NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or Wise, is chilled out, sporting a sunshade and getting ready to roll. NASA's newest spacecraft is scheduled to roll to the pad on Friday, Nov. 20, its last stop before launching into space to survey the entire sky in infrared light.
Wise is scheduled to launch no earlier than 6:09 a.m. PST (9:09 a.m. EST) on Dec. 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It will circle Earth over the poles, scanning the entire sky one-and-a-half times in nine months. The mission will uncover hidden cosmic objects, including the coolest stars, dark asteroids and the most luminous galaxies.
Wise is scheduled to launch no earlier than 6:09 a.m. PST (9:09 a.m. EST) on Dec. 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It will circle Earth over the poles, scanning the entire sky one-and-a-half times in nine months. The mission will uncover hidden cosmic objects, including the coolest stars, dark asteroids and the most luminous galaxies.
"The eyes of Wise are a vast improvement over those of past infrared surveys," said Edward "Ned" Wright, the principal investigator for the mission at UCLA. "We will find millions of objects that have never been seen before."
The mission will map the entire sky at four infrared wavelengths with sensitivity hundreds to hundreds of thousands of times greater than its predecessors, cataloging hundreds of millions of objects. The data will serve as navigation charts for other missions, pointing them to the most interesting targets. NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, and NASA's upcoming Sofia and James Webb Space Telescope will follow up on Wise finds.
"This is an exciting time for space telescopes," said Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Many of the telescopes will work together, each contributing different pieces to some of the most intriguing puzzles in our universe."
Visible light is just one slice of the universe's electromagnetic rainbow. Infrared light, which humans can't see, has longer wavelengths and is good for seeing objects that are cold, dusty or far away. In our solar system, Wise is expected to find hundreds of thousands of cool asteroids, including hundreds that pass relatively close to Earth's path. Wise's infrared measurements will provide better estimates of asteroid sizes and compositions -- important information for understanding more about potentially hazardous impacts on Earth.
"With infrared, we can find the dark asteroids other surveys have missed and learn about the whole population. Are they mostly big, small, fluffy or hard?" said Peter Eisenhardt, the Wise project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Wise also will find the coolest of the "failed" stars, or brown dwarfs. Scientists speculate it is possible that a cool star lurks right under our noses, closer to us than our nearest known star, Proxima Centauri, which is four light-years away. If so, Wise will easily pick up its glow. The mission also will spot dusty nests of stars and swirling planet-forming disks, and may find the most luminous galaxy in the universe.
To sense the infrared glow of stars and galaxies, the Wise spacecraft cannot give off any detectable infrared light of its own. This is accomplished by chilling the telescope and detectors to ultra-cold temperatures. The coldest of Wise's detectors will operate at below 8 Kelvin, or minus 445 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Wise is chilled out," said William Irace, the project manager at JPL. "We've finished freezing the hydrogen that fills two tanks surrounding the science instrument. We're ready to explore the universe in infrared."
JPL manages Wise for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
More information about Wise is available online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu .
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or Wise, is chilled out, sporting a sunshade and getting ready to roll. NASA's newest spacecraft is scheduled to roll to the pad on Friday, Nov. 20, its last stop before launching into space to survey the entire sky in infrared light.
Wise is scheduled to launch no earlier than 6:09 a.m. PST (9:09 a.m. EST) on Dec. 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It will circle Earth over the poles, scanning the entire sky one-and-a-half times in nine months. The mission will uncover hidden cosmic objects, including the coolest stars, dark asteroids and the most luminous galaxies.
Wise is scheduled to launch no earlier than 6:09 a.m. PST (9:09 a.m. EST) on Dec. 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It will circle Earth over the poles, scanning the entire sky one-and-a-half times in nine months. The mission will uncover hidden cosmic objects, including the coolest stars, dark asteroids and the most luminous galaxies.
"The eyes of Wise are a vast improvement over those of past infrared surveys," said Edward "Ned" Wright, the principal investigator for the mission at UCLA. "We will find millions of objects that have never been seen before."
The mission will map the entire sky at four infrared wavelengths with sensitivity hundreds to hundreds of thousands of times greater than its predecessors, cataloging hundreds of millions of objects. The data will serve as navigation charts for other missions, pointing them to the most interesting targets. NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, and NASA's upcoming Sofia and James Webb Space Telescope will follow up on Wise finds.
"This is an exciting time for space telescopes," said Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Many of the telescopes will work together, each contributing different pieces to some of the most intriguing puzzles in our universe."
Visible light is just one slice of the universe's electromagnetic rainbow. Infrared light, which humans can't see, has longer wavelengths and is good for seeing objects that are cold, dusty or far away. In our solar system, Wise is expected to find hundreds of thousands of cool asteroids, including hundreds that pass relatively close to Earth's path. Wise's infrared measurements will provide better estimates of asteroid sizes and compositions -- important information for understanding more about potentially hazardous impacts on Earth.
"With infrared, we can find the dark asteroids other surveys have missed and learn about the whole population. Are they mostly big, small, fluffy or hard?" said Peter Eisenhardt, the Wise project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Wise also will find the coolest of the "failed" stars, or brown dwarfs. Scientists speculate it is possible that a cool star lurks right under our noses, closer to us than our nearest known star, Proxima Centauri, which is four light-years away. If so, Wise will easily pick up its glow. The mission also will spot dusty nests of stars and swirling planet-forming disks, and may find the most luminous galaxy in the universe.
To sense the infrared glow of stars and galaxies, the Wise spacecraft cannot give off any detectable infrared light of its own. This is accomplished by chilling the telescope and detectors to ultra-cold temperatures. The coldest of Wise's detectors will operate at below 8 Kelvin, or minus 445 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Wise is chilled out," said William Irace, the project manager at JPL. "We've finished freezing the hydrogen that fills two tanks surrounding the science instrument. We're ready to explore the universe in infrared."
JPL manages Wise for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
More information about Wise is available online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu .
NASA will hold a second national strategies workshop to examine the impacts of climate change and extreme weather variability on native peoples and their homelands. The workshop, which will study the impacts from an indigenous cultural, spiritual and scientific perspective, will take place Nov. 18 - 21 at the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minn.
"This workshop will bring native indigenous knowledge together with science, education, and technologies to address the challenges of climate and environmental change," said Nancy Maynard of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The workshop will help ensure participation by tribal colleges and universities in the development of response and adaptation policies and recommendations regarding climate change. The goal is to ensure the survival of indigenous communities. The workshop is being held in collaboration with the nation's 36 tribally-controlled colleges and universities, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, and other partners.
"Tribal college students represent many of the future tribal leaders who will inherit the consequences of climate change and be responsible for implementing the adaptation strategies," said Dan Wildcat of Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan. "It is critical that they have these kinds of opportunities to participate in key climate change discussions and build their science, technology, engineering and math skills."
