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https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mattel-release-toy-of-sojourner-rover

Mattel Release Toy of Sojourner Rover

It rocks, it rolls, it boogies. Mattel Inc.'s Hot Wheels JPL Sojourner Mars Rover Action Pack Set, a toy version of Sojourner, a mini-rover destined to traverse the Martian soil starting July 4, recreates the real robot's distinctive, six-wheeled, "rocker- bogie" locomotion system. The toy, now available nationwide, is but one example of how the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Technology Affiliates Program works cooperatively with industry.

It rocks, it rolls, it boogies. Mattel Inc.'s Hot Wheels JPL Sojourner Mars Rover Action Pack Set, a toy version of Sojourner, a mini-rover destined to traverse the Martian soil starting July 4, recreates the real robot's distinctive, six-wheeled, "rocker- bogie" locomotion system. The toy, now available nationwide, is but one example of how the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Technology Affiliates Program works cooperatively with industry.Through this program, corporations form strategic alliances with JPL either to license intellectual property, as was the case with Mattel, or to gain access to JPL's engineers and scientists to help solve a range of technological problems. To date, more than 120 companies, large and small, have utilized the program to solve upwards of 200 specific technology challenges.In short, the program provides a streamlined way for JPL, one of 10 NASA centers around the country, to do business with the private sector. The payoff: technologies developed for the space program prove beneficial back on Earth and, in the case of the Mattel toy, help educate and enthuse the public about the space program."We are pleased to have forged an alliance with Mattel through our Technology Affiliates Program," says Merle McKenzie, manager of JPL's Commercial Technology Office. "Who could help but become intrigued by the Mars Pathfinder mission, scheduled to land on Mars on July 4 and set Sojourner free to explore the red planet, after seeing this intricately accurate mini-version of the mission's mini-rover?"She adds, "When Mattel first approached us in 1995 with the idea of creating a toy based on Sojourner, the Technology Affiliates Program significantly streamlined the process of licensing this technology. The program is designed precisely to cut red tape and get things moving along swiftly."JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology, which serves as the party of record on all patents developed at JPL and works closely with JPL on Technology Affiliates Program agreements.Mars Pathfinder is one of the first missions in a new, decade-long NASA program of robotic exploration to expand scientists' knowledge of Mars. The unifying theme throughout the decade is the search for water, which is a key requirement for life. Sojourner, the first rover ever to explore the Martian surface, will not only take close-up images of the Martian terrain but also will measure the composition of the rocks and surface soil, determining their mineralogy.Sojourner's many innovations include miniature electronics and the ability to decide on its own whether to climb over rocks up to its own height of 0.3 meters (one foot) or to circumnavigate larger ones. Its "rocker-bogie" suspension is unique in that it does not use springs. Rather, its joints bend and conform to the contour of the ground, providing the greatest degree of stability for traversing rocky, uneven surfaces. A six- wheeled chassis was chosen over a four-wheeled design because it provides greater stability.Many of these fascinating features have been captured in the Mattel toy. "We hope this does indeed turn out to be a big hit," says McKenzie. "After all, what better way to inform the public about the space program and get everyone enthused about the marvelous technology it has inspired?"For further information about JPL's Technology Affiliates Program, visit their web site athttp://techtrans.jpl.nasa.gov/tu.html818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/ion-propulsion-system-wins-discover-magazine-award

Ion Propulsion System Wins Discover Magazine Award

The futuristic ion propulsion system on NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft is the winner of Discover Magazine's Award for Technological Innovation in the exploration category.

The futuristic ion propulsion system on NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft is the winner of Discover Magazine's Award for Technological Innovation in the exploration category.Discover magazine's annual awards, now in their 10th year, honor teams whose innovations improve the quality of everyday life. Twenty-seven technologies were selected as finalists. Nine winners, featured in Discover's July issue, were announced at a recent ceremony in Florida.The award went to NASA's Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Application Readiness (NSTAR) program team, which developed and delivered Deep Space 1's ion propulsion system. Accepting on behalf of the team was former NSTAR manager Jack Stocky of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.The ion drive combines a gas found in photo flash units with some of the technologies that make television picture tubes work to deliver a thrust only as powerful as the pressure of a sheet of paper resting on the palm of a hand. Despite the almost imperceptible level of thrust, this engine, for a given amount of fuel, can increase a spacecraft's velocity 10 times more than can a conventional liquid or solid fuel rocket.Deep Space 1, launched last October, has tested 12 new technologies, including ion propulsion, so that they can be confidently used on science missions of the 21st century.The NASA Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Application Readiness program began in the early 1990s as a partnership between JPL and NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, to develop xenon ion engines for deep space missions. In June 1996, a prototype engine built by the Glenn center began a long- duration test in a vacuum chamber at JPL simulating the conditions of outer space. The test concluded in September 1997 after the engine successfully logged more than 8,000 hours of operation.Results of the tests were used to define the design of flight hardware that was built for Deep Space 1 by Hughes Electron Dynamics Division, Torrance, CA, and Spectrum Astro Inc., Gilbert, AZ. Other partners in the development of the flight ion engine system included Moog Inc., East Aurora, NY, and Physical Science Inc., Andover, MA. Development of the ion propulsion system was supported by NASA's Office of Space Science and the Office of Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology, Washington, DC. A portion of the program was supported by the Advanced Space Transportation Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL.Deep Space 1 is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. More information about the mission is available on the web athttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1news.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-phoenix-spacecraft-commanded-to-unstow-arm

NASA's Phoenix Spacecraft Commanded to Unstow Arm

Scientists leading NASA's Phoenix Mars mission from the University of Arizona in Tucson sent commands to unstow its robotic arm and take more images of its landing site early today.

Updated May 28, 10 p.m. PacificPhoenix successfully completed the first day of a two-day process to deploy its robotic arm.Scientists leading NASA's Phoenix Mars mission from the University of Arizona in Tucson sent commands to unstow its robotic arm and take more images of its landing site early today.The Phoenix lander sent back new sharp color images from Mars late yesterday. Phoenix imaging scientists made a color mosaic of images taken by the lander's Surface Stereo Imager on landing day, May 25, and the first two full "sols," or Martian days, after landing.The panorama, now about one-third complete, shows a fish-eye perspective from the camera, a view from the lander itself all the way to the horizon. Phoenix adjusts its color vision with "Caltargets," calibrated color targets on disks mounted on the landing deck. Its color vision isn't quite like human color vision, but close."These images are very exciting to the science team," said the Surface Stereo Imager co-investigator Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University. "We see the polygons we're looking for, and we're very excited to fill in the context with more site pan images that go beyond the workspace." Images to complete the panorama are planned today and tomorrow, Sols 3 and 4, Lemmon said."We appear to have landed where we have access to digging down a polygon trough the long way, digging across the trough, and digging into the center of a polygon. We've dedicated this polygon as the first national park system on Mars -- a "keep out" zone until we figure out how best to use this natural Martian resource," Lemmon said.Phoenix will use its robotic arm to dig first in another area seen in the panorama, an area outside the preserved polygon.Robotic arm manager Bob Bonitz of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., explained how the arm is to be unstowed today. "It's a series of seven moves, beginning with rotating the wrist to release the forearm from its launch restraint. Another series of moves releases the elbow from its launch restraints and moves the elbow from underneath the biobarrier."The robotic arm is a critical part of the Phoenix Mars mission. It is needed to trench into the icy layers of northern polar Mars and deliver samples to instruments that will analyze what Mars is made of, what its water is like, and whether it is or has ever been a possible habitat for life."Phoenix is in perfect health," JPL's Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager, said Wednesday morning, May 28.The robotic arm's first movement was delayed by one day when Tuesday's commands from Earth did not get all the way to the Phoenix lander on Mars. The commands went to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as planned, but the orbiter's Electra UHF radio system for relaying commands to Phoenix temporarily shut off. Without new commands, the lander instead carried out a set of activity commands sent Monday as a backup. Images and other information from those activities were successfully relayed back to Earth by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Tuesday evening.Wednesday morning's uplink to Phoenix and evening downlink from Phoenix were planned with NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter as the relay. "We are using Odyssey as our primary link until we have a better understanding of what happened with Electra," Goldstein said.The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuachatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.For more about Phoenix, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/phoenixandhttp://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-new-mars-orbiter-returns-test-images

NASA's New Mars Orbiter Returns Test Images

The first test images of Mars from NASA's newest spacecraft provide a tantalizing preview of what the orbiter will reveal when its main science mission begins next fall.

The first test images of Mars from NASA's newest spacecraft provide a tantalizing preview of what the orbiter will reveal when its main science mission begins next fall.Three cameras on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter were pointed at Mars at 8:36 p.m. PST Thursday, while the spacecraft collected 40 minutes of engineering test data. The cameras are the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, the Context Camera and the Mars Color Imager."These high-resolution images of Mars are thrilling, and unique given the early morning time-of-day. The final orbit of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be over Mars in the mid-afternoon, like Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey," said Alfred McEwen, University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera."These images provide the first opportunity to test camera settings and the spacecraft's ability to point the camera with Mars filling the instruments’ field of view," said Steve Saunders, the mission's program scientist at NASA Headquarters. "The information learned will be used to prepare for the primary mission next fall." The main purpose of these images is to enable the camera team to develop calibration and image-processing procedures such as the precise corrections needed for color imaging and for high-resolution surface measurements from stereo pairs of images.To get desired groundspeeds and lighting conditions for the test images, researchers programmed the cameras to shoot while the spacecraft was flying about 2,489 kilometers (1,547 miles) or more above Mars' surface, about nine times the range planned for the orbiter's primary science mission. Even so, the highest resolution of about 2.5 meters (8 feet) per pixel – an object 8 feet in diameter would appear as a dot -- is comparable to some of the best resolution previously achieved from Mars orbit.Further processing of the images during the next week or two is expected to combine narrow swaths into broader views and show color in some portions.The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been flying in elongated orbits around Mars since it entered orbit on March 10. Every 35 hours, it has swung about 44,000 kilometers (27,000 miles) away from the planet then come back within about 425 kilometers (264 miles) of Mars' surface.Mission operations teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif, and at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, continue preparing for aerobraking. That process will use about 550 careful dips into the atmosphere during the next seven months to shrink the orbit to a near-circular shape less than 300 kilometers (200 miles) above the ground.More than 25 gigabits of imaging data, enough to nearly fill five CD-ROMs, were received through NASA's Deep Space Network station at Canberra, Australia, and sent to JPL. They were made available to the camera teams at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif.Preliminary images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online at:http://www.nasa.gov/mroorhttp://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.eduAdditional processing has begun for release of other images from the test in coming days.For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:http://www.nasa.govJPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-to-launch-ocean-wind-monitor-to-space-station

NASA to Launch Ocean Wind Monitor to Space Station

An ocean wind monitoring instrument created from hardware used to tests parts of NASA's QuikScat satellite will launch to the International Space Station in 2014.

