL is currently working on SIR-C, the third SIR experiment, slated for 1991 shuttle mission. Also planned is an advanced radar system that will be flown on an Earth Observing System (Eos) platform as part of NASA's Space Station program in the late 1990s.A radar like the one first flown on Seasat is also set to go into deeper space on the NASA/JPL Magellan mission to Venus in April 1989. Magellan will use synthetic aperture radar to pierce Venus' dense cloud cover to provide the most complete, highest-resolution images of the planet's surface ever made.Another planetary mission benefiting from Seasat is Mars Observer, scheduled for launch in 1992. That spacecraft will orbit the red planet to conduct extensive studies of the Martian surface with instruments including an altimeter derived from the Seasat payload.At JPL, Giberson was Seasat project manager; Dr. James A. Dunne was project scientist. S. W. McCandless Jr. was Seasat program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.Seasat was funded by NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-releases-radar-movie-of-asteroid-2012-da14

NASA Releases Radar Movie of Asteroid 2012 DA14

An initial sequence of radar images of asteroid 2012 DA14 was obtained on Feb. 15/16, 2013, by NASA's 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif.

An initial sequence of radar images of asteroid 2012 DA14 was obtained on the night of Feb. 15/16, 2013, by NASA scientists using the 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif. Each of the 72 frames required 320 seconds of data collection by the Goldstone radar.The observations were made as the asteroid was moving away from Earth. The asteroid's distance from the radar dish increased from 74,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) to 195,000 miles (314,000 kilometers). The resolution is 13 feet (four meters) per pixel. The images span close to eight hours and clearly show an elongated object undergoing roughly one full rotation. The images suggest that the asteroid has a long axis of about 130 feet (40 meters). The radar observations were led by scientists Lance Benner and Marina Brozovic of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Additional Goldstone radar observations are scheduled on February 18, 19 and 20.Radar is a powerful technique for studying an asteroid's size, shape, rotation state, surface features and surface roughness, and for improving calculations of its orbit. Radar measurements of asteroid distances and velocities often enable computation of asteroid orbits much further into the future than if radar observations weren't available.NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch. More information about asteroid radar research is at:http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/. More information about the Deep Space Network is at:http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/rosetta-orbiter-to-swoop-down-on-comet-in-february

Rosetta Orbiter to Swoop Down On Comet in February

The European Space Agency's orbiting Rosetta spacecraft is expected to come within four miles (six kilometers) of the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in February of next year.

The European Space Agency's orbiting Rosetta spacecraft is expected to come within four miles (six kilometers) of the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in February of next year. The flyby will be the closest the comet explorer will come during its prime mission."It is the earliest we could carry it out without impacting the vitally important bound orbits that are currently being flown," said Matt Taylor, the Rosetta project scientist from the European Space Research and Technology Center, Noordwijk, the Netherlands. "As the comet becomes more and more active, it will not be possible to get so close to the comet. So this opportunity is very unique."The low flyby will be an opportunity for Rosetta to obtain imagery with a resolution of a few inches (tens of centimeters) per pixel. The imagery is expected to provide information on the comet's porosity and albedo (its reflectance). The flyby will also allow the study of the processes by which cometary dust is accelerated by the cometary gas emission."Rosetta is providing us with a grandstand seat of the comet throughout the next year. This flyby will put us track side -- it's going to be that close," said Taylor.The Rosetta orbiter deployed its Philae lander to one spot on the comet's surface in November. Philae obtained the first images taken from a comet's surface and will provide analysis of the comet's possible primordial composition.Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when our sun and its planets formed. Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to witness at close proximity how a comet changes as it is subjected to the increasing intensity of the sun's radiation. Observations will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of our solar system and the role comets may have played in seeding Earth with water, and perhaps even life.Rosetta is a European Space Agency mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the U.S. contribution of the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL also built the MIRO instrument and hosts its principal investigator, Samuel Gulkis. The Southwest Research Institute (San Antonio and Boulder) developed the Rosetta orbiter's IES and Alice instruments, and hosts their principal investigators, James Burch (IES) and Alan Stern (Alice).For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit:http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.govMore information about Rosetta is available at:http://www.esa.int/rosetta

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/earth-might-have-hairy-dark-matter

Earth Might Have Hairy Dark Matter

Dense filaments of dark matter particles, called "hairs," are sprouting from Earth, according to a new study based on computer simulations.

The solar system might be a lot hairier than we thought.A new study publishing this week in the Astrophysical Journal by Gary Prézeau of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, proposes the existence of long filaments of dark matter, or "hairs."Dark matter is an invisible, mysterious substance that makes up about 27 percent of all matter and energy in the universe. The regular matter, which makes up everything we can see around us, is only 5 percent of the universe. The rest is dark energy, a strange phenomenon associated with the acceleration of our expanding universe.Neither dark matter nor dark energy has ever been directly detected, although many experiments are trying to unlock the mysteries of dark matter, whether from deep underground or in space.Based on many observations of its gravitational pull in action, scientists are certain that dark matter exists, and have measured how much of it there is in the universe to an accuracy of better than one percent. The leading theory is that dark matter is "cold," meaning it doesn't move around much, and it is "dark" insofar as it doesn't produce or interact with light.Galaxies, which contain stars made of ordinary matter, form because of fluctuations in the density of dark matter. Gravity acts as the glue that holds both the ordinary and dark matter together in galaxies.According to calculations done in the 1990s and simulations performed in the last decade, dark matter forms "fine-grained streams" of particles that move at the same velocity and orbit galaxies such as ours."A stream can be much larger than the solar system itself, and there are many different streams crisscrossing our galactic neighborhood," Prézeau said.Prézeau likens the formation of fine-grained streams of dark matter to mixing chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Swirl a scoop of each together a few times and you get a mixed pattern, but you can still see the individual colors."When gravity interacts with the cold dark matter gas during galaxy formation, all particles within a stream continue traveling at the same velocity," Prézeau said.But what happens when one of these streams approaches a planet such as Earth? Prézeau used computer simulations to find out.His analysis finds that when a dark matter stream goes through a planet, the stream particles focus into an ultra-dense filament, or "hair," of dark matter. In fact, there should be many such hairs sprouting from Earth.A stream of ordinary matter would not go through Earth and out the other side. But from the point of view of dark matter, Earth is no obstacle. According to Prézeau's simulations, Earth's gravity would focus and bend the stream of dark matter particles into a narrow, dense hair.Hairs emerging from planets have both "roots," the densest concentration of dark matter particles in the hair, and "tips," where the hair ends. When particles of a dark matter stream pass through Earth's core, they focus at the "root" of a hair, where the density of the particles is about a billion times more than average. The root of such a hair should be around 600,000 miles (1 million kilometers) away from the surface, or twice as far as the moon. The stream particles that graze Earth's surface will form the tip of the hair, about twice as far from Earth as the hair's root."If we could pinpoint the location of the root of these hairs, we could potentially send a probe there and get a bonanza of data about dark matter," Prézeau said.A stream passing through Jupiter's core would produce even denser roots: almost 1 trillion times denser than the original stream, according to Prézeau's simulations."Dark matter has eluded all attempts at direct detection for over 30 years. The roots of dark matter hairs would be an attractive place to look, given how dense they are thought to be," said Charles Lawrence, chief scientist for JPL's astronomy, physics and technology directorate.Another fascinating finding from these computer simulations is that the changes in density found inside our planet - from the inner core, to the outer core, to the mantle to the crust - would be reflected in the hairs. The hairs would have "kinks" in them that correspond to the transitions between the different layers of Earth.Theoretically, if it were possible to obtain this information, scientists could use hairs of cold dark matter to map out the layers of any planetary body, and even infer the depths of oceans on icy moons.Further study is needed to support these findings and unlock the mysteries of the nature of dark matter.The California Institute of Technology manages JPL for NASA.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/the-mars-insight-landing-site-is-just-plain-perfect

The Mars InSight Landing Site Is Just Plain Perfect

If the InSight landing zone were ice cream, it would be vanilla.

No doubt about it, NASA explores some of the most awe-inspiring locations in our solar system and beyond. Once seen, who can forget the majesty of astronaut Jim Irwin standing before the stark beauty of the Moon'sHadley Apenninemountain range, of the Hubble Space Telescope's gorgeous"Pillars of Creation" or Cassini's magnificentmosaicof Saturn?Mars also plays a part in this visually compelling equation, with the high-definition imagery from the Curiosity rover of the ridges and rounded buttes at the base ofMount Sharpbringing to mind the majesty of the American Southwest. That said, Elysium Planitia - the site chosen for the Nov. 26 landing of NASA's InSight mission to Mars - will more than likely never be mentioned with those above because it is, well, plain."If Elysium Planitia were a salad, it would consist of romaine lettuce and kale - no dressing," said InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "If it were an ice cream, it would be vanilla."Yes, the landing site of NASA's next Mars mission may very well look like a stadium parking lot, but that is the way the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) project likes it."Previous missions to the Red Planet have investigated its surface by studying its canyons, volcanoes, rocks and soil," said Banerdt. "But the signatures of the planet's formation processes can be found only by sensing and studying evidence buried far below the surface. It is InSight's job to study the deep interior of Mars, taking the planet's vital signs - its pulse, temperature and reflexes."Taking those vital signs will help the InSight science team look back to a time when the rocky planets of the solar system formed. The investigations will depend on three instruments:A six-sensor seismometer called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will record seismic waves traveling through the interior structure of the planet. Studying seismic waves will tell scientists what might be creating the waves. (On Mars, scientists suspect that the culprits may be marsquakes or meteorites striking the surface.)The mission's Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) will burrow deeper than any other scoop, drill or probe on Mars before to gauge how much heat is flowing out of the planet. Its observations will shed light on whether Earth and Mars are made of the same stuff.Finally, InSight's Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE) experiment will use the lander's radios to assess the wobble of Mars' rotation axis, providing information about the planet's core.For InSight to do its work, the team needed a landing site that checked off several boxes, because as a three-legged lander - not a rover - InSight will remain wherever it touches down."Picking a good landing site on Mars is a lot like picking a good home: It's all about location, location, location," said Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at JPL. "And for the first time ever, the evaluation for a Mars landing site had to consider what lay below the surface of Mars. We needed not just a safe place to land, but also a workspace that's penetrable by our 16-foot-long (5-meter) heat-flow probe."The site also needs to be bright enough and warm enough to power the solar cells while keeping its electronics within temperature limits for an entire Martian year (26 Earth months).So the team focused on a band around the equator, where the lander's solar array would have adequate sunlight to power its systems year-round. Finding an area that would be safe enough for InSight to land and then deploy its solar panels and instruments without obstructions took a little longer."The site has to be a low-enough elevation to have sufficient atmosphere above it for a safe landing, because the spacecraft will rely first on atmospheric friction with its heat shield and then on a parachute digging into Mars' tenuous atmosphere for a large portion of its deceleration," said Hoffman. "And after the chute has fallen away and the braking rockets have kicked in for final descent, there needs to be a flat expanse to land on - not too undulating and relatively free of rocks that could tip the tri-legged Mars lander."Of 22 sites considered, only Elysium Planitia, Isidis Planitia and Valles Marineris met the basic engineering constraints. To grade the three remaining contenders, reconnaissance images from NASA's Mars orbiters were scoured and weather records searched. Eventually, Isidis Planitia and Valles Marineris were ruled out for being too rocky and windy.That left the 81-mile long, 17-mile-wide (130-kilometer-long, 27-kilometer-wide) landing ellipse on the western edge of a flat, smooth expanse of lava plain."If you were a Martian coming to explore Earth's interior like we are exploring Mars' interior, it wouldn't matter if you put down in the middle of Kansas or the beaches of Oahu," said Banerdt. "While I'm looking forward to those first images from the surface, I am even more eager to see the first data sets revealing what is happening deep below our landing pads. The beauty of this mission is happening below the surface. Elysium Planitia is perfect."After a 205-day journey that began on May 5, NASA's InSight mission will touch down on Mars on Nov. 26 a little before 3 p.m. EST (12 p.m. PST). Its solar panels will unfurl within a few hours of touchdown. Mission engineers and scientists will take their time assessing their "workspace" prior to deploying SEIS and HP3on the surface - about three months after landing - and begin the science in earnest.InSight was the 12th selection in NASA's series of Discovery-class missions. Created in 1992, the Discovery Program sponsors frequent, cost-capped solar system exploration missions with highly focused scientific goals.JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), support the InSight mission. CNES provided the SEIS instrument, with significant contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) in Switzerland, Imperial College and Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and JPL. DLR provided the HP3instrument.For more information about InSight, visit:https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/For more information about NASA's Mars missions, go to:https://mars.nasa.gov

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-mars-rovers-first-soil-analysis-yields-surprises

NASA Mars Rover's First Soil Analysis Yields Surprises

The first use of the tools on the arm of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit reveals puzzles about the soil it examined and raises anticipation about what the tool will find during its studies of a martian rock.

The first use of the tools on the arm of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit reveals puzzles about the soil it examined and raises anticipation about what the tool will find during its studies of a martian rock.Today and overnight tonight, Spirit is using its microscope and two up-close spectrometers on a football-sized rock called Adirondack, said Jennifer Trosper, mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif."We're really happy with the way the spacecraft continues to work for us," Trosper said. The large amount of data -- nearly 100 megabits -- transmitted from Spirit in a single relay session through NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft today "is like getting an upgrade to our Internet connection."Scientists today reported initial impressions from using Spirit's alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, Moessbauer spectrometer and microscopic imager on a patch of soil that was directly in front of the rover after Spirit drove off its lander Jan. 15."We're starting to put together a picture of what the soil at this particular place in Gusev Crater is like. There are some puzzles and there are surprises," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the suite of instruments on Spirit and on Spirit's twin, Opportunity.One unexpected finding was the Moessbauer spectrometer's detection of a mineral called olivine, which does not survive weathering well. This spectrometer identifies different types of iron-containing minerals; scientists believe many of the minerals on Mars contain iron. "This soil contains a mixture of minerals, and each mineral has its own distinctive Moessbauer pattern, like a fingerprint," said Dr. Goestar Klingelhoefer of Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, lead scientist for this instrument.The lack of weathering suggested by the presence of olivine might be evidence that the soil particles are finely ground volcanic material, Squyres said. Another possible explanation is that the soil layer where the measurements were taken is extremely thin, and the olivine is actually in a rock under the soil.Scientists were also surprised by how little the soil was disturbed when Spirit's robotic arm pressed the Moessbauer spectrometer's contact plate directly onto the patch being examined. Microscopic images from before and after that pressing showed almost no change. "I thought it would scrunch down the soil particles," Squyres said. "Nothing collapsed. What is holding these grains together?"Information from another instrument on the arm, an alpha particle X- ray spectrometer, may point to an answer. This instrument "measures X-ray radiation emitted by Mars samples, and from this data we can derive the elemental composition of martian soils and rocks," said Dr. Johannes Brueckner, rover science team member from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany. The instrument found the most prevalent elements in the soil patch were silicon and iron. It also found significant levels of chlorine and sulfur, characteristic of soils at previous martian landing sites but unlike soil composition on Earth.Squyres said, "There may be sulfates and chlorides binding the little particles together." Those types of salts could be left behind by evaporating water, or could come from volcanic eruptions, he said. The soil may not have even originated anywhere near Spirit's landing site, because Mars has dust storms that redistribute fine particles around the planet. The next target for use of the rover's full set of instruments is a rock, which is more likely to have originated nearby.Spirit landed in the Connecticut-sized Gusev Crater on Jan. 3 (EST and PST; Jan. 4 Universal Time). In coming weeks and months, according to plans, it will examine rocks and soil for clues about whether the past environment there was ever watery and possibly suitable to sustaining life. Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, will reach Mars on Jan. 25 (EST and Universal Time; 9:05 p.m., Jan. 24, PST) to begin a similar examination of a site on the opposite side of the planet.JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Images and additional information about the project are available from JPL athttp://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.govand from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., athttp://athena.cornell.edu.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-exploration-rover-mission-status-13

Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status

Operators of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity have determined that a proposed route eastward out of "Endurance Crater" is not passable, so the rover will backtrack to leave the crater by a southward route, perhaps by retracing its entry path.

Operators of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity have determined that a proposed route eastward out of "Endurance Crater" is not passable, so the rover will backtrack to leave the crater by a southward route, perhaps by retracing its entry path."We've done a careful analysis of the ground in front of Opportunity and decided to turn around," said Jim Erickson, rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "To the right, the slope is too steep -- more than 30 degrees. To the left, there are sandy areas we can't be sure we could get across."Before turning around, Opportunity will spend a few days examining the rock layers in scarp about 10 meters (33 feet) high, dubbed "Burns Cliff." From its location at the western foot of the cliff, the rover will use its panoramic camera and miniature thermal emission spectrometer to collect information from which scientists hope to determine whether some of the layers were deposited by wind, rather than by water. The rover will not reach an area about 15 meters (50 feet) farther east where two layers at different angles meet at the base of the cliff."We have pushed the vehicle right to the edge of its capabilities, and we've finally reached a spot where we may be able to answer questions we've been asking about this site for months," said Dr. Steve Squyres, rover principal investigator at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "But after we're done here, it'll be time to turn around. Going any farther could cut off our line of retreat from the crater, and that's not something anybody on the team wants to do."Opportunity entered the stadium-size crater on June 8 at a site called "Karatepe" along the crater's southern rim. Inside the crater, it has found and examined multiple layers of rocks that show evidence of a wet environment in the area's distant past.Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, successfully completed their primary three-month missions on Mars in April. NASA has extended their missions twice, most recently on Oct. 1, because the rovers have remained in good condition to continue exploring Mars longer than anticipated.Engineers have finished troubleshooting an indication of a problem with steering brakes on Spirit. The brakes are designed to keep the rover wheels from being bumped off course while driving. Spirit has intermittently sent information in recent weeks that the brakes on two wheels were not releasing properly when the rover received commands to set a new course. Testing and analysis indicate that the mechanism for detecting whether the brakes are released is probably sending a false indication. The rover team will disregard that signal and presume the brakes have actually released properly when commanded to do so. This anomaly has not been observed on the Opportunity rover."We're going back to using the full steering capabilities of Spirit," Erickson said.JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. Additional information about the project is available from JPL athttp://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/and from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., athttp://athena.cornell.edu.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/earth-moon-system

Earth-Moon System

An experiment left on the lunar surface 20 years ago by the Apollo 11 astronauts continues to study the Earth-Moon system and return data to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and other scientific centers around the world.

An experiment left on the lunar surface 20 years ago by the Apollo 11 astronauts continues to study the Earth-Moon system and return data to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and other scientific centers around the world.Scientists who analyze the data from the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment have observed, among other things, that the Moon is moving away from the Earth, plates of the Earth are slowly drifting and the length of day varies.The Laser Ranging Retro-reflector was designed to reflect pulses of laser light fired from the Earth. The idea was to determine the round-trip travel time of laser pulse from the Earth to the Moon and back again, thereby calculating the distance between the two bodies to unprecedented accuracy. Unlike the other scientific experiments left on the Moon, this reflector requires no power and is still functioning perfectly after 20 years.The laser reflector consists of 100 fused silica half cubes, called corner cubes, mounted in 46-centimeter (18-inch) square aluminum panel. Each corner cube is 3.8 centimeters (1.5 inches) in diameter. Corner cubes reflect beam of light directly back toward the point of origin; it is this fact that makes them so useful in Earth surveying.The McDonald Observatory, Ft. Davis, Texas; the Lure Observatory atop the extinct Haleakala volcano on the island of Maui, Hawaii; and third observatory in southern France near Grasse, regularly send laser beam through an optical telescope and try to hit one of the reflectors.The reflectors are too small to be seen from Earth, so even when the beam is correctly aligned in the telescope, actually hitting lunar reflector is quite challenging. At the Moon's surface the beam is roughly mile wide and scientists liken the task of properly aiming the beam to using rifle to hit moving dime two miles away.Once the laser beam hits reflector, scientists at the observatories use sensitive filtering and amplification equipment to detect any kind of return signal. The reflected light is too weak to be seen with the human eye but under good conditions one photon -- the fundamental particle of light -- will be received every few seconds.Three more reflectors have since been placed on the Moon, including two by later Apollo missions and one built by the French and left by the unmanned Soviet Lunakhod 2 lander. Each of the reflectors rests on the lunar surface in such way that its flat face points toward the Earth.Continuing improvements in lasers and electronics over the years have led to recent measurements accurate to about three centimeters (approximately one inch). Scientists know the average distance between the centers of the Earth and the Moon is 385,000 kilometers (239,000 miles), implying that the modern lunar ranges have relative accuracies of better than one part in ten billion. This level of accuracy represents one of the most precise distance measurements ever made and is equivalent to determining the distance between Los Angeles and New York to one fiftieth of an inch.During the last 20 years, scientists have been able to use the orbit of the Moon and the data they received through lunar ranging to study events happening on Earth.There have been major scientific advances derived from lunar ranging:* Lunar ranging has helped them determine the precise positions of the observatories that send the laser beams. Using these positions scientists can tell that the plates of the Earth are slowly drifting and the observatory on Maui is seen to be moving away from the one in Texas.* The atmosphere, tides and the core of the Earth cause changes in the length of an Earth day -- the variations are about one thousandth of second over the course of year.* The familiar ocean tides raised on the Earth by the Moon have direct influence on the Moon's orbit. Laser ranging has shown that the Moon is receding from the Earth at about 3.7 centimeters (1.5 inches) every year.* Lunar ranging, together with laser ranging to artificial Earth satellites, has revealed small but constant change in the shape of the Earth. The land masses are gradually changing after being compressed by the great weight of the glaciers in the last Ice Age.* Predictions of Einstein's theory of relativity have been confirmed using laser ranging.* Small-scale variations in the Moon's rotation have been measured. They result from irregularities in the lunar gravity field, from changes in the Moon's shape due to tides raised in the Moon's solid body by the Earth and possibly from the effects of fluid lunar core.* The combined mass of the Earth and Moon has been determined to one part in 100 million.* Lunar ranging has yielded an enormous improvement in our knowledge of the Moon's orbit, enough to permit accurate analyses of solar eclipses as far back as 1400 BC.The usefulness of continued improvements in range determinations for further advancing our understanding of the Earth-Moon system and the need for monitoring the details of the Earth's rotation will keep the lunar reflectors in service for years to come.At JPL this lunar ranging analysis is done by Drs. Jean Dickey, James G. Williams and X Newhall and is sponsored by the Geodynamics Branch of NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications. Additional analysis is done at the Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in Cambridge, Mass.; at the University of Texas in Austin, Tex.; and in France and China.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-data-show-californias-san-joaquin-valley-still-sinking

NASA Data Show California's San Joaquin Valley Still Sinking

Areas of California's San Joaquin Valley continue to sink in response to the state's drought, finds a new update to a 2015 JPL report commissioned by the state of California.

