Giant planet GJ 436b in the constellation Leo is missing something--and that something is swamp gas.

To the surprise of astronomers who have been studying the Neptune-sized planet using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, GJ 436b has very little methane--an ingredient common to many planets in our own solar system. This artist's concept shows the unusual, methane-free world partially eclipsed by its star.

Models of planetary atmospheres indicate that any world with the common mix of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, and a temperature up to 1,000 Kelvin (1,340 degrees Fahrenheit) should have a large amount of methane and a small amount of carbon monoxide. But at about 800 Kelvin (or 980 degrees Fahrenheit), GJ 436b it does not. The finding demonstrates the diversity of exoplanets and the need for further study.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1759.html

The rover Curiosity, which NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will place on Mars in August 2012, has been rolling over ramps in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to test its mobility system.

Curiosity uses the same type of six-wheel, rocker-bogie suspension system as previous Mars rovers, for handling uneven terrain during drives. Its wheels are half a meter (20 inches) in diameter, twice the height of the wheels on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers currently on Mars.

Launch of the Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled for 2011 during the period from Nov. 25 to Dec. 18. The mission is designed to operate Curiosity on Mars for a full Martian year, which equals about two Earth years.
A public lecture by Mars Science Laboratory Chief Scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, will take place at JPL on Thursday, Sept. 16, beginning at 7 p.m. PDT Time (10 p.m. EDT).

JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

For more information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-297

As NASA studies possibilities for the next launcher to the stars, a team of engineers from Kennedy Space Center and several other field centers are looking for a system that turns a host of existing cutting-edge technologies into the next giant leap spaceward.

An early proposal has emerged that calls for a wedge-shaped aircraft with scramjets to be launched horizontally on an electrified track or gas-powered sled. The aircraft would fly up to Mach 10, using the scramjets and wings to lift it to the upper reaches of the atmosphere where a small payload canister or capsule similar to a rocket's second stage would fire off the back of the aircraft and into orbit. The aircraft would come back and land on a runway by the launch site.

Engineers also contend the system, with its advanced technologies, will benefit the nation's high-tech industry by perfecting technologies that would make more efficient commuter rail systems, better batteries for cars and trucks, and numerous other spinoffs.

It might read as the latest in a series of science fiction articles, but NASA's Stan Starr, branch chief of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Kennedy, points out that nothing in the design calls for brand-new technology to be developed. However, the system counts on a number of existing technologies to be pushed forward.

"All of these are technology components that have already been developed or studied," Starr said. "We're just proposing to mature these technologies to a useful level, well past the level they've already been taken."

For example, electric tracks catapult rollercoaster riders daily at theme parks. But those tracks call for speeds of a relatively modest 60 mph -- enough to thrill riders, but not nearly fast enough to launch something into space. The launcher would need to reach at least 10 times that speed over the course of two miles in Starr's proposal.

The good news is that NASA and universities already have done significant research in the field, including small-scale tracks at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and at Kennedy. The Navy also has designed a similar catapult system for its aircraft carriers.

As far as the aircraft that would launch on the rail, there already are real-world tests for designers to draw on. The X-43A, or Hyper-X program, and X-51 have shown that scramjets will work and can achieve remarkable speeds.

The group sees NASA's field centers taking on their traditional roles to develop the Advanced Space Launch System. For instance, Langley Research Center in Virginia, Glenn Research Center in Ohio and Ames Research Center in California would work on different elements of the hypersonic aircraft. Dryden Research Center in California, Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Marshall would join Kennedy in developing the launch rail network. Kennedy also would build a launch test bed, potentially in a two-mile long area parallel to the crawlerway leading to Launch Pad 39A.

Because the system calls for a large role in aeronautic advancement along with rocketry, Starr said, "essentially you bring together parts of NASA that aren't usually brought together. I still see Kennedy's core role as a launch and landing facility."

The Advanced Space Launch System is not meant to replace the space shuttle or other program in the near future, but could be adapted to carry astronauts after unmanned missions rack up successes, Starr said.

The studies and development program could also be used as a basis for a commercial launch program if a company decides to take advantage of the basic research NASA performs along the way. Starr said NASA's fundamental research has long spurred aerospace industry advancement, a trend that the advanced space launch system could continue.

For now, the team proposed a 10-year plan that would start with launching a drone like those the Air Force uses. More advanced models would follow until they are ready to build one that can launch a small satellite into orbit.