PASADENA, Calif. - In a clever reuse of hardware originally built to test parts of NASA's QuikScat satellite, the agency will launch the ISS-RapidScat instrument to the International Space Station in 2014 to measure ocean surface wind speed and direction.The ISS-RapidScat instrument will help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring, and understanding of how ocean-atmosphere interactions influence Earth's climate."The ability for NASA to quickly reuse this hardware and launch it to the space station is a great example of a low-cost approach that will have high benefits to science and life here on Earth," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's International Space Station program manager.ISS-RapidScat will help fill the data gap created when QuikScat, which was designed to last two years but operated for 10, stopped collecting ocean wind data in late 2009. A scatterometer is a microwave radar sensor used to measure the reflection or scattering effect produced while scanning the surface of Earth from an aircraft or a satellite.NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have studied next-generation replacements for QuikScat, but a successor will not be available soon. To meet this challenge cost-effectively, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the agency's station program proposed adapting leftover QuikScat hardware in combination with new hardware for use on the space station."ISS-RapidScat represents a low-cost approach to acquiring valuable wind vector data for improving global monitoring of hurricanes and other high-intensity storms," said Howard Eisen, ISS-RapidScat project manager at JPL. "By leveraging the capabilities of the International Space Station and recycling leftover hardware, we will acquire good science data at a fraction of the investment needed to launch a new satellite."ISS-RapidScat will have measurement accuracy similar to QuikScat's and will survey all regions of Earth accessible from the space station's orbit. The instrument will be launched to the space station aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. It will be installed on the end of the station's Columbus laboratory as an autonomous payload requiring no interaction by station crew members. It is expected to operate aboard the station for two years.ISS-RapidScat will take advantage of the space station's unique characteristics to advance understanding of Earth's winds. Current scatterometer orbits pass the same point on Earth at approximately the same time every day. Since the space station's orbit intersects the orbits of each of these satellites about once every hour, ISS-RapidScat can serve as a calibration standard and help scientists stitch together the data from multiple sources into a long-term record.ISS-RapidScat also will collect measurements of Earth's global wind field at all times of day for all locations. Variations in winds caused by the sun can play a significant role in the formation of tropical clouds and tropical systems that play a dominant role in Earth's water and energy cycles. ISS-RapidScat observations will help scientists understand these phenomena better and improve weather and climate models.The ISS-RapidScat project is a joint partnership of JPL and NASA's International Space Station Program Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, with support from the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.For more on ISS-RapidScat, visit:http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/RapidScat/. For more on NASA's scatterometry missions, visit:http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm. For more information about the International Space Station, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/station.You can follow JPL News on Facebook at:http://www.facebook.com/nasajpland on Twitter at:http://www.twitter.com/nasajpl. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-international-panel-provide-a-new-window-on-rising-seas

NASA, International Panel Provide a New Window on Rising Seas

A new online visualization tool will enable anyone to see what sea levels will look like anywhere in the world in the decades to come.

NASA’s Sea Level Change Team has created asea level projection toolthat makes extensive data on future sea level rise from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) easily accessible to the public – and to everyone with a stake in planning for the changes to come.Pull up the tool’s layers of maps, click anywhere on the global ocean and coastlines, and pick any decade between 2020 and 2150: The tool, hosted onNASA’s Sea Level Portal, will deliver a detailed report for the location based on the projections in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, released on Aug. 9, which addresses the most updated physical understanding of the climate system and climate change.The IPCC has provided global-scale assessments of Earth’s climate every five to seven years since 1988, focusing on changes in temperature, ice cover, greenhouse gas emissions, and sea level across the planet. Their sea level projections are informed by data gathered by satellites and instruments on the ground, as well as analyses and computer simulations.But for the first time, anyone will be able to see a visualization of how sea levels will change on a local level using the new online tool, a granularity that is difficult to capture in the IPCC report itself.A new visualization tool will make data on future sea level rise from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change more easily accessible to people around the world.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech“What’s new here is a tool that we are providing to the community, to distribute the latest climate knowledge produced by the IPCC and NASA scientists in an accessible and user-friendly way while maintaining scientific integrity,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, program scientist and manager at NASA, who directs NASA’s Sea Level Change science team.“As the first data-delivery partnership between the IPCC and a federal agency, NASA’s new sea level projection tool will help pave the way for future activities that facilitate knowledge sharing, open science, and easy access to the state-of-the-art climate science. This information is critical to increase climate resilience of nations with large coastal populations, infrastructure, and economies that will be impacted by sea level rise,” said Vinogradova Shiffer.For the first time, anyone will be able to see a visualization of how sea levels will change on a local level using the new online tool.Along with providing snapshots of rising sea levels in the decades to come, the tool enables users to focus on the effects of different processes that drive sea level rise. Those processes include the melting of ice sheets and glaciers and the extent to which ocean waters shift their circulation patterns or expand as they warm, which can affect the height of the ocean.“As communities across the country prepare for the impacts of sea level rise, access to good, clear data is key to helping save lives and livelihoods,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA’s new sea level projection tool will arm the American people and decision makers with the information needed to make critical decisions about economic and public policy, to protect our communities from the potentially devastating effects of sea level rise.”The tool can display possible future sea levels under several greenhouse-gas-emission and socioeconomic scenarios, including a low-emissions future, a “business as usual” trajectory with emissions on their current track, and an “accelerated emissions” scenario. A low-emission future, for example, would occur if humanity reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, lessening the effects of climate-driven sea level change. The other end of the emission spectrum yields projections with the most rapid rise in sea level, information that could be useful for coastal planning that takes less likely but potentially more destructive possibilities into account.“The goal is to deliver the projection data in the IPCC report in a usable form while also providing easy visualization of the future scenarios,” said Ben Hamlington, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who leads the agency’s Sea Level Change science team.The sea level projection tool should help people at all levels of government in countries around the world to forecast future scenarios and to develop coastal resources accordingly. “Making sea level science accessible is our primary goal,” said Carmen Boening, a NASA oceanographer who also heads the agency’s Sea Level Portal, which hosts the projection tool.See the projection tool here:https://sealevel.nasa.gov/ipcc-ar6-sea-level-projection-toolLearn more about sea level and climate change here:https://sealevel.nasa.gov/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/public-to-choose-jupiter-picture-sites-for-nasa-juno

Public to Choose Jupiter Picture Sites for NASA Juno

For the first time, the public can vote on which pictures the spacecraft's JunoCam imager takes of Jupiter.

Where should NASA's Juno spacecraft aim its camera during its next close pass of Jupiter on Feb. 2? You can now play a part in the decision. For the first time, members of the public can vote to participate in selecting all pictures to be taken of Jupiter during a Juno flyby. Voting begins Thursday, Jan. 19 at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) and concludes on Jan. 23 at 9 a.m. PST (noon EST)."We are looking forward to people visiting our website and becoming part of the JunoCam imaging team," said Candy Hansen, Juno co-investigator from the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona. "It's up to the public to determine the best locations in Jupiter's atmosphere for JunoCam to capture during this flyby."NASA's JunoCam website can be visited at:https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocamThe voting page for this flyby is available at:https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/voting/JunoCam will begin taking pictures as the spacecraft approaches Jupiter's north pole. Two hours later, the imaging will conclude as the spacecraft completes its close flyby, departing from below the gas giant's south pole. Juno is currently on its fourth orbit around Jupiter. It takes 53 days for Juno to complete one orbit."The pictures JunoCam can take depict a narrow swath of territory the spacecraft flies over, so the points of interest imaged can provide a great amount of detail," said Hansen. "They play a vital role in helping the Juno science team establish what is going on in Jupiter's atmosphere at any moment. We are looking forward to seeing what people from outside the science team think is important."There will be a new voting page for each upcoming flyby of the mission. On each of the pages, several points of interest will be highlighted that are known to come within the JunoCam field of view during the next close approach. Each participant will get a limited number of votes per orbit to devote to the points of interest he or she wants imaged. After the flyby is complete, the raw images will be posted to the JunoCam website, where the public can perform its own processing."It is great to be able to share excitement and science from the Juno mission with the public in this way," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Amateur scientists, artists, students and whole classrooms are providing the world with their unique perspectives of Jupiter. I am really pleased that this website is having such a big impact and allowing so many people to join the Juno science team. The public involvement is really affecting how we look at the most massive planetary inhabitant in our solar system."During the Feb. 2 flyby, Juno will make its closest approach to Jupiter at 4:58 a.m. PST (7:58 a.m. EST), when the spacecraft is about 2,700 miles (4,300 kilometers) above the planet's swirling clouds.JunoCam is a color, visible-light camera designed to capture remarkable pictures of Jupiter's poles and cloud tops. As Juno's eyes, it will provide a wide view of Jupiter over the course of the mission, helping to provide context for the spacecraft's other instruments. JunoCam was included on the spacecraft primarily for public engagement purposes, although its images also are helpful to the science team.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.More information on the Juno mission is available at:http://www.nasa.gov/junohttp://www.missionjuno.swri.eduThe public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:http://www.facebook.com/NASAJunohttp://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-exploration-rover-status-report-concern-increasing-about-opportunity

Mars Exploration Rover Status Report: Concern Increasing About Opportunity

Rover engineers are growing increasingly concerned about the temperature of vital electronics on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity while the rover stays nearly inactive due to a series of dust storms that has lasted for more than a month.

Rover engineers are growing increasingly concerned about the temperature of vital electronics on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity while the rover stays nearly inactive due to a series of dust storms that has lasted for more than a month.Dust in the atmosphere and dust settling onto Opportunity's solar panels challenges the ability of the solar panels to convert sunlight into enough electricity to supply the rover's needs. The most recent communication from Opportunity, received Monday, July 30, indicates that sunlight over the rover's Meridiani Planum location remains only slightly less obscured than during the dustiest days Opportunity survived in mid-July. With dust now accumulating on the solar panels, the rover is producing barely as much energy as it is using in a very-low-power regimen it has been following since July 18.Keeping Opportunity's activity to a minimum has reduced the amount of energy going into the rover's electronics core, reducing the amount of heat that comes from the electronics components themselves during normal operation."The overnight low temperature of Opportunity's electronics module has been dropping since we implemented the very-low-power operation, even though the outside environment is actually warmer during this dust storm," said John Callas, rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. That temperature has dropped to minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 37 Celsius), within about 3 Fahrenheit degrees (about 2 Celsius degrees) of triggering survival heaters to turn on. Those heaters could push the rover's total use of electricity higher than what the solar panels produce, soon depleting the batteries. "This is energy Opportunity does not have to spare," he said.To forestall the survival heaters from turning on, the rover team has altered Opportunity's daily regimen to keep the electronics active for a longer period each day. This, too, could put the rover through some negative-net-energy days if the sky does not begin to clear.Callas said, "This means there is a real risk that Opportunity will trip a low-power fault sometime during this plan. When a low-power fault is tripped, the rover's systems take the batteries off-line, putting the rover to sleep and then checking each sol to see if there is sufficient available energy to wake up and perform daily fault communications. If there is not sufficient energy, Opportunity will stay asleep. Depending on the weather conditions, Opportunity could stay asleep for days, weeks or even months, all the while trying to charge her batteries with whatever available sunlight there might be."Spirit, meanwhile, is also accumulating some dust on solar panels under a sky at Gusev Crater that remains nearly as dusty as the worst Spirit has recorded."We will continue to watch the situation on Mars and do all we can to assist our rovers in this ongoing battle against the environmental elements on the Red Planet," Callas said.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/small-asteroid-to-safely-pass-close-to-earth-sunday

Small Asteroid to Safely Pass Close to Earth Sunday

A house-sized asteroid will safely fly past Earth this Sunday, Sept. 7. The asteroid, 2014 RC, is about 60 feet (20 meters) wide.