Fast Facts:- For nearly a century, groundwater pumping from Central California wells has caused some land to subside.- Subsidence is an ongoing issue for state water managers.- JPL is using radar remote sensing to identify areas that are subsiding fastest.Groundwater Pumping Causing Subsidence, Damaging Water InfrastructureSince the 1920s, excessive pumping of groundwater at thousands of wells in California's San Joaquin Valley has caused land in sections of the valley to subside, or sink, by as much as 28 feet (8.5 meters). This subsidence is exacerbated during droughts, when farmers rely heavily on groundwater to sustain one of the most productive agricultural regions in the nation.Long-term subsidence is a serious and challenging concern for California's water managers, putting state and federal aqueducts, levees, bridges and roads at risk of damage. Already, land subsidence has damaged thousands of public and private groundwater wells throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Furthermore, the subsidence can permanently reduce the storage capacity of underground aquifers, threatening future water supplies. It's also expensive. While there is no comprehensive estimate of damage costs associated with subsidence, state and federal water agencies have spent an estimated $100 million on subsidence-related repairs since the 1960s.To determine the extent to which additional groundwater pumping associated with California's current historic drought, which began in 2012, has affected land subsidence in the Central Valley, California's Department of Water Resources (DWR) commissioned NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, to use its expertise in collecting and analyzing airborne and satellite radar data. An initialreportof the JPL findings (Aug. 2015) analyzed radar data from several different sensors between 2006 and early 2015. Due to the continuing drought, DWR subsequently commissioned JPL to collect and analyze new radar images from 2015 and 2016 to update DWR on the land subsidence.How much sinking?Several trouble spots identified in the first report continue to subside at rates as high as 2 feet (0.6 meters) a year. Significant subsidence was measured in two subsidence bowls located near the towns of Chowchilla, south of Merced; and Corcoran, north of Bakersfield. These bowls cover hundreds of square miles and continued to grow wider and deeper between May 2015 and Sept. 2016. Maximum subsidence during this time period was almost 2 feet (0.6 meters) in the Corcoran area and about 16 inches (41 centimeters) near Chowchilla. Subsidence also intensified near Tranquility in Fresno County during the past year, where the land surface has settled up to 20 inches (51 centimeters) in an area that extends 7 miles (11 kilometers). Subsidence in these areas affects aqueducts and flood control structures.Small amounts of land subsidence were also identified in the Sacramento Valley near Davis and Arbuckle. A small area observed for the first time in Sierra Valley, north of Lake Tahoe, shows about 6 inches (15 centimeters) of subsidence.JPL scientists plotted the history of subsidence of several sites in the mapped areas and found that for some areas in the San Joaquin Valley, subsidence slowed during the winter of 2015-16 when rainfall matched crop water needs."While we can see the effect that rain has on subsidence, we know that we've run a groundwater deficit for some time, so it'll take a long time to refill those reservoirs," said JPL report co-author Tom Farr.The report update also examined California's South Central coast, including Ventura, Oxnard, Santa Barbara and north to the San Joaquin Valley, as well as the Santa Clara Valley. It found no major areas of subsidence in these regions, though a known area of subsidence in the Cuyama Valley was observed to have continued land subsidence.JPL report co-author Cathleen Jones said being able to pinpoint where subsidence is happening helps water resource managers determine why it is happening."If you see a subsidence bowl, then something is going on at the center of the bowl that is causing the land to sink --  for example, high levels of groundwater pumping," Jones said. "We can locate problem spots so the state can focus on those areas, saving money and resources. We find the needle in the haystack, so to speak."How the study was doneTo obtain the subsidence measurements, JPL scientists compared multiple satellite and airborne interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) images of Earth's surface acquired as early as 2006 to produce maps showing how subsidence varies over space and time. InSAR is routinely used to produce maps of surface deformation with approximately half-inch-level (centimeter-level) accuracy.The subsidence maps in the new report were created by analyzing satellite data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1A satellite from March 2015 to Sept. 2016, and from NASA's airborne Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) from March 2015 to June 2016. The new data complement the data used in the previous report from Japan's PALSAR (2006 to 2010), Canada's Radarsat-2 (May 2014 to Jan. 2015) and UAVSAR (July 2013 to March 2015).How subsidence affects key California water supply routesThe high-resolution airborne UAVSAR radar mapping was focused on the California Aqueduct, the main artery of the State Water Project, which supplies 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of farmland. The aqueduct is a system of canals, pipelines and tunnels that carries water 444 miles (715 kilometers) from the Sierra Nevada and Northern/Central California valleys to Southern California.The JPL report shows that localized subsidence directly impacting the aqueduct is ongoing, with maximum subsidence of the structure reaching 25 inches (64 centimeters) near Avenal in Kings County. As a result of subsidence in this area since the initial aqueduct construction, the aqueduct there can now carry a reduced flow of only 6,650 cubic feet (188 cubic meters) per second -- 20 percent less than its design capacity of 8,350 cubic feet per second (236 cubic meters per second). Water project operators must reduce flows in the sections that have sunk to avoid overtopping the concrete banks of the aqueduct.DWR, which operates the State Water Project, is analyzing whether the subsidence-created dip in the California Aqueduct will affect deliveries to water districts in Kern County and Southern California. If the State Water Project allocation is 85 percent or greater, delivery may be impaired this year due to cumulative subsidence impacts in the Avenal-Kettleman City area.The new NASA analysis also found subsidence of up to 22 inches (56 centimeters) along the Delta-Mendota Canal, a major artery of the Central Valley Project (CVP), operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The CVP supplies water to approximately three million acres of farmland and more than two million Californians.Also of concern is the Eastside Bypass, a system designed to carry flood flow off the San Joaquin River in Fresno County. The bypass runs through an area of subsidence where the land surface has lowered between 16 and 20 inches (41 and 51 centimeters) since May 2015, on top of several feet of subsidence measured between 2008 and 2012. DWR is working with local water districts to analyze whether surface deformation may interfere with flood-fighting efforts, particularly as a heavy Sierra snowpack melts this spring. A 5-mile (8-kilometer) reach of the Eastside Bypass was raised in 2000 because of subsidence, and DWR estimates it may cost in the range of $250 million to acquire flowage easements and levee improvements to restore the design capacity of the subsided area."The rates of San Joaquin Valley subsidence documented since 2014 by NASA are troubling and unsustainable," said DWR Director William Croyle. "Subsidence has long plagued certain regions of California. But the current rates jeopardize infrastructure serving millions of people. Groundwater pumping now puts at risk the very system that brings water to the San Joaquin Valley. The situation is untenable."The upcoming NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) radar mission, NISAR, will systematically collect data over California and the world and will be ideal for measuring and tracking changes to the land subsidence associated with groundwater pumping, as well as uplift associated with natural and assisted groundwater recharge.To read the new report, visit:http://www.water.ca.gov/waterconditions/docs/2017/JPL%20subsidence%20report%20final%20for%20public%20dec%202016.pdfRead the full DWR news release:http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2017/020817_subsidence_report_release_final.pdfFor more information on JPL's water resource applications initiatives, visit:http://water.jpl.nasa.govFor more on UAVSAR, visit:http://uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov/For more on NISAR, visit:http://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov/For more on NASA's Earth science activities, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/earth

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-prepares-for-return-of-interstellar-cargo

NASA Prepares for Return of Interstellar Cargo

NASA's Stardust mission is nearing Earth after a 4.63 billion kilometer (2.88 billion mile) round-trip journey to return cometary and interstellar dust particles back to Earth.

NASA's Stardust mission is nearing Earth after a 4.63 billion kilometer (2.88 billion mile) round-trip journey to return cometary and interstellar dust particles back to Earth. Scientists believe the cargo will help provide answers to fundamental questions about comets and the origins of the solar system.The velocity of the sample return capsule, as it enters Earth's atmosphere at 46,440 kilometers per hour (28,860 miles per hour), will be the fastest reentry of any human-made object on record. It surpasses the record set in May 1969 during the return of the Apollo 10 command module. The capsule is scheduled to return on Jan. 15, 2006."Comets are some of the most informative occupants of the solar system. The more we can learn from science exploration missions like Stardust, the more we can prepare for human exploration to the moon, Mars and beyond," said Dr. Mary Cleave, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.Several events must occur before scientists can retrieve cosmic samples from the capsule landing at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range, southwest of Salt Lake City. Mission navigators will command the spacecraft to perform targeting maneuvers on Jan. 5 and 13. On Jan 14 at 9:57 p.m. PST (12:57 a.m. EST on Jan. 15), Stardust will release its sample return capsule. Four hours later, the capsule will enter Earth's atmosphere 125 kilometers (410,000 feet) over the Pacific Ocean.The capsule will release a drogue parachute at approximately 32 kilometers (105,000 feet). Once the capsule has descended to about 3 kilometers (10,000 feet), the main parachute will deploy. The capsule is scheduled to land on the range at 2:12 a.m. PST (5:12 a.m. EST).After the capsule lands, if conditions allow, a helicopter crew will fly it to the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, for initial processing. If weather does not allow helicopters to fly, special off-road vehicles will retrieve the capsule and return it to Dugway. Samples will then be moved to a special laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, where they will be preserved and studied."Locked within the cometary particles is unique chemical and physical information that could be the record of the formation of the planets and the materials from which they were made," said Dr. Don Brownlee, Stardust principal investigator at the University of Washington, Seattle.NASA expects most of the collected particles to be no more than a third of a millimeter across. Scientists will slice these particle samples into even smaller pieces for study.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. manages the Stardust mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft.For information about the Stardust mission on the Web, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/stardust.For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/home.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-scientists-investigate-ancient-life-in-australia

Mars Scientists Investigate Ancient Life in Australia

Teams with NASA's Mars 2020 and ESA's ExoMars practiced hunting for fossilized microbial life in the Australian Outback in preparation for their Red Planet missions.

As any geologist worth his or her salt will tell you, there are rocks, and then there arerocks. Next July, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are launching rovers to Mars that will search for signs of past microbial life, and to find them, the scientists with NASA's Mars 2020 mission and ESA's ExoMars will need to examine different kinds of rocks that lend compelling insights into the environment in which they were made - all from 100 million miles away."While we expect to find many significant rocksduring both Mars 2020 and ExoMars missions, we also have to leave open the possibility we could find one or morevery specialrocks,the kind whose discovery would not only speak volumes about the history of Mars but contribute significantly to the discussion of life elsewhere in the universe," said Ken Farley, Mars 2020 project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena.Could Mars ever have supported life? In the Australian Outback, scientists from NASA's upcoming Mars 2020 mission and their counterparts from the joint European-Russian ExoMars mission visited the oldest convincing evidence for life on Earth to prepare for their own searches for signs of ancient life on Mars. The field lesson in astrobiology in the Pilbara region is being applied in the near term by NASA, ESA and Roscosmos for mission planning, and will also pay dividends when both rovers begin to send back science data and imagery from the Red Planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechGuided by Martin Van Kranendonk, director of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at the University of New South Wales, members of the two missions' science teams went on an expedition to northwestern Australia's Pilbara region to analyze, discuss and debate stromatolites - structures preserved in rock that formed in water on early Earth and contain a fossilized record of ancient microbial life. Among the science teams' stops: a stromatolite cluster in a grouping of rock called the Dresser Formation that contains some of the oldest known fossilized records of life on our world."Some 3.48 billion years ago, this area was home to a caldera, or collapsed volcano, filled with hot, bubbling seawater," said Van Kranendonk. "At the same time, this location was also home to structures called microbial mats - visible to the naked eye but composed of microscopic organisms. Today you would know them as simple pond scum, but back thenthey were the most complex lifeforms on Earth."Likely powered by photosynthesis, along with the heat and chemical energy in the caldera, these mats lived at the water's edge, secreting a mucous that would trap grains of sediment swirling around in the water. Over time, sheet after sheet of these microbes trapped sediment on top of previous layers. When the seawater receded and the pond scum dried up and disappeared millennia later, what remained was striking evidence of this co-evolution of geology and biology."A stromatolite is quite subtle to the untrained eye," said Van Kranendonk. "But once you know the details, you recognize that these wavy, wrinkly rocks have a structure different from that which can be explained by just geology."Past Life on Mars?Of course, the Outback isn't Mars, but what happened in the Dresser Formation a billion years ago and what happened on the Red Planet at roughly the same time share some eerie similarities.Between 3 billion and 4 billion years ago at the Mars 2020 landing site, Jezero Crater, a river flowed into a body of water the size of Lake Tahoe, depositing delta sediments packed with clay and carbonate minerals. The conditions were ideal for stromatolites to form on the shorelines, which is one key reason the rover team will be touching down there in February 2021. "It's hard to think of a better recipe for life to thrive - and for its record to be preserved - than the one we see at Jezero," said Ken Williford, deputy project scientist for Mars 2020 at JPL.If stromatolites ever existed in Jezero or at Oxia Planum, the ExoMars landing site, the teams need to know what to look for, hence this trip to the Outback. But that's not the only reason they came."I organized this first joint Mars 2020-ExoMars science expedition so scientists from our two great missions could gain a new perspective on these one-of-a-kind stromatolites; a laboratory setting just can't provide the same context," said Mitch Schulte, Mars 2020 program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "That applies to the experience as a whole, too - the conversations, comparing of notes and planning for future exchanges that was done here in the Pilbara will go a long way to advance Mars science."Two Missions, Two RoversWhile the two missions both seek to find evidence of past life, each is approaching the challenge in its own way. Touching down about a week after Mars 2020, the ExoMars rover, otherwise known as the Rosalind Franklin,carries a core drillthat on two or more occasions will bore almost 7 feet (2 meters) into the Martian crust. The rover will analyze the samples onsite with a sophisticated suite of scientific instruments.The coring mechanism on NASA's Mars 2020 rover drills shallower holes but is designed to collect more than 40 rock and soil core samples. There will be on-site analysis of rocks at the coring sites, and the samples themselves will be sealed in metal tubes that will ultimately be deposited by the rover at specific sites. Future missions could then retrieve those samples and return them to Earth for the sort of laboratory analysis that just isn't possible on Mars."These two Mars missions will be revolutionary because they are complementary," said Teresa Fornaro, a science team member for the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer instrument aboard ExoMars. "Two different rovers with two different sets of instruments, exploring at the same time two different landing sites. Some of the capabilities of Mars 2020 in characterizing the surface environment could help guide ExoMars on where to drill. Conversely, knowledge of the alteration of possible organics as a function of depth by ExoMars could help Mars 2020 select the most interesting surface samples to collect for future return to Earth."When the joint Mars 2020-ExoMars science Outback expedition concluded in late August, the science teams went their separate ways. But to those who honed their stromatolite-hunting skills in the Pilbara, the influence of the trip continues."What is happening working out here in the field is also happening in the halls of NASA and ESA," said Schulte. "Finding evidence of life on another world, if it ever existed, will require tenacity and a whole lot of brainpower. If there is a stromatolite in the range of the rovers, I think we have a good chance of finding it ... and we'll find it together. This trip will have helped with that."The launch window for Mars 2020 opens on July 17, 2020. It will land at Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. The launch window for ExoMars opens July 25, 2020. It will land at Oxia Planum in March 2021.JPL is building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. NASA will use Mars 2020 and other missions, including to the Moon, to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. The agency intends to establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA'sArtemis lunar exploration plans. The ExoMars program is a joint endeavor between the European Space Agency and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).For more information about the mission, go to:https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nine-radar-images-of-asteroid-2007-pa8

Nine Radar Images of Asteroid 2007 PA8

Images of asteroid 2007 PA8 have been generated with data collected by NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar.

A collage shows nine radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2007 PA8 that were obtained between Oct. 31 and Nov. 13, 2012, with data collected by NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif. On Nov. 5 at 8:42 a.m. PST (11:42 a.m. EST/16:42 UTC), the object came about 4 million miles (6.5 million kilometers) from Earth, or 17 times the distance between Earth and the moon.The images of 2007 PA8 reveal possible craters, boulders, an irregular, asymmetric shape, and very slow rotation. The asteroid measures approximately one mile wide (about 1.6 kilometers).Each panel shows one image per day, and all of them are oriented so rotation is counterclockwise. Each image is shown at the same scale and covers 1.1 miles (1.7 kilometers) from top to bottom. The resolution of the images varies from day to day as the asteroid's distance changed. The images achieve resolutions as fine as 12 feet (3.75 meters) per pixel on Nov. 5 and 6, when the asteroid was closest. The resolution was 25 feet (7.5 meters) per pixel on Nov. 2, 3 and 8, and 62 feet (18.75 meters) per pixel on Oct. 31 and Nov. 11 to 13.New radar measurements of 2007 PA8's distance and line-of-sight velocity refined calculations of its orbit about the sun, enabling reliable computation of the asteroid's motion for the next 632 years. 2007 PA8 is not a threat to Earth. The 2012 flyby was the closest since 1880. The next flyby with Earth closer than the one that occurred this year will be in 2488, when the asteroid will approach no closer than 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers).NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-soil-moisture-mapper-takes-first-smapshots

NASA's Soil Moisture Mapper Takes First 'SMAPshots'

NASA's new satellite mission to map the water in the soil under our feet has successfully tested its science instruments for the first time.

THINGS TO KNOW:› SMAP successfully tests its science instruments for the first time.› Once its antenna spins-up, SMAP will generate global maps of soil moisture every two to three days.Fresh off the recent successful deployment of its 20-foot (6-meter) reflector antenna and associated boom arm, NASA's new Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory has successfully completed a two-day test of its science instruments.The observatory's radar and radiometer instruments were successfully operated for the first time with SMAP's antenna in a non-spinning mode on Feb. 27 and 28. The test was a key step in preparation for the planned spin-up of SMAP's antenna to approximately 15 revolutions per minute in late March. The spin-up will be performed in a two-step process after additional tests and maneuvers adjust the observatory to its final science orbit over the next couple of weeks.Based on the data received, mission controllers concluded the radar and radiometer performed as expected. The controllers are based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California; and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.SMAP launched Jan. 31 on a minimum three-year mission to map global soil moisture and detect whether soils are frozen or thawed. The mission will help scientists understand the links in Earth's water, energy and carbon cycles; help reduce uncertainties in predicting weather and climate; and enhance our ability to monitor and predict natural hazards such as floods and droughtsThe first test image illustrates the significance of SMAP's spinning instrument design in producing more comprehensive maps. For this initial test with SMAP's antenna not yet spinning, the observatory's measurement swath width -- the strips observed on Earth in the image -- was limited to 25 miles (40 kilometers). When fully spun up and operating, SMAP's antenna will measure a 620-mile-wide (1,000-kilometer) swath of the ground as it flies above Earth at an altitude of 426 miles (685 kilometers). This will allow SMAP to map the entire globe with high-resolution radar data every two to three days, filling in all of the land surface detail that is not available in this first image.The radar data illustrated in the upper panel of the image show a clear contrast between land and ocean surfaces. The Amazon and Congo forests in South America and Africa, respectively, produced strong radar echoes due to their large biomass and water content. Areas with no vegetation and low soil moisture, such as the Sahara Desert, yielded weaker radar echoes. As expected, the dry snow zone in central Greenland, the largest zone of the Greenland ice sheet where snow does not melt year-round, produced weaker radar echoes. Surrounding areas in Greenland's percolation zone, where some meltwater penetrates down into glaciers and refreezes, had strong radar echoes due to ice lenses and glands within the ice sheet. Ice lenses form when moisture that is diffused within soil or rock accumulates in a localized zone. Ice glands are columns of ice in the granular snow at the top of glaciers.The test shows that SMAP's radiometer is performing well. The radiometer's brightness temperature data are illustrated in the lower panel. Brightness temperature is a measurement of how much natural microwave radiant energy is traveling up from Earth's surface to the satellite. The contrast between land and ocean surface is clear, as it is in the radar image. The Sahara Desert has high brightness temperatures because it is so hot and has low soil moisture content. The India subcontinent is currently in its dry season and therefore also has high brightness temperatures. Some regions, such as the northeast corner of Australia, show low brightness temperatures, likely due to the high moisture content of the soil after heavy rainfall from Cyclone Marcia in late February.For more information on SMAP, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/smapFor more information about NASA's Earth science programs, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/continuing-work-with-scoops-at-rocknest

Continuing Work With Scoops at 'Rocknest'

NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity on Sol 82 (Oct. 29, 2012) photographed diverse rocks in the "Rocknest" area and prepared for overnight soil sample analysis.

NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity on Sol 82 (Oct. 29, 2012) used its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to photograph the diverse rocks in the "Rocknest" area and prepared for an overnight analysis of a soil sample by the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument.On the preceding sol, the rover completed its third round of using vibration of scooped Martian soil to scrub the interior surfaces of the sample-processing mechanisms on the rover's arm. Also on Sol 81, the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument completed an analysis of a sample of Martian atmosphere.The rover continues regular monitoring of the surrounding environment using the other instruments of its science payload.Sol 82, in Mars local mean solar time at Gale Crater, ended at 1:35 p.m. Oct. 29, PDT (4:35 p.m., EDT).

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/where-on-earth-can-you-see-planetary-spacecraft

Where On Earth Can You See Planetary Spacecraft?

2002 is a special year for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and for space enthusiasts worldwide.

2002 is a special year for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and for space enthusiasts worldwide. "This year marks the 40th anniversary of planetary exploration," said Anita Sohus, JPL's museum liaison. "The celebration is widespread and space aficionados now have the opportunity to see exhibits throughout California and the country that feature products from JPL." A full-scale replica of the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft is on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The spacecraft is the centerpiece of the newly reopened Air and Space Gallery. Rounding out the display are full-scale models of the Mars Viking lander (1976), Mariner 4 (first U.S. spacecraft to fly by Mars, in 1965) and Explorer 1, America's first spacecraft (1958). The permanent exhibit opened March 9. For more information visit www.casciencectr.org . The Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, Calif., features "Spaceflight: Journey to the Stars" through June 9, 2002. Visitors can see models of the Cassini, Stardust and Mars Odyssey spacecraft. The display also includes a model of a small rover, or nanorover, like one that may someday land on an asteroid or other solar system body. For more information, visit www.chabotspace.org/visit/exhibits.asp . An exhibit at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Calif., features an ultrasonic drill developed by JPL senior research scientist Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen and Cybersonics, Inc. During future space missions, the device could extract samples using lightweight landers with robotic arms and small rovers that roam the surface of an asteroid or planet. With the help of docents, visitors can operate the drill at the "Curiosity Counter." For more information visit www.thetech.org/ . "Footsteps Through Time," an exhibit at San Diego's Museum of Man, displays videos of JPL technology innovations with applications to health care, the environment, communications, education, transportation and computer technology. They include infrared cameras that can be used to detect breast cancer, as well as inflatable membranes that form large spaceborne telescopes. For more information visit www.museumofman.org . Many space-themed exhibits are geared toward children. At Kidspace, an interactive children's museum in Pasadena, Calif., children can view a model of a Ranger spacecraft. The Ranger missions in the 1960s provided high-quality pictures of the moon. These images were used for scientific study and selection of landing sites for the manned Apollo missions. Children and adults visiting Disneyland, in Anaheim, Calif., can experience space exploration at an exhibit in Tomorrowland, featuring a model of the Sojourner rover that landed on Mars in 1997, as well as Explorer 1 and Pioneer 4 spacecraft models. Space enthusiasts in many other parts of the country can see JPL products in museums and displays. * In Washington, D.C., the National Air and Space Museum has full-scale models of JPL spacecraft, including Voyager and Explorer 1. * At the National Mall in Washington, D.C. visitors can roam a scale model of the solar system, developed by the Challenger Center, the National Air and Space Museum and NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.. For more information visit: www.challenger.org/ . * Also in Washington, D.C., JPL images from Mars Global Surveyor data and Shuttle Radar Topography data are on display at National Geographic's Explorer's Hall in the building's large display windows that face the street. * A full-scale replica of Cassini is on loan to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. * Both the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, and the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, display full-scale models of the Viking (Mars) lander. * The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has added models of the Stardust and Space Interferometry Mission spacecraft to the space gallery. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-2001-mars-odyssey-spacecraft-is-on-its-way

NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey Spacecraft is on its Way

NASA's return to Mars began at 11:02 a.m. Eastern time this morning as the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft roared into space onboard a Delta II launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

NASA's return to Mars began at 11:02 a.m. Eastern time this morning as the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft roared into space onboard a Delta II launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.About 53 minutes later, at 11:55 a.m. Eastern time, flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory received the first signal from the spacecraft through the Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia indicating that all is well aboard the orbiter."I've never seen a more spectacular launch," said David Spencer, Odyssey's mission manager at JPL in Pasadena, Calif. "The spacecraft seems to be performing beautifully, and we're right on our timeline. This gives us a terrific start on our odyssey to Mars."NASA's latest explorer carries three scientific instruments designed to tell us what the Martian surface is made of and about its radiation environment: a thermal-emission imaging system, a gamma ray spectrometer and a Martian radiation environment experiment. During its cruise to Mars over the next six months, the spacecraft will turn on and calibrate the instruments. The spacecraft will also fire its thrusters in five small maneuvers designed to fine-tune its flight path to Mars. Odyssey will arrive at Mars on October 24, when it will fire its main engine and be captured into Mars' orbit.The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Principal investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tuscon, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, will operate the science instruments. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations will be conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-global-surveyor-adds-to-its-martian-photo-album

NASA's Global Surveyor Adds to Its Martian Photo Album

A view of the red planet almost completely enveloped in dust storms is one of 15,251 newly released images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. These images bring the total number of snapshots taken by the spacecraft to more than 93,000.

A view of the red planet almost completely enveloped in dust storms is one of 15,251 newly released images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. These images bring the total number of snapshots taken by the spacecraft to more than 93,000.The latest images to be added to the online archive are from the first phase of the Mars Global Surveyor extended mission, which began February 1, 2001. Regions that were poorly covered during the primary mapping mission due to regional dust storms have now been captured.The latest images include sand dunes on Mars' north polar cap and a 3-D image of layered rock that resembles the topography of Arizona and Utah.Also included are two dramatic global views of Mars. The first view shows the modest yet impressive beginnings of a regional dust storm, while the other shows the planet's geographical features almost completely obscured by multiple dust storms.The images are available at:http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgsandhttp://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/E01_E06_sampler2002/.Mars Global Surveyor is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The camera system is operated by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-website-gathering-public-input-on-nasa-mars-images

New Website Gathering Public Input on NASA Mars Images

Mars researchers are soliciting volunteers to locate odd polar-area features on Mars that have names such as "Swiss cheese terrain" and "spiders."