For more information about the workshop, including registration information, visit:
"This workshop will bring native indigenous knowledge together with science, education, and technologies to address the challenges of climate and environmental change," said Nancy Maynard of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The workshop will help ensure participation by tribal colleges and universities in the development of response and adaptation policies and recommendations regarding climate change. The goal is to ensure the survival of indigenous communities. The workshop is being held in collaboration with the nation's 36 tribally-controlled colleges and universities, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, and other partners.
"Tribal college students represent many of the future tribal leaders who will inherit the consequences of climate change and be responsible for implementing the adaptation strategies," said Dan Wildcat of Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan. "It is critical that they have these kinds of opportunities to participate in key climate change discussions and build their science, technology, engineering and math skills."
For more information about the workshop, including registration information, visit:
The United States is hosting the sixth plenary meeting of the Group on Earth Observations, or GEO, this week at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, in Washington. Reporters are invited to a Nov. 17 press opportunity and a public exhibition highlighting recent GEO projects, including several involving NASA.
The press event will be held at 12:45 p.m. EST in the Reagan Building's Hemisphere A area. Photo identification is required. Sherburne B. Abbott, associate director for environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and other speakers will present details of GEO programs around the world.
Through GEO, 80 national governments, the European Commission and almost 60 global organizations coordinate Earth observation assets and strategies to track global trends in carbon levels, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water resources, ocean temperatures and other critical indicators of Earth's health and human well-being. The U.S. is a founding member of GEO through the U.S. Group on Earth Observations.
The exhibition in the Reagan Building's Atrium Hall will be open to the public on Nov. 17 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Nov. 18 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Highlighted projects featuring NASA contributions include near real-time fire detection, global agricultural monitoring, natural disaster monitoring and forecasting, and a famine early warning system.
For more information on the GEO plenary meeting, visit:
The press event will be held at 12:45 p.m. EST in the Reagan Building's Hemisphere A area. Photo identification is required. Sherburne B. Abbott, associate director for environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and other speakers will present details of GEO programs around the world.
Through GEO, 80 national governments, the European Commission and almost 60 global organizations coordinate Earth observation assets and strategies to track global trends in carbon levels, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water resources, ocean temperatures and other critical indicators of Earth's health and human well-being. The U.S. is a founding member of GEO through the U.S. Group on Earth Observations.
The exhibition in the Reagan Building's Atrium Hall will be open to the public on Nov. 17 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Nov. 18 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Highlighted projects featuring NASA contributions include near real-time fire detection, global agricultural monitoring, natural disaster monitoring and forecasting, and a famine early warning system.
For more information on the GEO plenary meeting, visit:
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
NASA Technology Spinoffs Art Contest Winner Presentation at the Statue of Liberty
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. is recognizing award-winning artwork honoring NASA Spinoff technology that was used to restore the Statue of Liberty National Monument, a unit of the National Park Service.Students are recognizing NASA Goddard's 50th anniversary by reflecting on science, technology, engineering and the fine arts. NASA Goddard was opened in 1959.
NASA's Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) Office sponsored "Goddard Celebrates 50 Years of Technology Spinoffs Art Contest" last winter. The purpose of the contest was to allow middle and high school students across the country to demonstrate through art, their knowledge of how NASA Goddard scientific technological achievements have made impacts on the quality of life. Some of the reference or source material the students were to use was the IPP Office annual publication, NASA Spinoff magazine, and the IPP Office website.
After receiving and reviewing contest submissions, Ja Hyun "Ashely" Lim was chosen as the winner. At the time of contest submission, she was a ninth grader at North County High School in Glen Burnie, Md. Lim’s eloquent rendering of a paint brush stroke from the Space Shuttle’s lift off pad launch gantries to the Statute of Liberty monument plainly demonstrates "movement" of NASA technology from one application of a technology to another external to NASA.The connection between the Statue of Liberty and NASA is in a NASA Goddard-developed technology. When the Statue of Liberty was being restored in the early 1980s, the bars that help to support the copper skin of the Statue of Liberty were covered with a corrosion-resistant coating developed by NASA Goddard engineers. The coating is known as IC531, and is an aerospace Spinoff product manufactured by Inorganic Coatings, Inc. of Malvern, Penn.
IC531 was used as an interior structure primer coating for Miss Liberty. The coating was developed by NASA Goddard to protect gantries and other structures at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. launch site.
The high-ratio silicate formulation in IC531 bonds to steel and in just 30 minutes and creates a very hard ceramic finish with superior adhesion and abrasion resistance.
Lim was honored at the NASA Goddard Celebrates 50 Years of Technology Spinoffs Event this past summer. In the spirit of cooperation, the NASA Goddard IPP will be presenting a framed copy of Lim’s artwork to the National Park Service at the Statue of Liberty on Nov. 13 at 9:30 a.m. EST at Ellis Island, N.Y.
Located on a 12-acre island, the statue of ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy.
Related Links:
› NASA's IPP Program Web Page
› The Statue of Liberty National Park
› More information on the Statue of Liberty restoration (PDF)
The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.
NASA today opened a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus cater near the moon’s south pole.
The impact created by the LCROSS Centaur upper stage rocket created a two-part plume of material from the bottom of the crater. The first part was a high angle plume of vapor and fine dust and the second a lower angle ejecta curtain of heavier material. This material has not seen sunlight in billions of years."We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and by extension the solar system. It turns out the moon harbors many secrets, and LCROSS has added a new layer to our understanding," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Scientists have long speculated about the source of vast quantities of hydrogen that have been observed at the lunar poles. The LCROSS findings are shedding new light on the question of water, which could be more widespread and in greater quantity than previously suspected.
Permanently shadowed regions could hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, much as an ice core sample taken on Earth reveals ancient data. In addition, water, and other compounds represent potential resources that could sustain future lunar exploration.
Since the impacts, the LCROSS science team has been working almost nonstop analyzing the huge amount of data the spacecraft collected. The team concentrated on data from the satellite's spectrometers, which provide the most definitive information about the presence of water. A spectrometer examines light emitted or absorbed by materials that helps identify their composition.
"We are ecstatic," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water."
The team took the known near infrared spectral signatures of water and other materials and compared them to the spectra collected by the LCROSS near infrared spectrometer of the impact.
"We were only able to match the spectra from LCROSS data when we inserted the spectra for water," said Colaprete. "No other reasonable combination of other compounds that we tried matched the observations. The possibility of contamination from the Centaur also was ruled out."Additional confirmation came from an emission in the ultraviolet spectrum that was attributed to hydroxyl, one product from the break-up of water by sunlight. When atoms and molecules are excited, they release energy at specific wavelengths that are detected by the spectrometers. A similar process is used in neon signs. When electrified, a specific gas will produce a distinct color. The ultraviolet visible spectrometer detected hydroxyl signatures just after impact that are consistent with a water vapor cloud in sunlight.