A rail launcher study using gas propulsion already is under way, but the team is applying for funding under several areas, including NASA's push for technology innovation, but the engineers know it may not come to pass. The effort is worth it, however, since there is a chance at revolutionizing launches.

"It's not very often you get to work on a major technology revolution," Starr said.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/horizontallaunch.html

From farmers to government officials in charge of efficiently managing Earth's precious water and energy resources, people all over the world rely on accurate short-term climate forecasts on timescales ranging from a few weeks to a few years to make more informed decisions. But today's climate forecast systems have limited ability to operate on such timescales. That's because it's difficult to realistically represent the complex interactions between Earth's ocean, atmosphere and land surface in the climate models from which forecasts are developed.

A new report by the National Academy of Sciences looks at the current state of these climate predictions and recommends strategies and best practices for improving them. Duane Waliser, chief Earth scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., was on the 12-member panel that conducted the NOAA-requested study.

Among the report's key recommendations:

• Continue research to better understand and use information from key sources of climate predictability, and interactions between the ocean and atmosphere, atmosphere and land, as well as volcanic eruptions, greenhouse gases and land use changes.

• Improve the basic building blocks of climate forecasts through better physical climate models, making more sustained physical observations, better incorporating observations into forecast systems, and increasing collaboration between forecast agencies and stakeholders in developing and implementing forecast strategies.

• Adopt best practices such as working more closely with research communities, particularly universities; making data that feed into and come out of forecasts publicly available; minimizing subjective forecast components; and using forecast metrics that better convey to the public the probability aspects of forecasts.

Waliser contributed his expertise in a phenomenon called the Madden-Julian Oscillation that exerts a powerful influence on short-term climate predictions. During this type of climate pattern, unusual variations of clouds, rainfall and large-scale atmospheric circulation move slowly eastward from the tropical Indian Ocean into the Pacific Ocean over the course of weeks, ebbing and flowing like waves in cycles lasting about 40 to 50 days. This climate pattern typically spans more than half the distance around Earth's equator. In the disturbed portion of the "wave," air rises, triggering showers and thunderstorms; in the sinking portion, air subsides, inhibiting clouds and rainfall.

Madden-Julian Oscillation events can strongly influence long-term weather patterns and have widespread impacts around the globe. They can help trigger the beginning and end of the Asian and Indian monsoons and influence the development and evolution of El Niño, hurricanes and weather in Earth's mid-latitudes. Scientists want to incorporate information about the oscillation more accurately into the climate models that agencies around the world use to predict weather and climate.

"Ten years ago, our ability to forecast Madden-Julian Oscillation events was very limited," said Waliser. "Today, numerous operational forecast centers around the world are recognizing the importance of forecasting the MJO and are beginning to provide useful forecast information about it. This information, in turn, can be used to make better forecasts of other weather and climate phenomena.

"This new report highlights the key shortcomings and strategies needed to make more accurate climate forecasts-- not just of the Madden-Julian Oscillation, but of intraseasonal to interannual climate forecasts in general," he added. The full report, called "Assessment of Intraseasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction and Predictability," can be read and downloaded at: http://nationalacademies.org/morenews/20100908.html .

For more information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-295

When NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity left Victoria Crater two years ago this month, the rover science team chose Endeavour Crater as the rover's next long-term destination. With a drive of 111 meters (364 feet) on Monday, Sept. 8, Opportunity reached the estimated halfway point of the approximately 19-kilometer (11.8-mile) journey from Victoria to the western rim of Endeavour.

Opportunity completed its three-month prime mission on Mars in April 2004. During its bonus extended operations since then, it spent two years exploring in and around Victoria Crater. Victoria is about 800 meters (half a mile) in diameter. At about 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter, Endeavour is about 28 times wider. After the rover science team selected Endeavour as a long-term destination, observations of Endeavour's rim by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed the presence of clay minerals. This finding makes the site an even more compelling science destination. Clay minerals, which form exclusively under wet conditions, have been found extensively on Mars from orbit, but have not been examined on the surface.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

For more information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-292

We've all heard this announcement on an airplane before: "Uh, folks, we've got some weather around the airport right now. So I expect we'll be circling probably for the next half hour or so." Heather Arneson, a NASA Aeronautics Scholarship recipient and doctoral student at the University of Illinois, spent her summer at NASA working on ways to better control flows of aircraft into airspace impacted by weather.

"Weather conditions in recent years have caused approximately 65 percent of delays," says Arneson. "When weather is present near in an airspace, the number of flight allowed to occupy that airspace becomes lower than normal. Current methods of scheduling and routing flights that might fly through airspace predicted to experience bad weather can excessively delay flights. I'm seeing how mathematical optimization and modeling techniques can help us use that space more efficiently and reduce delays caused by weather."