Fast Facts:› Vast areas near Mars' south pole have been imaged by the Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.› At the citizen-science website "Planet Four: Terrains," volunteers help identify features for even higher-resolution imaging.Science-team members for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are soliciting help from the public to analyze exotic features near the south pole of Mars.By categorizing features visible in images from the orbiter's Context Camera (CTX), volunteers are using their own computers to help the team identify specific areas for even more detailed examination with the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. HiRISE can reveal more detail than any other camera ever put into orbit around Mars.Information about how to participate is at the "Planet Four: Terrains" website, at:http://terrains.planetfour.orgPlanet Four: Terrains is on a new platform released by the Zooniverse, an organization that currently hosts 30 projects that enlist people worldwide to contribute to discoveries in fields ranging from astronomy to zoology. The new platform is designed to make it easier than ever for a researcher needing help with data analysis to set up a task to involve volunteers.Some of Mars resembles deserts on Earth, but Martian polar regions display some quite unearthly processes and features. These are related to seasonal freezing and thawing of carbon dioxide ice, which does not exist naturally on Earth, but is manufactured and well-known as "dry ice." Every winter the polar regions of Mars are covered with a seasonal polar cap of carbon-dioxide ice."In the spring the dry ice turns to gas and carves unusual features in the Mars surface, resulting in exotic terrains described informally as 'spiders,' 'Swiss cheese' and 'channel networks,'" said HiRISE Deputy Principal Investigator Candice Hansen, of the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona.On the Planet Four: Terrains website, volunteers review images from the south polar region of Mars and identify particular types of terrains. Each image from CTX covers a swath of ground about 16 miles (30 kilometers) wide, at a resolution of about 20 feet (6 meters) per pixel. The results from the citizen scientist input through Planet Four: Terrains will be used to target HiRISE for detailed seasonal studies beginning in mid-2016. Each HiRISE image covers a swath about 3.2 miles (five kilometers) wide, at a spatial scale of about 20 inches (half a meter) per pixel.This new website is an outgrowth of the Planet Four initiative through which more than 120,000 citizen scientists have analyzed HiRISE image cutouts to measure fans that appear in the spring on the seasonal ice cap. The Planet Four website is at:http://www.planetfour.orgMore information about Zooniverse is available at:http://www.zooniverse.orgWith CTX, HiRISE and four other instruments, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been investigating Mars since 2006. The mission launched on Aug. 12, 2005, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates CTX. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter and collaborates with JPL to operate it. For additional information about the project, visit:http://mars.nasa.gov/mro

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-deep-space-1-trajectory-includes-asteroid-flyby

New Deep Space 1 Trajectory Includes Asteroid Flyby

Mission planners for NASA's Deep Space 1 have selected a near-Earth asteroid, 1992 KD, as a flyby destination.

Mission planners for NASA's Deep Space 1 have selected a near-Earth asteroid, 1992 KD, as a flyby destination.Last April, NASA announced that the launch date for this technology validation mission was to be rescheduled from July 21 to October 15, with the launch period extending to October 30. The new launch date precluded flying by planned destinations, including the previously announced asteroid McAuliffe, making it necessary to choose a new target. Deep Space 1 is scheduled to fly by the newly chosen asteroid 1992 KD on July 28, 1999.This asteroid was chosen from more than 100 flyby possibilities. Its elliptical orbit curves within and outside of Mars' orbit of the Sun, at its farthest going out more than three times farther from the Sun than Earth. Although scientists believe its diameter is approximately three kilometers, they know little else about the body. With this flyby, they can learn more about its shape, size, surface composition, mineralogy, terrain and rotation speed."This new mission offers excellent opportunities for us to test our payload of advanced technologies that are so important for future space exploration," said Dr. Marc Rayman, Deep Space 1's chief mission engineer. "At the same time, the potential for bonus scientific return is extraordinary."Deep Space 1 is the first launch of the New Millennium Program, a series of missions designed to test new technologies so that they can be confidently used on science missions of the 21st century. Among the 12 technologies that the mission is designed to validate is an ion propulsion engine that fires electrically charged xenon atoms from its thrusters; this is the first time it has ever been used as the primary propulsion system in deep space. Also being tested are autonomous optical navigation, a solar concentrator array and an integrated camera and imaging spectrometer.The latter instrument, also known as the Miniature Integrated Camera Spectrometer, or MICAS, will be validated by making science observations of asteroid 1992 KD, among several other methods. The flyby will also help to test both a miniature integrated ion and electron spectrometer instrument, also termed the Plasma Experiment for Planetary Exploration (PEPE), and the spacecraft's autonomous optical navigation system. The remaining new technologies will be tested during cruise and thrusting phases both before and after the flyby.By October, 1999, Deep Space 1 will have completed its primary mission of demonstrating new technologies and will be on a trajectory that could result in a flyby of comet Borrelly two years later. Comet Borrelly is one of the most active comets that regularly visit the inner solar system.Further information about Deep Space 1 is available athttp://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/. The New Millennium Program and Deep Space 1 are managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-rover-drills-sandstone-slab-on-mars

NASA's Curiosity Rover Drills Sandstone Slab on Mars

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover collected powder drilled from a rock on Mars on Monday, the third time this has ever been done and the first time on a sandstone target.

Portions of rock powder collected by the hammering drill on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from a slab of Martian sandstone will be delivered to the rover's internal instruments.Rover team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received confirmation early today (Tuesday) of Curiosity's third successful acquisition of a drilled rock sample, following the drilling Monday evening (PDT). The fresh hole in the rock target "Windjana," visible in images from the rover, is 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and about 2.6 inches (6.5 centimeters) deep.The full-depth hole for sample collection is close to a shallower test hole drilled last week in the same rock, which gave researchers a preview of the interior material as tailings around the hole."The drill tailings from this rock are darker-toned and less red than we saw at the two previous drill sites," said Jim Bell of Arizona State University, Tempe, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam). "This suggests that the detailed chemical and mineral analysis that will be coming from Curiosity's other instruments could reveal different materials than we've seen before. We can't wait to find out!"The mission's two previous rock-drilling sites, at mudstone targets in the Yellowknife Bay area, yielded evidence last year of an ancient lakebed environment with key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that long ago provided conditions favorable for microbial life. The rover's current location is at a waypoint called "The Kimberley," about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) southwest of Yellowknife Bay, and along the route toward the mission's long-term destination on lower slopes of Mount Sharp.Sample material from Windjana will be sieved, then delivered in coming days to onboard laboratories for determining the mineral and chemical composition: the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM). The analysis of the sample may continue as the rover drives on from The Kimberley toward Mount Sharp. One motive for the team's selection of Windjana for drilling is to analyze the cementing material that holds together sand-size grains in this sandstone.NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.For more information about Curiosity, visithttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl,http://www.nasa.gov/mslandhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. You can follow the mission on Facebook athttp://www.facebook.com/marscuriosityand on Twitter athttp://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-suspect-identified-in-supernova-explosion

New Suspect Identified in Supernova Explosion

There were no witnesses to a stellar blast that lit up our skies a millennium ago, but NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is finding clues in the charred remains.

Supernovas are often thought of as the tremendous explosions that mark the ends of massive stars' lives. While this is true, not all supernovas occur in this fashion. A common supernova class, called Type Ia, involves the detonation of white dwarfs -- small, dense stars that are already dead.New results from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have revealed a rare example of Type Ia explosion, in which a dead star "fed" off an aging star like a cosmic zombie, triggering a blast. The results help researchers piece together how these powerful and diverse events occur."It's kind of like being a detective," said Brian Williams of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, lead author of a study submitted to the Astrophysical Journal. "We look for clues in the remains to try to figure out what happened, even though we weren't there to see it."Supernovas are essential factories in the cosmos, churning out heavy metals, including the iron contained in our blood. Type Ia supernovas tend to blow up in consistent ways, and thus have been used for decades to help scientists study the size and expansion of our universe. Researchers say that these events occur when white dwarfs -- the burnt-out corpses of stars like our sun -- explode.Evidence has been mounting over the past 10 years that the explosions are triggered when two orbiting white dwarfs collide -- with one notable exception. Kepler's supernova, named after the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who was among those who witnessed it in 1604, is thought to have been preceded by just one white dwarf and an elderly, companion star called a red giant. Scientists know this because the remnant sits in a pool of gas and dust shed by the aging star.Spitzer's new observations now find a second case of a supernova remnant resembling Kepler's. Called N103B, the roughly 1,000 year-old supernova remnant lies 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy near our Milky Way."It's like Kepler's older cousin," said Williams. He explained that N103B, though somewhat older than Kepler's supernova remnant, also lies in a cloud of gas and dust thought to have been blown off by an older companion star. "The region around the remnant is extraordinarily dense," he said. Unlike Kepler's supernova remnant, no historical sightings of the explosion that created N103B are recorded.Both the Kepler and N103B explosions are thought to have unfolded as follows: an aging star orbits its companion -- a white dwarf. As the aging star molts, which is typical for older stars, some of the shed material falls onto the white dwarf. This causes the white dwarf to build up in mass, become unstable and explode.According to the researchers, this scenario may be rare. While the pairing of white dwarfs and red giants was thought to underlie virtually all Type Ia supernovas as recently as a decade ago, scientists now think that collisions between two white dwarfs are the most common cause. The new Spitzer research highlights the complexity of these tremendous explosions and the variety of their triggers. The case of what makes a dead star rupture is still very much an unsolved mystery.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, 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. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. 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.eduhttp://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-cubesat-will-shine-a-laser-light-on-the-moons-darkest-craters

NASA CubeSat Will Shine a Laser Light on the Moon's Darkest Craters

To support the next wave of human exploration, the Lunar Flashlight mission will look for potential ice hidden at the Moon's South Pole.

As astronauts explore the Moon during theArtemisprogram, they may need to make use of the resources that already exist on the lunar surface. Take water, for instance: Because it's a heavy and therefore expensive resource to launch from Earth, our future explorers might have to seek out ice to mine. Once excavated, it can be melted and purified for drinking and used for rocket fuel. But how much water is there on the Moon, and where might we find it?This is where NASA'sLunar Flashlightcomes in. About the size of a briefcase, the small satellite - also known as a CubeSat - aims to detect naturally occurring surface ice believed to be at the bottom of craters on the Moon that have never seen sunlight."Although we have a pretty good idea there's ice inside the coldest and darkest craters on the Moon, previous measurements have been a little bit ambiguous," said Barbara Cohen, principal investigator of the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Scientifically, that's fine, but if we're planning on sending astronauts there to dig up the ice and drink it, we have to besureit exists."Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the spacecraft is a technology demonstration: It will seek to achieve several technological firsts, including being the first mission to look for water ice using lasers. It will also be the first planetary spacecraft to use a "green" propellant, a new kind of fuel that is safer to transport and store than the commonly used spacecraft propellant hydrazine."A technology demonstration mission like Lunar Flashlight, which is lower cost and fills a specific gap in our knowledge, can help us better prepare for an extended NASA presence on the Moon as well as test key technologies that may be used in future missions," said John Baker, Lunar Flashlight project manager at JPL.Peering Into the ShadowsOver the course of two months, Lunar Flashlight will swoop low over the Moon's South Pole to shine its lasers into permanently shadowed regions and probe for surface ice. Found near the North and South Poles, these dark craters are thought to be "cold traps" that accumulate molecules of different ices, including water ice. The molecules may have come from comet and asteroid material impacting the lunar surface and from solar wind interactions with the lunar soil."The Sun moves around the crater horizon but never actually shines into the crater," said Cohen, whose team includes scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the University of Colorado. "Because these craters are so cold, these molecules never receive enough energy to escape, so they become trapped and accumulate over billions of years."Lunar Flashlight's four-laser reflectometer will use near-infrared wavelengths that are readily absorbed by water to identify any accumulations of ice on the surface. Should the lasers hit bare rock as they shine into the South Pole's permanently shadowed regions, their light will reflect back to the spacecraft, signaling a lack of ice. But if the light is absorbed, it would mean these dark pockets do indeed contain ice. The greater the absorption, the more widespread ice may be at the surface.While the CubeSat can provide information only about the presence of ice on the surface, and not below it, Lunar Flashlight seeks to fill a critical gap in our understanding of how much water ice these regions possess. "We will also be able to compare the Lunar Flashlight data with the great data that we already have from other Moon-orbiting missions to see if there are correlations in signatures of water ice, thereby giving us a global view of surface ice distribution," added Cohen.The mission is detailed ina new paperpublished in the April 2020 issue of IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine.Lunar Flashlight is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program within NASA'sSpace Technology Mission Directorate. The program is based at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. It will be one of13 secondary payloadsaboard the Artemis I mission, the first integrated flight test of NASA's Deep Space Exploration Systems, including the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket launching from the newly upgraded Exploration Ground Systems at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.Under the Artemis program, astronauts and robots will explore more of the Moon than ever before. Robotic missions begin with commercial lunar deliveries in 2021, humans return in 2024, and the agency will establish sustainable lunar exploration by the end of the decade. We will use what we learn on the Moon to prepare to send astronauts to Mars.To learn more about Lunar Flashlight, visit:https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/lunar-flashlight/To learn more about NASA's Artemis lunar exploration program, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/artemis

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-satellite-adds-carbon-dioxide-to-its-repertoire

NASA Satellite Adds Carbon Dioxide to its Repertoire

A NASA-led team has expanded the growing global armada of remote sensing satellites capable of studying carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas driving changes in our climate.

PASADENA, Calif. -- A NASA-led research team has expanded the growing global armada of remote sensing satellites capable of studying carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth's climate.The newest addition is the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) instrument on NASA's Aura spacecraft, launched in 2004. TES measures the state and composition of Earth's troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, located between Earth's surface and about 16 kilometers (10 miles) in altitude. While TES was not originally designed to measure carbon dioxide, a team led by Susan Kulawik of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has successfully developed and validated a TES carbon dioxide tool.Kulawik's team analyzed three years of carbon dioxide data from TES and compared them to other carbon dioxide data sources. These sources included the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft, aircraft and ground station samples, and two National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration carbon dioxide research tools: GLOBALVIEW-CO2 and CarbonTracker. The TES data were found to be in good agreement with the other data. The TES study appears in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.Kulawik says TES data may be able to help significantly reduce uncertainties in annual regional estimates of where carbon dioxide is being created (sources) and where it is being stored (sinks)."It's easy to see why you need measurements near Earth's surface, but TES measurements in the region of the atmosphere where carbon dioxide gets transported around the globe are also key to understanding carbon dioxide sources and sinks," Kulawik said.Study co-authors Ray Nassar and Dylan Jones of the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, found that TES data can reduce -- by approximately 70 percent -- uncertainties in estimates of how much carbon dioxide is being released and stored in South America's tropical rain forests and Africa's grasslands. These include the Amazon, Congo and surrounding savannahs."These regions have a major influence on the global carbon cycle," said Jones. "The new carbon dioxide data from TES will help scientists reduce uncertainties in our understanding of carbon dioxide, particularly in tropical regions, where there are currently very few surface or aircraft measurements."Carbon dioxide is the most important human-produced greenhouse gas. Its current global average concentration in Earth's atmosphere is about 389 parts per million by volume, increasing by about two parts per million each year. This concentration varies seasonally and by hemisphere. Estimates are challenging, as it varies by less than two percent globally in the mid-troposphere.Currently, about 55 percent of human-produced carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere; the rest is stored in the ocean and by land plants, but exactly where remains a mystery. Recent studies have shown carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion have been increasing faster than predicted, while the southern hemispheric oceans' capacity for storing carbon dioxide may be diminishing. Scientists want to better understand carbon dioxide sources and sinks so they can more reliably predict future atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, assess the impact of land use changes on atmospheric carbon dioxide, develop mitigation strategies and verify international treaties.The new TES carbon dioxide data complement the available international space-based resources for measuring carbon dioxide. These include AIRS; Envisat's European Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY); the European MetOp Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI); and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT). The Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission, NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to studying carbon dioxide and its sources and sinks, was lost in a launch vehicle mishap in February 2009. It is currently being rebuilt for a planned launch in 2013.TES will measure carbon dioxide in the troposphere at altitudes between 2 and 8 kilometers (1.2 to 5 miles), with peak sensitivity at around 5 kilometers (3.1 miles). It will produce carbon dioxide products at latitudes between 40 degrees south and 45 degrees north. The team expects to release daily and monthly TES carbon dioxide data products to the public starting this July.Other institutions participating in the study include the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba-City, Ibaraki, Japan; the Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba-City, Ibaraki, Japan; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif.; and NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.For more on the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer, visit:http://tes.jpl.nasa.gov.JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/further-clues-to-fate-of-mars-lander-seen-from-orbit

Further Clues to Fate of Mars Lander, Seen From Orbit

The most powerful telescope orbiting Mars provides new details of the scene where Europe's test lander hit the surface last week.

The most powerful telescope orbiting Mars is providing new details of the scene near the Martian equator where Europe's Schiaparelli test lander hit the surface last week.An Oct. 25 observation using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows three impact locations within about 0.9 mile (1.5 kilometers) of each other. An annotated view is available online athttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21131The scene shown by HiRISE includes three locations where hardware reached the ground. A dark, roughly circular feature is interpreted as where the lander itself struck. A pattern of rays extending from the circle suggests that a shallow crater was excavated by the impact, as expected given the premature engine shutdown. About 0.8 mile (1.4 kilometers) eastward, an object with several bright spots surrounded by darkened ground is likely the heat shield. About 0.6 mile (0.9 kilometer) south of the lander impact site, two features side-by-side are interpreted as the spacecraft's parachute and the back shell to which the parachute was attached. Additional images to be taken from different angles are planned and will aid interpretation of these early results.The test lander is part of the European Space Agency's ExoMars 2016 mission, which placed the Trace Gas Orbiter into orbit around Mars on Oct. 19. The orbiter will investigate the atmosphere and surface of Mars and provide relay communications capability for landers and rovers on Mars.Data transmitted by Schiaparelli during its descent through Mars' atmosphere is enabling analysis of why the lander's thrusters switched off prematurely. The new HiRISE imaging provides additional information, with more detail than visible in anearlier viewwith the Context Camera (CTX) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.With HiRISE, CTX and four other instruments, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been investigating Mars since 2006.The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter and collaborates with JPL to operate it. For additional information about the project, visit:http://mars.nasa.gov/mro

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-great-observatories-celebrate-international-year-of-astronomy-2

NASA's Great Observatories Celebrate International Year of Astronomy

A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy is being unveiled by NASA today. This event will commemorate the 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609.

PASADENA, Calif. -- A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy is being unveiled by NASA today. This event will commemorate the 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609.In celebration of this International Year of Astronomy, NASA is releasing images of the galactic center region as seen by its Great Observatories to more than 150 planetariums, museums, nature centers, libraries and schools across the country.The sites will unveil a giant, 6-foot-by-3-foot print of the bustling hub of our galaxy that combines a near-infrared view from the Hubble Space Telescope, an infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and an X-ray view from the Chandra X-ray Observatory into one multiwavelength picture. Experts from all three observatories carefully assembled the final image from large mosaic photo surveys taken by each telescope. This composite image provides one of the most detailed views ever of our galaxy's mysterious core.Participating institutions also will display a matched trio of Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra images of the Milky Way's center on a second large panel measuring 3 feet by 4 feet. Each image shows the telescope's unique wavelength view of the galactic center region, illustrating not only the unique science each observatory conducts, but also how far astronomy has come since Galileo.The composite image features the spectacle of stellar evolution: from vibrant regions of star birth, to young hot stars, to old cool stars, to seething remnants of stellar death called black holes. This activity occurs against a fiery backdrop in the crowded, hostile environment of the galaxy's core, the center of which is dominated by a supermassive black hole nearly four million times more massive than our sun. Permeating the region is a diffuse blue haze of X-ray light from gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by outflows from the supermassive black hole, as well as by winds from massive stars and stellar explosions. Infrared light reveals more than a hundred thousand stars along with glowing dust clouds that create complex structures, including compact globules, long filaments, and finger-like "pillars of creation," where newborn stars are just beginning to break out of their dark, dusty cocoons.The unveilings will take place at 152 institutions nationwide, reaching both big cities and small towns. Each institution will conduct an unveiling celebration involving the public, schools and local media.The Astrophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate supports the International Year of Astronomy Great Observatories image unveiling. The project is a collaboration among the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., the Spitzer Science Center in Pasadena, Calif., and the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass.Images of the Milky Way galactic center region and a list of places exhibiting these images can be found at:http://spitzer.caltech.eduandhttp://www.nasa.gov/spitzerhttp://hubblesite.org/news/2009/28andhttp://www.nasa.gov/hubblehttp://chandra.harvard.eduandhttp://www.nasa.gov/chandrahttp://astronomy2009.nasa.govNASA'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.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-epoxi-mission-sets-up-for-comet-flyby

NASA's EPOXI Mission Sets Up for Comet Flyby

NASA's EPOXI mission successfully performed a trajectory correction maneuver today. The maneuver refined the spacecraft's orbit for a flyby of comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4.

PASADENA, Calif. - Earlier today, navigators and mission controllers for NASA's EPOXI mission watched their computer screens as 23.6 million kilometers (14.7 million miles) away, their spacecraft successfully performed its 20th trajectory correction maneuver. The maneuver refined the spacecraft's orbit, setting the stage for its flyby of comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4. Time of closest approach to the comet was expected to be about 10: 02 a.m. EDT (7:02 a.m. PDT).Today's trajectory correction maneuver began at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT) today, when the spacecraft fired its engines for 60 seconds, changing the spacecraft's velocity by 1.53 meters per second (3.4 mph)."We are about 23 million miles and 36 days away from our comet," said EPOXI project manager Tim Larson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "I can't wait to see what Hartley 2 looks like."On Nov. 4, the spacecraft will fly past the comet at a distance of about 700 kilometers (435 miles). It will be only the fifth time in history that a spacecraft has been close enough to image a comet's nucleus, and the first time in history that two comets have been imaged with the same instruments and same spatial resolution."We are imaging the comet every day, and Hartley 2 is proving to be a worthy target for exploration," said Mike A'Hearn, EPOXI principal investigator from the University of Maryland, College Park.EPOXI is an extended mission that utilizes the already "in flight" Deep Impact spacecraft to explore distinct celestial targets of opportunity. The name EPOXI itself is a combination of the names for the two extended mission components: the extrasolar planet observations, called Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the flyby of comet Hartley 2, called the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI). The spacecraft will continue to be referred to as "Deep Impact."NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the EPOXI mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of Maryland, College Park, is home to the mission's principal investigator, Michael A'Hearn. Drake Deming of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is the science lead for the mission's extrasolar planet observations. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.For more information about EPOXI visithttp://epoxi.umd.edu/.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/stardust-prepares-to-pick-up-speed-from-earths-gravity-assist

Stardust Prepares to Pick Up Speed From Earth's Gravity Assist

As it completes the first of three laps of about a billion miles each around the heart of the solar system, NASA's Stardust spacecraft is getting ready for a pit stop of sorts, flying by Earth in mid-January for a gravitational speed boost.

As it completes the first of three laps of about a billion miles each around the heart of the solar system, NASA's Stardust spacecraft is getting ready for a pit stop of sorts, flying by Earth in mid-January for a gravitational speed boost. The added energy will put Stardust on course to meet Comet Wild 2 (pronounced "vilt-2") in January 2004."It's a big event in the sense that it's a mission milestone," said Dr. Donald Brownlee, a University of Washington astronomy professor and the mission's principal investigator. "We don't have to do anything during the flyby. It's all celestial mechanics."The Earth-gravity-assist phase of the mission actually began on Nov. 14, as the desk-sized craft cruised toward Earth after traveling beyond the orbit of Mars. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have made course changes and other adjustments to ensure that Stardust gains the proper amount of energy from Earth's gravity.The gravity boost will lengthen the spacecraft's orbit, setting up its rendezvous with Wild 2 in early 2004. Stardust will capture particles being boiled off the comet's surface by solar heating. During the gravity-assist phase, the closest Earth approach will be at 3:20 a.m. PST on Jan. 15, as the spacecraft flies just southeast of the southern tip of Africa. It will be traveling about 5,950 kilometers (3,700 miles) from the Earth's surface and moving at about 36,050 kilometers per hour (22,400 miles per hour)."The science of the mission is basically ahead of us," Brownlee said. "We've dealt with a number of problems, but they have been fewer than most spacecraft experience."Perhaps the most heart-stopping problem came last Nov. 9- 10, when Stardust was bombarded by photons from a solar flare some 100,000 times larger than normal. The energy overwhelmed the navigation camera, which is used to help pilot Stardust by focusing on stars and planets and then comparing that image with a star map in its memory. Normally the camera sees only a few stars at a time, but in this case its electronic imaging chip interpreted the solar flare's photon flashes as thousands of stars. The spacecraft went into safe mode, with its solar panels pointed toward the sun. Eventually the photon flashes faded and ground controllers were able to reset the star camera.There also has been some intriguing science. The Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer, operated by Germany's Max- Planck-Institut fr Extraterrestrische Physik, came up with an unexpected analysis of interstellar particles the spacecraft encountered."The surprise is that they were high-molecular-weight materials, probably large organic molecules," Brownlee said. "It would be something analogous to tar or coal."Stardust was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Feb. 7, 1999, and this is its first return to its home planet. Thenext encounter with Earth comes in January 2006, when the return capsule will separate from the spacecraft and parachute into the Utah desert. The capsule will carry comet material and interstellar dust particles, captured in a wispy material called aerogel. The particles will be sent to laboratories around the world for analysis. It is expected the samples will yield clues to the origins of the solar system and possibly life itself.The spacecraft's encounter with the comet will occur just outside the orbit of Mars, 242 million miles from Earth. There is a possibility that Stardust may be visible from the west coast of the United States and the Pacific Ocean just after the flyby, for observers using sophisticated telescopes with CCD detectors.Mission collaborators are the NASA, JPL, the University of Washington, and Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver. Other key team members include The Boeing Co., The Max-Planck- Institut, NASA Ames Research Center and the University of Chicago. The Stardust mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.For more information on the mission, seehttp://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-discovers-a-new-mode-of-ice-loss-in-greenland

NASA Discovers a New Mode of Ice Loss in Greenland

A NASA study finds during Greenland's two hottest summers on record, ice in Rink Glacier didn't just melt faster, it slid through the glacier's interior in a gigantic wave.