2nd Update: September 12, 2014Radar data collected by the Goldstone Solar System Radar on September 6 - 7 indicate that asteroid 2014 RC may be larger than originally estimated, with a minimum equatorial extent of 72 feet (22 meters). This is larger than the previous estimate of 40 feet (12 meters), which assumed a spherical body. These disparate and preliminary size estimates might suggest a highly elongated body.More technical information on the flyby of asteroid 2014 RC can be found on the Near-Earth Object Program website at:http://neo.jpl.nasa.govUPDATED: September 8, 2014Reports in the media over the weekend that a small meteorite impacted in Nicaragua have yet to be confirmed. A loud explosion was reportedly heard near Managua's international airport Saturday night, and photos of a 39-foot (12-meter) crater have been circulated. As yet, no eyewitness accounts or imagery have come to light of a fireball flash or debris trail that is typically associated with a meteor of the size required to produce such a crater. Scientists say because the explosion in Nicaragua occurred a full 13 hours before the close passage of asteroid 2014 RC, these two events are unrelated.As predicted, the small asteroid 2014 RC flew safely past Earth at 11:01 a.m. PDT (2:01 p.m. EDT/18:01 UTC) on September 7. At the time of closest approach, 2014 RC was 24,800 miles (39,900 kilometers) from the center of Earth (20,800 miles/33,550 kilometers from Earth's surface). Astronomers around the world took the opportunity to observe this rare close approach, and learned that the asteroid is about 40 feet (12 meters) across and is spinning very rapidly.More technical information on the flyby of asteroid 2014 RC can be found on the Near-Earth Object Program website at:http://neo.jpl.nasa.govA small asteroid, designated 2014 RC, will safely pass very close to Earth on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014. At the time of closest approach, based on current calculations to be about 2:18 p.m. EDT (11:18 a.m. PDT / 18:18 UTC), the asteroid will be roughly over New Zealand. From its reflected brightness, astronomers estimate that the asteroid is about 60 feet (20 meters) in size.Asteroid 2014 RC was initially discovered on the night of August 31 by the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, and independently detected the next night by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, located on the summit of Haleakala on Maui, Hawaii. Both reported their observations to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Additional follow-up observations by the Catalina Sky Survey and the University of Hawaii 88-inch (2.2-meter) telescope on Mauna Kea confirmed the orbit of 2014 RC.At the time of closest approach, 2014 RC will be approximately one-tenth the distance from the center of Earth to the moon, or about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers). The asteroid's apparent magnitude at that time will be about 11.5, rendering it unobservable to the unaided eye. However, amateur astronomers with small telescopes might glimpse the fast-moving appearance of this near-Earth asteroid.The asteroid will pass below Earth and the geosynchronous ring of communications and weather satellites orbiting about 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above our planet's surface. While this celestial object does not appear to pose any threat to Earth or satellites, its close approach creates a unique opportunity for researchers to observe and learn more about asteroids.While 2014 RC will not impact Earth, its orbit will bring it back to our planet's neighborhood in the future. The asteroid's future motion will be closely monitored, but no future threatening Earth encounters have been identified.For a heliocentric view of the orbit of asteroid 2014 RC with respect to Earth and other planets, visit:http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2014+RC&orb=1

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-selfie-shows-curiosity-the-mars-chemist

New Selfie Shows Curiosity, the Mars Chemist

The NASA rover performed a special chemistry experiment at the location captured in its newest self-portrait.

A new selfie taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is breathtaking, but it's especially meaningful for the mission's team: Stitched together from 57 individual images taken bya camera on the end of Curiosity's robotic arm, the panorama also commemorates only the second time the rover has performeda special chemistry experiment.The selfie was taken on Oct. 11, 2019 (Sol 2,553) in a location named "Glen Etive" (pronounced "glen EH-tiv"), which is part of the"clay-bearing unit,"a region the team has eagerly awaited reaching since before Curiosity launched. Visible in the left foreground are two holes Curiosity drilled named "Glen Etive 1" (right) and "Glen Etive 2" (left) by the science team. The rover can analyze the chemical composition of rock samples by powderizing them with the drill, then dropping the samples into a portable lab in its belly called Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM).About 984 feet (300 meters) behind the rover is Vera Rubin Ridge, which Curiositydepartednearly a year ago. Beyond the ridge, you can see the floor of Gale Crater and the crater's northern rim. Curiosity has been ascending Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain inside the crater.The special chemistry experiment occurred on Sept. 24, 2019, after the rover placed the powderized sample from Glen Etive 2 into SAM. The portable lab contains 74 small cups used for testing samples. Most of the cups function as miniature ovens that heat the samples; SAM then "sniffs" the gases that bake off, looking for chemicals that hold clues about the Martian environment billions of years ago, when the planet was friendlier to microbial life.But nine of SAM's 74 cups are filled with solvents the rover can use for special "wet chemistry" experiments. These chemicals make it easier for SAM to detect certain carbon-based molecules important to the formation of life, called organic compounds.Because there's a limited number of wet-chemistry cups, the science team has been saving them for just the right conditions. In fact, the experiment at Glen Etive is only the second time Curiosity has performed wet chemistry since touching down on Mars in August 2012."We've been eager to find an area that would be compelling enough to do wet chemistry," said SAM Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Now that we're in the clay-bearing unit, we've finally got it."Clay-based rocks are good at preserving chemical compounds, which break down over time and when bombarded by radiation from space and the Sun. The science team is intrigued to see which organic compounds, if any, have been preserved in the rocks at Glen Etive. Understanding how this area formed will give them a better idea of how the Martian climate was changing billions of years ago.While this marks Curiosity's second wet-chemistry experiment, it is the rover's first on a drilled sample. In December 2016, whenCuriosity's drill malfunctioned, the rover still had a bit of sand that had been scooped up in a place called "Ogunquit Beach." It wasn't a drilled sample, but the team wasn't sure whether they'd get the drill working and be able to perform wet chemistry in the future. So they delivered the Ogunquit Beach sand into one of SAM's wet chemistry cups since there was still science to be gained.Scientists consider Glen Etive a strategic location that will reveal more about how the clay-bearing unit formed. They built upon the valuable dress rehearsal at Ogunquit Beach to make adjustments that improved the recent experiment.The results will be known next year. "SAM's data is extremely complex and takes time to interpret," Mahaffy said. "But we're all eager to see what we can learn from this new location, Glen Etive."The individual images in this selfie were taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), a camera on the end of the rover's robotic arm. The images are stitched together into a panorama, and the robotic arm is digitally removed from the composite.MAHLI was built by Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. The SAM instrument suite was built at Goddard Space Flight Center with significant elements provided by industry, university, and national and international NASA partners. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.More information about Curiosity:https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/http://nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/rosetta-comet-fires-its-jets

Rosetta Comet Fires Its Jets

An image taken by the ESA Rosetta spacecraft shows jets of dust and gas escaping from the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The four images that make up a new montage of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko were taken on September 26, 2014 by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft. At the time, Rosetta was about 16 miles (26 kilometers) from the center of the comet.In the montage, a region of jet activity can be seen at the neck of the comet. These jets, originating from several discrete locations, are a product of ices sublimating and gases escaping from inside the nucleus.The overlapping and slightly dissimilar angles of the four images that compose the montage are a result of the combined effect of the comet rotating between the first and last images taken in the sequence (about 10 degrees over 20 minutes), and the spacecraft movement during that same time.Launched in March 2004, Rosetta was reactivated in January 2014 after a record 957 days in hibernation. Rosetta is composed of an orbiter and lander. Its objectives since arriving at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko earlier this month are to study the celestial object up close in unprecedented detail, prepare for landing a probe on the comet's nucleus in November, and after the landing, track the comet's changes through 2015 as it sweeps past the sun.Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when the sun and its planets formed. Rosetta's lander will obtain the first images taken from a comet's surface and will provide comprehensive analysis of the comet's possible primordial composition by drilling into the surface. Rosetta also will be the first spacecraft to witness at close proximity how a comet changes as it is subjected to the increasing intensity of the sun's radiation. Observations will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of our solar system and the role comets may have played in seeding Earth with water, and perhaps even life.Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by the German Aerospace Center, Cologne; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen; National Center of Space Studies of France (CNES), Paris; and the Italian Space Agency, Rome. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the U.S. participation in the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit:http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.govMore information about Rosetta is available at:http://www.esa.int/rosetta

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/two-1996-mars-spacecraft-arrive-at-launch-site

Two 1996 Mars Spacecraft Arrive at Launch Site

Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder, a pair of NASA spacecraft scheduled to be launched toward the red planet on McDonnell Douglas Delta II rockets late this year, have arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., to begin preparations for launch.

Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder, a pair of NASA spacecraft scheduled to be launched toward the red planet on McDonnell Douglas Delta II rockets late this year, have arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., to begin preparations for launch.The Mars Global Surveyor will be placed in orbit around Mars. It holds a set of six instruments to study the planet's surface, atmosphere, gravitational and magnetic fields. The Mars Pathfinder will be deployed through the Martian atmosphere to land on the planet's surface, where it will deliver a small instrumented rover to investigate the terrain surrounding the spacecraft. Together, Mars Pathfinder and its rover will investigate the geology and elemental composition of the Martian rocks and soil, as well as the Martian atmosphere and surface weather."The arrival of the two Mars spacecraft at the launch site is a wonderful milestone of which the whole Mars missions team can be very proud," said Dr. Jurgen Rahe, director of Solar System Exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. "It reminds us just how close we are to returning important new scientific knowledge about the red planet back to Earth."Mars Global Surveyor, which weighs 1,050 kilograms (2,315 pounds) and was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, Colo., arrived at Cape Canaveral aboard an Air Force C-17 cargo plane at 3:25 a.m Eastern time. The spacecraft was unloaded and taken to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF), which is located in the Kennedy Space Center industrial area, for the beginning of launch preparations.The Mars Pathfinder spacecraft, built for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, arrived at the Spacecraft Assembly and Encapsulation Facility (SAEF-2) at Kennedy Space Center at 3 p.m. Eastern time yesterday (Aug. 13), having traveled across the United States in a special van. Presently three of Pathfinder's four separate components have arrived at KSC: the cruise stage, the aeroshell and the lander. The fourth element, the small rover known as "Sojourner," will be shipped by air from California and is scheduled to arrive on Friday, Aug. 23.During the time Mars Global Surveyor is housed in KSC's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, it will undergo final instrument functional tests and electrical system testing. The spacecraft's batteries and thermal insulation will also be installed and the spacecraft will be fueled with its control propellants. Then it will be mated to its solid propellant "upper stage," which is the Delta third stage booster.Mars Global Surveyor is scheduled to be transported from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to Complex 17 on Oct. 23, where it will be hoisted atop the Delta launch vehicle. After integrated testing is complete, a 2.9-meter (9.5-foot) diameter nose fairing around the spacecraft.Launch of Mars Global Surveyor is scheduled for Nov. 6 at 12:11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time at the beginning of a 20-day launch period which ends on Nov. 25. The spacecraft will arrive at Mars in September 1997 to begin a mission which is planned to last one Martian year or the equivalent of 687 Earth days.The integration of the four Mars Pathfinder elements will begin with installation of the rover on one of the four petals of the lander. After the petals are closed, the aeroshell which surrounds and protects the lander will be installed and the parachutes will be attached. This assembled entry vehicle will then be mated to the cruise stage that will carry the spacecraft on its interplanetary trajectory. Finally, before going to the launch pad, the completed Mars Pathfinder will be mated to the upper stage booster. The entire integration process will take approximately three months.The Mars Pathfinder/Delta third stage combination will then be transported to Pad 17-B for erection atop the Delta on Nov. 21. After integrated testing, the fairing will be placed around the spacecraft. Launch is scheduled to occur on Dec. 2 at 2:09 a.m. Eastern time at the beginning of a 24-day launch period that ends on Dec. 25. Landing on Mars is planned to occur on July 4, 1997. Once on the planet's surface, the mission is expected to last approximately one month.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/360-video-curiosity-rover-departs-vera-rubin-ridge

360 Video: Curiosity Rover Departs Vera Rubin Ridge

A new immersive video lets viewers explore Curiosity's last drill site on a Martian ridge. Scientists are eager to study the data it collected there.

After exploring Mars' Vera Rubin Ridge for more than a year, NASA's Curiosity rover recently moved on. But a new 360-video lets the public visit Curiosity's final drill site on the ridge, an area nicknamed "Rock Hall." The video was created from a panorama taken by the rover on Dec. 19. It includes images of its next destination - an area the team has been calling the "clay-bearing unit" and recently named "Glen Torridon" - and the floor of Gale Crater, home to Mount Sharp, the geological feature the rover has been climbing since 2014.Even though the rover has left the ridge, Curiosity's team is still piecing together the story of its formation. While there have been a number of clues so far, none fully explains why the ridge has resisted erosion compared with the bedrock around it. But the rover's investigation did find that the rocks of the ridge formed as sediment settled in an ancient lake, similar to rock layers below the ridge."We've had our fair share of surprises," said Curiosity science team member Abigail Fraeman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We're leaving with a different perspective of the ridge than what we had before."A NASA orbiter studying the ridge had previously identified a strong signal from hematite, an iron-rich mineral that often forms in water. Curiosity confirmed the presence of hematite, along with other signs of ancient water, likecrystals. These signs appeared in patches, leading the team to suspect that over time groundwater affected certain parts of the ridge differently than others. Another discovery was that the hematite signatures Curiosity mapped didn't always match the view from space."The whole traverse is helping us understand all the factors that influence how our orbiters see Mars," Fraeman said. "Looking up close with a rover allowed us to find a lot more of these hematite signatures. It shows how orbiter and rover science complement one another."The ridge has also served as the backdrop to a roller-coaster year: Curiosity'sdrill returned to action, only to be stymied by surprisingly hard rocks. Nevertheless, the team managed to get samples from the three major rock types of the ridge. To get around a memory issue, engineers alsoswapped the rover's computers(the spacecraft was designed with two so that it can continue operations if one experiences a glitch). While the issue is still being diagnosed, operations have continued with little impact on the mission.The rover's new home, Glen Torridon, is in a trough between Vera Rubin Ridge and the rest of the mountain. This region had been called the clay-bearing unit because orbiter data show that the rocks there contain phyllosilicates - clay minerals that form in water and that could tell scientists more about the ancient lakes that were present in Gale Crater off and on throughout its early history."In addition to indicating a previously wet environment, clay minerals are known to trap and preserve organic molecules," said Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of JPL. "That makes this area especially promising, and the team is already surveying the area for its next drill site."Curiosity has found both clay minerals and organic molecules in many of the rocks it has drilled since landing in 2012. Organic molecules are the chemical building blocks of life. If both water and organic molecules were present when the rocks formed, the clay-bearing unit may be another example of a habitable environment on ancient Mars - a place capable of supporting life, if it ever existed.For more about NASA's Curiosity Mars rover mission, visit:https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-perseverance-mars-rover-to-acquire-first-sample

NASA Perseverance Mars Rover to Acquire First Sample

The six-wheeler’s science campaign has laid the groundwork for the mission’s next major milestone.

NASA is making final preparations for its Perseverance Mars rover to collect its first-ever sample of Martian rock, which future planned missions will transport to Earth. The six-wheeled geologist is searching for a scientifically interesting target in a part ofJezero Cratercalled the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough.”This important mission milestone is expected to begin within the next two weeks. Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater Feb. 18, and NASA kicked off the rover mission’s science phase June 1, exploring a 1.5-square-mile (4-square-kilometer) patch of crater floor that may contain Jezero’s deepest and most ancient layers of exposed bedrock.“When Neil Armstrong took thefirst sample from the Sea of Tranquility52 years ago, he began a process that would rewrite what humanity knew about the Moon,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters. “I have every expectation that Perseverance’s first sample from Jezero Crater, and those that come after, will do the same for Mars. We are on the threshold of a new era of planetary science and discovery.”It took Armstrong 3 minutes and 35 seconds to collect that first Moon sample. Perseverance will require about 11 days to complete its first sampling, as it must receive its instructions from hundreds of millions of miles away while relying on the most complex and capable, as well as the cleanest, mechanism ever to be sent into space – the Sampling and Caching System.Precision Instruments Working TogetherThe sampling sequence begins with the rover placing everything necessary for sampling within reach of its 7-foot-long (2-meter-long)robotic arm. It will then perform an imagery survey, so NASA’s science team can determine the exact location for taking the first sample and a separate target site in the same area for “proximity science.”“The idea is to get valuable data on the rock we are about to sample by finding its geologic twin and performing detailed in-situ analysis,” said science campaignco-leadVivian Sun, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “On the geologic double, first we use an abrading bit to scrape off the top layers of rock and dust to expose fresh, unweathered surfaces, blow it clean with our Gas Dust Removal Tool, and then get up close and personal with our turret-mounted proximity science instruments SHERLOC, PIXL, andWATSON.”SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals), PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry), and the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera will provide mineral and chemical analysis of the abraded target.Perseverance’sSuperCamandMastcam-Zinstruments, both located on the rover’s mast, will also participate. While SuperCam fires its laser at the abraded surface, spectroscopically measuring the resulting plume and collecting other data, Mastcam-Z will capture high-resolution imagery.Working together, these five instruments will enable unprecedented analysis of geological materials at the worksite.“After our pre-coring science is complete, we will limit rover tasks for a sol, or a Martian day,” said Sun. “This will allow the rover to fully charge its battery for the events of the following day.”Watch as NASA-JPL engineers test the Sample Caching System on the Perseverance Mars rover. Described as one of the most complex robotic systems ever built, the Sample and Caching System will collect core samples from the rocky surface of Mars, seal them in tubes and leave them for a future mission to retrieve and bring back to Earth.Credit: NASA-JPL/CaltechSampling day kicks off with the sample-handling arm within theAdaptive Caching Assemblyretrieving asample tube, heating it, and then inserting it into a coring bit. A device called the bit carousel transports the tube and bit to a rotary-percussive drill onPerseverance’s robotic arm, which will then drill the untouched geologic “twin” of the rock studied the previous sol, filling the tube with a core sample roughly the size of a piece of chalk.Perseverance’s arm will then move the bit-and-tube combination back into bit carousel, which will transfer it back into the Adaptive Caching Assembly, where the sample will be measured for volume, photographed, hermetically sealed, and stored. The next time the sample tube contents are seen, they will be in a clean room facility on Earth, for analysis using scientific instruments much too large to send to Mars.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER“Not every sample Perseverance is collecting will be done in the quest for ancient life, and we don’t expect this first sample to provide definitive proof one way or the other,” said Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley, of Caltech. “While the rocks located in this geologic unit are not great time capsules for organics, we believe they have been around since the formation of Jezero Crater and incredibly valuable to fill gaps in our geologic understanding of this region – things we’ll desperately need to know if we find life once existed on Mars.”More About the MissionA key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars isastrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is the first step in NASA’s Mars Sample Return Campaign. Subsequent NASA missions, now in development in cooperation with the European Space Agency, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includesArtemismissions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California.To learn more about Perseverance, visit:https://nasa.gov/perseveranceandhttps://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/small-asteroid-to-safely-pass-close-to-earth-sunday

Small Asteroid to Safely Pass Close to Earth Sunday

A house-sized asteroid will safely fly past Earth this Sunday, Sept. 7. The asteroid, 2014 RC, is about 60 feet (20 meters) wide.