Data from the other LCROSS instruments are being analyzed for additional clues about the state and distribution of the material at the impact site. The LCROSS science team along with colleagues are poring over the data to understand the entire impact event, from flash to crater, with the final goal being the understanding of the distribution of materials, and in particular volatiles, within the soil at the impact site.
"The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich," said Colaprete. "Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years."
LCROSS was launched June 18, 2009 as a companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After separating from LRO, the LCROSS spacecraft held onto the spent Centaur upper stage rocket of the launch vehicle, executed a lunar swingby and entered into a series of long looping orbits around the Earth.
After traveling approximately 113 days and nearly 5.6 million miles (9 million km), the Centaur and LCROSS separated on final approach to the moon. Traveling as fast as a speeding bullet, the Centaur impacted the lunar surface shortly after 4:31 a.m. PDT Oct. 9 with LCROSS watching with its onboard instruments. Approximately four minutes of data was collected before the LCROSS itself impacted the lunar surface.
Working closely with scientists from LRO and other observatories that viewed the impact, the LCROSS team is working to understand the full scope of the LCROSS data. LRO continues to make passes over the impact site to give the LCROSS team additional insight into the mechanics of the impact and its resulting craters.
What other secrets will the moon reveal? The analysis continues!
Reporters and the public are invited to attend the 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge on Nov. 19 at the Astronaut Hall of Fame in Titusville, Fla., near NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
The $400,000 prize challenge is a nationwide competition that focuses on developing improved pressure suit gloves for astronauts to use while working in the vacuum of space. The competition is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. EST on Nov. 19 and conclude with an award ceremony at approximately 5 p.m.
NASA's Centennial Challenges program will provide the prize. Volanz Aerospace Inc. of Owings, Md., manages the competition for NASA. Secor Strategies, LLC of Titusville, Fla., is a sponsor for the event.
Centennial Challenges is NASA's program of technology prizes for the citizen-inventor. Recent Centennial Challenge events included Regolith Excavation, Lunar Lander and Power Beaming Challenges, in which six different competitors won a total of $3.3 million in prizes.
For more information about NASA's Centennial Challenges, visit:
The $400,000 prize challenge is a nationwide competition that focuses on developing improved pressure suit gloves for astronauts to use while working in the vacuum of space. The competition is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. EST on Nov. 19 and conclude with an award ceremony at approximately 5 p.m.
2007 Astronaut Glove Challenge
NASA's Centennial Challenges program will provide the prize. Volanz Aerospace Inc. of Owings, Md., manages the competition for NASA. Secor Strategies, LLC of Titusville, Fla., is a sponsor for the event.
Centennial Challenges is NASA's program of technology prizes for the citizen-inventor. Recent Centennial Challenge events included Regolith Excavation, Lunar Lander and Power Beaming Challenges, in which six different competitors won a total of $3.3 million in prizes.
For more information about NASA's Centennial Challenges, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ipp/innovation_incubator/cc_home.html
El Niño is experiencing a late-fall resurgence. Recent sea-level height data from the NASA/French Space Agency Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 oceanography satellite show that a large-scale, sustained weakening of trade winds in the western and central equatorial Pacific during October has triggered a strong, eastward-moving wave of warm water, known as a Kelvin wave. In the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, this warm wave appears as the large area of higher-than-normal sea surface heights (warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures) between 170 degrees east and 100 degrees west longitude. A series of similar, weaker events that began in June 2009 initially triggered and has sustained the present El Niño condition. This image was created with data collected by the U.S./French satellite during a 10-day period centered on November 1, 2009. It shows a red and white area in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific that is about 10 to 18 centimeters (4 to 7 inches) above normal. These regions contrast with the western equatorial Pacific, where lower-than-normal sea levels (blue and purple areas) are between 8 to 15 centimeters (3 and 6 inches) below normal. Along the equator, the red and white colors depict areas where sea surface temperatures are more than one to two degrees Celsius above normal (two to four degrees Fahrenheit).
"In the American west, where we are struggling under serious drought conditions, this late-fall charge by El Niño is a pleasant surprise, upping the odds for much-needed rain and an above-normal winter snowpack," said JPL oceanographer Bill Patzert.
For more information on NASA's ocean surface topography missions, see http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/; or to view the latest Jason data, see http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/science/jason1-quick-look/.
Drifters designed to provide new knowledge about marine protected areas, harmful algal blooms, oil spills
 Autonomous underwater explorers (AUEs) will provide new information about the oceans. |
In an effort to plug gaps in knowledge about key ocean processes, the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s division of ocean sciences has awarded nearly $1 million to scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. The Scripps marine scientists will develop a new breed of ocean-probing instruments. Jules Jaffe and Peter Franks will spearhead an effort to design and deploy autonomous underwater explorers, or AUEs. AUEs will trace the fine details of oceanographic processes vital to tiny marine inhabitants.
While oceanographers have been skilled in detailing large-scale ocean processes, a need has emerged to zero in on functions unfolding at smaller scales. By defining localized currents, temperature, salinity, pressure and biological properties, AUEs will offer new and valuable information about a range of ocean phenomena.
"We're seeing great success in the global use of ocean profiling floats to document large-scale circulation patterns and other physical and chemical attributes of the deep and open seas," said Phillip Taylor of NSF's division of ocean sciences. "These innovative AUEs will allow researchers to sample the environments of coastal regions as well, and to better understand how small organisms operate in the complex surroundings of the oceans."
The miniature robots will aid in obtaining information needed for developing marine protected areas, determining critical nursery habitats for fish and other animals, tracking harmful algae blooms, and monitoring oil spills.
For marine protected areas, AUEs will help inform debates about the best areas for habitat protection. With harmful algal blooms and oil spills, the instruments can be deployed directly into outbreak patches to gauge how they develop and change over time. In the case of an airplane crash over the ocean, AUEs should be able to track currents to determine where among the wreckage a black box may be located.
"AUEs will fill in gaps between existing marine technologies," said Jaffe. "They will provide a whole new kind of information."
AUEs work through a system in which several soccer-ball-sized explorers are deployed with many tens--or even hundreds--of pint-sized explorers. Collectively, the entire "swarm" of AUEs will track ocean currents that organisms at a small-scale, such as tiny abalone larvae, for example, experience in the ocean.
"AUEs will give us information to figure out how small organisms survive, how they move in the ocean, and the physical dynamics they experience as they get around," said Franks. "AUEs should improve ocean models and allow us to do a better job of following 'the weather and climate of the ocean,' as well as help us understand things like carbon fluxes."