Heather's solution can react in real-time as the weather and capacity situation changes. At NASA's Ames Research Center in California this summer, she simulated her new traffic strategy to see how well it worked.

Join Heather on Thursday, September 9, at 3:00 p.m. EDT to chat about her experiences at NASA, about applying for the aeronautics scholarship, or even just about being an engineering student in today's competitive environment. To join the chat, simply visit this page on September 9. The chat window will open at the bottom of this page starting at 2:30 p.m. EDT. You can log in and be ready to ask questions at 3:00 p.m.

See you in chat!

More About Heather Arneson

Heather is working on her doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has a masters in that field already and a bachelors degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Cornell University. Originally from Rhode Island, Heather also worked for several years as a member of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Panoramic Camera Team, using her engineering skills to help the team acquire images of the Martian landscape.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/air_traffic_chat.html

Kennedy Space Center's Launch Equipment Test Facility, or LETF, is an engineer's paradise. Take huge fixtures capable of simulating launch conditions and a complex data system then add a machine shop and a welding facility, and you get a testbed up to the task of proving launch support equipment will work right every time.

A four-year comprehensive upgrade recently was completed to make sure the testing ground remains at the top of the support system testing pyramid.

Since 1977, the facility has supported NASA's Launch Services, shuttle, International Space Station, and Constellation programs, as well as commercial providers.

"We were continuing to satisfy customer requirements at the same time that we were doing the upgrades," said Pat Simpkins, the director of Kennedy's Engineering Directorate. "That's what is really fascinating about this facility."

On Aug. 27, a team from NASA, ASRC Aerospace and MTS Engineering Consulting Services celebrated the $35 million worth of upgrades.

"It plays a vital role in proof-of-concept testing, prototype testing and operations support," said Eric Ernst, LETF's upgrade project manager.

Pepper Phillips, director of Kennedy's Constellation Project Office, said the upgrade project is proof that "people can count on the Kennedy Space Center for executing what they promised."

Stepping outside the 40-foot-tall high bay doors is a steel playground, equipped with a 600-ton test fixture used for tension and compression testing, a water flow test loop that tests valves, pumps and flow meters, two launch simulation towers and two 15,000-gallon cryogenic towers.

"People who are experts in different areas of science come here, plan their tests months in advance, and I get to learn from them," said Geoffrey Rowe, an engineer with ASRC Aerospace. "It's much better than doing the same thing day-in-and-day-out."

Perhaps most impressive is the new vehicle motion simulator, or VMS, which simulates all of the movements a vehicle could experience from rollout to launch.

"It's like the Tower of Terror!" said Craig Technologies' Sandi Slaughter as she watched the simulator move up and down, right to left, and then around and around, similar to the amusement park ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

According to the engineers who work in the LETF, the possibilities for testing launch equipment are endless.

"We're looking forward to supporting multiple customers for NASA in the future," Ernst said. "Whether it's heavy-lift, horizontal launch systems or commercial providers . . . we really are a multifaceted facility that can support a broad spectrum of customers."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/news/letf.html

Experiments prompted by a 2008 surprise from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest that soil examined by NASA's Viking Mars landers in 1976 may have contained carbon-based chemical building blocks of life.

"This doesn't say anything about the question of whether or not life has existed on Mars, but it could make a big difference in how we look for evidence to answer that question," said Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. McKay coauthored a study published online by the Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets, reanalyzing results of Viking's tests for organic chemicals in Martian soil.

The only organic chemicals identified when the Viking landers heated samples of Martian soil were chloromethane and dichloromethane -- chlorine compounds interpreted at the time as likely contaminants from cleaning fluids. But those chemicals are exactly what the new study found when a little perchlorate -- the surprise finding from Phoenix -- was added to desert soil from Chile containing organics and analyzed in the manner of the Viking tests.

"Our results suggest that not only organics, but also perchlorate, may have been present in the soil at both Viking landing sites," said the study's lead author, Rafael Navarro-González of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City.

Organics can come from non-biological or biological sources. Many meteorites raining onto Mars and Earth for the past 5 billion years contain organics. Even if Mars has never had life, scientists before Viking anticipated that Martian soil would contain organics from meteorites.