2nd Update: September 12, 2014Radar data collected by the Goldstone Solar System Radar on September 6 - 7 indicate that asteroid 2014 RC may be larger than originally estimated, with a minimum equatorial extent of 72 feet (22 meters). This is larger than the previous estimate of 40 feet (12 meters), which assumed a spherical body. These disparate and preliminary size estimates might suggest a highly elongated body.More technical information on the flyby of asteroid 2014 RC can be found on the Near-Earth Object Program website at:http://neo.jpl.nasa.govUPDATED: September 8, 2014Reports in the media over the weekend that a small meteorite impacted in Nicaragua have yet to be confirmed. A loud explosion was reportedly heard near Managua's international airport Saturday night, and photos of a 39-foot (12-meter) crater have been circulated. As yet, no eyewitness accounts or imagery have come to light of a fireball flash or debris trail that is typically associated with a meteor of the size required to produce such a crater. Scientists say because the explosion in Nicaragua occurred a full 13 hours before the close passage of asteroid 2014 RC, these two events are unrelated.As predicted, the small asteroid 2014 RC flew safely past Earth at 11:01 a.m. PDT (2:01 p.m. EDT/18:01 UTC) on September 7. At the time of closest approach, 2014 RC was 24,800 miles (39,900 kilometers) from the center of Earth (20,800 miles/33,550 kilometers from Earth's surface). Astronomers around the world took the opportunity to observe this rare close approach, and learned that the asteroid is about 40 feet (12 meters) across and is spinning very rapidly.More technical information on the flyby of asteroid 2014 RC can be found on the Near-Earth Object Program website at:http://neo.jpl.nasa.govA small asteroid, designated 2014 RC, will safely pass very close to Earth on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014. At the time of closest approach, based on current calculations to be about 2:18 p.m. EDT (11:18 a.m. PDT / 18:18 UTC), the asteroid will be roughly over New Zealand. From its reflected brightness, astronomers estimate that the asteroid is about 60 feet (20 meters) in size.Asteroid 2014 RC was initially discovered on the night of August 31 by the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, and independently detected the next night by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, located on the summit of Haleakala on Maui, Hawaii. Both reported their observations to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Additional follow-up observations by the Catalina Sky Survey and the University of Hawaii 88-inch (2.2-meter) telescope on Mauna Kea confirmed the orbit of 2014 RC.At the time of closest approach, 2014 RC will be approximately one-tenth the distance from the center of Earth to the moon, or about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers). The asteroid's apparent magnitude at that time will be about 11.5, rendering it unobservable to the unaided eye. However, amateur astronomers with small telescopes might glimpse the fast-moving appearance of this near-Earth asteroid.The asteroid will pass below Earth and the geosynchronous ring of communications and weather satellites orbiting about 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above our planet's surface. While this celestial object does not appear to pose any threat to Earth or satellites, its close approach creates a unique opportunity for researchers to observe and learn more about asteroids.While 2014 RC will not impact Earth, its orbit will bring it back to our planet's neighborhood in the future. The asteroid's future motion will be closely monitored, but no future threatening Earth encounters have been identified.For a heliocentric view of the orbit of asteroid 2014 RC with respect to Earth and other planets, visit:http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2014+RC&orb=1

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/drilling-success-curiosity-is-collecting-mars-rocks

Drilling Success: Curiosity is Collecting Mars Rocks

Engineers will now test delivering samples to instruments inside NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.

Engineers working with NASA's Curiosity Mars rover have been hard at worktesting a new wayfor the rover to drill rocks and extract powder from them. This past weekend, that effort produced the first drilled sample on Mars in more than a year.Curiosity testedpercussive drillingthis past weekend, penetrating about 2 inches (50 millimeters) into a target called "Duluth."NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been testing this drilling technique since a mechanical problem took Curiosity's drill offline in December of 2016. This technique, called Feed Extended Drilling, keeps the drill's bit extended out past two stabilizer posts that were originally used to steady the drill against Martian rocks. It lets Curiosity drill using the force of its robotic arm, a little more like the way a human would drill into a wall at home."The team used tremendous ingenuity to devise a new drilling technique and implement it on another planet," said Curiosity Deputy Project Manager Steve Lee of JPL. "Those are two vital inches of innovation from 60 million miles away. We're thrilled that the result was so successful."Drilling is a vitally important part of Curiosity's capabilities to study Mars. Inside the rover are two laboratories that are able to conduct chemical and mineralogical analyses of rock and soil samples. The samples are acquired from Gale Crater, which the rover has been exploring since 2012.Curiosity's science team has been eager to get the drill working before the rover leaves its current location near Vera Rubin Ridge. Fortunately, it was near enough to drill targets like Duluth to drive back down the ridge. Sunday's drill sample represents a quick taste of the region before Curiosity moves on.Demonstrating that Curiosity's percussive drilling technique works is a milestone in itself. But that doesn't mean the work is over for engineers at JPL."We've been developing this new drilling technique for over a year, but our job isn't done once a sample has been collected on Mars," said JPL's Tom Green, a systems engineer who helped develop and test Curiosity's new drilling method. "With each new test, we closely examine the data to look for improvements we can make and then head back to our test bed to iterate on the process."There's also the next step to work on: delivering the rock sample from the drill bit to the two laboratories inside the rover. Having captured enough powder inside the drill, engineers will now use the rover's cameras to estimate how much trickles out while running the drill backwards. The drill's percussion mechanism is also used to tap out powder.As soon as this Friday, the Curiosity team will test a new process for delivering samples into the rover's laboratories.For more about Curiosity, visit:https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-oct-30-telecon-about-mars-curiosity-progress

NASA Oct. 30 Telecon About Mars Curiosity Progress

NASA will host a media teleconference at 11:30 a.m. PDT (2:30 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, Oct. 30, to provide an update about the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater.

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 11:30 a.m. PDT (2:30 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, Oct. 30, to provide an update about the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater.The Mars Science Laboratory Project and its Curiosity rover are almost three months into a two-year prime mission to investigate whether conditions may have been favorable for microbial life.Audio and visuals of the event will be streamed live online at:http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudioandhttp://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl.Visuals will be available at the start of the event at:http://go.nasa.gov/curiositytelecon.For information about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl,http://www.nasa.gov/marsandhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/frost-covered-phoenix-lander-seen-in-winter-images

Frost-Covered Phoenix Lander Seen in Winter Images

Winter images of NASA's Phoenix Lander showing the lander shrouded in dry-ice frost on Mars have been captured with the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

PASADENA, Calif. -- 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 athttp://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.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/rosettas-target-comet-is-becoming-active

Rosetta's Target Comet is Becoming Active

The target of ESA's Rosetta mission has started to reveal its true personality as a comet, its dusty veil clearly developing over the past six weeks.

The target of ESA's Rosetta mission has started to reveal its true personality as a comet, its dusty veil clearly developing over the past six weeks.A new sequence of images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was taken between March 24 and May 4, as the gap between craft and comet closed from around 3.1 million miles (5 million kilometers) to 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometers). By the end of the sequence, the comet's coma extends about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) into space. By comparison, the nucleus is roughly only 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) across, and cannot yet be 'resolved.'Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's coma has developed as a result of the comet moving progressively closer to the sun along its 6.5-year orbit. Even though it is still more than 373 million miles (600 million kilometers) from the sun - four times the distance between Earth and sun - its surface has already started to warm, causing its surface ices to sublimate and gas to escape from its rock-ice nucleus.The escaping gas also carries a cloud of tiny dust particles out into space, which slowly expands to create the coma. As the comet continues to move closer to the sun, the warming continues and activity rises, and pressure from the solar wind will eventually cause some of the material to stream out into a long tail.The Optical, Spectrocopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS), and the spacecraft's dedicated navigation cameras, have been regularly acquiring images to help determine Rosetta's exact trajectory relative to the comet. Using this information, the spacecraft has already started a series of maneuvers that will slowly bring it in line with the comet before making its rendezvous in the first week of August. Detailed scientific observations will then help to find the best location on the comet for the spacecraft's Philae lander to descend to the surface in November.Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when the sun and its planets formed. By studying the gas, dust and structure of the nucleus and organic materials associated with the comet, via both remote and in-situ observations, the Rosetta mission should become a key to unlocking the history and evolution of our solar system, as well as answering questions regarding the origin of Earth's water and perhaps even life. Rosetta will be the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the sun, and deploy a lander.ESA member states and NASA contributed to the Rosetta mission. Airbus Defense and Space built the Rosetta spacecraft. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the U.S. contribution of the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.For information on the U.S. instruments on Rosetta, visit:http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.govMore information about Rosetta, visit:http://www.esa.int/rosetta

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A New Plan for Keeping NASA's Oldest Explorers Going

To manage Voyager 2's dwindling power supply, engineers recently shut off one instrument's primary heater. So far, the cooled instrument continues to return data.