Franks, who conducts research on marine phytoplankton, says that "plankton are somewhat like the balloons of the ocean floating around out there. With AUEs, we're trying to figure out how the ocean works at scales that matter to plankton.
"If we place 100 AUEs in the ocean and let them go, we'll be able to look at how they move to get a sense of the physics driving current flows."
During the pilot phase of the project, Jaffe and colleagues will build five to six of the soccer-ball-sized explorers and 20 of the smaller versions. An outreach component of the project will enlist school children in building and ultimately deploying AUEs.
In a related funding award, the researchers have also been given $1.5 million from NSF's Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation initiative to design and develop the systems necessary to control the movement of AUEs.
That aspect brings Jaffe and Franks together with researchers at the Cymer Center for Control Systems and Dynamics at the University of California at San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering and the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
NASA will hold a media briefing on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at noon EST, to discuss the upcoming launch of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, mission. WISE is scheduled to launch Dec. 7, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Once in Earth orbit, WISE will scan the entire sky at infrared wavelengths, unveiling hundreds of thousands of asteroids and hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies.
The briefing will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. S.W., in Washington. NASA TV will broadcast the briefing on the NASA Education Channel.
Panelists will be:
-- Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters
-- Edward (Ned) Wright, WISE principal investigator at UCLA
-- William Irace, WISE project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
-- Amy Mainzer, WISE deputy project scientist, JPL
-- Peter Eisenhardt, WISE project scientist, JPL
Reporters may ask questions from participating NASA locations or by phone. To reserve a phone line, journalists should send an e-mail listing name, media affiliation, and telephone number to:
For NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit:The briefing will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. S.W., in Washington. NASA TV will broadcast the briefing on the NASA Education Channel.
Panelists will be:
-- Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters
-- Edward (Ned) Wright, WISE principal investigator at UCLA
-- William Irace, WISE project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
-- Amy Mainzer, WISE deputy project scientist, JPL
-- Peter Eisenhardt, WISE project scientist, JPL
Reporters may ask questions from participating NASA locations or by phone. To reserve a phone line, journalists should send an e-mail listing name, media affiliation, and telephone number to:
For the latest information about the WISE mission, visit:
There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there… So here is the scientific reality on the celestial happenings in the year 2012.Nibiru, a purported large object headed toward Earth, simply put - does not exist. There is no credible evidence - telescopic or otherwise - for this object's existence. There is also no evidence of any kind for its gravitational affects upon bodies in our solar system.
I do however like the name Nibiru. If I ever get a pet goldflish (and I just may do that sometime in early 2013), Nibiru will be at the top of my list.
The Mayan calendar does not end in December 2012. Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period, but then – just as your calendar begins again on January 1 - another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.
There are no credible predictions for worrisome astronomical events in 2012. The activity of the sun is cyclical with a period of roughly 11 years and the time of the next solar maximum is predicted to occur in the period 2010 – 2012. However, the Earth routinely experiences these periods of increased solar activity – for eons - without worrisome effects. The Earth’s magnetic field, which deflects charged particles from the sun, does reverse polarity on time scales of about 400,000 years but there is no evidence that a reversal, which takes thousands of years to occur, will begin in 2012. Even if this several thousand year-long magnetic field reversal were to begin, that would not affect the Earth’s rotation nor would it affect the direction of the Earth’s rotation axis… only Superman can do that.
The only important gravitational tugs experienced by the Earth are due to the moon and sun. There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and Sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
The predictions of doomsday or dramatic changes on December 21, 2012 are all false. Incorrect doomsday predictions have taken place several times in each of the past several centuries. Readers should bear in mind what Carl Sagan noted several years ago; "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, the burden of proof is on the people making these claims. Where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and all the passionate, persistent and profitable assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.
For more information on the silliness surrounding December 2012, see:
- http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/nutshell.html
- Wikipedia: look under “Nibiru collision.”
- http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html
In this spectacular image, observations using infrared light and X-ray light see through the obscuring dust and reveal the intense activity near the galactic core. Note that the center of the galaxy is located within the bright white region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. The entire image width covers about one-half a degree, about the same angular width as the full moon. › Larger image
A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy is being unveiled by NASA on Nov. 10. 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 multi-wavelength 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 different 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.
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 multi-wavelength 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 different 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.
Each telescope's contribution is presented in a different color:
Yellow represents the near-infrared observations of Hubble. They outline the energetic regions where stars are being born as well as reveal hundreds of thousands of stars.
Red represents the infrared observations of Spitzer. The radiation and winds from stars create glowing dust clouds that exhibit complex structures from compact, spherical globules to long, stringy filaments.
Blue and violet represent the X-ray observations of Chandra. X-rays are emitted by gas heated to millions of degrees by stellar explosions and by outflows from the supermassive black hole in the galaxy's center. The bright blue blob on the left side is emission from a double star system containing either a neutron star or a black hole.
› Larger image
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 by 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:
Yellow represents the near-infrared observations of Hubble. They outline the energetic regions where stars are being born as well as reveal hundreds of thousands of stars.
Red represents the infrared observations of Spitzer. The radiation and winds from stars create glowing dust clouds that exhibit complex structures from compact, spherical globules to long, stringy filaments.
Blue and violet represent the X-ray observations of Chandra. X-rays are emitted by gas heated to millions of degrees by stellar explosions and by outflows from the supermassive black hole in the galaxy's center. The bright blue blob on the left side is emission from a double star system containing either a neutron star or a black hole.
› Larger image
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 by 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:
› HubbleSite.org
› www.nasa.gov/spitzer
› www.nasa.gov/chandra
› astronomy2009.nasa.gov
NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life.Pyrimidine is a ring-shaped molecule made up of carbon and nitrogen and is the basic structure for uracil, part of a genetic code found in ribonucleic acid (RNA). RNA is central to protein synthesis, but has many other roles.
"We have demonstrated for the first time that we can make uracil, a component of RNA, non-biologically in a laboratory under conditions found in space," said Michel Nuevo, research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "We are showing that these laboratory processes, which simulate occurrences in outer space, can make a fundamental building block used by living organisms on Earth."
Nuevo is the lead author of a research paper titled “Formation of Uracil from the Ultraviolet Photo-Irradiation of Pyrimidine in Pure Water Ices,” Astrobiology vol. 9 no. 7, published Oct. 1, 2009.
NASA Ames scientists have been simulating the environments found in interstellar space and the outer solar system for years. During this time, they have studied a class of carbon-rich compounds, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which have been identified in meteorites, and are the most common carbon-rich compound observed in the universe. PAHs typically are six-carbon ringed structures that resemble fused hexagons, or a piece of chicken wire.
Pyrimidine also is found in meteorites, although scientists still do not know its origin. It may be similar to the carbon-rich PAHs, in that it may be produced in the final outbursts of dying, giant red stars, or formed in dense clouds of interstellar gas and dust.