Anew NASA studyfinds that during Greenland's hottest summers on record, 2010 and 2012, the ice in Rink Glacier on the island's west coast didn't just melt faster than usual, it slid through the glacier's interior in a gigantic wave, like a warmed freezer pop sliding out of its plastic casing. The wave persisted for four months, with ice from upstream continuing to move down to replace the missing mass for at least four more months.This long pulse of mass loss, called a solitary wave, is a new discovery that may increase the potential for sustained ice loss in Greenland as the climate continues to warm, with implications for the future rate of sea level rise.The study by three scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was the first to precisely track a glacier's loss of mass from melting ice using the horizontal motion of a GPS sensor. They used data from a single sensor in the Greenland GPS Network (GNET), sited on bedrock next to Rink Glacier. A paper on the research is published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.Rink is one of Greenland's major outlets to the ocean, draining about 11 billion tons (11 gigatons) of ice per year in the early 2000s -- roughly the weight of 30,000 Empire State Buildings. In the intensely hot summer of 2012, however, it lost an additional 6.7 gigatons of mass in the form of a solitary wave. Previously observed melting processes can't explain that much mass loss.The wave moved through the flowing glacier during the months of June through September at a speed of about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) a month for the first three months, increasing to 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) during September. The amount of mass in motion was 1.7 gigatons, plus or minus about half a gigaton, per month. Rink Glacier typically flows at a speed of a mile or two (a few kilometers) a year.The wave could not have been detected by the usual methods of monitoring Greenland's ice loss, such as measuring the thinning of glaciers with airborne radar. "You could literally be standing there and you would not see any indication of the wave," said JPL scientist Eric Larour, a coauthor of the new paper. "You would not see cracks or other unique surface features."The researchers saw the same wave pattern in the GPS data for 2010, the second hottest summer on record in Greenland. Although they did not quantify the exact size and speed of the 2010 wave, the patterns of motion in the GPS data indicate that it must have been smaller than the 2012 wave but similar in speed."We know for sure that the triggering mechanism was the surface melting of snow and ice, but we do not fully understand the complex array of processes that generate solitary waves," said JPL scientist Surendra Adhikari, who led the study.During the two summers when solitary waves occurred, the surface snowpack and ice of the huge basin in Greenland's interior behind Rink Glacier held more water than ever before. In 2012, more than 95 percent of the surface snow and ice was melting. Meltwater may create temporary lakes and rivers that quickly drain through the ice and flow to the ocean. "The water upstream probably had to carve new channels to drain," explained coauthor Erik Ivins of JPL. "It was likely to be slow-moving and inefficient." Once the water had formed pathways to the base of the glacier, the wave of intense loss began.The scientists theorize that previously known processes combined to make the mass move so quickly. The huge volume of water lubricated the base of the glacier, allowing it to move more rapidly, and softened the side margins where the flowing glacier meets rock or stationary ice. These changes allowed the ice to slide downstream so fast that ice farther inland couldn't keep up.The glacier gained mass from October through January as ice continued to move downstream to replace the lost mass. "This systematic transport of ice in fall to midwinter had not been previously recognized," Adhikari emphasized."Intense melting such as we saw in 2010 and 2012 is without precedent, but it represents the kind of behavior that we might expect in the future in a warming climate," Ivins added. "We're seeing an evolving system."Greenland's coast is dotted with more than 50 GNET stations mounted on bedrock to track changes below Earth's surface. The network was installed as a collaborative effort by the U.S. National Science Foundation and international partners in Denmark and Luxembourg. Researchers use the vertical motions of these stations to observe how the North American tectonic plate is rebounding from its heavy ice burden of the last ice age. Adhikari, Ivins and Larour were the first to quantitatively explore the idea that, under the right circumstances, the horizontal motions could reveal how the ice mass was changing as well."What makes our work exciting is that we are essentially identifying a new, robust observational technique to monitor ice flow processes on seasonal or shorter time scales," Adhikari said. Existing satellite observations do not offer enough temporal or spatial resolution to do this.The GNET stations are not currently being maintained by any agency. The JPL scientists first spotted the unusual behavior of Rink Glacier while examining whether there were any scientific reasons to keep the network going."Boy, did we find one," Ivins said.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/potential-plumes-on-europa-could-come-from-water-in-the-crust

Potential Plumes on Europa Could Come From Water in the Crust

Scientists have theorized on the origin of the water plumes possibly erupting from Jupiter's moon Europa. Recent research adds a new potential source to the mix.

Plumes of water vapor that may be venting into space from Jupiter's moon Europa could come from within the icy crust itself, according to new research. A model outlines a process for brine, or salt-enriched water, moving around within the moon's shell and eventually forming pockets of water - even more concentrated with salt - that could erupt.Europa scientists have considered the possible plumes on Europa a promising way to investigate the habitability of Jupiter's icy moon, especially since they offer the opportunity to be directly sampled by spacecraft flying through them. The insights into the activity and composition of the ice shell covering Europa's global, interior ocean can help determine if the ocean contains the ingredients needed to support life.Get the Latest JPL NewsSubscribe to the NewsletterThis new work that offers an additional scenario for some plumes proposes that they may originate from pockets of water embedded in the icy shell rather than water forced upward from the ocean below. The source of the plumes is important: Water originating from the icy crust is considered less hospitable to life than the global interior ocean because it likely lacks the energy that is a necessary ingredient for life. In Europa's ocean, that energy could come from hydrothermal vents on the sea floor."Understanding where these water plumes are coming from is very important for knowing whether future Europa explorers could have a chance to actually detect life from space without probing Europa's ocean," said lead author Gregor Steinbrügge, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford'sSchool of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.Using images collected by NASA'sGalileospacecraft, the researchers developed a model to propose how a combination of freezing and pressurization could lead to a cryovolcanic eruption, or a burst of frigid water. The results, published Nov. 10 in Geophysical Research Letters, may shed light on eruptions on other icy bodies in the solar system.The researchers focused their analyses on Manannán, an 18-mile-wide (29-kilometer-wide) crater on Europa that resulted from an impact with another celestial object tens of millions of years ago. Reasoning that such a collision would have generated tremendous heat, they modeled how the melted ice and subsequent freezing of the water pocket within the icy shell could have pressurized it and caused the water to erupt."The comet or asteroid hitting the ice shell was basically a big experiment which we're using to construct hypotheses to test," said co-author Don Blankenship, senior research scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) and principal investigator of the radar instrument, REASON (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface), that will fly aboard NASA's upcomingEuropa Clipperspacecraft. "Our model makes specific predictions we can test using data from the radar and other instruments on Europa Clipper."The model indicates that as Europa's water partially froze into ice following the impact, leftover pockets of water could have been created in the moon's surface. These salty water pockets can move sideways through Europa's ice shell by melting adjacent regions of ice and consequently become even saltier in the process.A Salty Driving ForceThe model proposes that when a migrating brine pocket reached the center of Manannán Crater, it became stuck and began freezing, generating pressure that eventually resulted in a plume, estimated to have been over a mile high (1.6 kilometers). The eruption of this plume left a distinguishing mark: a spider-shaped feature on Europa's surface that was observed by Galileo imaging and incorporated into the researchers' model."Even though plumes generated by brine pocket migration would not provide direct insight into Europa's ocean, our findings suggest that Europa's ice shell itself is very dynamic," said co-lead author Joana Voigt, a graduate research assistant at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.The relatively small size of the plume that would form at Manannán indicates that impact craters probably can't explain the source of other, larger plumes on Europa that have been hypothesized based on data from Galileo and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, researchers said. But the process modeled for the Manannán eruption could happen on other icy bodies - even without an impact event."The work is exciting, because it supports the growing body of research showing there could be multiple kinds of plumes on Europa," said Robert Pappalardo of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and project scientist of the Europa Clipper mission. "Understanding plumes and their possible sources strongly contributes to Europa Clipper's goal to investigate Europa's habitability."Missions such as Europa Clipper help contribute to the field ofastrobiology, the interdisciplinary research on the variables and conditions of distant worlds that could harbor life as we know it. While Europa Clipper is not a life-detection mission, it will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Europa and investigate whether the icy moon, with its subsurface ocean, has the capability to support life. Understanding Europa's habitability will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential for finding life beyond our planet.More information about Europa and Europa Clipper can be found here:europa.nasa.gov

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-grail-moon-twins-are-joined-to-their-booster

NASA's GRAIL Moon Twins are Joined to Their Booster

NASA's lunar-bound GRAIL twins were mated to their Delta II launch vehicle at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 17.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's lunar-bound GRAIL twins were mated to their Delta II launch vehicle at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 17 at 8:45 a.m. EDT (5:45 a.m. PDT) today. The 15-mile (25-kilometer) trip from Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla., is the last move for GRAIL before it begins its journey to the moon. NASA's dynamic duo will orbit the moon to determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and to advance understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon."We are about to finish one chapter in the GRAIL story and open another," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL's principal investigator, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "Let me assure you this one is a real page-turner. GRAIL will rewrite the book on the formation of the moon and the beginning of us."Now that the GRAIL spacecraft are atop their rocket, a final flurry of checks and tests can begin to confirm that all is go for launch. The final series of checks begins tomorrow, Aug. 19, with an on-pad functional test. The test is designed to confirm that the spacecraft is healthy after the fueling and transport operations. Next week, among all the upcoming final tests, reviews and closeout operations leading up to liftoff, the GRAIL team will install the launch vehicle fairing around the spacecraft.GRAIL's launch period opens Sept. 8 and extends through Oct. 19. On each day, there are two separate instantaneous launch opportunities separated in time by approximately 39 minutes. On Sept. 8, the first launch opportunity is at 8:37 a.m. EDT (5:37 a.m. PDT). The second launch opportunity is 9:16 a.m. EDT (6:16 a.m. PDT).NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, is home to the mission's principal investigator, Maria Zuber. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery 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.More information about GRAIL is online at:http://www.nasa.gov/grailandhttp://grail.nasa.gov. .

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/stardust-can-see-clearly-now-just-before-earth-flyby

Stardust Can See Clearly Now -- Just Before Earth Flyby

After a few months of foggy camera vision, NASA's Stardust mission team has improved the spacecraft's navigation-camera resolution to nearly normal, just as Stardust is preparing to make a close flyby of the Earth on Monday.

After a few months of foggy camera vision, NASA's Stardust mission team has improved the spacecraft's navigation-camera resolution to nearly normal, just as Stardust is preparing to make a close flyby of the Earth on Monday.By heating the camera's optical path, the Stardust team was able to help its nearsighted spacecraft boil away contaminants that had been deposited on optical surfaces.One year ago, the imaging team took pictures of a small lamp inside the optical path of the camera. The camera will be used to navigate Stardust to its 2004 encounter with Comet Wild 2 (pronounced "vilt-2"). Apparent contamination of the navigation-camera prevented a clear test-image of the squiggly line of the lamp's filament, and the lens seemed to be covered with a veil of light- scattering material that produced a blurry image.The team concluded that the contamination might have been released with gases escaping from the spacecraft after its launch, and that heating the optical path of the camera might evaporate the contaminant covering the camera lens. After a series of heating cycles, they re-tested the camera by taking more pictures of the lamp.Pictures taken after the heating revealed that the zigzag line of the lamp's filament was visible again. Images of stars taken by the camera are also clearer. The team estimates the camera can now photograph stars two magnitudes (celestial degrees of brightness) better. The navigation camera has detected stars as faint as 9th magnitude in brightness, which should allow the spacecraft to perform its final navigation maneuvers during approach to the comet nearly at the time originally planned.Now Stardust, on its journey to collect comet dust, is getting ready to springboard from Earth -- in a maneuver called a "gravity-assist" -- when the spacecraft passes closest to Earth on January 15, 2001. The Earth will not be in the navigation camera's field-of-view during the flyby, so no images of Earth will be taken.Stardust was launched on February 7, 1999, into its first loop around the Sun. When Stardust passes by Earth at about 10 kilometers per second (22,400 miles per hour), it will go into a slightly wider orbit that will allow it to reach the comet on January 2, 2004.On Monday, January 15, Stardust will fly by a point just southeast of the southern tip of Africa, slightly more than 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) from the surface at about 3:15 a.m. PST (6:15 a.m. EST).Stardust may be visible to observers using sophisticated telescopes with charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors from the Pacific Ocean and the Western United States just after the spacecraft flies by Earth. Stardust will not be visible using binoculars.A gravity-assist works like this: when a spacecraft closely approaches a planet, the planet's gravitational pull accelerates the spacecraft and bends the flight path. Mission designers account for this extra pull and use it to their advantage to boost spacecraft speed and direct interplanetary spacecraft to their targets. Like a windup before the pitch, the Earth gravity-assist will sling Stardust into the right path to meet Comet Wild 2.About 15 hours after its closest approach to Earth, the spacecraft will pass about 98,000 kilometers (61,000 miles) from the Moon. Because of the greater distance, the Moon's gravity will have essentially no influence on the spacecraft's flight path.Stardust, a part of NASA's Discovery Program of low- cost, highly focused science missions, is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. More information on the Stardust mission is available athttp://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html.#####NOTE TO BROADCASTERS: Interview clips and B-roll to accompany this release are being carried on NASA Television, GE-2, Transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0 megahertz with audio on 6.8 megahertz. For broadcast times, seeftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/tv-advisory/nasa-tv.txt. Live shots are available Friday, Dec. 12 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Time.To arrange a live shot, contact Jack Dawson at (818) 354-0040.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/small-asteroid-to-whip-past-earth-on-june-27-2011

Small Asteroid to Whip Past Earth on June 27, 2011

An asteroid designated 2011 MD will safely pass Earth in the early morning hours.

Near-Earth asteroid 2011 MD will pass only 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) above the Earth's surface on Monday June 27 at about 9:30 EDT. The asteroid was discovered by the LINEAR near-Earth object discovery team observing from Socorro, New Mexico. This small asteroid, only 5-20 meters in diameter, is in a very Earth-like orbit about the Sun, but an orbital analysis indicates there is no chance it will actually strike Earth on Monday. If a rocky asteroid the size of 2011 MD were to enter Earth's atmosphere, it would be expected to burn up high in the atmosphere and cause no damage to Earth's surface. The accompanying diagram gives a view of the asteroid's trajectory from the general direction of the Sun. This view indicates that 2011 MD will reach its closest Earth approach point in extreme southern latitudes (in fact over the southern Atlantic Ocean). The incoming trajectory leg passes several thousand kilometers outside the geosynchronous ring of satellites and the outgoing leg passes well inside the ring. One would expect an object of this size to come this close to Earth about every 6 years on average. For a brief time, it may be bright enough to be seen even with a modest-sized telescope.For more information on 2011 MD and other near-Earth objects, visithttp://neo.jpl.nasa.gov.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-extends-exploration-for-8-planetary-science-missions

NASA Extends Exploration for 8 Planetary Science Missions

Among the missions are InSight, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Curiosity, all of which have been critical to expanding our understanding of the Red Planet.

Following a thorough evaluation, NASA has extended the planetary science missions of eight of its spacecraft due to their scientific productivity and potential to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the solar system and beyond.The missions – Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity rover), InSight lander, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, OSIRIS-REx, and New Horizons – have been selected for continuation, assuming their spacecraft remain healthy. Most of the missions will be extended for three years; however, OSIRIS-REx will be continued for nine years in order to reach a new destination, and InSight will be continued until the end of 2022, unless the spacecraft’s electrical power allows for longer operations.Each extended mission proposal was reviewed by a panel of independent experts drawn from academia, industry, and NASA. In total, more than 50 reviewers evaluated the scientific return of the respective proposals. Two independent review chairs oversaw the process and, based on the panel evaluations, validated that these eight science missions hold substantial potential to continue bringing new discoveries and addressing compelling new science questions.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERBeyond providing important programmatic benefit to NASA, several of these missions promise multidivisional science benefits across NASA’s entire Science Mission Directorate (SMD), including their use as data relays for Mars surface landers and rovers, as well as to support other NASA initiatives such as Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS).“Extended missions provide us with the opportunity to leverage NASA’s large investments in exploration, allowing continued science operations at a cost far lower than developing a new mission,” said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Maximizing taxpayer dollars in this way allows missions to obtain valuable new science data, and in some cases, allows NASA to explore new targets with totally new science goals.”Two of the extended missions, MAVEN and OSIRIS-REx, welcome new principal investigators (PIs).OSIRIS-APEX (Principal Investigator: Dr. Daniella DellaGiustina, University of Arizona):The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission is currently on its way back to Earth to deliver the samples of asteroid Bennu that it collected in 2020. Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx PI, will remain in place for the primary mission, while DellaGiustina begins her role as the newly named PI for OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer (OSIRIS-APEX). With a new name to reflect the extended mission’s new goals, the OSIRIS-APEX team will redirect the spacecraft to encounter Apophis, an asteroid roughly 1,200 feet (roughly 370 meters) in diameter that will come within 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) of Earth in 2029. OSIRIS-APEX will enter orbit around Apophis soon after the asteroid’s Earth flyby, providing an unprecedented close-up look at thisS-type asteroid. It plans to study changes in the asteroid caused by its close flyby of Earth and use the spacecraft’s gas thrusters to attempt to dislodge and study the dust and small rocks on and below Apophis’ surface.MAVEN (Principal Investigator: Dr. Shannon Curry, University of California, Berkeley):The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission plans to study the interaction between Mars’ atmosphere and magnetic field during the upcoming solar maximum. MAVEN’s observations as the Sun’s activity level increases toward the maximum of its 11-year cycle will deepen our understanding of how Mars’ upper atmosphere and magnetic field interact with the Sun.InSight (Principal Investigator: Dr. Bruce Banerdt, JPL):Since landing on Mars in 2018, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission has operated the only active seismic station beyond Earth. Its seismic monitoring of “marsquakes” has provided constraints on Mars’ interior, formation, and current activity. The extended mission will continue InSight’s seismic and weather monitoring if the spacecraft remains healthy. However, due to dust accumulation on its solar panels, InSight’s electrical power production is low, and the mission is unlikely to continue operations for the duration of its current extended mission unless its solar panels are cleared by a passing “dust devil” in Mars’ atmosphere.Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) (Project Scientist: Dr. Noah Petro, GSFC):LRO will continue to study the surface and geology of the Moon. The evolution of LRO’s orbit will allow it to study new regions away from the poles in unprecedented detail, including the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) near the poles where water ice may be found. LRO will also provide important programmatic support for NASA’s efforts to return to the Moon.Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) (Project Scientist: Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, JPL):The Mars Science Laboratory and its Curiosity rover have driven more than 16 miles (27 km) on the surface of Mars, exploring the history of habitability in Gale Crater. In its fourth extended mission, MSL will climb to higher elevations, exploring the critical sulfate-bearing layers that give unique insights into the history of water on Mars.New Horizons (Principal Investigator: Dr. Alan Stern, SwRI):New Horizons flew past Pluto in 2015 and the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) Arrokoth in 2019. In its second extended mission, New Horizons will continue to explore the distant solar system out to 63 astronomical units (AU) from Earth. The New Horizons spacecraft can potentially conduct multidisciplinary observations of relevance to the solar system and NASA’s Heliophysics and Astrophysics divisions. Additional details regarding New Horizons’ science plan will be provided at a later date.Mars Odyssey (Project Scientist: Dr. Jeffrey Plaut, JPL):Mars Odyssey’s extended mission will perform new thermal studies of rocks and ice below Mars’ surface, monitor the radiation environment, and continue its long-running climate monitoring campaign. The Odyssey orbiter also continues to provide unique support for real-time data relay from other Mars spacecraft. The length of Odyssey’s extended mission may be limited by the amount of propellant remaining aboard the spacecraft.Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) (Project Scientist: Dr. Rich Zurek, JPL):MRO has provided a wealth of data regarding the processes on Mars’ surface. In its sixth extended mission, MRO will study the evolution of Mars’ surface, ices, active geology, and atmosphere and climate. In addition, MRO will continue to provide important data relay service to other Mars missions. MRO’s CRISM instrument will be shut down entirely, after the loss of its cryocooler has ended the use of one of its two spectrometers.NASA’s Planetary Science Division currently operates 14 spacecraft across the solar system, has 12 missions in formulation and implementation, and partners with international space agencies on seven others.The detailed reports from the 2022 Planetary Science Senior Review may be found at:https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/documents/senior-review

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/space-blobs-create-super-speedy-backward-auroras

Space Blobs Create Super-Speedy, Backward Auroras

Blobs of electrified particles spew violently from the Sun, zoom at "warp speed" toward Earth's magnetic field, and trigger an unusual form of aurora, scientists have discovered using an ultraviolet camera on NASA's Polar spacecraft.

Blobs of electrified particles spew violently from the Sun, zoom at "warp speed" toward Earth's magnetic field, and trigger an unusual form of aurora, scientists have discovered using an ultraviolet camera on NASA's Polar spacecraft.These electrified blobs, called coronal mass ejections, travel at more than 1.5 million miles per hour, or 2,000 times the speed of sound, and create interplanetary shock waves that "ram into" Earth's magnetic field. This is roughly comparable to the way a supersonic aircraft breaks the sound barrier and creates a shock wave that we hear as a sonic boom. With the aurora, the effect of the interplanetary shock wave is not heard, but instead is seen as a multi-colored display by Polar.The more common type of Earth aurora is formed through a process that begins when the magnetic fields that extend from Earth's Poles are dragged away from the Sun and Earth by the solar wind. When these magnetic fields collide, they annihilate each other and ultimately create a hot, electrified gas that produces an eerie, colorful display near midnight at high and low latitude locations such as Alaska and Antarctica. We call those displays the northern and southern lights.These newly discovered auroras appear in those same latitude regions -- but unlike the better known auroras, they appear at high noon, when they would usually be obscured by the Sun. That would explain why no one on Earth has reported seeing them yet. In addition, these dayside auroras move much, much faster and in the opposite direction from ordinary auroras."This sheds new light on the way the Sun's tumultuous activities affect us here on Earth," said Dr. Bruce Tsurutani of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, co-investigator for the Polar camera. "Since this type of aurora has not been seen by earthlings, it's a prime example of a robotic spacecraft finding things we'd never know about otherwise.""Originally NASA's Wind spacecraft was used to find interplanetary shocks," said Dr. Xiaoyan Zhou, a National Research Council resident research associate who is also on the Polar science team. "We wanted to find out what effect these shocks have on Earth. We were surprised to discover that they caused these unusual, fast-moving auroras." Polar's instruments confirmed their existence with a dozen sightings. These latest aurora findings were based on data gathered during the past two years.Now that scientists are aware of the new form of auroras, they hope professional and amateur Earth observers will look for the phenomenon at certain locations like Spitzbergen, Norway in the winter, when the skies are dark at noon. "We're anxious to know what these new auroras look like when seen from Earth," Tsurutani said.More will be learned about these space blobs, or coronal mass ejections, when NASA's planned Solar Probe spacecraft flies closer to the Sun's sizzling surface than any previous spacecraft. Solar Probe will launch in 2007 and will approach to a distance of only 1-1/2 times the Sun's diameter in 2010, surviving temperatures above 3,700 degrees Fahrenheit."I can hardly wait to see close-up pictures of a coronal mass ejection when the spacecraft flies through one as it's being formed," said Tsurutani, who also serves as Solar Probe project scientist.The Polar and Wind missions are managed by Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The two spacecraft are part of the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics program. Solar Probe is managed by JPL as part of the Outer Planets/Solar Probe project. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.For a picture go tohttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/99/aurora.pdf. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required).818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/seventh-graders-find-a-cave-on-mars

Seventh Graders Find a Cave on Mars

California middle school students using the camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter have found lava tubes with one pit that appears to be a skylight to a cave.

California middle school students using the camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter have found lava tubes with one pit that appears to be a skylight to a cave.The students in science teacher Dennis Mitchell's class at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, Calif., were examining Martian lava tubes as their project in the Mars Student Imaging Program offered by NASA and Arizona State University. Students in this program develop a geological question, then target a Mars-orbiting camera to take an image that helps answer the question.Mars Odyssey has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2001, returning data and images of the Martian surface and providing relay communications service for the twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.› See full story

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/trio-of-fast-spinning-brown-dwarfs-may-reveal-a-rotational-speed-limit

Trio of Fast-Spinning Brown Dwarfs May Reveal a Rotational Speed Limit

Brown dwarfs, sometimes known as “failed stars,” can spin at upwards of 200,000 mph, but there may be a limit to how fast they can go.