UPDATED on July 12, 2019:Voyager 2 successfully fired up its trajectory correction maneuver thrusters on July 8, 2019, and will be using them to control the pointing of the spacecraft for the foreseeable future. Voyager 2 last used those thrusters during its encounter with Neptune in 1989. The spacecraft's aging attitude control thrusters have been experiencing degradation that required them to fire an increasing and untenable number of pulses to keep the spacecraft's antenna pointed at Earth. Voyager 1 switched to its trajectory correction maneuver thrusters for the same reason in January 2018.With careful planning and dashes of creativity, engineers have been able to keep NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft flying for nearly 42 years - longer than any other spacecraft in history. To ensure that these vintage robots continue to return the best science data possible from the frontiers of space, mission engineers are implementing a new plan to manage them. And that involves making difficult choices, particularly about instruments and thrusters.One key issue is that both Voyagers, launched in 1977, have less and less power available over time to run their science instruments and the heaters that keep them warm in the coldness of deep space. Engineers have had to decide what parts get power and what parts have to be turned off on both spacecraft. But those decisions must be made sooner for Voyager 2 than Voyager 1 because Voyager 2 has one more science instrument collecting data - and drawing power - than its sibling.After extensive discussions with the science team, mission managers recently turned off a heater for the cosmic ray subsystem instrument (CRS) on Voyager 2 as part of the new power management plan. The cosmic ray instrument played a crucial role last November in determining that Voyager 2had exited the heliosphere, the protective bubble created by a constant outflow (or wind) of ionized particles from the Sun. Ever since, the two Voyagers have been sending back details of how our heliosphere interacts with the wind flowing in interstellar space, the space between stars.Not only are Voyager mission findings providing humanity with observations of truly uncharted territory, but they help us understand the very nature of energy and radiation in space - key information for protecting NASA's missions and astronauts even when closer to home.Mission team members can now preliminarily confirm that Voyager 2's cosmic ray instrument is still returning data, despite dropping to a chilly minus 74 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 59 degrees Celsius). This is lower than the temperatures at which CRS was tested more than 42 years ago (down to minus 49 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 45 degrees Celsius).Another Voyager instrumentalso continued to function for years after it dropped below temperatures at which it was tested."It's incredible that Voyagers' instruments have proved so hardy," said Voyager Project Manager Suzanne Dodd, who is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We're proud they've withstood the test of time. The long lifetimes of the spacecraft mean we're dealing with scenarios we never thought we'd encounter. We will continue to explore every option we have in order to keep the Voyagers doing the best science possible."Voyager 2 continues to return data from five instruments as it travels through interstellar space. In addition to the cosmic ray instrument, which detects fast-moving particles that can originate from the Sun or from sources outside our solar system, the spacecraft is operating two instruments dedicated to studying plasma (a gas in which atoms have been ionized and electrons float freely) and a magnetometer (which measures magnetic fields) for understanding the sparse clouds of material in interstellar space.Taking data from a range of directions, the low-energy charged particle instrument is particularly useful for studying the probe's transition away from our heliosphere. Because CRS can look only in certain fixed directions, the Voyager science team decided to turn off CRS's heater first.Voyager 1, whichcrossed into interstellar spacein August 2012, continues to collect data from its cosmic ray instrument as well, plus from one plasma instrument, the magnetometer and the low-energy charged particle instrument.Why Turn Off Heaters?Launched separately in 1977, the two Voyagers are now over 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the Sun and far from its warmth. Engineers have to carefully control temperature on both spacecraft to keep them operating. For instance, if fuel lines powering the thrusters that keep the spacecraft oriented were to freeze, the Voyagers' antennae could stop pointing at Earth. That would prevent engineers from sending commands to the spacecraft or receiving scientific data. So the spacecraft were designed to heat themselves.But running heaters - and instruments - requires power, which is constantly diminishing on both Voyagers.Each of the probes is powered by three radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs, which produce heat via the natural decay of plutonium-238 radioisotopes and convert that heat into electrical power. Because the heat energy of the plutonium in the RTGs declines and their internal efficiency decreases over time, each spacecraft is producing about 4 fewer watts of electrical power each year. That means the generators produce about 40% less than what they did at launch nearly 42 years ago, limiting the number of systems that can run on the spacecraft.The mission's new power management plan explores multiple options for dealing with the diminishing power supply on both spacecraft, including shutting off additional instrument heaters over the next few years.Revving Up Old Jet PacksAnother challenge that engineers have faced is managing the degradation of some of the spacecraft thrusters, which fire in tiny pulses, or puffs, to subtly rotate the spacecraft. This became an issue in 2017, when mission controllers noticed that a set of thrusters on Voyager 1 needed to give off more puffs to keep the spacecraft's antenna pointed at Earth. To make sure the spacecraft could continue to maintain proper orientation, the teamfired upanother set of thrusters on Voyager 1 that hadn't been used in 37 years.Voyager 2's current thrusters have started to degrade, too. Mission managers have decided to make the same thruster switch on that probe this month. Voyager 2 last used these thrusters (known as trajectory correction maneuver thrusters) during its encounter with Neptune in 1989.Many Miles to Go Before They SleepThe engineers' plan to manage power and aging parts should ensure that Voyager 1 and 2 can continue to collect data from interstellar space for several years to come. Data from the Voyagers continue to provide scientists with never-before-seen observations of our boundary with interstellar space, complementing NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a mission that is remotely sensing that boundary. NASA is also preparing the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), due to launch in 2024,to capitalize on the Voyagers' observations."Both Voyager probes are exploring regions never before visited, so every day is a day of discovery," said Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone, who is based at Caltech. "Voyager is going to keep surprising us with new insights about deep space."The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/voyagerhttps://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

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Lockheed Selected to Build Seasat-A

The Lockheed Missiles Space Company, Sunnyvale, California has been selected for negotiation of contracts to design and manufacture new ocean survey satellite, called SEASAT-A, it was announced today by Dr. W. H. Pickering, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL will manage the project for NASA's Office of Applications.

The Lockheed Missiles Space Company, Sunnyvale, California has been selected for negotiation of contracts to design and manufacture new ocean survey satellite, called SEASAT-A, it was announced today by Dr. W. H. Pickering, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL will manage the project for NASA's Office of Applications.Lockheed will provide the satellite bus, sensor module, satellite system engineering, and system test and mission operations services at cost of approximately 20 million dollars.The first research and development oceanographic satellite, SEASAT-A is scheduled to be launched by an Atlas vehicle in the spring of 1978 from the Western Test Range near Lompoc, California.The satellite, weighing approximately 4000 lbs., will be placed in near-polar orbit having an altitude of 480 miles. It will circle the Earth 14 times day covering 95% of the oceans each 36 hours.Satellite sensors will provide radar images of waves and ice fields, determine the ocean topography, tides and currents, and measure wave heights, lengths and directions, sea surface winds and directions and sea surface temperatures. This first global scale observations of ocean surfaces is expected to contribute to better understanding of the oceans and the air/sea interface. The sensor complement consists of radar altimeter, synthetic aperture imaging radar, wind-field scatterometer, scanning multi-frequency microwave radiometer and visible and infrared scanning radiometer.The objectives and instrumentation for the SEAST-A mission were developed with the participation of other government agencies, institutions, universities and commercial enterprises that have specific uses for ocean data.SEASAT will by supported by aircraft, ships and buoys to verify the accuracy of the measurements from orbit.Data acquisition will be the responsibility of the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.S. W. McCandless is the Program Manager for NASA. W. E. Giberson is Project Manager for JPL, and J. G. Gerpheide is the Satellite System Manager for JPL.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-moves-longest-serving-mars-spacecraft-for-new-observations

NASA Moves Longest-Serving Mars Spacecraft for New Observations

NASA's Mars Odyssey has tweaked its orbit to help make the first systematic observations of how morning fogs, clouds and surface frost develop in different seasons on Mars.

NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has tweaked its orbit to help scientists make the first systematic observations of how morning fogs, clouds and surface frost develop in different seasons on the Red Planet.The maneuver took place Tuesday, Feb. 11. Odyssey team engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver, designed the gentle move to accelerate Odyssey's drift toward a morning-daylight orbit. The desired change will occur gradually until the intended orbit geometry is reached in November 2015 and another maneuver halts the drift.The change will enable observation of changing ground temperatures after sunrise and after sunset in thousands of places on Mars. Those observations could yield insight about the composition of the ground and about temperature-driven processes, such as warm-season flows observed on some slopes, and geysers fed by spring thawing of carbon-dioxide ice near Mars' poles."We're teaching an old spacecraft new tricks," said Odyssey Project Scientist Jeffrey Plaut of JPL. "Odyssey will be in position to see Mars in a different light than ever before."Neither Odyssey, nor any other NASA Mars orbiter since the 1970s, has flown an orbital pattern with a view of the ground in morning daylight. Earlier NASA orbiters and the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter have provided some tantalizing views of morning mists on Mars, but have concentrated on afternoon observation times when views of the surface are less hazy.Odyssey was launched in 2001 and began its science mission 12 years ago this month. It is the longest-working spacecraft ever sent to Mars.Odyssey completed Tuesday's maneuver at 12:03 p.m. PST (3:03 p.m. EST). It used four thrusters, each providing about 5 pounds (22 newtons) of force for a 29-second burn."This veteran spacecraft performed exactly as planned," said Odyssey Project Manager David Lehman of JPL.Odyssey flies in an orbit nearly over the poles and synchronized with the sun. For most of its first six years at Mars, the orbit was set at about 5 o'clock, local solar time. At every spot Odyssey flew over as it made its dozen daily passes from the north pole region to the south pole region, the local solar time was about 5 p.m. Beneath the south-to-north leg of the orbit, the time was about 5 a.m. That orbit provided an advantage for the orbiter's Gamma Ray Spectrometer to have its cooling equipment pointed away from the sun. The spectrometer checked for evidence of water near the Martian surface. It made important discoveries of how widely water ice -- detected as hydrogen-- and other elements are distributed on Mars.Later, Odyssey worked for three years in a 4 o'clock orbit. That provided an advantage for mineral mapping by the orbiter's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS). Mid-afternoon warmth made minerals' infrared signatures easier to identify. This timing, however, added stress to Odyssey's power system. It put more of each orbit into the planet's shadow, where solar panels are unproductive. After providing radio-relay support for the 2012 landing of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, a maneuver set Odyssey on a slow drift to later times of day to help preserve the spacecraft's aging battery.THEMIS Principal Investigator Philip Christensen of Arizona State University in Tempe, proposed letting the time of the orbit shift past 6 o'clock and then making daylight observations on the south-to-north half of the orbit, at about 6:45 a.m., rather than the north-to-south half. The science team and NASA agreed, and the Odyssey project planned this week's maneuver to get to the desired orbit sooner."We don't know exactly what we're going to find when we get to an orbit where we see the morning just after sunrise," Christensen said. "We can look for seasonal differences. Are fogs more common in winter or spring? We will look systematically. We will observe clouds in visible light and check the temperature of the ground in infrared."After the next orbit-adjustment maneuver, to lock into the 6:45 a.m. local time in November 2015, Odyssey will have about enough propellant left for nine to 10 years of operation at estimated annual consumption rates. In addition to conducting its own observations, Odyssey serves as an important communications relay for spacecraft on Mars' surface.JPL manages Odyssey for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems built the spacecraft and collaborates with JPL in mission operations.For more about the Mars Odyssey mission, visit:http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-mars-fleet-lies-low-with-sun-between-earth-and-red-planet

NASA’s Mars Fleet Lies Low With Sun Between Earth and Red Planet

The missions will continue collecting data about the Red Planet, though engineers back on Earth will stop sending commands to them until mid-October.

NASA will stand down from commanding its Mars missions for the next few weeks while Earth and the Red Planet are on opposite sides of the Sun. This period, calledMars solar conjunction, happens every two years.The Sun expels hot, ionized gas from its corona, which extends far into space. During solar conjunction, when Earth and Mars can’t “see” each other, this gas can interfere with radio signals if engineers try to communicate with spacecraft at Mars. That could corrupt commands and result in unexpected behavior from our deep space explorers.To be safe, NASA engineers sendMars spacecrafta list of simple commands to carry out for a few weeks. This year, most missions will stop sending commands between Oct. 2 and Oct. 16. A few extend that commanding moratorium, as it’s called, a day or two in either direction, depending on the angular distance between Mars and the Sun in Earth’s sky.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER“Though our Mars missions won’t be as active these next few weeks, they’ll still let us know their state of health,” said Roy Gladden, manager of theMars Relay Networkat NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Each mission has been given some homework to do until they hear from us again.”Here’s how some of those Mars missions will be spending that time:Perseverance will take weather measurements with itsMEDA(short for Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) sensors, look for dust devils with its cameras (though it won’t move its mast, or “head”), run itsRIMFAX(Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment) radar, and capturenew soundswith its microphones.The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will remain stationaryat its location575 feet (175 meters) away from Perseverance and communicate its status weekly to the rover.The Curiosity rover will take weather measurements using itsREMS(Rover Environmental Monitoring Station) sensors, take radiation measurements with itsRAD(Radiation Assessment Detector) andDAN(Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons) sensors, and look for dust devils with its suite of cameras.The stationary InSight lander will continue using itsseismometerto detect temblors likethe large marsquakesit captured recently.NASA’s three orbiters – Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and MAVEN – will all continue relaying some data from the agency’s surface missions back to Earth, in addition to gathering their own science.While a limited amount of science data will reach Earth during conjunction, the spacecraft will save most of it until after the moratorium. (That means there will be a temporary pause in the stream of raw images available fromPerseverance,Curiosity, andInSight.)Then, they’ll beam their remaining data to NASA’sDeep Space Network, a system of massive Earth-based radio antennas managed by JPL. Engineers will spend about a week downloading the information before normal spacecraft operations resume. If the teams monitoring these missions determine any of the collected science data has been corrupted, they can usually have that data retransmitted.For more about NASA’s Mars missions, visit:https://mars.nasa.gov/https://nasa.gov/mars

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-researchers-use-imaging-radar-to-detect-coastal-pollution

NASA Researchers Use Imaging Radar to Detect Coastal Pollution

A NASA-funded study of marine pollution in Southern California concluded space-based synthetic aperture radar can be a vital observational tool for assessing and monitoring ocean hazards in urbanized coastal regions.