“Molecules like pyrimidine have nitrogen atoms in their ring structures, which makes them somewhat whimpy. As a less stable molecule, it is more susceptible to destruction by radiation, compared to its counterparts that don’t have nitrogen,” said Scott Sandford, a space science researcher at Ames. “We wanted to test whether pyrimidine can survive in space, and whether it can undergo reactions that turn it into more complicated organic species, such as the nucleobase uracil.”
In theory, the researchers thought that if molecules of pyrimidine could survive long enough to migrate into interstellar dust clouds, they might be able to shield themselves from radiation destruction. Once in the clouds, most molecules freeze onto dust grains (much like moisture in your breath condenses on a cold window during winter).
These clouds are dense enough to screen out much of the surrounding outside radiation of space, thereby providing some protection to the molecules inside the clouds.
Scientists tested their hypotheses in the Ames Astrochemistry Laboratory. During their experiment, they exposed the ice sample containing pyrimidine to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions, including a very high vacuum, extremely low temperatures (approximately - 340 degrees Fahrenheit), and harsh radiation.
They found that when pyrimidine is frozen in water ice, it is much less vulnerable to destruction by radiation. Instead of being destroyed, many of the molecules took on new forms, such as the RNA component uracil, which is found in the genetic make-up of all living organisms on Earth.
“We are trying to address the mechanisms in space that are forming these molecules. Considering what we produced in the laboratory, the chemistry of ice exposed to ultraviolet radiation may be an important linking step between what goes on in space and what fell to Earth early in its development,” said Stefanie Milam, a researcher at NASA Ames and a co-author of the research paper.“Nobody really understands how life got started on Earth. Our experiments demonstrate that once the Earth formed, many of the building blocks of life were likely present from the beginning. Since we are simulating universal astrophysical conditions, the same is likely wherever planets are formed,” explained Sandford.
Additional team members who helped perform the research and co-author the paper are Jason Dworkin and Jamie Elsila, two NASA scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
For more information about the NASA Ames Astrochemistry Laboratory, visit:
The transfer of ownership of the Tranquility node from the European Space Agency, or ESA, to NASA has been rescheduled for 2 p.m. EST, Friday, Nov. 20. NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida will host the commemorative ceremony at NASA's Space Station Processing Facility.
Tranquility is a pressurized module that will provide room for many of the station's life support systems. Attached to the node is a cupola, a unique work station with windows on its six sides and top. The module will be delivered to the station during space shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 mission, targeted for launch Feb. 4, 2010.
Tranquility is the last element of a barter agreement for station hardware. ESA contributed the node in exchange for NASA's delivery of ESA's Columbus laboratory to the station. Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, built the module.
NASA, ESA, Thales and Boeing managers involved in building and processing the node for flight will be available for a question-and-answer session after the ceremony. Journalists planning to attend must arrive at Kennedy's news center by 1 p.m. Participants must be dressed in full-length pants, flat shoes that entirely cover the feet, and shirts with sleeves.
Reporters without permanent Kennedy credentials should submit a request online at:
Tranquility is a pressurized module that will provide room for many of the station's life support systems. Attached to the node is a cupola, a unique work station with windows on its six sides and top. The module will be delivered to the station during space shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 mission, targeted for launch Feb. 4, 2010.
Tranquility is the last element of a barter agreement for station hardware. ESA contributed the node in exchange for NASA's delivery of ESA's Columbus laboratory to the station. Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, built the module.
NASA, ESA, Thales and Boeing managers involved in building and processing the node for flight will be available for a question-and-answer session after the ceremony. Journalists planning to attend must arrive at Kennedy's news center by 1 p.m. Participants must be dressed in full-length pants, flat shoes that entirely cover the feet, and shirts with sleeves.
Reporters without permanent Kennedy credentials should submit a request online at:
International media accreditation for this event is closed. U.S. reporters must apply by 4:30 p.m., Nov. 17. For more information on the space station, visit:
Winter images of NASA's Phoenix Lander showing the lander shrouded in dry-ice frost on Mars have been captured with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.The HiRISE camera team at the University of Arizona, Tucson, captured one image of the Phoenix lander on July 30, 2009, and the other on Aug. 22, 2009. That's when the sun began peeking over the horizon of the northern polar plains during winter, the imaging team said. The first day of spring in the northern hemisphere began Oct. 26.
The images are available at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_014393_2485.
"We decided to try imaging the site despite the low light levels," said HiRISE team member Ingrid Spitale of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
"The power of the HiRISE camera helped us see it even under these poor light conditions," added HiRISE team member Michael Mellon of the University of Colorado in Boulder, who was also on the Phoenix Mars Lander science team.
The HiRISE team targeted their camera at the known location of the lander to get the new images and compared them to a HiRISE image of the frost-free lander taken in June 2008. That enabled them to identify the hardware disguised by frost, despite the fact that their views were hindered by poor lighting and by atmospheric haze, which often obscures the surface at this location and season.
Carbon dioxide frost completely blankets the surface in both images. The amount of carbon dioxide frost builds as late winter transitions to early spring, so the layer of frost is thicker in the Aug. 22 image.
HiRISE scientists noted that brightness doesn't necessarily indicate the amount of frost seen in the images because of the way the images are processed to produce optimal contrast. Even the darker areas in the frost-covered images are still brighter than typical soil that surrounds the lander in frost-free images taken during the lander's prime mission in 2008.
Other factors that affect the relative brightness include the size of the individual grains of carbon dioxide ice, the amount of dust mixed with the ice, the amount of sunlight hitting the surface and different lighting angles and slopes, Spitale and Mellon said.
Studying these changes will help us understand the nature of the seasonal frost and winter weather patterns in this area of Mars.
Scientists predicted that the ice layer would reach maximum thickness in September 2009, but don't have images to confirm that because HiRISE camera operations were suspended when Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter entered an extended safe mode on Aug. 26.
The Phoenix Mars Lander ceased communications last November, after successfully completing its mission and returning unprecedented primary science phase and returning science data to Earth. During the first quarter of 2010, teams at JPL will listen to see if Phoenix is still able to communicate with Earth. Communication is not expected and is considered highly unlikely following the extended period of frost on the lander.
HiRISE is run from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory's HiRISE Operations Center, on the University of Arizona campus. Planetary Sciences Professor Alfred McEwen is HiRISE principal investigator. Planetary Sciences Professor Peter Smith is principal investigator for the Phoenix Mars Lander mission. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, for NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, based in Denver, is the prime contractor and built the spacecraft. Ball Aerospace Technologies Corp., of Boulder, Colo., built the HiRISE camera.
For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .
One of NASA's three X-38 Crew Return Vehicle technology demonstrators that flew at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., a decade ago has found a new home in America's heartland.