Using data from NASA’sSpitzer Space Telescope, scientists have identified the three fastest-spinning brown dwarfs ever found. More massive than most planets but not quite heavy enough to ignite like stars, brown dwarfs are cosmic in-betweeners. And though they aren’t as well known as stars and planets to most people, they are thought to number in the billions in our galaxy.In a study appearing in theAstronomical Journal, the team that made the new speed measurements argue that these three rapid rotators could be approaching a spin speed limit for all brown dwarfs, beyond which they would break apart. The rapidly rotating brown dwarfs are all about the same diameter as Jupiter but between 40 and 70 times more massive. They each rotate about once per hour, while the next-fastest known brown dwarfs rotate about once every 1.4 hours and Jupiter spins once every 10 hours. Based on their size, that means the largest of the three brown dwarfs whips around at more than 60 miles per second (100 kilometers per second), or about 220,000 miles per hour (360,000 kilometers per hour).The speed measurements were made using data from Spitzer, whichNASA retiredin January 2020. (The brown dwarfs were discovered by the ground-based Two Micron All Sky Survey, or 2MASS, which ran until 2001.) The team then corroborated their unusual findings through observations with the ground-based Gemini North and Magellan telescopes.NASA Spitzer Space Telescope has identified the fastest-spinning brown dwarf known. Brown dwarfs are generally more massive than planets but not massive enough to become stars.Brown dwarfs, like stars or planets, are already spinning when they form. As they cool down and contract, they spin faster, just like when a spinning ice skater draws her arms into her body. Scientists have measured the spin rates of about 80 brown dwarfs, and they vary from less than two hours (including the three new entries) to tens of hours.With so much variety among the brown dwarf speeds already measured, it surprised the authors of the new study that the three fastest brown dwarfs ever found have almost the exact same spin rate (about one full rotation per hour) as each other. This cannot be attributed to the brown dwarfs having formed together or being at the same stage in their development, because they are physically different: One is a warm brown dwarf, one is cold, and the other falls between them. Since brown dwarfs cool as they age, the temperature differences suggest these brown dwarfs are different ages.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERThe authors aren’t chalking this up to coincidence. They think the members of the speedy trio have all reached a spin speed limit, beyond which a brown dwarf could break apart.All rotating objects generate centripetal force, which increases the faster the object spins. On a carnival ride, this force can threaten to throw riders from their seats; in stars and planets, it can tear the object apart. Before a spinning object breaks apart, it will often start bulging around its midsection as it deforms under the pressure. Scientists call this oblation. Saturn, which rotates once every 10 hours like Jupiter, has a perceptible oblation. Based on the known characteristics of the brown dwarfs, they likely have similar degrees of oblation, according to the paper authors.Your browser cannot play the provided video file(s).All spinning objects, from carousels to planets, generate centripetal force. If a planet rotates too fast, that force can pull it apart. Before that happens, the planet will experience “flattening,” or bulging around its midsection, as seen in this animated illustration of a brown dwarf, Jupiter, and Saturn.Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechReaching the Speed LimitConsidering that brown dwarfs tend to speed up as they age, are these objects regularly exceeding their spin speed limit and being torn apart? In other rotating cosmic objects, like stars, there are there natural braking mechanisms that stop them from destroying themselves. It’s not clear yet if similar mechanisms exist in brown dwarfs.“It would be pretty spectacular to find a brown dwarf rotating so fast it is tossing its atmosphere out into space,” said Megan Tannock, a Ph.D. candidate at Western University in London, Ontario, and lead author on the new study. “But so far, we haven’t found such a thing. I think that must mean that either something is slowing the brown dwarfs down before they hit that extreme or that they can’t get that fast in the first place. The result of our paper supports some sort of limit on the rotation rate, but we’re not sure of the reason yet.”Brown dwarfs are more massive than most planets but not quite as massive as stars. Generally speaking, they have between 13 and 80 times the mass of Jupiter. A brown dwarf becomes a star if its core pressure gets high enough to start nuclear fusion.Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechThe maximum spin rate of any object is determined not only by its total mass but by how that mass is distributed. That’s why, when very rapid spin rates are involved, understanding a brown dwarf’s interior structure becomes increasingly important: The material inside likely shifts and deforms in ways that could change how fast the object can spin. Similar to gas planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, brown dwarfs are composed mostly of hydrogen and helium.But they are also significantly denser than most giant planets. Scientists think the hydrogen in the core of a brown dwarf is under such tremendous pressures that it starts behaving like a metal rather than an inert gas: It has free-floating conducting electrons, much like a copper conductor. That changes how heat is conducted through the interior and with very fast spin rates, may also affect how the mass inside an astronomical object is distributed.“This state of hydrogen, or any gas under such extreme pressure, is still very enigmatic,” said Stanimir Metchev, co-author on the paper and the Canada Research Chair in Extrasolar Planets at the Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at Western University. “It is extremely challenging to reproduce this state of matter even in the most advanced high-pressure physics laboratories.”Physicists use observations, laboratory data, and mathematics to create models of what brown dwarf interiors should look like and how they should behave, even under extreme conditions. But current models show that the maximum brown dwarf spin speed should be about 50% to 80% faster than the one-hour rotation period described in the new study.“It is possible that these theories don’t have the full picture yet,” said Metchev. “Some unappreciated factor may be coming into play that doesn’t let the brown dwarf spin faster.” Additional observations and theoretical work may yet reveal whether there’s some braking mechanism that stops brown dwarfs from self-destruction and whether there are brown dwarfs spinning even faster in the darkness.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, managed Spitzer mission operations for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at IPAC at Caltech. Spacecraft operations were based at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. The Spitzer data archive is housed at the Infrared Science Archive at IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena, California. The international Gemini Observatory is a Program of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab.For more information about NASA’s Spitzer mission go to:https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/spitzer-space-telescopehttps://www.ipac.caltech.edu/project/spitzer

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/asteroid-zooms-by-earth

Asteroid Zooms by Earth

As expected, Asteroid 2007 TU24 made its closest approach to Earth at 12:33 a.m. today, Jan. 29 (3:33 a.m. Eastern time), and is now headed away from our planet.

As expected, Asteroid 2007 TU24 made its closest approach to Earth at 12:33 a.m. today, Jan. 29 (3:33 a.m. Eastern time), and is now headed away from our planet. At its closest point, the asteroid was 554,209 kilometers (344,370 miles) from Earth, or roughly 1.4 times the distance between the moon and Earth.Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. had tracked the asteroid in advance and determined that there was no possibility of an impact. The rare close approach is providing a bonanza for scientists, who plan to scrutinize images and data gathered in hopes of learning more about our solar system's closest neighbors - near-Earth asteroids. More observations are planned for Feb. 1 through 4 using the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The observatory is operated by Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., for the National Science Foundation.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-express-radar-to-be-deployed

Mars Express Radar to Be Deployed

The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter will soon deploy its radar instrument for the first time.

The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter will soon deploy its radar instrument for the first time. The instrument is designed to look below the surface of Mars for different layers of material, most notably water.Once the deployment is successful, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (Marsis) instrument will complement the orbiter's study of the planet's atmosphere and surface. The instrument was funded by NASA and the Italian Space Agency and developed by the University of Rome, Italy, in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.The instrument's co-principal investigator, Dr. Jeffrey Plaut of JPL said, "We look forward to the start of the Marsis experiment, and to becoming full partners in the mission of discovery that is Mars Express. The radar gives us two ways to explore the fate of the water that once flowed on the surface of Mars. We will probe beneath the surface for evidence of frozen or liquid reservoirs, and we will study the outer fringes of Mars' atmosphere, where the planet may have lost its water to space."The deployment of the three radar booms will take place in three phases, in a window spanning from May 2 to 12. These operations will be initiated and monitored from the European Space Agency's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. Each boom will be deployed separately, with the two 20- meter-long (66-foot-long) dipole booms to be unfurled first and the 7-meter (23-foot) monopole boom to follow a few days later.Before each deployment, the spacecraft will be placed in a 'robust' attitude control mode, which will allow it to tumble freely while the boom extends before regaining standard pointing to the Sun and Earth.The result of each deployment can be assessed only after a series of tests, each taking a few days. After the deployment of the three booms, European Space Agency engineers will start the analysis of the complete behavior of the satellite to be able to confirm the overall success of the operation. The current schedule is subject to change, due to the timing and nature of the complex series of operations.Once deployment is complete, the Marsis instrument will undergo three weeks of commissioning before the start of actual science investigations. This timing coincides with the spacecraft's orbit reaching a favorable position to examine one of the prime targets for radar observations.JPL's Richard Horttor, project manager for NASA's roles in the Mars Express mission, said, "The first data from the radar next month will signal the success of an innovative international partnership." Italy provided the instrument's digital processing system and integrated the parts. The University of Iowa, Iowa City, built the transmitter for the instrument, JPL built the receiver and Astro Aerospace, Carpinteria, Calif., built the antenna.JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/with-goals-met-nasa-to-push-envelope-with-ingenuity-mars-helicopter

With Goals Met, NASA to Push Envelope With Ingenuity Mars Helicopter

The Red Planet rotorcraft will extend its range, speed, and flight duration on Flight Four.

Keep up with the latest helicopter news in themission blog.Now that NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has accomplished the goal of achieving powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on the Red Planet, and with data from its mostrecent flight test, on April 25, the technology demonstration project has met or surpassed all of its technical objectives. The Ingenuity team now will push its performance envelope on Mars.The fourth Ingenuity flight from “Wright Brothers Field,” the name for the Martian airfield on which the flight took place, is scheduled to take off Thursday, April 29, at 10:12 a.m. EDT (7:12 a.m. PDT, 12:30 p.m. local Mars time), with the first data expected back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 1:21 p.m. EDT (10:21 a.m. PDT).NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is visible in the upper left corner of this image the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took during its third flight, on April 25, 2021. The helicopter was flying at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) and roughly 279 feet (85 meters) from the rover at the time. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechFull Image Details“From millions of miles away, Ingenuity checked all the technical boxes we had at NASA about the possibility of powered, controlled flight at the Red Planet,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division. “Future Mars exploration missions can now confidently consider the added capability an aerial exploration may bring to a science mission.”The Ingenuity team had three objectives to accomplish to declare the technology demo a complete success: They completed the first objective about six years ago when the team demonstrated in the25-foot-diameter space simulator chamberof JPL that powered, controlled flight in the thin atmosphere of Mars was more than a theoretical exercise. The second objective – to fly on Mars – was met when Ingenuity flew for thefirst timeon April 19. The team surpassed the last major objective with the third flight, when Ingenuity rose 16 feet (5 meters), flying downrange 164 feet (50 meters) and back at a top speed of 6.6 feet per second (2 meters per second), augmenting the rich collection of knowledge the team has gained during its test flight campaign.“When Ingenuity’s landing legs touched down after that third flight, we knew we had accumulated more than enough data to help engineers design future generations of Mars helicopters,” said J. “Bob” Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer at JPL. “Now we plan to extend our range, speed, and duration to gain further performance insight.”Flight Four sets out to demonstrate the potential value of that aerial perspective. The flight test will begin with Ingenuity climbing to an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) and then heading south, flying over rocks, sand ripples, and small impact craters for 276 feet (84 meters). As it flies, the rotorcraft will use its downward-looking navigation camera to collect images of the surface every 4 feet (1.2 meters) from that point until it travels a total of 436 feet (133 meters) downrange. Then, Ingenuity will go into a hover and take images with itscolor camerabefore heading back to Wright Brothers Field.NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter takes off and lands in this video captured on April 25, 2021, by Mastcam-Z, an imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. As expected, the helicopter flew out of its field of vision while completing a flight plan that took it 164 feet (50 meters) downrange of the landing spot. Keep watching, the helicopter will return to stick the landing.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech“To achieve the distance necessary for this scouting flight, we’re going to break our own Mars records set during flight three,” said Johnny Lam, backup pilot for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at JPL. “We’re upping the time airborne from 80 seconds to 117, increasing our max airspeed from 2 meters per second to 3.5 (4.5 mph to 8), and more than doubling our total range.”After receiving the data from the fourth flight, the Ingenuity team will consider its plan for the fifth flight.“We have been kicking around several options regarding what a flight five could look like,” said Balaram. “But ask me about what they entail after a successful flight four. The team remains committed to building our flight experience one step at a time.”Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERMore About IngenuityThe Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages the technology demonstration project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science, Aeronautics Research, and Space Technology mission directorates. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Martin Space designed and manufactured theMars Helicopter Delivery System.At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. At JPL, MiMi Aung is the project manager and Bob Balaram is chief engineer.For more information about Ingenuity, go to:https://go.nasa.gov/ingenuity-press-kitandhttps://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopterMore About PerseveranceA key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars isastrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includesArtemismissions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.For more about Perseverance, go to:nasa.gov/perseveranceandmars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/topography-reflects-baja-quake-sites-complex-geology

Topography Reflects Baja Quake Site's Complex Geology

New NASA topographic images of northern Baja, California, site of a 7.2 quake on April 4, reflect the complex geology caused by colliding tectonic plates.

The topography surrounding the Laguna Salada fault in the Mexican state of Baja, California, is clearly shown in this combined radar image and topographic view (above) generated with data from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). On April 4, 2010, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck along this fault about 64 kilometers (40 miles) south of the Mexico-United States border.According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake was the largest to strike this area since 1892. This fault is a probable southern continuation of the Elsinore fault zone in Southern California, and is related to the San Andreas fault zone complex. Aftershocks since the major event have appeared to extend in both directions along this fault system from the epicenter, marked by the red star.This view combines a radar image acquired in February 2000 during SRTM, and color-coding by topographic height using data from the mission's data. Dark green colors indicate low elevations, rising through lime green, yellow and tan, to white at the highest elevations. The image shows a simulated view toward the southwest, with the topography exaggerated by a factor of two for clarity.For more information, also see:http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13016

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/progress-promise-in-space-based-earthquake-research

Progress, Promise in Space-based Earthquake Research

Nearly 10 years after Los Angeles was shaken by the devastating, magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake, scientists at NASA and other institutions say maturing space-based technologies, new ground-based techniques and more complex computer models are rapidly advancing our understanding of earthquakes and earthquake processes.

Nearly 10 years after Los Angeles was shaken by the devastating, magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake, scientists at NASA and other institutions say maturing space-based technologies, new ground-based techniques and more complex computer models are rapidly advancing our understanding of earthquakes and earthquake processes.Dr. Andrea Donnellan, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., says the past decade has seen substantial progress in space-based earthquake research. "We've confirmed through space observation the Earth's surface is constantly moving, periodically resulting in earthquakes, and we can measure both the seismically quiet motions before and after earthquakes, as well as the earthquakes themselves. These technologies are allowing us to pursue lines of data and research we didn't know existed only a few years ago."Two months before the Northridge earthquake, Donnellan and university colleagues published a paper in the journal Nature on ground deformation north of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. Six years of Global Positioning System (GPS) data showed the area's faults were active and building up strain, and indicated the size and style of a potential earthquake there. Following the earthquake, the data made it possible to rapidly determine where the fault ruptured and to measure how the earthquake had deformed Earth's surface.Space-based instruments can image Earth movements to within fractions of an inch, measuring the slow buildup of deformation along faults, and mapping ground deformation after an earthquake. Two primary tools are the space-based GPS navigation system and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR). The latter compares satellite radar images of Earth taken at different times to detect ground movement.InSAR complements surface measurements because it lets us look at whole regions in a spatial context. An InSAR mission is also a key component of EarthScope, a jointly led initiative by the National Science Foundation, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.EarthScope studies the North American continent's structure and evolution, and the physical processes that control earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, according to Dr. James Whitcomb, section head for Special Projects, Earth Sciences Division, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Va.Precise Earth surface-movement data measure strain and provide a first approximation of where earthquakes are likely to occur, notes Dr. Brad Hager, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and co-author of the 1993 Nature paper. "In California, patterns of ground deformation are complicated by the complex interactions between fault systems. Interpreting this data requires computer models that can estimate how much deformation has accumulated and identify regions where strain should be released, but hasn't been."University of California, Davis, researcher Dr. John Rundle says the complexity of earthquakes requires we study them as part of the full Earth system. "Most natural events result from interrelated Earth processes over various lengths and times. "These processes have variables that can't be readily observed, so understanding them requires computers."NASA's QuakeSim project is developing a similar forecasting methodology. Its tools simulate earthquake processes, and manage and model the increasing quantities of data available. "We're focusing on observing and understanding earthquakes in space and time, and developing methods that use patterns of small earthquakes to forecast larger ones," Rundle explains. "New simulations of earthquakes on California's active faults are providing considerable insight, showing earthquakes tend to "cluster" in space and time due to their interactions. That is, an earthquake on one fault section can turn on or off earthquake activity on nearby fault sections, depending on the relative orientation of the faults. Simulations have led researchers to conclude that fault system geometry determines earthquake activity patterns."A NASA/Department of Energy-funded research team reports promising results from an experiment to forecast earthquakes in southern and central California from 2000 to 2010. It uses mathematical methods to forecast likely locations of earthquakes above magnitude 5 by processing data on earthquakes of about magnitude 3 from the past decade. The high-risk regions identified in the forecast are refined from those already identified by the government as susceptible to large earthquakes. Five earthquakes greater than magnitude 5 have occurred since the research was completed, all in those high-risk regions.Dr. Wayne Thatcher, a senior research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif., says as these technologies are validated they will be transferred to end users. "Such data and models improve understanding of earthquake and volcanic processes, substantially refining seismic hazard maps and resulting in more appropriate, earthquake-resistant construction codes and more targeted retrofitting strategies."Points of contact for other organizations cited in this release are: Andy Fell, University of California, Davis, 530/752-4533; Stephanie Hannah, USGS, 206/220-4573; Deborah Halber, MIT, 617/258-9276; Cheryl Dybas, NSF, 703/292-7734.JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/lander-collects-icy-soil-but-needs-to-work-on-delivery

Lander Collects Icy Soil But Needs to Work on Delivery

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm collected a more than adequate amount of icy soil for baking in one of the lander's ovens but will need to adjust how it delivers samples.

TUCSON, Ariz. --NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm collected a more than adequate amount of icy soil for baking in one of the lander's ovens but will need to adjust how it delivers samples.Engineers determined the rasping and scraping activity collected a total of 3 cubic centimeters of icy soil, more than enough to fill the tiny oven cell of the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. However, images returned from the lander Saturday morning show that much of the soil remained lodged in the robotic arm's scoop after the attempt to deliver the sample to the TEGA."Very little of the icy sample made it into the oven," said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We believe that the material that was intended for the targeted cell is the material that adhered to the back of the scoop."Once the sample had been collected, the robotic arm tilted its scoop and ran the rasp motor several times in an attempt to sprinkle the sample into the oven whose doors were wide open. The final step was inverting the scoop directly over the doors. A screened opening over the oven measures about 10 centimeters (4 inches) long by 3 centimeters (1.5 inches) wide. The oven itself is roughly the size of an ink cartridge in a ballpoint pen.The delivery sequence also included vibrating the screen several times, which would have aided delivery. TEGA detected that not enough sample was recorded as being in its oven, so the oven doors did not close.The TEGA activities did not cause any short circuits with the equipment."The good news here is TEGA is functioning nominally, and we will adjust our sample drop-off strategy to run this again," Goldstein said.Prior to the sample delivery, Phoenix's robotic arm made 16 holes in the hard ground with its motorized rasp tool and the scoop collected the rasped material and shavings left on the surface from the rasping action.The lander conducted these activities overnight Friday to Saturday, Pacific Time, during Martian morning hours of the mission's 60th Martian day, or sol. The Phoenix team planned Saturday to send the spacecraft commands to take images on Sunday, the mission's Sol 61, of areas around and under the TEGA instrument. The images by the Robotic Arm Camera would be a way to check for additional material that might have been released by the scoop on Sol 60.The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For more about Phoenix, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/phoenixandhttp://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/huge-east-antarctic-glacier-especially-susceptible-to-climate-impacts

Huge East Antarctic Glacier Especially Susceptible to Climate Impacts

The shape of the ground beneath Denman Glacier, which is melting from the bottom up, makes it particularly vulnerable to the intrusion of seawater.

Denman Glacier in East Antarctica retreated 3.4 miles (5.4 kilometers) from 1996 to 2018, according to a new study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Irvine. Their analysis of Denman - a single glacier that holds as much ice as half of West Antarctica - also shows that the shape of the ground beneath the ice sheet makes it especially susceptible to climate-driven retreat.Until recently, researchers believed East Antarctica was more stable than West Antarctica because it wasn't losing as much ice compared to the glacial melt observed in the western part of the continent. "East Antarctica has long been thought to be less threatened, but as glaciers such as Denman have come under closer scrutiny by the cryosphere science community, we are now beginning to see evidence of potential marine ice sheet instability in this region," said Eric Rignot, project senior scientist at JPL and professor of Earth system science at UCI."The ice in West Antarctica has been melting faster in recent years, but the sheer size of Denman Glacier means that its potential impact on long-term sea level rise is just as significant," Rignot added. If all of Denman melted, it would result in about 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) of sea level rise worldwide.Using radar data from four satellites, part of the Italian COSMO-SkyMed mission that launched its first satellite in 2007, the researchers were able to discern the precise location where the glacier meets the sea and the ice starts to float on the ocean, or its grounding zone. The scientists were also able to reveal the contours of the ground beneath portions of the glacier using data on ice thickness and its speed over land.Denman's eastern flank is protected from exposure to warm ocean water by a roughly 6-mile-wide (10-kilometer-wide) ridge under the ice sheet. But its western flank, which extends about 3 miles (4 kilometers) past its eastern part, sits over a deep, steep trough with a bottom that's smooth and slopes inland. This configuration could funnel warm seawater underneath the ice, making for an unstable ice sheet. The warm water is increasingly being pushed against the Antarctic continent by winds called the westerlies, which have strengthened since the 1980s."Because of the shape of the ground beneath Denman's western side, there is potential for the intrusion of warm water, which would cause rapid and irreversible retreat, and contribute to global sea level rise in the future," said lead author Virginia Brancato, a scientist at JPL.It will also be important, her colleague Rignot noted, to monitor the part of Denman Glacier that floats on the ocean, which extends for 9,300 square miles (24,000 square kilometers) and includes the Shackleton Ice Shelf and Denman Ice Tongue.Currently, that extension is melting from the bottom up at a rate of about 10 feet (3 meters) annually. That's an increase over its annual melt average of 9 feet (2.7 meters). It's also greater than the average melt rate for East Antarctic ice shelves between 2003 and 2008, which was roughly 2 feet (0.7 meters) per year.The team published their assessment on March 23 in the American Geophysical Union journalGeophysical Research Letters.This project was funded by NASA's Cryosphere Program and received support from the Italian Space Agency and the German Space Agency. Data and bed topography maps arepublicly available.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-engineers-checking-insights-weather-sensors

NASA Engineers Checking InSight's Weather Sensors

An electronics issue is suspected to be preventing the sensors from sharing their data about Mars weather with the spacecraft.

Weather sensors aboard NASA's InSight Mars lander stopped providing data on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2020, a result of an issue affecting the sensor suite's electronics. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California are working to understand the cause of the issue.Called the Auxiliary Payload Sensor Suite (APSS), the sensors collect data on wind speed and direction, air temperature and pressure, and magnetic fields. Throughout each Martian day, or sol, InSight's main computer retrieves data stored in APSS' control computer for later transmission to orbiting spacecraft, which relay the data to Earth.APSS is in safe mode and unlikely to be reset before the end of the month while mission team members work toward a diagnosis. JPL engineers are optimistic that resetting the control computer may address the issue but need to investigate the situation further before returning the sensors to normal.More About InSightJPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain's Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/how-to-target-an-asteroid

How to Target an Asteroid

The hunt is on for methods to aim a spacecraft at an asteroid.