"The lack of organics was a big surprise from the Vikings," McKay said. "But for 30 years we were looking at a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing. Phoenix has provided the missing piece: perchlorate. The perchlorate discovery by Phoenix was one of the most important results from Mars since Viking." Perchlorate, an ion of chlorine and oxygen, becomes a strong oxidant when heated. "It could sit there in the Martian soil with organics around it for billions of years and not break them down, but when you heat the soil to check for organics, the perchlorate destroys them rapidly," McKay said.

This interpretation proposed by Navarro-González and his four co-authors challenges the interpretation by Viking scientists that Martian organic compounds were not present in their samples at the detection limit of the Viking experiment. Instead, the Viking scientists interpreted the chlorine compounds as contaminants. Upcoming missions to Mars and further work on meteorites from Mars are expected to help resolve this question.

The Curiosity rover that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will deliver to Mars in 2012 will carry the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument provided by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. In contrast to Viking and Phoenix, Curiosity can rove and thus analyze a wider variety of rocks and samples. SAM can check for organics in Martian soil and powdered rocks by baking samples to even higher temperatures than Viking did, and also by using an alternative liquid-extraction method at much lower heat. Combining these methods on a range of samples may enable further testing of the new report's hypothesis that oxidation by heated perchlorates that might have been present in the Viking samples was destroying organics.

One reason the chlorinated organics found by Viking were interpreted as contaminants from Earth was that the ratio of two isotopes of chlorine in them matched the three-to-one ratio for those isotopes on Earth. The ratio for them on Mars has not been clearly determined yet. If it is found to be much different than Earth's, that would support the 1970s interpretation.

If organic compounds can indeed persist in the surface soil of Mars, contrary to the predominant thinking for three decades, one way to search for evidence of life on Mars could be to check for types of large, complex organic molecules, such as DNA, that are indicators of biological activity. "If organics cannot persist at the surface, that approach would not be wise, but if they can, it's a different story," McKay said.

The Phoenix mission was led by Principal Investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The Phoenix finding of perchlorate was reported by JPL's Michael Hecht and co-authors. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, also manages Mars Science Laboratory for the NASA Exploration Missions Directorate, Washington.

For more information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-286

NASA has begun development of a mission to visit and study the sun closer than ever before. The unprecedented project, named Solar Probe Plus, is slated to launch no later than 2018.

The small car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the sun's atmosphere approximately 6.4 million kilometers (four million miles) from our star's surface. It will explore a region no other spacecraft ever has encountered. NASA has selected five science investigations that will unlock the sun's biggest mysteries, including one led by a scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"The experiments selected for Solar Probe Plus are specifically designed to solve two key questions of solar physics -- why is the sun's outer atmosphere so much hotter than the sun's visible surface and what propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar
system? " said Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington. "We've been struggling with these questions for decades and this mission should finally provide those answers."

As the spacecraft approaches the sun, its revolutionary carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures exceeding about 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,550 degrees Fahrenheit) and blasts of intense radiation. The spacecraft will have an up-close and personal view of the sun, enabling scientists to better understand, characterize and forecast the radiation environment for future space explorers.

NASA invited researchers in 2009 to submit science proposals. Thirteen were reviewed by a panel of NASA and outside scientists. The total dollar amount for the five selected investigations is approximately $180 million for preliminary analysis, design, development and tests.

The selected proposals are:

-- Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation: principal investigator, Justin C. Kasper, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.

This investigation will specifically count the most abundant particles in the solar wind -- electrons, protons and helium ions -- and measure their properties. The investigation also is designed to catch some of the particles in a special cup for direct analysis.

-- Wide-field Imager: principal investigator, Russell Howard, Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. This telescope will make 3-D images of the sun's corona, or atmosphere. The experiment actually will see the solar wind and provide 3-D images of clouds and shocks as they approach and pass the spacecraft. This investigation complements instruments on the spacecraft, providing direct measurements by imaging the plasma the other instruments sample.

-- Fields Experiment: principal investigator, Stuart Bale, University of California Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. This investigation will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, radio emissions, and shock waves that course through the
sun's atmospheric plasma. The experiment also serves as a giant dust detector, registering voltage signatures when specks of space dust hit the spacecraft's antenna.

-- Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun: principal investigator, David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. This investigation consists of two instruments that will take an inventory of elements in the sun's atmosphere using a mass
spectrometer to weigh and sort ions in the vicinity of the spacecraft.

-- Heliospheric Origins with Solar Probe Plus: principal investigator, Marco Velli of JPL. Velli is the mission's observatory scientist, responsible for serving as a senior scientist on the science working group. He will provide an independent assessment of scientific performance and act as a community advocate for the mission.