In this image from test flights in 1999, the X-38 research vehicle drops away from NASA's B-52 mothership immediately after being released from the B-52's wing pylon. More than 30 years earlier, this same B-52 launched the original lifting-body vehicles flight tested by NASA and the Air Force at what is now called the Dryden Flight Research Center and the Air Force Flight Test Center.
The wingless lifting body craft was transferred this past weekend from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to the Strategic Air and Space Museum, located just off Interstate 80 at Ashland, Neb., about 20 miles southeast of Omaha. The X-38 adds to the museum's growing collection of aerospace vehicles and other historical artifacts.
The move of the second X-38 built to the museum has a fitting connection, as the X-38 vehicles were air-launched from NASA's famous B-52B 008 mothership. The B-52 bomber served as the backbone of the Air Force's Strategic Air Command during the command's history.
Prior to cancellation, the X-38 program was developing the technology for proposed vehicles that could return up to seven International Space Station crewmembers to Earth in case of an emergency. These vehicles would have been carried to the space station in the cargo bay of a space shuttle and attached to station docking ports. If an emergency arose that forced the ISS crew to leave the space station, a Crew Return Vehicle would have undocked and returned them to Earth much like the space shuttle, although the vehicle would have deployed a parafoil for the final descent and landing.
In this image from test flights in 1999, the X-38 research vehicle drops away from NASA's B-52 mothership immediately after being released from the B-52's wing pylon. More than 30 years earlier, this same B-52 launched the original lifting-body vehicles flight tested by NASA and the Air Force at what is now called the Dryden Flight Research Center and the Air Force Flight Test Center.
The wingless lifting body craft was transferred this past weekend from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to the Strategic Air and Space Museum, located just off Interstate 80 at Ashland, Neb., about 20 miles southeast of Omaha. The X-38 adds to the museum's growing collection of aerospace vehicles and other historical artifacts.
The move of the second X-38 built to the museum has a fitting connection, as the X-38 vehicles were air-launched from NASA's famous B-52B 008 mothership. The B-52 bomber served as the backbone of the Air Force's Strategic Air Command during the command's history.
Prior to cancellation, the X-38 program was developing the technology for proposed vehicles that could return up to seven International Space Station crewmembers to Earth in case of an emergency. These vehicles would have been carried to the space station in the cargo bay of a space shuttle and attached to station docking ports. If an emergency arose that forced the ISS crew to leave the space station, a Crew Return Vehicle would have undocked and returned them to Earth much like the space shuttle, although the vehicle would have deployed a parafoil for the final descent and landing.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are hosting Washington area middle and high school students Thursday for a live discussion with astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
Reporters are invited to attend the chat between the space station's Expedition 21 crew and students from the Washington Mathematics Science Technology Public Charter High School and the Parkland Magnet Middle School for Aerospace Technology.
The live call from orbit will take place between 10:10 and 10:30 a.m. EST during an event Nov. 5 scheduled from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the auditorium of the Department of Education, 400 Maryland Ave., SW, Washington. Reporters interested in attending the event should contact Jim Bradshaw at 202-401-2310.
The event is part of the 10th annual celebration of International Education Week, so the students will ask the crew members questions in English, French, German and Russian. The week highlights international education and international exchange. This year's theme is "Creating a Vision for a Better Future."
The international Expedition 21 crew participating in the event consists of NASA astronauts Jeff Williams and Nicole Stott, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, and Russian cosmonauts Roman Romanenko and Maxim Suraev.
Patrick Forrester, Jose Hernandez and Christer Fuglesang, who recently flew on NASA's STS-128 space shuttle mission, and former astronaut Don Thomas, a veteran of four spaceflights, also will participate.
The downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is an integral component of NASA's Teaching From Space office. The office promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of human spaceflight.
NASA Television will air a Video File from the downlink event. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:
For information about NASA's education programs, visit:Reporters are invited to attend the chat between the space station's Expedition 21 crew and students from the Washington Mathematics Science Technology Public Charter High School and the Parkland Magnet Middle School for Aerospace Technology.
The live call from orbit will take place between 10:10 and 10:30 a.m. EST during an event Nov. 5 scheduled from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the auditorium of the Department of Education, 400 Maryland Ave., SW, Washington. Reporters interested in attending the event should contact Jim Bradshaw at 202-401-2310.
The event is part of the 10th annual celebration of International Education Week, so the students will ask the crew members questions in English, French, German and Russian. The week highlights international education and international exchange. This year's theme is "Creating a Vision for a Better Future."
The international Expedition 21 crew participating in the event consists of NASA astronauts Jeff Williams and Nicole Stott, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, and Russian cosmonauts Roman Romanenko and Maxim Suraev.
Patrick Forrester, Jose Hernandez and Christer Fuglesang, who recently flew on NASA's STS-128 space shuttle mission, and former astronaut Don Thomas, a veteran of four spaceflights, also will participate.
The downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is an integral component of NASA's Teaching From Space office. The office promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of human spaceflight.
NASA Television will air a Video File from the downlink event. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:
For information about the International Space Station, visit:
A NASA spacecraft's third and final flyby of the planet Mercury gives scientists, for the first time, an almost complete view of the planet's surface and provides new scientific findings about this relatively unknown planet.
The Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging spacecraft, known as MESSENGER, flew by Mercury on Sept. 29. The probe completed a critical gravity assist to remain on course to enter into orbit around Mercury in 2011. Despite shutting down temporarily because of a power system switchover during a solar eclipse, the spacecraft's cameras and instruments collected high-resolution and color images unveiling another 6 percent of the planet's surface never before seen at close range.
Approximately 98 percent of Mercury's surface now has been imaged by NASA spacecraft. After MESSENGER goes into orbit around Mercury, it will see the polar regions, which are the only unobserved areas of the planet.
"Although the area viewed for the first time by spacecraft was less than 350 miles across at the equator, the new images reminded us that Mercury continues to hold surprises," said Sean Solomon, principal investigator for the mission and director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Many new features were revealed during the third flyby, including a region with a bright area surrounding an irregular depression, suspected to be volcanic in origin. Other images revealed a double-ring impact basin approximately 180 miles across. The basin is similar to a feature scientists call the Raditladi basin, which was viewed during the probe's first flyby of Mercury in January 2008.
"This double-ring basin, seen in detail for the first time, is remarkably well preserved," said Brett Denevi, a member of the probe's imaging team and a postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University in Tempe. "One similarity to Raditladi is its age, which has been estimated to be approximately one billion years old. Such an age is quite young for an impact basin, because most basins are about four times older. The inner floor of this basin is even younger than the basin itself and differs in color from its surroundings. We may have found the youngest volcanic material on Mercury."