A NASA-funded study of marine pollution in Southern California concluded space-based synthetic aperture radar can be a vital observational tool for assessing and monitoring ocean hazards in urbanized coastal regions."Clean beaches and coastal waters are integral to Southern California's economy and lifestyle," said Dr. Paul DiGiacomo, an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. He is lead author of the study recently published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. "Using Southern California as a model system, we've shown existing high-resolution space-based radar systems can be used to effectively detect and assess marine pollution hazards. This is an invaluable tool for water quality managers to better protect public health and coastal resources," he said.DiGiacomo and colleagues from JPL; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, examined satellite radar imagery of the coastal waters of Southern California. The area is adjacent to 20 million people, nearly 25 percent of the U.S. coastal population. The imaging radar data from the European Space Agency's European Remote Sensing Satellites 1 and 2 and Canada's Radarsat were complemented by shore- based surface current radar data and other field measurements."The key to evaluating and managing pollution hazards in urban coastal regions is accurate, timely data," DiGiacomo said. "Since such hazards are usually localized, dynamic and episodic, they're hard to assess using oceanographic field sampling. Space-based imaging radar works day and night, regardless of clouds, detecting pollution deposits on the sea surface. Combined with field surveys and other observations including shore-based radar data, it greatly improves our ability to detect and monitor such hazards," he said.The study described three major pollutant sources for Southern California: storm water runoff, wastewater discharge and natural hydrocarbon seepage."During late fall to early spring, storms contribute more than 95 percent of the region's annual runoff volume and pollutant load," said JPL co-author Ben Holt. "Californians are accustomed to warnings to stay out of the ocean during and after storms. Even small storms can impact water quality. Radar data can be especially useful for monitoring this episodic seasonal runoff," he said.DiGiacomo noted a regional Southern California marine water quality monitoring survey is under way involving JPL and more than 60 other organizations, including the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project. Its goal is to characterize the distribution and ecological effects of storm water runoff in the region. Space radar and other satellite sensor data are being combined, including NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers. The sensors provide frequent observations, subject to clouds, of ocean color that can be used to detect regional storm water runoff and complement the finer resolution but less frequent radar imagery.The second largest source of the area's pollution is wastewater discharge. Publicly owned treatment works discharge daily more than one billion gallons of treated wastewater into Southern California's coastal waters. Even though it is discharged deep offshore, submerged plumes occasionally reach the surface and can contaminate local shorelines.Natural hydrocarbon seeps are another local pollution hazard. Underwater seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel and Santa Monica Bay have deposited tar over area beaches. Space imaging radar can track seepage on the ocean surface, as well as human-caused oil spills, which are often affected by ocean circulation patterns that make other tracking techniques difficult.Further research is necessary to determine the composition of pollution hazards detected by radar. "From imaging radar, we know where the runoff is, but not necessarily which parts of it are harmful," Holt said. "If connections can be established, imaging radar may be able to help predict the most harmful parts of the runoff."While the researchers said environmental conditions such as wind and waves can limit the ability of space radar to detect ocean pollution, they stressed the only major limitation of the technique is infrequent coverage. "Toward the goal of a comprehensive coastal ocean observing system, development of future radar missions with more frequent coverage is a high priority," DiGiacomo said.JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/companies-selected-to-provide-early-design-work-for-asteroid-redirect-robotic-mission-spacecraft

Companies Selected to Provide Early Design Work for Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission Spacecraft

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has selected four companies to conduct design studies for a solar-electric-propulsion-based spacecraft for the agency's Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM).

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has selected four companies to conduct design studies for a solar-electric-propulsion-based spacecraft for the agency's Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM). The aerospace companies selected for the initial studies include: Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Littleton, Colorado; Boeing Phantom Works, Huntington Beach, California; Orbital ATK, Dulles, Virginia; and Space Systems/Loral, Palo Alto, California.ARRM is part of NASA's plan for using cislunar space, the region between Earth and moon's orbit, as a proving ground for future human spaceflight beyond low-Earth orbit, in support of the agency's journey to Mars.The acquisition strategy for the ARRM spacecraft will leverage commercially available U.S. industry capabilities to reduce costs and cost risk. The strategy includes procurement of the ARRM spacecraft bus through two phases. The first phase is design work accomplished through studies by U.S. industry working in cooperation with the mission's project office at JPL to support mission formulation. The second phase, to be awarded via a second competition, will include development and implementation of the flight spacecraft bus by one of the study participants.ARRM is being planned to perform a number of demonstrations including the use of a 20-fold improvement in deep space solar-electric propulsion (SEP) to move and maneuver large payloads; retrieve a boulder up to 20 tons in mass from an asteroid and redirect it to a crew-accessible orbit around the moon; and be a part of integrated crewed and robotic vehicle operations in deep space.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-kepler-spacecraft-ready-to-ship-to-florida

NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Ready to Ship to Florida

Engineers are getting ready to pack NASA's Kepler spacecraft into a container and ship it off to its launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

PASADENA, Calif. -- Engineers are getting ready to pack NASA's Kepler spacecraft into a container and ship it off to its launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.The mission, scheduled to launch on March 5, will seek to answer an age-old question -- are there other Earths in space?"Kepler is ready to begin its journey to its launch site, and ultimately to space, where it will answer a question that has been pondered by humankind at least as long ago as the ancient Greeks," said James Fanson, the project manager for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.Kepler will monitor more than 100,000 stars for signatures of planets of various sizes and orbital distances. It has the ability to locate rocky planets like Earth, including those that lie in a star's "habitable zone," a region where liquid water, and perhaps life, could exist. If these Earth-size worlds do exist around stars like our sun, Kepler is expected to be the first to find them, and the first to measure their frequency."Kepler's mission is to determine whether Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of other stars are frequent or rare; whether life in our Milky Way galaxy is likely to be frequent or rare," said William Borucki, the Kepler science principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.Kepler is currently at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. It passed all its environmental tests ensuring that it is prepared for the harsh trip to space. It also passed what's called the "pre-ship review," meaning that it is ready to be shipped via convoy to Florida in early January. Its first stop will be Astrotech in Titusville, Fla., where the spacecraft will be processed before being carried to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral. Kepler will launch atop a Delta II rocket."An outstanding team of engineers overcame some difficult hurdles to achieve this considerable milestone," said Ball Aerospace Program Manager John Troeltzsch. "The culmination of this effort will put a spectacular mission in orbit designed to increase our understanding of the cosmos."Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission. In addition to being the home organization of the science principal investigator, NASA Ames Research Center is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. Kepler mission development is managed by JPL. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and supporting mission operations.More information about the Kepler mission is athttp://www.nasa.gov/kepler. More information about extrasolar planets and NASA's planet-finding program is athttp://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-orbiter-examines-lace-and-lizard-skin-terrain

Mars Orbiter Examines 'Lace' and 'Lizard Skin' Terrain

SAN FRANCISCO - Scrutiny by NASA's newest Mars orbiter is helping scientists learn the stories of some of the weirdest landscapes on Mars, as well as more familiar-looking parts of the Red Planet.

SAN FRANCISCO - Scrutiny by NASA's newest Mars orbiter is helping scientists learn the stories of some of the weirdest landscapes on Mars, as well as more familiar-looking parts of the Red Planet.One type of landscape near Mars' south pole is called "cryptic terrain" because it once defied explanation, but new observations bolster and refine recent interpretations of how springtime outbursts of carbon-dioxide gas there sculpt intricate patterns and paint seasonal splotches."A lot of Mars looks like Utah, but this is an area that looks nothing like Planet Earth," said Candice Hansen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., deputy principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.In addition to radially branching patterns called "spiders," which had been detected by an earlier Mars orbiter, other intriguing ground textures in the area appear in the new images. "In some places, the channels form patterns more like lace. In others, the texture is reminiscent of lizard skin," Hansen said.Results from all six instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which reached Mars last year, are described in dozens of presentations this week by planetary scientists in San Francisco at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.By taking stereo pictures of a target area from slightly different angles during different orbits, HiRISE can show the surface in three dimensions. Channels found to widen as they run uphill in the cryptic terrain region testify that the channels are cut by a gas, not a liquid.Earlier evidence for jets of gas active in the region came from fan-shaped blotches appearing seasonally, which scientists interpret as material fallen to the surface downwind of vents where the gas escapes. Some of the fans are dark, others bright. "The dark fans are probably dust, but the exact composition of the brighter fans had remained unknown until now," said Tim Titus of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Team, Flagstaff, Ariz.Observations by the new orbiter's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars suggest that the bright fans are composed of carbon-dioxide frost. Here's the story researchers now propose: Spring warms the ground under a winter-formed coating of carbon dioxide ice. Thawing at the base of the coating generates carbon-dioxide gas, which carves channels as it pushes its way under the ice to a weak spot where it bursts free. The jet of escaping gas carries dust aloft and also cools so fast from expanding rapidly that a fraction of the carbon dioxide refreezes and falls back to the surface as frost.The processes creating the cryptic terrain are current events on Mars. Repeated HiRISE observations of the same target area show the downwind fans can form and grow perceptibly in less than five days.Other new findings from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal processes of Martian environments long ago. A team including Chris Okubo of the University of Arizona, Tucson, used stereo HiRISE images to examine layered deposits inside Mars' Candor Chasma, part of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system in the solar system."The high-resolution structural map allowed us to interpret the geological history of the area," Okubo said. "The layers are tilted in a way that tells us they are younger than the canyon." Spectrometer studies of the composition of these deposits had indicated water played a role in their formation, but their age relative to the formation of the canyon had been uncertain. The new findings suggest water was present after the canyon formed.JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The University of Arizona operates the HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars team, led by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, includes expertise from universities, government agencies and small businesses in the United States and abroad.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/your-chance-to-name-a-comet-landing-site

Your Chance To Name A Comet Landing Site

ESA invites you to submit a name for Rosetta mission's comet landing site. Winner gets a trip to Germany to attend events related to the comet landing on Nov. 12.