"This project allows humanity's ingenuity to go where no spacecraft has ever gone before," said Lika Guhathakurta, Solar Probe Plus program scientist at NASA Headquarters, in Washington. "For the very first time, we'll be able to touch, taste and smell our sun."

The Solar Probe Plus mission is part of NASA's Living with a Star Program. The program is designed to understand aspects of the sun and Earth's space environment that affect life and society. The program is managed by NASA'S Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., with oversight from NASA's Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Division. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in
Laurel, Md., is the prime contractor for the spacecraft.

For more information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-284

With the peak of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season still 10 days away, the relative calm of the first half of the season has quickly evaporated. As of Sept. 1, there were three named tropical cyclones in the Atlantic-Hurricane Earl and Tropical Storms Fiona and Gaston.

NASA satellites, instruments and researchers are hard at work, providing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies with many kinds of data used to help forecast and track these monster storms.

The NASA imagery presented here depicts Hurricane Earl, currently a Category Four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale with maximum sustained winds of 115 knots (near 135 miles per hour), with higher gusts. As of 5 p.m. EDT on Sept. 1, Earl was located about 1,010 kilometers (630 miles) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., moving to the northwest at 28 kilometers per hour (17 mph). Hurricane and tropical storm warnings and watches currently extend up the U.S. East Coast from North Carolina to Massachusetts. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Earl's center, with tropical storm-force winds extending outward up to 325 kilometers (200 miles).

Earl is expected to continue to move northwest, and then make a gradual turn to the north on Thursday, Sept. 2. The core of Earl is expected to approach the North Carolina coast by late Thursday with hurricane-force winds. Tropical-storm-force winds are likely to reach the East Coast from Virginia northward to New Jersey by early Friday, Sept. 3. Earl is expected to fluctuate in intensity through Thursday, then gradually weaken.

Earl's storm surge will raise water levels by 1 to 1.5 meters (3 to 5 feet) above ground level within the hurricane watch level. Elsewhere, the storm surge will raise water levels by as much as 0.3 to 1 meter (1 to 3 feet) above ground level within the tropical storm warning area. The storm surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves.

Rainfall accumulations of 5 to 10 centimeters (2 to 4 inches), with isolated amounts up to 15 centimeters (6 inches) are expected over parts of eastern North Carolina. Large surf swells will continue to affect the Bahamas and U.S. East Coast through Friday, bringing dangerous surf conditions and rip currents.

NASA imagery of Earl from various satellites and aircraft reveal many kinds of information about this impressive storm. Click here to view all related multimedia.

In Figure 1, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite, built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., captured this infrared image of Earl on Sept. 1 at 1:53 p.m. EDT. The AIRS data create an accurate 3-D map of atmospheric temperature, water vapor and clouds, data that are useful to hurricane forecasters. The image shows the temperature of Earl's cloud tops or the surface of Earth in cloud-free regions. The coldest cloud-top temperatures appear in purple, indicating towering cold clouds and heavy precipitation. The infrared signal of AIRS does not penetrate through clouds. Where there are no clouds, AIRS reads the infrared signal from the surface of the ocean waters, revealing warmer temperatures in orange and red.

The view of the storm for AIRS' visible-light camera is seen in Figure 2.

Figure 3 is an animation created from data from NASA's CloudSat spacecraft, which flew over Hurricane Earl on Aug. 31, 2010, at 2:20 a.m. EDT, when the storm had maximum wind speeds of 115 kilometers (approximately 135 mph). At that time, there were three named storms in the Atlantic: Danielle, Earl and Fiona.

The animation begins by depicting global cloud motion for the 72 hours prior to CloudSat's observation of Earl, from NOAA's GOES satellites. It then zooms in to reveal the vertical cross-section of Earl from CloudSat. CloudSat intersected Earl's eastern edge as the hurricane was just beginning an eyewall replacement cycle, during which the outer eyewall band strengthened, while the inner eyewall began to shrink. CloudSat captured Earl's intense cumulonimbus clouds and eye, along with cloud-free regions known as "moats" that contain a thick cirrus cloud canopy between the storm's spiral rain bands. The storm's most intense convection and precipitation are depicted in shades of oranges and reds.

Figure 4 is from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft, captured at 11 a.m. EDT on Aug. 30, 2010, when Earl was a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The image (left panel) extends approximately 1,110 kilometers (690 miles) in the north-south direction and 380 kilometers (236 miles) in the east-west direction. The hurricane's eye is just visible on the right edge of the MISR image swath.