Like many of his colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., Shyam Bhaskaran is working a lot with asteroids these days. And also like many of his colleagues, the deep space navigator devotes a great deal of time to crafting, and contemplating, computer-generated 3-D models of these intriguing nomads of the solar system.But while many of his coworkers are calculating asteroids' past, present and future locations in the cosmos, zapping them with the world's most massive radar dishes, or considering how to rendezvous and perhaps even gently nudge an asteroid into lunar orbit, Bhaskaran thinks about how to collide with one."If you want to see below the surface of an asteroid, there's no better way than smacking it hard," said Bhaskaran. "But it's not that easy. Hitting an asteroid with a spacecraft traveling at hypervelocity is like shooting an arrow at a target on a speeding race car."The term hypervelocity usually refers to something traveling at very high speed -- two miles per second (6,700 mph / 11,000 kilometers per hour) or above. Bhaskaran's hypothetical impacts tend to be well above."Most of the hypervelocity impact scenarios that I simulate have spacecraft/asteroid closure rates of around eight miles a second, 30,000 miles per hour [about 48,000 kilometers per hour]," said Bhaskaran.In the majority of our solar system, where yield signs and "right of way" statutes have yet to find widespread support, hypervelocity impacts between objects happen all the time. But all that primordial violence usually goes unnoticed here on Earth, and almost never receives scientific scrutiny."High-speed impacts on asteroids can tell you so many things that we want to know about asteroids," said Steve Chesley, a near-Earth object scientist at JPL. "They can tell you about their composition and their structural integrity -- which is how they hold themselves together. These are things that are not only vital for scientific research on the origins of the solar system, but also for mission designers working on ways to potentially move asteroids, either for exploitation purposes or because they may be hazardous to Earth."Hypervelocity impacts by spacecraft are not just a hypothetical exercise. Scientists have taken the opportunity to analyze data from used spacecraft and rocket stages that have impacted the moon and other celestial bodies since the Apollo program. On July 4, 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft successfully collided its dynamic impactor with comet 9P/Tempel 1 -- it was the first hypervelocity impact of a primitive solar system body.Bhaskaran, who was a navigator on Deep Impact, would be the first to tell you that not all hypervelocity impacts are created equal. "Impacting an asteroid presents slightly different challenges than impacting a comet," said Bhaskaran. "Comets can have jets firing material into space, which can upset your imaging and guidance systems, while potential asteroid targets can be as small as 50 meters [164 feeet] and have their own mini-moons orbiting them. Since they're small and dim, they can be harder to spot."Along with the size of the celestial body being targeted, Bhaskaran also has to take into account its orbit, targeting errors, how hard an impact the scientists want, and even the shape."Asteroids hardly ever resemble perfect spheroids," said Bhaskaran. "What you've got floating around out there are a bunch of massive objects that look like peanuts, potatoes, diamonds, boomerangs and even dog bones -- and if the spacecraft's guidance system can't figure out where it needs to go, you can hit the wrong part of the asteroid, or much worse, miss it entirely."The guidance system Bhaskaran is referring to is called "AutoNav," which stands for Autonomous Navigation. To reach out and touch something that could be halfway across the solar system and traveling at hypervelocity requires a fast-thinking and fast-maneuvering spacecraft. It is a problem that even the speed of light cannot cure. "When it comes to these high-speed impact scenarios, the best info you get on where you are and where you need to be comes very late in the game," said Bhaskaran. "That's why the last few hours before impact are so critical. We need to execute some final rocket burns, called Impactor Targeting Maneuvers (ITMs), quickly. With Earth so far away, there is no chance to send new commands in time."So, instead, we have AutoNav do the job for us. It is essentially a cyber-astronaut that takes in all the pertinent information, makes its own decisions and performs the actions necessary to make sure we go splat where we want to go splat."Currently, Bhaskaran is running simulations that make his virtual impactor go splat against the furrowed, organic-rich regolith of asteroid 1999 RQ36. The 1,600-foot-wide (500-meter-wide) space rock is the target of a proposed JPL mission called the Impactor for Surface and Interior Science (ISIS). The impactor spacecraft, which looks a little like a rocket-powered wedding ring, would hitch a free ride into space aboard the rocket carrying NASA's InSight mission to Mars. The impactor's trajectory would then loop around Mars and bear down on RQ36."One of the things that helps me sleep at night is that we know a lot about RQ36 because it is the target of another NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx," said Bhaskaran. "But it also provides some challenges because the scientists want us to hit the asteroid at a certain moment in time and at a certain location, so that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft can be sure to monitor the results from a safe vantage point. It is a challenge but it's also really exciting."The part of the ISIS mission Bhaskaran is most interested in is what happens after our rocket-festooned, cyber-hero rounds Mars and begins to close the distance with the asteroid at a speed of 8.4 miles per second (49,000 kilometers per hour). Over the next several months, the mission navigators would plan and execute several deep space maneuvers that refine the spacecraft's approach. Then, with only two hours to go, AutoNav would take over to make the final orbital changes."AutoNav's imaging system and its orbit determination algorithms will detect the asteroid and compute its location in space relative to the impactor," said Bhaskaran. "Without waiting to hear from us, it will plan for and execute three ITMs at 90 minutes, 30 minutes and then three minutes out. That last rocket firing will occur when the asteroid is only 1,500 miles [2,400 kilometers] away. Three minutes later, if all goes according to plan, the spacecraft hits like a ton of bricks."While Bhaskaran loves ISIS for the navigation challenge it provides, the proposed mission's principal investigator likes what the out-of-this-world equivalent of the release of nine tons of TNT does to the surface -- and interior -- of an asteroid."We expect the crater excavated by the impact of ISIS could be around 100 feet across," said Chesley. "From its catbird seat in orbit around the asteroid, OSIRIS-REx, at its leisure, would not only be able to determine how big a hole there is, but also analyze the material thrown out during the impact."The data would not only provide information on what makes up the asteroid, but how its orbit reacts to being hit by a NASA spacecraft."While the effect of ISIS on the orbit of asteroid 1999 RQ36 will be miniscule, it will be measurable," said Chesley. "Once we know how its orbit changes, no matter how small, we can make better assessments and plans to change some future asteroid's orbit if we ever need to do so. Of course, to get all these great leaps forward in understanding, we have to hit it in the first place."Which leads us back to Bhaskaran and his hard drive laden full of hypervelocity impact simulations."We have confidence that whenever called upon, AutoNav will do its job," said Bhaskaran. "The trick is, we just don't tell AutoNav it's a one-way trip."Bhaskaran will present his latest findings on guidance for hypervelocity impacts on Tuesday, April 16, at the International Academy of Astronautics' Planetary Defense Conference in Flagstaff, Ariz.NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing relatively close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and predicts their paths to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Steve Chesley of JPL is leading the Impactor for Surface and Interior Science (ISIS) mission proposal. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages the OSIRIS-Rex project.More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch, and on Twitter: @asteroidwatch .

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/unusual-red-arcs-spotted-on-icy-saturn-moon

Unusual Red Arcs Spotted on Icy Saturn Moon

Unexplained arc-shaped, reddish streaks are visible on the surface of Saturn's icy moon Tethys in new, enhanced-color images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

Like graffiti sprayed by an unknown artist, unexplained arc-shaped, reddish streaks are visible on the surface of Saturn's icy moon Tethys in new, enhanced-color images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.The red arcs are narrow, curved lines on the moon's surface, and are among the most unusual color features on Saturn's moons to be revealed by Cassini's cameras.Images taken using clear, green, infrared and ultraviolet spectral filters were combined to create the enhanced-color views, which highlight subtle color differences across the icy moon's surface at wavelengths not visible to human eyes.A few of the red arcs can be seen faintly in observations made earlier in the Cassini mission, which has been in orbit at Saturn since 2004. But the color images for this observation, obtained in April 2015, are the first to show large northern areas of Tethys under the illumination and viewing conditions necessary to see the arcs clearly. As the Saturn system moved into its northern hemisphere summer over the past few years, northern latitudes have become increasingly well illuminated. As a result, the arcs have become clearly visible for the first time."The red arcs really popped out when we saw the new images," said Cassini participating scientist Paul Schenk of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. "It's surprising how extensive these features are."The origin of the features and their reddish color is a mystery to Cassini scientists. Possibilities being studied include ideas that the reddish material is exposed ice with chemical impurities, or the result of outgassing from inside Tethys. They could also be associated with features like fractures that are below the resolution of the available images.Except for a few small craters on Saturn's moon Dione, reddish-tinted features are rare on other moons of Saturn. Many reddish features do occur, however, on the geologically young surface of Jupiter's moon Europa."The red arcs must be geologically young because they cut across older features like impact craters, but we don't know their age in years." said Paul Helfenstein, a Cassini imaging scientist at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, who helped plan the observations. "If the stain is only a thin, colored veneer on the icy soil, exposure to the space environment at Tethys' surface might erase them on relatively short time scales."The Cassini team is currently planning follow-up observations of the features, at higher resolution, later this year."After 11 years in orbit, Cassini continues to make surprising discoveries," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We are planning an even closer look at one of the Tethys red arcs in November to see if we can tease out the source and composition of these unusual markings."The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.For more information about Cassini, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/cassinihttp://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/programs-will-share-inside-story-of-mars-bound-robots

Programs Will Share Inside Story of Mars-Bound Robots

Two free public programs in Pasadena this week will offer an introduction to the challenges and excitement of NASA's project to examine two areas of Mars with robotic rovers that are currently flying to Mars.

Two free public programs in Pasadena this week will offer an introduction to the challenges and excitement of NASA's project to examine two areas of Mars with robotic rovers that are currently flying to Mars.Peter Theisinger, Mars Exploration Rover project manager, will describe the project on Thursday evening, Aug. 21, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and on Friday evening, Aug. 22, at Pasadena City College."Three years of work by a great team got these spacecraft built and tested and launched, but the biggest hurdle is still in front of us," Theisinger said. "We have to get them safely onto the surface of Mars."The two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, will arrive three weeks apart in January at opposite sides of Mars. They will bounce and roll inside cocoons of inflated airbags. Unlike the much smaller Sojourner rover of the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997, each Mars Exploration Rover will be independent of its stationary lander, capable of communicating directly with Earth and carrying a full set of cameras for scouting locations to explore. At selected rocks it will extend an arm bearing geological tools for close-up analysis. The landing sites were selected as places likely to hold geological clues about the history of water on Mars.Theisinger, a La Crescenta resident, has worked on several interplanetary exploration missions since his 1967 graduation from the California Institute of Technology, including Voyager to the outer planets, Galileo to Jupiter and Mars Global Surveyor.His two talks will be part of JPL's Theodore von Kármán Lecture Series. Both will begin at 7 p.m. Seating is first-come, first-served. The Thursday lecture will be in JPL's von Kármán Auditorium. JPL is at 4800 Oak Grove Dr., off the Oak Grove Drive exit of the 210 (Foothill) Freeway. The Friday lecture will be in Pasadena City College's Vosloh Forum, 1570 E. Colorado Blvd. For more information, call (818) 354-0112. Thursday's lecture will be webcast live and available afterwards athttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/aug03.html.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-airs-tracks-record-breaking-heat-wave-in-pacific-northwest

NASA’s AIRS Tracks Record-Breaking Heat Wave in Pacific Northwest

The science instrument mapped the dome of high pressure that settled over the northwestern U.S. and western Canada in late June, sending temperatures into the triple digits.

An unprecedented heat wave that started around June 26 smashed numerous all-time temperature records in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada. NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), aboard the Aqua satellite, captured the progression of this slow-moving heat dome across the region from June 21 to 30. An animation of some of the AIRS data show surface air temperature anomalies – values above or below long-term averages. Surface air temperature is something that people directly feel when they are outside.In many cases, the highs exceeded previous temperature records by several degrees or more. On June 28, Quillayute, Washington, set an all-time high temperature record of 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius), shattering the old record of 99 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). Numerous weather stations broke records on consecutive days, showing the unprecedented nature of this extreme heat, which is also being blamed for a number of fatalities. In British Columbia, the village of Lytton set a new all-time record for Canada at 119 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) on June 29, only to break it the next day with a reading of 121 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius).Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERThe AIRS instrument recorded similar temperature anomalies at an altitude of about 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), showing that the extreme heat also affected mountainous regions. And temperature anomalies at roughly 18,000 feet (5,500 meters) demonstrated that the heat dome extended high into Earth’s troposphere, creating the conditions for intense heat at the planet’s surface that are normally found farther south.AIRS, in conjunction with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU), senses emitted infrared and microwave radiation from Earth to provide a three-dimensional look at the planet’s weather and climate. Working in tandem, the two instruments make simultaneous observations down to Earth’s surface. With more than 2,000 channels sensing different regions of the atmosphere, the system creates a global, three-dimensional map of atmospheric temperature and humidity, cloud amounts and heights, greenhouse gas concentrations and many other atmospheric phenomena. Launched into Earth orbit in 2002 aboard NASA’s Aqua spacecraft, the AIRS and AMSU instruments are managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, under contract to NASA. JPL is a division of Caltech.More information about AIRS can be found at:https://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-psyche-mission-has-a-metal-world-in-its-sights

NASA's Psyche Mission Has a Metal World in Its Sights

The Psyche mission, an exploration an asteroid made of metal, begins its final design and fabrication phase.

Designed to explore a metal asteroid that could be the heart of a planet, the Psyche mission is readying for a 2022 launch. After extensive review, NASA Headquarters in Washington has approved the mission to begin the final design and fabrication phase, otherwise known as Phase C. This is when the Psyche team finalizes the system design, develops detailed plans and procedures for the spacecraft and science mission, and completes both assembly and testing of the spacecraft and its subsystems."The Psyche team is not only elated that we have the go-ahead for Phase C, more importantly we are ready," said Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University in Tempe. "With the transition into this new mission phase, we are one big step closer to uncovering the secrets of Psyche, a giant mysterious metallic asteroid, and that means the world to us."The mission still has three more phases to clear. Phase D, which will begin sometime in early 2021, includes final spacecraft assembly and testing, along with the August 2022 launch. Phase E, which begins soon after Psyche hits the vacuum of space, covers the mission's deep-space operations and science collection. Finally, Phase F occurs after the mission has completed its science operations; it includes both decommissioning the spacecraft and archiving engineering and science data.The Psyche spacecraft will arrive at Asteroid Psyche on Jan. 31, 2026, after flying by Mars in 2023.Asteroid Psyche is one of the most intriguing targets in the main asteroid belt. While most asteroids are rocky or icy bodies, scientists think Psyche is composed mostly of iron and nickel, similar to Earth's core. They wonder whether Psyche could be the nickel-iron heart, or exposed core, of an early planet maybe as large as Mars that lost its rocky outer layers through violent collisions billions of years ago. If so, it would provide a unique look into the solar system's distant past, when the kind of high-speed protoplanet encounters that created Earth and the other terrestrial planets were common.The Psyche mission aims to understand the building blocks of planet formation by exploring firsthand a wholly new and uncharted type of world. Along with determining whether Psyche is the core of an early planet, the team wants to determine how old it is, whether it formed in similar ways to Earth's core and what its surface is like.The spacecraft's instrument payload includes three science instruments. The mission's magnetometer is designed to detect and measure the remnant magnetic field of the asteroid. The multispectral imager will provide high-resolution images using filters to discriminate between Psyche's metallic and silicate constituents. Its gamma ray and neutron spectrometer will detect, measure and map Psyche's elemental composition. The mission also will test a sophisticated new laser communications technology, called Deep Space Optical Communications.The Psyche mission is part of NASA's Discovery Program, a series of lower-cost, highly focused robotic space missions. Psyche Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton is the director of ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration. Other ASU researchers on the Psyche mission team include Jim Bell, deputy principal investigator and co-investigator; David Williams, co-investigator; and Catherine Bowman, co-investigator and student-collaborations lead.ASU leads the mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is responsible for the mission's overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Maxar Space Solutions, formerly Space Systems Loral, in Palo Alto, California, is providing a high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis.For more information about NASA's Psyche mission go to:http://www.nasa.gov/psyche

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tones-break-silence-during-mars-exploration-rover-landings

Tones Break Silence During Mars Exploration Rover Landings

On the phone, tones can signal a connection. On paper, they can add shape and dimension. On Mars, they can do both. This is why members of the Mars Exploration Rover Entry Descent and Landing team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be on the lookout for a series of tones during the mission's landings in January 2004.

On the phone, tones can signal a connection. On paper, they can add shape and dimension. On Mars, they can do both. This is why members of the Mars Exploration Rover Entry Descent and Landing team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be on the lookout for a series of tones during the mission's landings in January 2004."Tones are a simple way to send information directly to Earth about what the rover thinks it is doing as it enters the Martian atmosphere and prepares to land on Mars," said Mars Exploration Rover Entry, Descent and Landing Telecommunications Lead Dr. Polly Estabrook.After the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander missions were lost in 1999, mission engineers began looking at ways to strengthen communication during future landings. The Mars Exploration Rover team plans to use tones in conjunction with other methods to assess the state of the rovers shortly before, during and after landing. These tones cannot be heard, but they can be detected by special equipment located at NASA's Deep Space Network.The Mars Exploration Rover mission uses a radio called the Small Deep Space Transponder, which can generate tones at up to 256 different frequencies-more than enough to cover the possible states of the spacecraft, engineers said. Using data analysis equipment specially designed by a JPL team for the Mars Exploration Rover mission, the tones are presented as colored bars displayed according to frequency and received time. In addition, the detection software decodes the meaning of the tones and displays the names of various events associated with the tones. However, due to the extreme conditions of heat and speed during landing, there is no guarantee the tones will be detected-even if the mission is going exactly as planned.The process of entry, descent and landing on Mars is no walk in the park. It entails getting a 827-kilogram (nearly a ton) spacecraft, entering the martian atmosphere at 19,300 kilometers (12,000 miles) per hour, to safely slow to a stop on the surface in six nail-biting minutes. Complicating matters is the martian surface, which is plagued with unpredictable winds and obstacles: massive impact craters, cliffs, cracks and jagged boulders.During the first four minutes of descent, friction with the atmosphere slows the spacecraft to 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) per hour. With only 100 seconds left, and at the altitude a commercial airliner typically flies, a parachute opens to further slow the spacecraft to 321 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour). With 6 seconds left, and at 91 meters (100 yards) above ground, the retro rockets fire to bring the spacecraft to zero velocity. Seconds later, the lander freefalls from a height of about four stories, cocooned in airbags to cushion the hard blow as it hits the ground at 48 kilometers (30 miles) per hour, or more if it is windy. The lander then bounces approximately 30 times from as high as a four-story building and down to a rolling stop.If the tones show up, they will keep controllers from being locked in limbo, unable to learn the status of the rovers until after the complete landing. While many events will occur during the landing process, engineers hope about 15 of those events to be signaled to Earth. Each rover is programmed to transmit a tone every 10 seconds to tell engineers on Earth about its progress. The first tones sent by the spacecraft will signal its deceleration as it enters the Martian atmosphere. Engineers could also receive a tone after important events such as parachute deploy, heat shield jettison and lander separation. Fault tones are also sent if the spacecraft thinks one of its subsystems is performing unusually. Once the lander has touched down, it will send five tones every 30 seconds to keep engineers informed about its health.As with any form of radio communication, many factors-- such as spacecraft antenna motion and atmospheric conditions-- can affect the quality and reliability of radio signals or render them undetectable. This is also true for the tones, which are also difficult to detect because of the spacecraft's motion during descent."We engineers all understand that because these signals are so difficult to detect, an absence of them during or after landing does not necessarily mean that the rover has had a bad day," Estabrook said.In addition to the tones, rover engineers will strengthen their chances of receiving information about the spacecraft's descent onto Mars by waiting for information that has been relayed from the Mars Exploration Rover to the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. The rovers have been equipped with Ultra High Frequency radios, which they will use to communicate with the orbiter as they descend onto the Martian surface. These radios can transmit 8,000 times more information than the tones. However, due to the unknown geometry between the two spacecraft, engineers cannot guarantee that they will receive this data. Within an hour of each rover's landing, the data should be at available at JPL."The Mars Exploration Rover team has gone to great lengths to improve the chances of receiving data from the spacecraft during this period of great activity," Estabrook said. "But we must be prepared to wait until at least the next morning, when the rover communicates with us, to get detailed information on spacecraft health and find out what exactly happened during descent."

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-aria-team-helps-in-puerto-rico-quake-response

NASA's ARIA Team Helps in Puerto Rico Quake Response

New satellite data shows worst-hit areas of Puerto Rico following a 6.4-magnitude earthquake and hundreds of aftershocks.

Since a magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck Puerto Rico last week, aftershocks near its southwestern coast have been relentless. The frequency and intensity of the aftershocks continue to cause damage on this already-vulnerable part of the island.NASA scientists are helping local and federal agencies assess the extent of that damage. Using synthetic aperture radar data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech in Pasadena, California, created a new damage map that includes the southwestern coast near the main quake's epicenter.The ARIA team compared post-quake satellite data acquired on Jan. 14 with data as far back as Sept. 2019 to produce the map. The color variation from yellow to dark red indicates increasingly significant damage. Their analysis shows that Guanica, west of the city of Ponce, was particularly hard hit.The map covers an area of 107 by 47 miles (172 by 76 kilometers), shown with the large red polygon, with each pixel measuring about 100 feet (30 meters) across. The data is most sensitive to building damage rather than small-scale changes or partial structural damage. It is also less reliable over heavy vegetation. Even with these limitations, the map can still serve an important role in identifying the areas that may need help the most.TheNASA Earth Applied Sciences Disasters Programhas activated a Tier 1 response in support of this disaster and has been in contact with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the United States Geological Survey, Health and Human Services and other agencies to provide NASA Earth-observing data in support of response and recovery efforts. Awebpagehas also been created on the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal to supply relevant geographic information system (GIS) data products.The map contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data processed by ESA and analyzed by ARIA team scientists at NASA JPL and Caltech.More information on ARIA can be found here:https://aria.jpl.nasa.gov/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-rover-self-portrait-shoot-uses-arm-choreography

Mars Rover Self-Portrait Shoot Uses Arm Choreography

A self-portrait of the NASA Mars Rover Curiosity stitches together dozens of images by the camera at the end of the rover's arm.

PASADENA, Calif. - The robotic arm on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity held the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera in more than 50 positions in one day to generate a single scene combining all the images, creating a high-resolution, full-color portrait of the rover itself.A larger version of the previously released self-portrait is now available online, along with an animation video showing how it was taken, and a practice self-portrait taken earlier by Curiosity's test-rover double on Earth.The new version of Curiosity's self-portrait, online at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA16457, shows more of the surrounding Martian terrain than a version completed last month.The animation video at:http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=156880341depicts how the rover moved its robotic arm on Oct. 31 to record the component images that would be combined into the self-portrait. The same software that rover planners use when designing the rover's moves was used to generate the animation.The arm movements were practiced on Earth first, using the closest double that exists for Curiosity, the Vehicle System Test Bed rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The rover team typically uses that rover to test maneuvers before they are tried by Curiosity. The Vehicle System Test Bed's self-portrait, from the engineering model of MAHLI on that rover, is at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA16458.MAHLI is mounted on a turret at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm. The arm is not visible in the portrait because the arm was positioned out of the shot in the images or portions of images used in the mosaic. Some images taken during the day show portions of the arm. However, the Martian ground that the arm hides from view in those images is visible in alternative images chosen for the mosaic, taking the arm out of the scene.During a two-year prime mission, researchers are using Curiosity's 10 science instruments to assess whether the study area in Gale Crater ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, developed, built and operates MAHLI. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.More information about Curiosity is online at:http://www.nasa.gov/mslandhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. You can follow the mission on Facebook at:http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosityand on Twitter athttp://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/oscillation-rules-as-the-pacific-cools

Oscillation Rules as the Pacific Cools

The latest image of sea-surface height measurements from the U.S./French Jason-1 oceanography satellite shows the Pacific Ocean remains locked in a strong, cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a large, long-lived pattern of climate variability in the Pacific associated with a general cooling of Pacific waters.

PASADENA, Calif. -- The latest image of sea-surface height measurements from the U.S./French Jason-1 oceanography satellite shows the Pacific Ocean remains locked in a strong, cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a large, long-lived pattern of climate variability in the Pacific associated with a general cooling of Pacific waters. The image also confirms that El Niño and La Niña remain absent from the tropical Pacific.The new image is available online at:http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20081209.html.The image is based on the average of 10 days of data centered on Nov. 15, 2008, compared to the long-term average of observations from 1993 through 2008. In the image, places where the Pacific sea-surface height is higher (warmer) than normal are yellow and red, and places where the sea surface is lower (cooler) than normal are blue and purple. Green shows where conditions are near normal. Sea-surface height is an indicator of the heat content of the upper ocean.The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a long-term fluctuation of the Pacific Ocean that waxes and wanes between cool and warm phases approximately every five to 20 years. In the present cool phase, higher-than-normal sea-surface heights caused by warm water form a horseshoe pattern that connects the north, west and southern Pacific. This is in contrast to a cool wedge of lower-than-normal sea-surface heights spreading from the Americas into the eastern equatorial Pacific. During most of the 1980s and 1990s, the Pacific was locked in the oscillation's warm phase, during which these warm and cool regions are reversed. For an explanation of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and its present state, see:http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/andhttp://www.esr.org/pdo_index.html.Sea-surface temperature satellite data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mirror Jason sea-surface height measurements, clearly showing a cool Pacific Decadal Oscillation pattern, as seen at:http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/sst/sst.anom.gif."This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation 'cool' trend can cause La Niña-like impacts around the Pacific basin," said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The present cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation will have significant implications for shifts in marine ecosystems, and for land temperature and rainfall patterns around the Pacific basin."According to Nathan Mantua of the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington, Seattle, whose research contributed to the early understanding of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, "Even with the strong La Niña event fading in the tropics last spring, the North Pacific's sea surface temperature anomaly pattern has remained strongly negative since last fall. This cool phase will likely persist this winter and, perhaps, beyond. Historically, this situation has been associated with favorable ocean conditions for the return of U.S. west coast Coho and Chinook salmon, but it translates to low odds for abundant winter/spring precipitation in the southwest (including Southern California)."Jason's follow-on mission, the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2, was successfully launched this past June and will extend to two decades the continuous data record of sea surface heights begun by Topex/Poseidon in 1992. The new mission has produced excellent data, which have recently been certified for operational use. Fully calibrated and validated data for science use will be released next spring.JPL manages the U.S. portion of the Jason-1 mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.For more information on NASA's ocean surface topography missions, visithttp://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/. To view the latest Jason-1 data, visithttp://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/science/jason1-quick-look/.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-establishes-board-to-initially-review-mars-sample-return-plans

NASA Establishes Board to Initially Review Mars Sample Return Plans

The board will assist with analysis of current plans and goals for one of the most difficult missions humanity has ever undertaken.