One of the spacecraft's instruments conducted its most extensive observations to date of Mercury's exosphere, or thin atmosphere, during this encounter. The flyby allowed for the first detailed scans over Mercury's north and south poles. The probe also has begun to reveal how Mercury's atmosphere varies with its distance from the sun.
"A striking illustration of what we call 'seasonal' effects in Mercury's exosphere is that the neutral sodium tail, so prominent in the first two flybys, is 10 to 20 times less intense in emission and significantly reduced in extent," says participating scientist Ron Vervack, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL, in Laurel, Md. "This difference is related to expected variations in solar radiation pressure as Mercury moves in its orbit and demonstrates why Mercury's exosphere is one of the most dynamic in the solar system."
The observations also show that calcium and magnesium exhibit different seasonal changes than sodium. Studying the seasonal changes in all exospheric constituents during the mission orbital phase will provide key information on the relative importance of the processes that generate, sustain, and modify Mercury's atmosphere.
The third flyby also revealed new information on the abundances of iron and titanium in Mercury's surface materials. Earlier Earth and spacecraft-based observations showed that Mercury's surface has a very low concentration of iron in silicate minerals, a result that led to the view that the planet's crust is generally low in iron.
"Now we know Mercury's surface has an average iron and titanium abundance that is higher than most of us expected, similar to some lunar mare basalts," says David Lawrence, an APL participating mission scientist.
The spacecraft has completed nearly three-quarters of its 4.9-billion-mile journey to enter orbit around Mercury. The full trip will include more than 15 trips around the sun. In addition to flying by Mercury, the spacecraft flew past Earth in August 2005 and Venus in October 2006 and June 2007.
The spacecraft was designed and built by APL. The mission is managed and operated by APL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
The Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging spacecraft, known as MESSENGER, flew by Mercury on Sept. 29. The probe completed a critical gravity assist to remain on course to enter into orbit around Mercury in 2011. Despite shutting down temporarily because of a power system switchover during a solar eclipse, the spacecraft's cameras and instruments collected high-resolution and color images unveiling another 6 percent of the planet's surface never before seen at close range.
Approximately 98 percent of Mercury's surface now has been imaged by NASA spacecraft. After MESSENGER goes into orbit around Mercury, it will see the polar regions, which are the only unobserved areas of the planet.
"Although the area viewed for the first time by spacecraft was less than 350 miles across at the equator, the new images reminded us that Mercury continues to hold surprises," said Sean Solomon, principal investigator for the mission and director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Many new features were revealed during the third flyby, including a region with a bright area surrounding an irregular depression, suspected to be volcanic in origin. Other images revealed a double-ring impact basin approximately 180 miles across. The basin is similar to a feature scientists call the Raditladi basin, which was viewed during the probe's first flyby of Mercury in January 2008.
"This double-ring basin, seen in detail for the first time, is remarkably well preserved," said Brett Denevi, a member of the probe's imaging team and a postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University in Tempe. "One similarity to Raditladi is its age, which has been estimated to be approximately one billion years old. Such an age is quite young for an impact basin, because most basins are about four times older. The inner floor of this basin is even younger than the basin itself and differs in color from its surroundings. We may have found the youngest volcanic material on Mercury."
One of the spacecraft's instruments conducted its most extensive observations to date of Mercury's exosphere, or thin atmosphere, during this encounter. The flyby allowed for the first detailed scans over Mercury's north and south poles. The probe also has begun to reveal how Mercury's atmosphere varies with its distance from the sun.
"A striking illustration of what we call 'seasonal' effects in Mercury's exosphere is that the neutral sodium tail, so prominent in the first two flybys, is 10 to 20 times less intense in emission and significantly reduced in extent," says participating scientist Ron Vervack, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL, in Laurel, Md. "This difference is related to expected variations in solar radiation pressure as Mercury moves in its orbit and demonstrates why Mercury's exosphere is one of the most dynamic in the solar system."
The observations also show that calcium and magnesium exhibit different seasonal changes than sodium. Studying the seasonal changes in all exospheric constituents during the mission orbital phase will provide key information on the relative importance of the processes that generate, sustain, and modify Mercury's atmosphere.
The third flyby also revealed new information on the abundances of iron and titanium in Mercury's surface materials. Earlier Earth and spacecraft-based observations showed that Mercury's surface has a very low concentration of iron in silicate minerals, a result that led to the view that the planet's crust is generally low in iron.
"Now we know Mercury's surface has an average iron and titanium abundance that is higher than most of us expected, similar to some lunar mare basalts," says David Lawrence, an APL participating mission scientist.
The spacecraft has completed nearly three-quarters of its 4.9-billion-mile journey to enter orbit around Mercury. The full trip will include more than 15 trips around the sun. In addition to flying by Mercury, the spacecraft flew past Earth in August 2005 and Venus in October 2006 and June 2007.
The spacecraft was designed and built by APL. The mission is managed and operated by APL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
With seven science flights over Antarctica completed in the first 13 days of Operation Ice Bridge's first southern campaign in NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory, the mission is on track to complete its planned flights by mid-November.The mission has 17 planned flights over different parts of the continent, focusing on the ice sheet, glaciers, and sea ice in West Antarctica. Which flight target is flown on a given day is largely determined by difficult-to-forecast Antarctic weather conditions. Several of the instruments onboard cannot gather data through clouds. Twice so far, however, flights have been scrubbed at the last minute due to snow at the airport in southernmost Chile.
Mission planners use a mix of weather forecasting tools and satellite observations to make their daily decisions about when and where to fly. In addition, updates from meteorologists at the airport provide critical information. "The Antarctic weather is a terrible problem for us," says Ice Bridge project scientist Seelye Martin of the University of Washington, Seattle. "We could not operate without the support we receive from the Chilean meteorologists here."
As of the landing of the Oct. 27 flight, completed targets included: three flights over glaciers, two over sea ice, one over the Getz ice shelf, and one to study the topography of the ice sheet on the mission's closest approach to the South Pole.
The Getz Ice Shelf was the target of the first flight on Oct. 16. Thwaites Glacier was the focus of the flight on Oct. 18, with Pine Island Glacier the target of a high-altitude flight on Oct. 20 and a low-altitude flight on Oct. 27.
"Pine Island Glacier is a major focus for our mission," says Martin. "We have four flights planned for this glacier. One of our hopes with these flights is to understand the detailed topography under the floating ice tongue. That topography controls the rate of melting there."
The mission's first sea ice flight on Oct. 21 over the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas was a "pioneering flight," according to Martin. "We don't know what the thickness of the sea ice is here. These will be the first direct measurements of sea ice in this area. This area is important because it is the only Antarctic sector where the sea ice is actually retreating."
Martin was excited about the prospect that the combined data from two different instruments would give scientists a new way to make more accurate measurements of sea ice thickness. Thickness of sea ice is estimated from measurements of the depth of the snow and ice visible above the sea surface. But scientists have not been able to distinguish accurately how much of this material above the sea is snow and how much is ice. An accurate measurement of the two is needed to improve their calculation of overall ice thickness.