Winds at various altitudes were obtained by processing the data from five of MISR's nine cameras to produce the display shown on the right. The lengths of the arrows indicate the wind speeds, and their orientation shows wind direction. The altitude of a given wind vector is shown in color. Low clouds, less than 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) in altitude (shown in purple), follow the cyclonic (counter-clockwise) flow of air into the hurricane. This warm, moist air is the power source for the hurricane. Mid- and high-level clouds (green and yellow-orange, respectively) move in an anti-cyclonic (clockwise) direction as they flow out from the top of the storm. The very highest clouds, with altitudes around 17 kilometers (10.6 miles), are flowing directly away from the eye of the hurricane.

Figure 5 and Figure 6 were generated with data from NASA's Jason-1 and Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 satellites. They depict Earl's wind speeds (top) and wave heights (bottom), respectively. The images were created by compositing three days of data from the two satellites' radar altimeters from Aug. 29 to Sept. 1.

NASA and JPL scientists are currently engaged in the agency's first major U.S.-based hurricane field campaign in nearly a decade. The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes mission, or GRIP, is studying hurricanes in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Three NASA aircraft carrying 15 instruments are being used, including the JPL-developed High-Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), which is flying aboard NASA's Global Hawk uninhabited aerial vehicle. The instrument infers the 3-D distribution of temperature, water vapor and cloud liquid water in the atmosphere. A second JPL instrument, the Airborne Precipitation Radar (APR-2), is a dual-frequency weather radar that is taking 3-D images of precipitation aboard NASA's DC-8 aircraft. Three NASA satellites are also playing a key role in supplying data about tropical cyclones during the mission, including the JPL- developed and managed CloudSat spacecraft and the Aqua spacecraft, which includes JPL's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder.

The DC-8, with JPL's APR-2 instrument, has already flown over Earl twice, with additional sorties planned for Sept. 1 and 2. NASA's Global Hawk is currently en route to Earl and is expected to fly over Earl for 10 to 12 hours on Sept. 2. The progress of NASA's GRIP aircraft can be followed in near-real-time when they are flying by visiting: http://grip.nsstc.nasa.gov/current_weather.html. "Click to start RTMM Classic" will download a KML file that displays in Google Earth.

Near-real-time images from HAMSR and APR-2 will be displayed on NASA's TC-IDEAS website, available at http://grip.jpl.nasa.gov. The website is a near-real-time tropical cyclone data resource developed by JPL to support the GRIP campaign. In collaboration with other institutions, it integrates data from satellites, models and direct measurements, from many sources, to help researchers quickly locate information about current and recent oceanic and atmospheric conditions. The composite images and data are updated every hour and are displayed using a Google Earth plug-in.

With a few mouse clicks, users can manipulate data and overlay multiple data sets to provide insights on storms that aren't possible by looking at single data sets alone. The data can be animated and downloaded on demand. TC-IDEAS is a component of JPL's Tropical Cyclone Information System (TCIS) website, located at: http://tropicalcyclone.jpl.nasa.gov/hurricane/. Researchers can use the TCIS to better understand hurricane processes, improve hurricane models and plan future satellite missions.

For more information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-282

The current Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite GOES-13 captured this image of Hurricane Danielle heading for the north Atlantic (top center), Hurricane Earl with a visible eye hitting the Leeward Islands (left bottom) and a developing tropical depression 8 (lower right) at 1:45 p.m. EDT on Aug. 30.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1749.html

One of NASA's orbiting sentinels is expected to return to Earth in a few days. The agency's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation (ICESat) satellite completed a very productive scientific mission earlier this year. NASA lowered the satellite's orbit last month and then decommissioned the spacecraft in preparation for re-entry. It is estimated that the satellite will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and largely burn up on or about August 29.

ICESat was launched in January 2003, as a three-year mission with a goal of returning science data for five years. It was the first mission of its kind –specifically designed to study Earth's polar regions with a space-based laser altimeter called the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System, or GLAS.

ICESat's lasting legacy will be its impact on the understanding of ice sheet and sea ice dynamics. The mission has led to scientific advances in measuring changes in the mass of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, polar sea ice thickness, vegetation-canopy heights, and the heights of clouds and aerosols. Using ICESat data, scientists identified a network of lakes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. ICESat introduced new capabilities, technology and methods such as the measurement of sea ice freeboard – or the amount of ice and snow that protrudes above the ocean surface - for estimating sea ice thickness.