NASA has established a Mars Sample Return Program Independent Review Board to proactively assist with analysis of current plans and goals for one of the most difficult missions humanity has ever undertaken: the return of samples from another planet to study on Earth.When the Perseverance rover launched to Mars on July 30, it carried with it a sophisticated sampling system with drill bits, a coring arm, and sample tubes that are the cleanest hardware ever sent to space. Perseverance will collect samples from several spots on Mars for return to Earth so scientists can determine if ancient microbial life was ever present on the Red Planet. The independent review board will help NASA review the technical concept developed during preliminary formulation to date for robustness and the ability to satisfy the mission's essential requirements. It will help ensure the agency is adopting lessons learned from its experience with previous large, strategic science missions."Mars Sample Return is a very high priority for the scientific community, based on the decadal survey and also of strategic importance for our Moon to Mars exploration program," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "It's a highly complex international mission which requires focus to achieve technical, programmatic and mission success, and we want to have all the expertise available to us at this early stage to maximize mission success."NASA has successfully used independent reviews for early-stage strategic missions in the past to put these important science missions on the path to success. As a recent example, the 2017 independent review for the Roman Space Telescope (formerly WFIRST) helped the team make successful scope and cost trades ahead of confirmation.This first leg in the round trip from Earth to Mars and back would take place over the course of multiple missions in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) as well as industrial partners. The architecture for the mission in its earliest formulation involves Perseverance taking samples and leaving them on the surface of Mars for a "fetch" rover, which delivers them to an ascent vehicle that would take them to orbit, while an orbiter launched on another mission would rendezvous with the samples and take them in a highly secure containment capsule for landing back on Earth as early as 2031.The returned samples could potentially provide astrobiological evidence needed to determine if life has ever existed on Mars. The mission itself also advances technologies for human exploration of the Red Planet, including the first launch from the surface of another planet. Strict protocols on forward and backward harmful contamination are being developed for the samples' return."NASA stands up these independent boards to help the agency learn from past experiences and uncover subtle issues in space systems that may not have yet received sufficient attention," said David Thompson, retired president of Orbital ATK, who will chair the new board. "This review will give us the chance to focus on overall mission success and to consider potential improvements that can be made early in the program to help ensure that outcome."Experts from various fields, including planetary protection, and NASA's partner in the mission, ESA, will be consulted as the review process moves forward. The board is expected to meet for around eight weeks beginning in late August and to deliver a final report in the weeks after its review is complete.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-says-comet-elenin-gone-and-should-be-forgotten

NASA Says Comet Elenin Gone and Should Be Forgotten

Latest indications are this relatively small comet has broken into even smaller, even less significant, chunks of dust and ice.

Comet Elenin is no more.Latest indications are this relatively small comet has broken into even smaller, even less significant, chunks of dust and ice. This trail of piffling particles will remain on the same path as the original comet, completing its unexceptional swing through the inner solar system this fall."Elenin did as new comets passing close by the sun do about two percent of the time: It broke apart," said Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Elenin's remnants will also act as other broken-up comets act. They will trail along in a debris cloud that will follow a well-understood path out of the inner solar system. After that, we won't see the scraps of comet Elenin around these parts for almost 12 millennia."Twelve millennia may be a long time to Earthlings, but for those frozen inhabitants of the outer solar system who make this commute, a dozen millennia give or take is a walk in the celestial park.  Comet Elenin came as close as 45 million miles (72 million kilometers) to the sun, but it arrived from the outer solar system's Oort Cloud, which is so far away its outer edge is about a third of the way to the nearest star other than our sun.For those broken up over the breakup of what was formerly about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) of uninspiring dust and ice, remember what Yeomans said about comets coming close to the sun - they fall apart about two percent of the time."Comets are made up of ice, rock, dust and organic compounds and can be several miles in diameter, but they are fragile and loosely held together like dust balls," said Yeomans. "So it doesn't take much to get a comet to disintegrate, and with comets, once they break up, there is no hope of reconciliation."Comet Elenin first came to light last December, when sunlight reflecting off the small comet was detected by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin of Lyubertsy, Russia. Also known by its astronomical name, C/2010 X1, Elenin somehow quickly became something of a "cause célèbre" for a few Internet bloggers, who proclaimed this minor comet could/would/should be responsible for causing any number of disasters to befall our planet.Internet posts began appearing, many with nebulous, hearsay observations and speculations about earthquakes and other disasters being due to Elenin's gravitational effects upon Earth.NASA's responseto such wild speculations was then in turn speculated to be an attempt to hide the truth."I cannot begin to guess why this little comet became such a big Internet sensation," said Yeomans. "The scientific reality is this modest-sized icy dirtball's influence upon our planet is so incredibly minuscule that my subcompact automobile exerts a greater gravitational influence on Earth than the comet ever would. That includes the date it came closest to Earth (Oct. 16), when the comet's remnants got no closer than about 22 million miles (35.4 million kilometers)."Yeomans knows that while Elenin may be gone, there will always be Internet rumors that will attempt to conjure up some form of interplanetary bogeyman out of Elenin, or some equally obscure and scientifically uninteresting near-Earth object.  Thinking of ways to make himself any more clear about the insignificance of this matter is somewhat challenging for a scientist who has dedicated his life to observing asteroids and comets and discovering their true nature and effects on our solar system."Perhaps a little homage to a classic Monty Python dead parrot sketch is in order," said Yeomans. "Comet Elenin has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-comet."NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing relatively close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes the physical nature of a subset of them, and predicts their paths to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.  There are no known credible threats to date.JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch, and on Twitter: @asteroidwatch .

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-mission-excels-at-spotting-greenhouse-gas-emission-sources

NASA Mission Excels at Spotting Greenhouse Gas Emission Sources

Since launching 16 months ago, the EMIT imaging spectrometer aboard the International Space Station has shown an ability to detect more than just surface minerals.

More than a year after first detecting methane plumes from its perch aboard the International Space Station, data from NASA’s EMIT instrument is now being used to identify point-source emissions of greenhouse gases with a proficiency that has surprised even its designers.Short for Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation, EMIT was launched in July 2022 to map 10 key minerals on the surface of the world’s arid regions. Those mineral-related observations, which are already available toresearchersand the public, will help improve understanding of how dust that gets lofted into the atmosphere affects climate.Detecting methane was not part of EMIT’s primary mission, but the instrument’s designers did expect the imaging spectrometer to have the capability. Now, with more than 750 emissions sources identified since August 2022 – some small, others in remote locations, and others persistent in time – the instrument has more than delivered in that regard, according to a new study published inScience Advances.“We were a little cautious at first about what we could do with the instrument,” said Andrew Thorpe, a research technologist on the EMIT science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the paper’s lead author. “It has exceeded our expectations.”EMIT identified a cluster of 12 methane plumes within a 150-square-mile (400-square-kilometer) area of southern Uzbekistan on Sept. 1, 2022. The instrument captured the cluster within a single shot, called a scene by researchers.Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechBy knowing where methane emissions are coming from, operators of landfills, agriculture sites, oil and gas facilities, and other methane producers have an opportunity to address them. Tracking human-caused emissions of methane is key to limiting climate change because it offers a comparatively low-cost, rapid approach to reducing greenhouse gases. Methane lingers in the atmosphere for about a decade, but during this span, it’s up to 80 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, which remains for centuries.Surprising ResultsEMIT has proven effective at spotting emission sources both big (tens of thousands of pounds of methane per hour) and surprisingly small (down to the hundreds of pounds of methane per hour). This is important because it permits identification of a greater number of “super-emitters” – sources that produce disproportionate shares of total emissions.The new study documents how EMIT, based on its first 30 days of greenhouse gas detection, can observe 60% to 85% of the methane plumes typically seen in airborne campaigns.In a remote corner of southeastern Libya, EMIT on Sept. 3, 2022, detected a methane plume that was emitting about 979 pounds (444 kilograms) per hour. It’s one of the smallest sources detected so far by the instrument.Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechFrom several thousand feet above the ground, methane-detecting instruments on aircraft are more sensitive, but to warrant sending a plane, researchers need prior indication that they’ll detect methane. Many areas are not examined because they are considered too remote, too risky, or too costly. Additionally, the campaigns that do occur cover relatively limited areas for short periods.On the other hand, from about 250 miles (400 kilometers) altitude on the space station, EMIT collects data over a large swath of the planet – specifically the arid regions that fall between 51.6 degrees north and south latitude. The imaging spectrometer captures 50-mile-by-50-mile (80-kilometer-by-80-kilometer) images of the surface – researchers call them “scenes” – including many regions that have been beyond the reach of airborne instruments.This time-lapse video shows the Canadarm2 robotic arm of the International Space Station maneuvering NASA’s EMIT mission onto the exterior of the station. Extraction from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft began around 5:15 p.m. PDT on July 22 and was completed at 10:15 a.m. PDT on July 24. Portions of the installation have been omitted, while others have been speeded up.Credit: NASA“The number and scale of methane plumes measured by EMIT around our planet is stunning,” said Robert O. Green, a JPL senior research scientist and EMIT’s principal investigator.Scene-by-Scene DetectionsTo support source identification, the EMIT science team creates maps of methane plumes and releases them on awebsite, with underlying data available at the joint NASA-United States Geological Survey Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC). The mission’s data is available for use by the public, scientists, and organizations.Since EMIT began collecting observations in August 2022, it has documented over 50,000 scenes. The instrument spotted a cluster of emissions sources in a rarely studied region ofsouthern Uzbekistanon Sept. 1, 2022, detecting 12 methane plumes totaling about 49,734 pounds (22,559 kilograms) per hour.In addition, the instrument has spotted plumes far smaller than expected. Captured in a remote corner ofsoutheastern Libyaon Sept. 3, 2022, one of the smallest sources so far was emitting 979 pounds (444 kilograms) per hour, based on estimates of local wind speed.More About the MissionEMIT was selected from the Earth Venture Instrument-4 solicitation under the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and was developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California. The instrument’s data is available at the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center for use by other researchers and the public.To learn more about the mission, visit:https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/picture-this-vestas-dark-materials-in-dawns-view

Picture This: Vesta's Dark Materials in Dawn's View

A new study of images from NASA's Dawn mission examines remarkable, dark-as-coal material that speckles the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta.

A new study of images from NASA's Dawn mission examines remarkable, dark-as-coal material that speckles the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. Scientists are using the images, taken by Dawn's framing camera, to understand the impact environment early in Vesta's evolution.In the most comprehensive analysis of the dark material to date, Dawn scientists describe how this carbon-rich material tends to appear around the edges of two giant impact basins in Vesta's southern hemisphere. The analysis suggests that the dark material was most likely delivered by the object that created the older of the two basins, known as Veneneia, about 2 to 3 billion years ago. Some of those materials were later covered up by the impact that created the younger basin, Rheasilvia.The paper, published in the November-December issue of the journal Icarus, was led by Vishnu Reddy of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, and the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks. More information on the paper is available at:http://www.mpg.de/en.The Dawn spacecraft orbited Vesta for more than a year, departing in September 2012. Dawn is now on its way to the dwarf planet Ceres, and will arrive in early 2015.More information on Dawn is available at:http://www.nasa.gov/dawnandhttp://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn framing cameras were developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR and NASA.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-work-helps-better-predict-worlds-smoggiest-days

NASA Work Helps Better Predict World's Smoggiest Days

A research team led by JPL and Caltech has fully characterized a key chemical reaction that affects the formation of a harmful air pollutant in the world's urban areas.

PASADENA, Calif. – A research team led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), both in Pasadena, Calif., has fully characterized a key chemical reaction that affects the formation of pollutants in smoggy air in the world's urban areas. When applied to Los Angeles, the laboratory results suggest that, on the most polluted days and in the most polluted parts of L.A., current models are underestimating ozone levels by 5 to 10 percent.The results-published this week in the journal Science-are likely to have "a small but significant impact on the predictions of computer models used to assess air quality, regulate emissions and estimate the health impact of air pollution," said Mitchio Okumura, professor of chemical physics at Caltech and one of the principal investigators on the research."This work demonstrates how important accurate laboratory measurements are to our understanding of the atmosphere," said JPL senior research scientist Stanley P. Sander, who led the JPL team's effort. "This is the first time this crucial chemical reaction has been studied by two teams using complementary methods that allow its details to be understood."The key reaction in question in this research is between nitrogen dioxide and the hydroxyl radical. In the presence of sunlight, these two compounds, along with volatile organic compounds, play important roles in the chemical reactions that form ozone, which at ground-level is an air pollutant harmful to plants and animals, including humans.Until about the last decade, scientists thought these two compounds only combined to form nitric acid, a fairly stable molecule with a long atmospheric life that slows ozone formation. Chemists suspected a second reaction might also occur, creating peroxynitrous acid, a less stable compound that falls apart quickly once created, releasing the hydroxyl radical and nitrogen dioxide to resume ozone creation. But until now they weren't sure how quickly these reactions occur and how much nitric acid they create relative to peroxynitrous acid. The JPL team measured this rate using a high-accuracy, JPL-built, advanced chemical reactor. The Caltech team then determined the ratio of the rates of the two separate processes.Theoretical calculations by chemistry professor Anne McCoy at Ohio State University, Columbus, contributed to understanding of the not-well-studied peroxynitrous acid molecule."This work was the synthesis of two very different and difficult experiments," added lead author and former Caltech graduate student Andrew Mollner with Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif. "While neither experiment in isolation provided definitive results, by combining the two data sets, the parameters needed for air quality models could be precisely determined."In the end, the researchers found the loss of hydroxyl radical and nitrogen dioxide is slower than previously thought-although the reactions are fast, fewer of the radicals are ending up as nitric acid than had been supposed, and more of them are ending up as peroxynitrous acid. "This means less of the hydroxyl radical and nitrogen dioxide go away, leading to proportionately more ozone, mostly in polluted areas," Okumura said.Just how much more? To try to get a handle on how their results might affect predictions of ozone levels, they turned to Robert Harley, professor of environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and William Carter, a research chemist at the University of California, Riverside-both experts in atmospheric modeling-to look at the ratio's impact on predictions of ozone concentrations in various parts of Los Angeles in the summer of 2010.The result: "In the most polluted areas of L.A.," said Okumura, "they calculated up to 10 percent more ozone production when they used the new rate for nitric acid formation."Okumura said this strong effect would only occur during the most polluted times of the year, not all year long. Still, he said, considering the significant health hazards ozone can have-recent research has reported that a 10 part-per-billion increase in ozone concentration may lead to a four percent increase in deaths from respiratory causes-any increase in expected ozone levels will be important to people who regulate emissions and evaluate health risks. The precision of these results reduces the uncertainty in the models-an important step in the ongoing effort to improve the accuracy of models used by policymakers.Okumura believes this work will cause other scientists to reevaluate recommendations made to modelers on the best parameters to use. For the team, however, the next step is to start looking at a wider range of atmospheric conditions where this reaction may also be important.Sander agrees. "The present work focused on atmospheric conditions related to urban smog-i.e., relatively warm temperatures and high atmospheric pressure," he said. "But the hydroxyl radical/nitrogen dioxide reaction is important at many other altitudes. Future work by the two groups will focus on the parts of the atmosphere affected by long-range transport of pollution by high-altitude winds [in Earth's middle and upper troposphere] and where ozone depletion from human-produced substances is important [the stratosphere]."The research was supported by grants from NASA, the California Air Resources Board, and the National Science Foundation, along with NASA and Department of Defense fellowships.JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-rover-technology-adapted-to-detect-gas-leaks

Mars Rover Technology Adapted to Detect Gas Leaks

In collaboration with JPL, Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced that it is testing state-of-the-art technology adapted from NASA's Mars rover program.

In collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced that it is testing state-of-the-art technology adapted from NASA's Mars rover program. Originally designed to find methane on the Red Planet, this laser-based technology is lightweight and has superior sensitivity to methane, a major component of natural gas. The technology applied back on Earth helps guide PG&E crews using a tablet interface to identify possible leak locations, fast-tracking their ability to repair gas leaks."Our pursuit of this technology is evidence of our commitment to our mission of becoming the safest, most reliable utility in the country. We are using out-of-this-world technology to find and fix even the smallest leaks in our system. By investing in innovation today, we are helping build a positive energy future," said Nick Stavropoulos, PG&E's executive vice president of gas operations.On Sept. 29, a new law, SB 1371, required the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to open a proceeding to adopt rules and procedures that minimize natural gas leaks from gas pipelines, with the goal of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, such as methane.The hand-held device is the latest piece of advanced leak detection technology being embraced by the utility and is expected to be available for use in 2015. The development of this tool is part of a collaborative research effort at Pipeline Research Council International (PRCI)."It's rewarding to be involved in projects that translate JPL technological capabilities to meet industry needs, technologies which ultimately should help enhance safety and reliability. PG&E's role as a collaborator with JPL on our PRCI-funded effort is essential to efficiently adapt the JPL methane sensor into a field-ready hand-held leak detection system," said Andrew Aubrey, JPL technologist.Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation's cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and Central California. For more information, visithttp://www.pge.com/andhttp://www.pge.com/about/newsroom/NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is managed by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-jupiter-bound-spacecraft-taking-shape-in-denver

NASA's Jupiter-Bound Spacecraft Taking Shape In Denver

NASA's Juno spacecraft is undergoing final testing before shipment to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for launch this summer.

NASA's Juno spacecraft is currently undergoing environmental testing at Lockheed Martin Space Systems near Denver. The solar-powered Juno spacecraft will orbit Jupiter's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. The launch window for Juno from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida opens Aug. 5, 2011.In its present form, the spacecraft is fully assembled and all instruments have been integrated. A photograph of the fully assembled spacecraft is available at:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/multimedia/juno20110307i.htmlIn this photo, taken on Jan. 26, Juno had just completed acoustics testing that simulated the acoustic and vibration environment the spacecraft will experience during launch. The photo shows Lockheed Martin technicians inspecting the spacecraft just after the test. All three solar array wings are installed and stowed, and the spacecraft's large high-gain antenna is in place on the top of the avionics vault.At present, Juno is sealed in a large thermal vacuum chamber, where it is being exposed to the extreme cold and vacuum conditions it will experience on its voyage to Jupiter. The two-week-long test will simulate many of the flight activities the spacecraft will execute during the mission.Juno is scheduled to ship from Lockheed Martin's facility to Kennedy Space Center in early April, where it will undergo final preparations and launch.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute at San Antonio, Texas. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is building the spacecraft. The Italian Space Agency in Rome is contributing an infrared spectrometer instrument and a portion of the radio science experiment. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.More information about Juno is online athttp://www.nasa.gov/juno.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-orbiter-finds-possible-cave-skylights-on-mars

NASA Orbiter Finds Possible Cave Skylights on Mars

NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano. The find is fueling interest in potential underground habitats and sparking searches for caverns elsewhere on the Red Planet.Very dark, nearly circular features ranging in diameter from about 100 to 250 meters (328 to 820 feet) puzzled researchers who found them in images taken by NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor orbiters. Using Mars Odyssey's infrared camera to check the daytime and nighttime temperatures of the circles, scientists concluded that they could be windows into underground spaces.Evidence that the holes may be openings to cavernous spaces comes from the temperature differences detected from infrared images taken in the afternoon and in the pre-dawn morning. From day to night, temperatures of the holes change only about one-third as much as the change in temperature of surrounding ground surface."They are cooler than the surrounding surface in the day and warmer at night," said Glen Cushing of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Team and of Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Ariz. "Their thermal behavior is not as steady as large caves on Earth that often maintain a fairly constant temperature, but it is consistent with these being deep holes in the ground."A report of the discovery of the possible cave skylights by Cushing and his co-authors was published online recently by the journal Geophysical Research Letters."Whether these are just deep vertical shafts or openings into spacious caverns, they are entries to the subsurface of Mars," said co-author Tim Titus of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff. "Somewhere on Mars, caves might provide a protected niche for past or current life, or shelter for humans in the future."The discovered holes, dubbed "Seven Sisters," are at some of the highest altitudes on the planet, on a volcano named Arsia Mons near Mars' tallest mountain."These are at such extreme altitude, they are poor candidates either for use as human habitation or for having microbial life," Cushing said. "Even if life has ever existed on Mars, it may not have migrated to this height."The new report proposes that the deep holes on Arsia Mons probably formed as underground stresses around the volcano caused spreading and faults that opened spaces beneath the surface. Some of the holes are in line with strings of bowl-shaped pits where surface material has apparently collapsed to fill the gap created by a linear fault.The observations have prompted researchers using Mars Odyssey and NASA's newer Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to examine the Seven Sisters. The goal is to find other openings to underground spaces at lower elevations that are more accessible to future missions to Mars."The key to finding these was looking for temperature anomalies at night -- warm spots," said Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, Tempe, principal investigator for the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. That instrument produced both visible-light and infrared images researchers used for examining the possible caves."No other instrument at Mars could give the thermal information crucial to this research," said the project scientist for Mars Odyssey, Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This is a great example of the exciting discoveries Odyssey continues to make." Mars Odyssey reached Mars in 2001, years before any of the other spacecraft currently examining the planet. Its predecessor, Mars Global Surveyor, ended its mission last year.Mars Odyssey is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The orbiter's Thermal Emission Imaging System was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing, Santa Barbara, Calif., and is operated by Arizona State University. For additional information about Mars Odyssey and the new findings, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/odyssey.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mariner-9-mission-status-july-22-1971

Mariner 9 Mission Status July 22, 1971

The Mariner 9 spacecraft is in its 53rd day of flight today in its 167 day journey to Mars. The Mariner 9 spacecraft is in its 54th day of flight today and has traveled 90 million miles on its 247 million mile journey to Mars.