"With this flight we did something that has not been done successfully before," says Martin. "We flew a snow radar from the University of Kansas that is designed to measure the snow depth on sea ice and the laser Airborne Topographic Mapper from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility to measure the sea surface and the height of the combined snow/ice layer above the sea. If everything worked as planned, this will give us the first combined measurement of the 'layer cake' and the snow layer to an accuracy of about 2 inches."
The second sea ice flight on Oct. 24 flew over the Weddell Sea for low-altitude flights some 1500 feet above the sea under sporadically cloudy conditions.
The farthest flight of the mission took place on Oct. 25. The target was a portion of the circle of latitude at 86 degrees south. This area has been intensely mapped by NASA's ICESat satellite because the spacecraft's orbit only goes as far south as this latitude. By remapping the ICESat data points with another laser-based topographic instrument -- the Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor (LVIS) -- scientists hope to improve the accuracy of the ICESat data record and prepare to extend these critical ice surface change observations into the future.
Links:
Operation Ice Bridge
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/ice_bridge/index.html
Ice Bridge Twitter
http://twitter.com/IceBridge
Ice Bridge Blog
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/icebridge/
During its first year of operations, NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope mapped the extreme sky with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity.It captured more than 1,000 discrete sources of gamma rays -- the highest-energy form of light. Capping these achievements was a measurement that provided rare experimental evidence about the very structure of space and time, unified as space-time in Einstein's theories.
"Physicists would like to replace Einstein's vision of gravity -- as expressed in his relativity theories -- with something that handles all fundamental forces," said Peter Michelson, principal investigator of Fermi's Large Area Telescope, or LAT, at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. "There are many ideas, but few ways to test them."
Many approaches to new theories of gravity picture space-time as having a shifting, frothy structure at physical scales trillions of times smaller than an electron. Some models predict that the foamy aspect of space-time will cause higher-energy gamma rays to move slightly more slowly than photons at lower energy.
Such a model would violate Einstein's edict that all electromagnetic radiation -- radio waves, infrared, visible light, X-rays and gamma rays -- travels through a vacuum at the same speed.
On May 10, 2009, Fermi and other satellites detected a so-called short gamma ray burst, designated GRB 090510. Astronomers think this type of explosion happens when neutron stars collide. Ground-based studies show the event took place in a galaxy 7.3 billion light-years away. Of the many gamma ray photons Fermi's LAT detected from the 2.1-second burst, two possessed energies differing by a million times. Yet after traveling some seven billion years, the pair arrived just nine-tenths of a second apart.
"This measurement eliminates any approach to a new theory of gravity that predicts a strong energy dependent change in the speed of light," Michelson said. "To one part in 100 million billion, these two photons traveled at the same speed. Einstein still rules."
Fermi's secondary instrument, the Gamma ray Burst Monitor, has observed low-energy gamma rays from more than 250 bursts. The LAT observed 12 of these bursts at higher energy, revealing three record setting blasts.
GRB 090510 displayed the fastest observed motions, with ejected matter moving at 99.99995 percent of light speed. The highest energy gamma ray yet seen from a burst -- 33.4 billion electron volts or about 13 billion times the energy of visible light -- came from September's GRB 090902B. Last year's GRB 080916C produced the greatest total energy, equivalent to 9,000 typical supernovae.Scanning the entire sky every three hours, the LAT is giving Fermi scientists an increasingly detailed look at the extreme universe. "We've discovered more than a thousand persistent gamma ray sources -- five times the number previously known," said project scientist Julie McEnery at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "And we've associated nearly half of them with objects known at other wavelengths."
Blazars -- distant galaxies whose massive black holes emit fast-moving jets of matter toward us -- are by far the most prevalent source, now numbering more than 500. In our own galaxy, gamma ray sources include 46 pulsars and two binary systems where a neutron star rapidly orbits a hot, young star.
"The Fermi team did a great job commissioning the spacecraft and starting its science observations," said Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "And now Fermi is more than fulfilling its unique scientific promise for making novel, high-impact discoveries about the extreme universe and the fabric of space-time."
NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.
Related Links:
› Multimedia related to the Oct. 28, 2009, NASA briefing on Fermi's findings
› NASA's Fermi Finds Gamma-ray Galaxy Surprises
› NASA's Fermi Mission, Namibia's HESS Telescopes Explore a Blazar
› Active Galaxies Flare and Fade in Fermi Telescope All-Sky Movie
› Continent-sized Radio Telescope Takes Close-ups of Fermi Active Galaxies
› NASA's Fermi Telescope Probes Dozens of Pulsars
NASA's "greenest" building to date -- an environmentally friendly Flight Projects Center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. -- is now open for business, following a ribbon-cutting ceremony today attended by lawmakers and local dignitaries.The building houses missions during their design and development phases. It will enable engineers and scientists from various countries to collaborate more closely during these critical mission phases.
"It seems fitting that the new building, where teams will plan future space missions that use new technologies, also has the latest 'green' technologies to help JPL do its part to improve our environment here on Earth," said JPL Director Charles Elachi, who helped cut the ribbon at today's ceremony.
Also attending today's ceremony were U.S. Rep. David Drier; La Canada-Flintridge Mayor Laura Olhasso; staff representing U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff; and Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau.
The building has received the "LEED Gold Certification" under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, set up by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council. It is the first NASA building to achieve that certification. To qualify, buildings must meet several criteria. For example, they must make efficient use of water, energy and resources, and provide a healthy and comfortable indoor workspace.The many "green" features of the new building include:
- A living roof to keep the building cool in summer months and warm in the winter. Desert plants on the roof and other landscaping require 72 percent less water than a typical Southern California landscape design.
- Outdoor lighting is used for safety purposes only and is directed toward the ground, reducing the amount of light pollution that escapes to the night sky.
- Low-flow faucets and toilets reduce water use by 40 percent compared with typical fixtures.
- Improved wall insulation, efficient chillers and boilers and window shading devices.
- The paints and other surface materials have low levels of toxic fumes.
- The heating and cooling system is "smart" -- it knows whether people are in a room and adjusts the temperature and ventilation accordingly.
- The janitorial staff uses green cleaning products and practices.
More than 75 percent of the waste generated during construction of the new building was diverted from a landfill to a local recycling facility. Wood was acquired from Forest Stewardship Council-certified suppliers, ensuring sustainable harvesting of trees.
More information about the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system and the U.S. Green Building Council is online at http://www.usgbc.org .
More information about JPL is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov . The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
More information about the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system and the U.S. Green Building Council is online at http://www.usgbc.org .
More information about JPL is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov . The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
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