"ICESat has been a tremendous scientific success," said Jay Zwally, ICESat's project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It has provided detailed information on how the Earth's polar ice masses are changing with climate warming, as needed for government policy decisions. In particular, ICESat data showed that the Arctic sea ice has been rapidly thinning, which is critical information for revising predictions of how soon the Arctic Ocean might be mostly ice free in summer. It has also shown how much ice is being lost from Greenland and contributing to sea level rise. Thanks to ICESat we now also know that the Antarctic ice sheet is not losing as much ice as some other studies have shown."

The End of an Era

After seven years in orbit and 15 laser-operations campaigns, ICESat's science mission ended in February 2010 with the failure of its primary instrument. Because the spacecraft remained in operating condition, NASA's Science Mission Directorate accepted proposals for engineering tests to be performed using ICESat. These tests were completed on June 20. NASA's Earth Science Division then authorized the decommissioning of ICESat. After completing a review of decommissioning activities, the agency directed that ICESat be decommissioned by this August.

Mission flight controllers began firing ICESat's propulsion system thrusters on June 23 to lower its orbit. Thruster firings ended on July 14, safely reducing the lowest point of the spacecraft's orbit to 125 miles (200 km) above Earth's surface. The orbit has since naturally decayed. ICESat was successfully decommissioned from operations on Aug. 14. All remaining fuel on the spacecraft is now depleted, and atmospheric drag is slowly lowering ICESat's orbit until the spacecraft re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.

A statement from the Earth Science Mission Operations office summarized the achievement:


"The ICESat mission operations team is commended for its exceptional performance, working tirelessly for the past eleven years (four years of preparation and seven years of operations), overcoming several obstacles in the early years of the mission, and closing out the mission with a flawless series of orbital maneuvers before final decommissioning. The positive control maintained over the mission right to the end shows the quality and effort that went into designing, building, qualifying, launching, and operating a tremendously successful mission such as ICESat."


The Return to Planet Earth

The vast majority of ICESat will burn up in the atmosphere during re-entry. Of the spacecraft's total mass (about 2000 lbs.), only a small percent will reach the surface of Earth. Some pieces of the spacecraft, weighing collectively about 200 pounds, are expected to survive re-entry. The risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth from this debris is estimated to be very low.

ICESat was not designed to perform a controlled re-entry and is unable to provide targeting to a particular location on Earth. ICESat circles the Earth from pole to pole, so surviving debris could land almost anywhere on the planet. Due to natural variability in the near-Earth environment, a precise location of where spacecraft debris will re-enter cannot be forecast. The U.S. Space Surveillance Network is closely monitoring the orbit of ICESat during its final days and will continue to issue periodic predictions of re-entry time and location. The NASA Orbital Debris Program Office will issue re-entry information based on these predictions.

NASA and international standards for space objects re-entering Earth's atmosphere do not require controlled re-entry but do have requirements and guidelines for the maximum risk posed by debris surviving re-entry.

"The ICESat team has done a marvelous job to ensure that the spacecraft is removed as a hazard to other spacecraft and as a potential source of future orbital debris," said Nicholas L. Johnson, NASA Chief Scientist for Orbital Debris at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The Future Looks Bright

Despite the end of ICESat's mission, NASA's observations of Earth's polar regions continue. In anticipation of the ICESat mission coming to an end, and in accordance with the National Research Council's Decadal Survey of future NASA Earth science missions, NASA has begun development of ICESat-2, planned for launch in 2015. ICESat-2 will continue the science legacy of its predecessor, and improve our understanding of Earth's dynamic polar regions with new and advanced technology.

The Operation Ice Bridge airborne mission, started in 2009, is the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown. The mission is designed to partially fill the data gap between the ICESat and ICESat-2 satellite missions. For the next five years, instruments on NASA aircraft will target areas of rapid change to yield an unprecedented 3-D view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves, and sea ice. Targeted information from aircraft combined with the broad and consistent coverage from satellites contribute to a more complete understanding of Earth's response to climate change, helping scientists make better predictions of what the future might hold.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icesat/icesat-end.html

Unicorns and roses are usually the stuff of fairy tales, but a new cosmic image taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE) shows the Rosette nebula located within the constellation Monoceros, or the Unicorn.

This flower-shaped nebula, also known by the less romantic name NGC 2237, is a huge star-forming cloud of dust and gas in our Milky Way galaxy. Estimates of the nebula's distance vary from 4,500 to 5,000 light-years away.