The Mariner 9 spacecraft is in its 53rd day of flight today in its 167 day journey to Mars.It has covered 88,600,000 miles in its 247 million mile journey and is 9.5 million miles from Earth.Both Earth and Mariner 9 are oving around the Sun together with the spacecraft traveling faster and moving away fro the orbit of Earth towards the orbit of Mars.Since launch on May 30 this year, more than 600 commands have been sent to the spacecraft. Many of the commands were routine, but one block of commands has programmed the onboard computer for automatic insertion of the spacecraft into Mars orbit on November 13th. In the event command capability should be lost during the flight, the spacecraft, acting only on internal commands, is capable of orbiting Mars and returning scientific data.Basic objective of the mission is 90 days in orbit and mapping of about 70% of the Martian surface with two television cameras. Other experiments will record atmospheric and surface data.The Mariner 9 spacecraft is in its 54th day of flight today and has traveled 90 million miles on its 247 million mile journey to Mars. Its distance from Earth is 9.7 million miles. Both Earth and Mariner 9 are moving around away from the orbit of Earth towards the orbit of Mars. Since launch on May 30 of this year, more than 600 commands have been sent to the spacecraft. Many of the commands were routine, but one block of commands has programmed the on-board computer for automatic insertion of the spacecraft into Mars orbit on November 13th. In the event command capability should be lost during the flight, the spacecraft, acting only on internal commands, is capable oriting Mars and returning scientific data. Basic objective of the mission is 90 days in orbit and mapping of about 70% of the Martian surface with two television cameras. Other experiments will record atmospheric and surface data. The objective of the Mariner mission is to study the surface and atmosphere of Mars in detail and over a period of time, to provide a broad picture of the history of the planet and natural processes currently shaping the Martian environment. Recurring phenomena such as dust storms, clouds and seasonal changes in the appearance of the planet's surface have been observed on Mars. The orbital mission will allow scientists to study these phenomena daily at close range. The Mariner carries a payload of instruments to conduct six scientific investigations: - Martian topography and variable features with two television cameras, one with a wide-angle lens and one with a telephoto lens; - surface temperature measurements with an infrared radiometer; - composition and structure of the atmosphere with an ultraviolet spectrometer; - studies of the planet's surface and composition and temperature of its atmosphere with an infrared interferometer spectrometer; - atmospheric pressure and structure with an S-Band occultation experiment; - and a more accurate description of Mar's gravity field and the orbits of its two moons, and an improved ephemeris of Mars (its position in its solar orbit at a given time). The latter two experiments involve measurements of the Mariner's radio signals back to Earth and do not require special instruments on the spacecraft. The scientific experiments have been teamed together to provide a maximum correlation of the data they gather. The three instruments on the scan platform, for instance, are boresighted with the television cameras so that the photography can be correlated with measurements of the Martian atmospheric and surface characteristics. Mariner 9 will orbit Mars once each 12 hours, inclined 65 degrees to the Martian equator, with a 10,700 mile (16,090-kilometer) high point in the orbit (apoapsis) and a 750-mile (1,200-kilometer) low point (periapsis). The spacecraft weighted approximately 2,200 pounds, (1,000 kilograms) at launch, with about 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms) of fuel for the 300-pound thrust retro-engine. After injection into Mars orbit, the spacecraft will weight approximately 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms). Orbit insertion will require about a 14-minute burn of the retro-engine slowing the spacecraft by about 3,250 miles-perhour (1,450 meters-per-second). The spacecraft velocity relative to Mars prior to the burn will be about 11,000 mph (4,920 m/sec). The launch was direct ascent without a parking orbit. The launch aiming point was away from Mars to insure that neither spacecraft nor the Centaur second stage would impact Mars in the event of loss of control during the launch phase. The orbit of the spacecraft is designed to guarantee that it will not impact Mars for at least 17 years, to avoid contamination of the planet before studies are conducted on the surface b landing spacecraft. Following successful injection into solar orbit, a midcourse maneuver was performed to correct the trajectory and refine the aiming point. A second maneuver will be performed in late October. The retro-engine is used for midcourse maneuvers. The accuracy required to orbit Mars is unprecendented in a flight into deep space. The aiming zone at the end of the 287-million-mile (462-million-kilometer) flight is an area about 435 miles (700-kilometer) on a side. After insertion into Mars orbit, the spacecraft will be tracked for a sufficient period to determine the orbital corrections (trims) required to yield precise orbits. The trims will be provided by the retro-engine. The maximum data transmission rate will be 16,200 bitsper-second when the spacecraft can transmit to the sensitive 210-foot (64-meter) antenna at the Goldstone station of the Deep Space Network in the California Mojave Deser. Other stations will receive at a maximum rate of 2.025 bits-per-second. NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications assigned project responsibility including mission operations and tracking and data acquisiton to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed by the California Institute of Technology. The launch vehicle is the responsibility of the Lewis Research Center, Cleveland. The contractor to Lewis is General Dynamic/Convair, San Diego. Tracking and communications is assigned to the Deep Space Net operated by JPL for NASA's Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition. Cost of the basic 90-day Mariner Mars '71 mission is $129 million, exclusive of launch vehicles and data acquisition.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-2020-rover-t-minus-one-year-and-counting

Mars 2020 Rover: T-Minus One Year and Counting

The launch period for NASA's next rover, Mars 2020, opens exactly one year from today, July 17, 2020, and extends through Aug. 5, 2020.

The launch period for NASA's Mars 2020 rover opens exactly one year from today, July 17, 2020, and extends through Aug. 5, 2020. The mission will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and land at Mars'Jezero Crateron Feb. 18, 2021."Back when we started this project in 2013, we came up with a timeline to chart mission progress," said John McNamee, Mars 2020 project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "That every single major spacecraft component on a project with this level of innovation is synching right now with that timeline is a testament to the innovation and perseverance of a great team."In this image, taken on July 11, 2019, engineers at JPL install a sensor-filled turret on the end of the rover's 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) robotic arm. The rover's turret includes HD cameras, the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC) science instrument, the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL), and a percussive drill and coring mechanism.On Mars, the arm and turret will work together, allowing the rover to work as a human geologist would: by reaching out to interesting geologic features, scraping, analyzing and even collecting them for further study via Mars 2020's Sample Caching System, which includes 17 motors and will collect samples of Martian rock and soil that will be returned to Earth by a future mission.JPL is building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. NASA will use Mars 2020 and other missions, including to the Moon, to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. The agency intends to establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans.If you want to send your name to Mars with NASA's 2020 mission, you can do so until Sept. 30, 2019. Add your name to the list and obtain a souvenir boarding pass to Mars here:https://go.nasa.gov/Mars2020PassFor more information about the mission, go to:https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/infrared-eyes-on-enceladus-hints-of-fresh-ice-in-northern-hemisphere

Infrared Eyes on Enceladus: Hints of Fresh Ice in Northern Hemisphere

Scientists used data gathered by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during 13 years of exploring the Saturn system to make detailed images of the icy moon - and to reveal geologic activity.

New composite images made from NASA's Cassini spacecraft are the most detailed global infrared views ever produced of Saturn's moon Enceladus. And data used to build those images provides strong evidence that the northern hemisphere of the moon has been resurfaced with ice from its interior.Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) collected light reflected off Saturn, its rings and its ten major icy moons - light that is visible to humans as well as infrared light. VIMS then separated the light into its various wavelengths, information that tells scientists more about the makeup of the material reflecting it.The VIMS data, combined with detailed images captured by Cassini's Imaging Science Subsystem, were used to make the new global spectral map of Enceladus.Cassini scientists discovered in 2005 thatEnceladus- which looks like a highly reflective, bright white snowball to the naked eye - shoots out enormous plumes of ice grains and vapor from an ocean that lies under the icy crust. The new spectral map shows that infrared signals clearly correlate with that geologic activity, which is easily seen at the south pole. That's where the so-called "tiger stripe" gashes blast ice and vapor from the interior ocean.Infrared images of Enceladus were used to make this interactive 3D globe. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/LPG/CNRS/University of Nantes/Space Science InstituteBut some of the same infrared features also appear in the northern hemisphere. That tells scientists not only that the northern area is covered with fresh ice but that the same kind of geologic activity - a resurfacing of the landscape - has occurred in both hemispheres. The resurfacing in the north may be due either to icy jets or to a more gradual movement of ice through fractures in the crust, from the subsurface ocean to the surface."The infrared shows us that the surface of the south pole is young, which is not a surprise because we knew about the jets that blast icy material there," said Gabriel Tobie, VIMS scientist with the University of Nantes in France and co-author of the new research published inIcarus."Now, thanks to these infrared eyes, you can go back in time and say that one large region in the northern hemisphere appears also young and was probably active not that long ago, in geologic timelines."Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Cassini was an orbiter that observed Saturn for more than 13 years before exhausting its fuel supply. The mission plunged it into the planet's atmosphere in September 2017, in part to protect Enceladus, which has the potential of holding conditions suitable for life, with its ocean likely heated and churned by hydrothermal vents like those on Earth's ocean floors.The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.More information about Cassini can be found here:https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/cassini

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/if-santa-were-a-martian

If Santa Were a Martian

If Santa Claus were a martian, he'd be in for one bumpy ride.

If Santa Claus were a martian, he'd be in for one bumpy ride.That's the assessment of navigators and engineers controlling the flight of NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft as it currently flies four times daily above the north polar region of Mars."If he were flying above the North Pole of Mars, my advice to Santa would be 'Hang tight onto your reins,'" said Odyssey navigator John C. Smith. "You could be in for a rough ride."In the midst of aerobraking maneuvers that are lowering the spacecraft's orbit around Mars, the Odyssey team has discovered an unexpected and somewhat unpredictable north polar atmospheric disturbance that is making the job a real adventure, Smith said.Fasten Your SeatbeltCalled the "polar vortex," this cold, low density region forms each winter in the atmosphere above the planet's latitudes 70 degrees north and higher. The region between the polar vortex and the rest of the atmosphere is called the 'transition zone.' In this zone, strong winds swirl around the pole and the zone itself weaves in and out in the typical fashion of a terrestrial jet stream. It is an area where sometimes surprising shifts in the atmospheric density can become fasten-your-seatbelt territory for Odyssey."When we're in the transition zone, the atmosphere is very unpredictable," said Smith.Scientists and engineers have long known that Mars' atmosphere "breathes" -- moving up and down, growing or decreasing in density with the effects of dust storms, winds and other influences. But scientists and navigators are just getting to know up-close the peripatetic polar vortex and its shifty transition zone.Aerobraking: It's a DragLaunched April 7, the Odyssey spacecraft entered orbit around Mars Oct. 24. Over a three-month period that ends in January, Odyssey's orbit is being lowered and circularized through aerobraking, carefully designed passes through the top of the atmosphere that slow the spacecraft through the effects of atmospheric drag.Mars weather reports come from Odyssey's older sibling, Mars Global Surveyor, which has been in orbit around Mars for four years.So where, exactly, is the polar vortex? "That's a good question," said Smith. "We ask that every day."We have daily meetings to decide - 'do we need to lower ourselves farther down to get more drag out of the atmosphere, or do we need to raise ourselves higher in the atmosphere to keep from getting overheated?'" said Smith.Talk About the WeatherEvery day at 11:30 a.m. Pacific time, scientists from the Surveyor and Odyssey teams hold a telephone conference to talk about the weather - on Mars - and how it might impact the next 24 hours' worth of Odyssey's aerobraking maneuvers. They depend upon Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey data to assess martian atmospheric behavior, with a special watch for the large martian dust storms which can increase in a big way the air density at aerobraking altitudes of about 100 kilometers, or about 60 miles.Then at 1 p.m. each day, this atmospheric advisory group joins the project navigation and spacecraft teams to work out the next aerobraking maneuvers.In planning each aerobraking pass through the atmosphere, the team walks a fine line between getting the desired amount of drag out of the pass without subjecting the spacecraft to overheating from unforeseen pockets of dense air."Basically, we use the Mars weather report on what the atmosphere is going to be like and make sure we fly at an altitude to keep the spacecraft safe while getting sufficient drag," said Smith."Try to Go with the Flow""We monitor it closely and try to go with the flow on the variability," Smith said. "We have to take into account how much the prediction could be wrong and use that as margin. When the atmosphere is as highly variable as it is in this region, it means we have to be a little more cautious."With concerns about atmospheric changes that any pilot could relate to, "it might be said this is as close as we've ever come to flying on another planet," said Dr. Richard Zurek of JPL, who co-chairs the atmospheric advisory group to the project.But, says Smith, "It's a little different from flying. We don't have the option of flying around a disturbance. We have to fly right through it. We can raise our altitude or lower it, but we can't avoid going through that region."

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/as-summer-starts-next-el-nino-is-slow-to-grow

As Summer Starts, Next El Nino Is Slow to Grow

The Pacific Ocean doesn't show signs of anything that looks like the whopper El Nino of 1997-1998, according to the latest information from the U.S.-French ocean-observing satellite Topex/Poseidon.

The Pacific Ocean doesn't show signs of anything that looks like the whopper El Nino of 1997-1998, according to the latest information from the U.S.-French ocean-observing satellite Topex/Poseidon. The data do show that the mid-equatorial Pacific Ocean has slowly warmed by about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal in the past few months. However, the Pacific continues to be dominated by the larger-than-El Nino/La Nina pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which may discourage El Nino development."Except for some recent mid-Pacific warming, June 2002 looks very much like June 2001," said oceanographer Dr. William Patzert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We're still in an El Nino holding pattern."The ocean warming in the past month can be explained by a relaxation in the equatorial trade winds observed by NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) satellite, which measures ocean wind speed and direction. These winds usually blow from the Americas towards Asia, helping push warm water eastward. "For the first two weeks of June, these winds were unusually weak," said Dr. Timothy Liu, QuikScat project scientist. "But by last week, they had returned to normal. If the weakening continued or intensified, we could have been expecting an El Nino to develop by early fall.""For the past few winters the weather- and moisture-delivering jet stream has been steered north by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and other planetary patterns, resulting in a warm winter all across the United States and very dry conditions on the East and West coasts. A large enough El Nino might provide some relief for the drought-plagued west, southwest and southeast U.S., but it's wishful thinking so far," Patzert added.The Topex/Poseidon data were taken during a 10-day collection cycle ending June 14, 2002. They show that there hasn't been any fundamental change in the ocean's large-scale patterns for the past three years. The near-equatorial ocean has been very quiet, although sea levels and sea-surface temperatures are near normal or slightly warmer throughout the far western and central tropical Pacific. Red areas are about 10 centimeters (4 inches) above normal; white areas show the sea-surface height is between 14 and 32 centimeters (6 to 13 inches) above normal. This warmth contrasts with the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska and U.S. West Coast, where lower-than-normal sea-surface levels (blue areas) and cool ocean temperatures continue. The blue areas are between 5 and 13 centimeters (2 and 5 inches) below normal, and the purple areas range from 14 to 18 centimeters (6 to 7 inches) below normal.The Pacific has settled into a negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation pattern for the past three years. This long-term ocean feature waxes and wanes approximately every 20 to 30 years. In its present phase, a warm horseshoe pattern of higher-than-normal sea-surface heights connects the north, west and southern Pacific, while a cool wedge of lower-than-normal sea-surface heights is in the eastern equatorial Pacific.Most recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sea-surface temperature data also clearly illustrate the warming of the western and central tropical Pacific and the persistence of the basin-wide Pacific Decadal Oscillation pattern.The joint U.S.-French Topex/Poseidon and follow-on Jason 1missions as well as the QuikScat mission are managed by JPL for NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, Washington, D.C., dedicated to understanding the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment.JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/dawn-one-step-away-from-asteroid-belt-trip

Dawn One Step Away From Asteroid Belt Trip

The Dawn spacecraft completed the 25-kilometer (15-mile) journey from Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla., to Pad-17B of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 5:10 a.m. EDT today.

The Dawn spacecraft completed the 25-kilometer (15-mile) journey from Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla., to Pad-17B of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 5:10 a.m. EDT today. The launch period for Dawn, NASA's eight-year, more than 5-billion-kilometer (3.2-billion-mile) odyssey into the heart of the asteroid belt, opens Sept. 26."From here, the only way to go is up," said Dawn project manager Keyur Patel of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We are looking forward to putting some space between Dawn and Mother Earth and making some space history."Dawn's goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of the solar system's earliest epoch 4.5 billion years ago by investigating in detail the massive asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. They reside between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt. Scientists theorize these were budding planets never given the opportunity to grow. However, Ceres and Vesta each followed a very different evolutionary path during the solar system's first few million years. By investigating two diverse asteroids during the spacecraft's eight-year flight, the Dawn mission aims to unlock some of the mysteries of planetary formation. Dawn will be the first spacecraft to orbit an object in the asteroid belt and the first to orbit two bodies after leaving Earth. Recent images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope raise further intriguing questions about the evolution of these asteroids.Now that the Dawn payload is atop the Delta II 7925-H, a heavier-lift model of the standard Delta II that uses larger solid rocket boosters, a final major test will be conducted. This integrated test of the Delta II and Dawn working together will simulate all events as they will occur on launch day, but without propellants aboard the vehicle.The Sept. 26 launch window is 4:25 to 4:54 a.m. PDT (7:25 to 7:54 a.m. EDT). Should the launch be postponed 24 hours for any reason, the launch window will extend from 4:20 to 4:49 a.m. PDT (7:20 to 7:49 a.m. EDT). For a 48-hour postponement, the launch window will be from 4:14 to 4:43 a.m. PDT (7:14 to 7:43 a.m EDT). Dawn's launch period closes Oct. 15.The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The University of California Los Angeles is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Other scientific partners include Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico; German Aerospace Center, Berlin; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg, Germany; and Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, Palermo. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., designed and built the Dawn spacecraft. The NASA Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center and the United Launch Alliance are responsible for the launch of the Delta II.Additional information about Dawn is online at:http://dawn.jpl.nasa.govFor more information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit:http://www.nasa.gov

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/study-sheds-new-light-on-arctic-sea-ice-volume-losses

Study Sheds New Light on Arctic Sea Ice Volume Losses

New research by scientists from NASA and other agencies shows Arctic sea ice volume declined 36 percent in the autumn and nine percent in the winter over the last decade.

New research using combined records of ice measurements from NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite, airborne surveys and ocean-based sensors shows Arctic sea ice volume declined 36 percent in the autumn and nine percent in the winter over the last decade.The work builds on previous studies using submarine and NASA satellite data, confirms computer model estimates that showed ice volume decreases over the last decade, and builds a foundation for a multi-decadal record of sea ice volume changes.In a report published online recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a large international collaboration of scientists outlined their work to calculate Arctic sea ice volume. The satellite measurements were verified using data from NASA's Operation IceBridge, ocean-based sensors and a European airborne science expedition. This was compared with the earlier sea ice volume data record from NASA's ICESat, which reached the end of its lifespan in 2009.The researchers found that from 2003 to 2008, autumn volumes of ice averaged 2,855 cubic miles (11,900 cubic kilometers). But from 2010 to 2012, the average volume dropped to 1,823 cubic miles (7,600 cubic kilometers) -- a decline of 1,032 cubic miles (4,300 cubic kilometers). The average ice volume in the winter from 2003 to 2008 was 3,911 cubic miles (16,300 cubic kilometers), dropping to 3,551 cubic miles (14,800 cubic kilometers) between 2010 and 2012 -- a difference of 360 cubic miles (1,500 cubic kilometers).The study, funded by the United Kingdom's National Environmental Research Council, the European Space Agency, the German Aerospace Center, Alberta Ingenuity, NASA, the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation and led by Professor Seymour Laxon of University College London, marks the first ice volume estimates from CryoSat 2, which was launched in 2010. "It's an important achievement and milestone for CryoSat-2," said co-author Ron Kwok at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.Combining the IngredientsAlthough CryoSat-2 data show a decrease in ice volume from 2010 to 2012, two years is not a long enough time span to determine a trend. This is where NASA's data and scientists come in. Data from ICESat and IceBridge are freely available, but combining measurements from different sources can be challenging. Kwok said researchers spent months working out how to compare the datasets and making sure they were compatible enough to compare trends. "We participated as collaborators to help interpret results from the datasets we're familiar with," said scientist Sinead Farrell at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.CryoSat-2 and ICESat both measure sea ice freeboard, which is the amount of ice floating above the ocean's surface. Researchers use freeboard to calculate ice thickness. This thickness measurement is then combined with ice area to come up with a figure for volume. The two satellites used different methods for measuring freeboard, however. ICESat used a laser altimeter, which bounces a laser off the snow covering the sea ice, while CryoSat-2 uses a radar instrument that measures surface elevation closer to the ice surface. These instruments have a different view of the surface, but researchers found they gave comparable measurements.Check and Double CheckComparing the two datasets and ensuring their quality called for additional data. The two satellites do not cover overlapping time spans, so researchers used measurements from upward-looking sonar (ULS) moorings under the ocean's surface, located north of Alaska. These instruments, operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project, provide a continuous record of ice draft -- thickness of ice below the ocean's surface -- in parts of the Beaufort Sea from 2003 to the present day. Thickness measurements from these ULS moorings were comparable to ICESat and CryoSat-2 data throughout both missions' time spans. "ULS ice draft since 2003 served as the common data set for cross comparison of the ICESat and CryoSat-2 measurements," said Kwok.Researchers took extra care to verify CryoSat-2's data, as it is a new satellite with a new instrument. In addition to the ULS data, CryoSat-2 measurements were also verified by two airborne science campaigns: flights by an aircraft operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany; and Operation IceBridge, a NASA mission tasked with monitoring changes in polar ice to bridge the gap in measurements between ICESat and its replacement, ICESat-2, scheduled to launch in 2016. During the 2011 and 2012 Arctic campaigns, the IceBridge team coordinated closely with ESA's CryoVEx program to verify CryoSat-2 data. "IceBridge was used as a validation tool to understand thickness measurements from CryoSat-2," said scientist Nathan Kurtz at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.The Road AheadAfter months of work, researchers had assembled a multi-year dataset, which they could compare to sea ice volume predictions from the Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS). Because of the short time span of previous satellite studies, researchers have used models like PIOMAS to simulate changes in sea ice volume. The study's observations show a larger autumn ice volume decrease than predicted, while changes in the winter are smaller than in the model simulation. "It's important to know because changes in volume indicate changes in heat exchange between the ice, ocean and atmosphere," said Kurtz.This study, and the knowledge that the datasets are compatible, also serves to lay groundwork for ICESat-2. CryoSat-2 gathers data over more of the Arctic than ICESat did by reaching 88 degrees north (ICESat reached 86 degrees). ICESat-2 will orbit Earth at the same angle as CryoSat-2 and will therefore survey the same amount of the Arctic.CryoSat-2 is funded through 2017 but will likely operate until the end of the decade, giving overlapping coverage with ICESat-2. This potential overlap greatly improves the prospects for better knowledge of Arctic sea ice volume. "The hope is that we'll be able to create a multi-decadal record using ICESat, CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2," said Kwok.For more about ICESat, visit:http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/. For more about Operation IceBridge, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/index.html. For more about CryoSat-2, visit:http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/CryoSat. For more about the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project, visit:http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=66296.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/august-launch-to-mars-is-topic-for-scientists-public-talk-2

August Launch to Mars Is Topic for Scientist's Public Talk

The project scientist for NASA's next mission to Mars, Dr. Richard Zurek, will share information and pictures about the upcoming mission during a free public lecture in Florida.

The project scientist for NASA's next mission to Mars, Dr. Richard Zurek, will share information and pictures about the upcoming mission during a free public lecture at Brevard Community College Planetarium, Cocoa, Fla., on Friday, July 29, at 7 p.m.Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in preparation for launch on Aug. 10 atop an Atlas V launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.+ Visit the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Website

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-rover-finds-clue-to-mars-past-and-environment-for-life

NASA Rover Finds Clue to Mars' Past and Environment for Life

Rocks examined by NASA's Spirit Mars Rover hold evidence of a wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have been favorable for life.

PASADENA, Calif. -- Rocks examined by NASA's Spirit Mars Rover hold evidence of a wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have been favorable for life. Confirming this mineral clue took four years of analysis by several scientists.An outcrop that Spirit examined in late 2005 revealed high concentrations of carbonate, which originates in wet, near-neutral conditions, but dissolves in acid. The ancient water indicated by this find was not acidic.NASA's rovers have found other evidence of formerly wet Martian environments. However the data for those environments indicate conditions that may have been acidic. In other cases, the conditions were definitely acidic, and therefore less favorable as habitats for life.Laboratory tests helped confirm the carbonate identification. The findings were published online Thursday, June 3 by the journal Science."This is one of the most significant findings by the rovers," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is principal investigator for the Mars twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, and a co-author of the new report. "A substantial carbonate deposit in a Mars outcrop tells us that conditions that could have been quite favorable for life were present at one time in that place. "Spirit inspected rock outcrops, including one scientists called Comanche, along the rover's route from the top of Husband Hill to the vicinity of the Home Plate plateau which Spirit has studied since 2006. Magnesium iron carbonate makes up about one-fourth of the measured volume in Comanche. That is a tenfold higher concentration than any previously identified for carbonate in a Martian rock."We used detective work combining results from three spectrometers to lock this down," said Dick Morris, lead author of the report and a member of a rover science team at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston."The instruments gave us multiple, interlocking ways of confirming the magnesium iron carbonate, with a good handle on how much there is."Massive carbonate deposits on Mars have been sought for years without much success. Numerous channels apparently carved by flows of liquid water on ancient Mars suggest the planet was formerly warmer, thanks to greenhouse warming from a thicker atmosphere than exists now. The ancient, dense Martian atmosphere was probably rich in carbon dioxide, because that gas makes up nearly all the modern, very thin atmosphere.It is important to determine where most of the carbon dioxide went. Some theorize it departed to space. Others hypothesize that it left the atmosphere by the mixing of carbon dioxide with water under conditions that led to forming carbonate minerals. That possibility, plus finding small amounts of carbonate in meteorites that originated from Mars, led to expectations in the 1990s that carbonate would be abundant on Mars. However, mineral-mapping spectrometers on orbiters since then have found evidence of localized carbonate deposits in only one area, plus small amounts distributed globally in Martian dust.Morris suspected iron-bearing carbonate at Comanche years ago from inspection of the rock with Spirit's Moessbauerpectrometer, which provides information about iron-containing minerals. Confirming evidence from other instruments emerged slowly. The instrument with the best capability for detecting carbonates, the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer, had its mirror contaminated with dust earlier in 2005, during a wind event that also cleaned Spirit's solar panels."It was like looking through dirty glasses," said Steve Ruff of Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., another co-author of the report. "We could tell there was something very different about Comanche compared with other outcrops we had seen, but we couldn't tell what it was until we developed a correction method to account for the dust on the mirror."Spirit's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer instrument detected a high concentration of light elements, a group including carbon and oxygen, that helped quantify the carbonate content.The rovers landed on Mars in January 2004 for missions originally planned to last three months. Spirit has been out of communication since March 22 and is in a low-power hibernation status during Martian winter. Opportunity is making steady progress toward a large crater, Endeavour, which is about seven miles away.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rovers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the rovers, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/rovers