At the center of the flower is a cluster of young stars called NGC 2244. The most massive stars produce huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation, and blow strong winds that erode away the nearby gas and dust, creating a large, central hole. The radiation also strips electrons from the surrounding hydrogen gas, ionizing it and creating what astronomers call an HII region.

Although the Rosette nebula is too faint to see with the naked eye, NGC 2244 is beloved by amateur astronomers because it is visible through a small telescope or good pair of binoculars. The English astronomer John Flamsteed discovered the star cluster NGC 2244 with a telescope around 1690, but the nebula itself was not identified until John Herschel (son of William Herschel, discoverer of infrared light) observed it almost 150 years later.

The streak seen at lower left is the trail of a satellite, captured as WISE snapped the multiple frames that make up this view.

This image is a four-color composite created by all four of WISE's infrared detectors. Color is representational: blue and cyan represent infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is dominated by light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is mostly light from warm dust.

JPL manages the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., 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.

For more information http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-278

In early August 2005, Katrina was just a name. By September, it had become synonymous with the costliest and one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in U.S. history.

Five years later, NASA is revisiting Hurricane Katrina with a short video that shows the storm as captured by NASA satellites. NASA provides space-based satellite observations, field research missions, and computer climate modeling to further scientists' understanding of these storms. NASA also provides measurements and modeling of global sea surface temperatures, precipitation, winds and ocean heat content -- all ingredients that contribute to the formation of tropical cyclones (the general name for typhoons, tropical storms and hurricanes).

On Aug. 29, 2005, after passing over the Caribbean and Florida, Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast as a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. As hurricanes go, Katrina was actually only moderate in size when it reached the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts, having weakened from a category 5 the day before. However, Katrina had a very wide footprint, which caused a broad area of large ocean swells to develop within the Gulf of Mexico. As the hurricane made its final landfall, the resulting storm surge was massive and unrelenting. Ultimately, this storm surge was responsible for much of the damage as it flooded coastal communities, overwhelmed levees, and left at least 80 percent of New Orleans underwater.

By the time the hurricane subsided, Katrina had claimed more than 1,800 human lives and caused roughly $125 billion in damages.

As scientists and rescue organizations worked on the ground to prepare for the hurricane and assist in its wake, NASA provided data gathered from a series of Earth-observing satellites to help predict the hurricane's path and intensity. In the aftermath, NASA satellites also helped identify areas hardest hit.

In this 3 1/2-minute video created by NASA-TV producer Jennifer Shoemaker at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., viewers will see many different kinds of data NASA satellites gathered about the storm. The video contains a sampling of the kinds of things NASA studies about hurricanes. Various additional data products are created in hurricane and post-hurricane research that are not depicted in the video.

The video opens with Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures data from an instrument called AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System) that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. Warm ocean waters (of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer) provided energy to fuel the growing storm. Next, the MISR (Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured the growth of cloud tops in the gathering storm.

Just before landfall, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite data revealed "hot towers" hidden within the hurricane -- powerful thunderstorms that helped intensify Katrina. TRMM also captured data on rainfall amounts throughout the hurricane's lifecycle.

Finally, the video shows Landsat satellite imagery of New Orleans before and during the flooding, as well as a more recent view of a city still rebuilding from the hurricane some five years later.

Katrina was just one of 28 named tropical cyclones during the 2005 hurricane season, but due to the tragedy it caused, it remains the one most remembered. The World Meteorological Organization has since retired the name "Katrina" from its list of hurricane names. As such, there will never be another Hurricane Katrina.

Meanwhile, NASA satellites continue to provide satellite data to study tropical cyclones around the world and to help forecasters make better predictions about storm's behavior and hurricane response organizations to better prepare for those yet to come. NASA also studies the effects of hurricanes long after the storm has passed, in order to better understand effects of large storms, which will ultimately help in restoration and preparation efforts in the future.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/features/katrina-retrospective.html

Two extremely bright stars illuminate a greenish mist in this image from the Spitzer Space Telescope's "GLIMPSE360" survey. This mist is comprised of hydrogen and carbon compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which also are found here on Earth in sooty vehicle exhaust and on charred grills. In space, PAHs form in the dark clouds that give rise to stars. These molecules provide astronomers a way to visualize the peripheries of gas clouds and study their structures in great detail. They are not actually green; but are color coded in these images to allow scientists see their glow in infrared.

This image is a combination of data from Spitzer and the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS). The Spitzer data was taken after Spitzer's liquid coolant ran dry in May 2009, marking the beginning of its "warm" mission.

For More information visit http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1736.html