Ever want to get in on the celestial feature-naming action? Now is your chance. The European Space Agency is inviting the public to suggest a name for the site where the Rosetta mission's Philae lander will touch down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Nov. 12. The winner of the competition will have an opportunity to travel to the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, to follow the landing live from the mission's control center.The competition will end on Oct. 22 at 4 p.m. PDT (7 p.m. EDT). The winner will be announced on Nov. 3 on the main Rosetta web page:www.esa.int/rosettaFor details of the competition and to enter, visit:http://sci.esa.int/rosetta-competition/Launched in March 2004, Rosetta was reactivated in January 2014 after a record 957 days in hibernation. Composed of an orbiter and lander, Rosetta's objectives since arriving at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko earlier this month have been to study the celestial object up close in unprecedented detail, prepare for landing a probe on the comet's nucleus in November, and following the landing, track the comet's changes as it sweeps past the sun.Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when our sun and its planets formed. Rosetta's lander will obtain the first images taken from a comet's surface and will provide comprehensive analysis of the comet's possible primordial composition by drilling into the surface. Rosetta also will be the first spacecraft to witness at close proximity how a comet changes as it is subjected to the increasing intensity of the sun's radiation. Observations will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of our solar system and the role comets may have played in seeding Earth with water, and perhaps even life.Rosetta is a European Space Agency mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by the German Aerospace Center, Cologne; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen; National Center of Space Studies of France (CNES), Paris; and the Italian Space Agency, Rome. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the U.S. participation in the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit:http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.govMore information about Rosetta is available at:http://www.esa.int/rosetta

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix-gets-bonus-soil-sample

Phoenix Gets Bonus Soil Sample

The Mars Phoenix Lander's robotic arm successfully delivered soil into oven six of the lander's thermal and evolved-gas analyzer (TEGA) on Monday, Oct. 13, or Martian day (sol) 137 of the mission.

The Mars Phoenix Lander's robotic arm successfully delivered soil into oven six of the lander's thermal and evolved-gas analyzer (TEGA) on Monday, Oct. 13, or Martian day (sol) 137 of the mission.The delivery to oven six is a "bonus round" for Phoenix, as the mission goal requirement of filling and analyzing soil in at least three of the ovens has already been satisfied. Six of eight ovens have been used to date.TEGA's tiny ovens heat the soil to as high as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius). The lab's "nose," or mass spectrometer, then "smells" and analyzes the gases derived from heating the soil. Mission scientists will continue to research and analyze the soil samples in the coming months, long after Phoenix stops operating on the surface.Now in Martian late-summer, Phoenix is gradually getting less power as the sun drops below the horizon."My entire team is working very hard to make use of the power we have before it disappears," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, the lead scientist for TEGA. "Every time we fill an oven, we potentially learn more about Mars' geochemistry."NASA's Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-rover-opportunity-passes-half-way-point-to-next-destination

Mars Rover Opportunity Passes Half-Way Point to Next Destination

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has driven more than half of the distance needed to get from a site where it spent 22 months to its next destination.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status ReportPASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has driven more than half of the distance needed to get from a site where it spent 22 months to its next destination.The rover has less than half a mile (800 meters) to go to finish a 1.2-mile (2-kilometer) dash from one crater-rim segment, where it worked since mid-2011, to another, where mission controllers intend to keep Opportunity busy during the upcoming Martian winter.Opportunity departed the southern tip of the "Cape York" segment six weeks ago and headed south for "Solander Point." Both are raised portions of the western rim of 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer-wide) Endeavour Crater, offering access to older geological deposits than the rover visited during its first seven years on Mars. Opportunity was launched from Florida on July 7, 2003, EDT (July 8, UTC). It landed on Mars Jan. 24, 2004, PDT (Jan. 25, EDT and UTC).A flatter area called Botany Bay separates Cape York from Solander Point."We are making very good progress crossing 'Botany Bay,'" said John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who is project manager for the nearly decade-old mission.The terrain is favorable for the trek."The surface that Opportunity is driving across in Botany Bay is polygonally fractured outcrop that is remarkably good for driving," said Brad Joliff, an Opportunity science team member and long-term planner at Washington University in St. Louis. "The plates of outcrop, like a tiled mosaic pavement, have a thin covering of soil, not enough to form the wind-blown ripples we've had to deal with during some other long treks. The outcrop plates are light-toned, and the cracks between them are filled with dark, basaltic soil and our old friends the 'blueberries.'"The BB-size spherules nicknamed "blueberries" are hematite-rich, erosion-resistant concretions that Opportunity discovered at its landing site and continued seeing on much of the ground between there and Endeavour Crater.The rise of Solander Point to the south gives the team a very visible destination during the drive. That destination offers both a tall cross section of rock layers for examination and also an expanse of terrain that includes a north-facing slope, which is favorable for the solar-powered rover to stay active and mobile through the coming Martian southern-hemisphere winter.JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. For more about Spirit and Opportunity, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/roversandhttp://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov. You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at:http://twitter.com/MarsRoversandhttp://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/sulfur-rich-atmosphere-lead-to-the-extinction-of-the-dinosaurs

Sulfur-Rich Atmosphere Lead to the Extinction of the Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs may have already been in decline on Earth some 65 million years ago, but a team of NASA scientists now believes it was the sulfur-rich atmosphere created in the aftermath of an immense asteroid collision with Earth that brought about a global freeze and the demise of these giant Mesozoic creatures.

Dinosaurs may have already been in decline on Earth some 65 million years ago, but a team of NASA scientists now believes it was the sulfur-rich atmosphere created in the aftermath of an immense asteroid collision with Earth that brought about a global freeze and the demise of these giant Mesozoic creatures.The impact of this large asteroid -- perhaps the largest since life evolved -- hit a geologically unique, sulfur-rich region of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, according to planetary geologist Adriana C. Ocampo and atmospheric scientist Dr. Kevin H. Baines, both of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Earth and Space Sciences Division. They estimate the impact was between 10,000 to 50,000 times more powerful than the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact on Jupiter last July and kicked up billions of tons of sulfur and other materials.The researchers and colleagues Dr. Kevin O. Pope of Geo Eco Arc Research in La Canada, Calif. and Dr. Boris A. Ivanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow have co-authored a paper detailing the global atmospheric impact of this asteroid collision at Chicxulub, Mexico in the latest issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters."We estimate that this asteroid was between 10 kilometers to 20 kilometers (6 miles to 12 miles) in diameter and its collision on Earth brought about total darkness around the world for about half a year," Ocampo said. "But more importantly, persistent clouds generated by the impact on this geologically distinct region of sulfur-rich materials caused temperatures to plunge globally to nearly freezing.""These environmental changes lasted for a decade and subjected organisms all over the world to long-term stresses to which they could not adapt in such a brief time span," Pope added. "Half of the species on Earth became extinct as a result."The researchers based their work on computer models of the impact and atmospheric effects, studies of the crater geology and extensive fieldwork at a rock quarry located 360 kilometers (223 miles) south of Chicxulub at Albion Island in Belize, where fragments bearing the unique characteristics of the impact were found.In studying the sites and modeling the resulting changes in the biosphere, the scientists discovered that it was the specific geological location of the impact in a region that is rich in sulfur materials that created catastrophic climate changes and led to the downfall of the dinosaurs."If this asteroid had struck almost any other place on Earth, it wouldn't have generated the tremendous amount of sulfur that was spewed into the atmosphere to create such a devastating, worldwide climate change," Baines said. "In fact, we human beings owe our existence to the uniqueness of this impact region."On impact, the asteroid hurled some 35 billion to 770 billion tons of sulfur high into the atmosphere, along with other materials. The NASA team, in collaboration with Dr. Alfred Fischer of the University of Southern California, recently discovered rocks --some the size of a Volkswagon bug -- that were blown out of the crater and landed 360 kilometers (223 miles) south of the Chicxulub site in Belize.The boulder deposit in Belize also contained fragments of glass that were created by the melting of rock when the asteroid crashed into Earth, Ocampo said. And spherical fragments, known as "tektites," were scattered about and formed as the molten glass flew through the air and cooled. The tektites have been found in other regions near the crater, such as Haiti, Mexico, Texas and Alabama, but never in association with large boulders.As the researchers continued to excavate, they found spherical pieces of calcium carbonate, some of which have an unusual radial structure. The formation of these "spherules" remains a mystery, Ocampo said, but the scientists speculate that they could have formed from the residue of vaporized sulfur-rich rocks.Another important find at the Belize rock quarry was limestone with fossils dating to the early part of the Cretaceous."Fossils of this age don't belong in northern Belize," Ocampo said. "Early Cretaceous fossils have been found deep below the surface near the crater during drilling by the Mexican Petroleum Company. We think the limestone found in Belize was excavated by the impact, which probably blew a hole more than 15 kilometers (9 miles) deep in the Yucatan Peninsula."Since 1980, when University of California-Berkeley geology professor Walter Alvarez and his colleagues first proposed the theory, researchers have been searching for impact sites that would explain the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs. The main evidence to support the theory came from finding a substance called iridium in a layer of clay in Italy. The concentration of iridium, an element found on Earth in very small quantities, was quite large. However, a high concentration of the element is found in asteroids and comets.It took another decade for researchers to find an actual impact site. In 1989, Pope and Charles Duller of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. discovered a semi-circle of sinkholes at Chicxulub. Ocampo studied gravity and magnetic data from the crater and correlated them with the sinkholes. She concluded that the area had the classic characteristics of an impact crater, indicating that Chicxulub was, in fact, the place where a colossal asteroid had smashed into Earth millions of years ago. Current estimates of the crater size range from 180 kilometers to 300 kilometers (112 miles to 186 miles) in diameter, making it one of the largest craters known on Earth.The researchers used sophisticated atmospheric models of the sulfur-rich atmosphere of Venus to paint their doomsday scenario."Initially, thick sulfur clouds, combined with soot and dust generated by this impact, would have spread worldwide and blocked out the sun," Baines and Pope said. "Night-like conditions probably existed all over Earth for at least six months and wiped out many species of plants because the blackout essentially brought photosynthesis to a halt. Unlike the aftermath of typical impacts, the skies remained murky for at least a decade, due to chemically generated clouds of sulfuric acid high in the stratosphere."The reflection of sunlight back into space from these high-altitude clouds caused surface temperatures to drop to nearly freezing for many years all over the planet, even over normally balmy islands in once-tropical seas.These atmospheric conditions occur in Venus's perpetually cloudy atmosphere, Baines said, where ultraviolet sunlight and water in the high atmosphere can convert sulfur dioxide into sulfuric acid clouds. Sulfuric acid clouds like those that cover Venus may well have continued to blanket the Earth for more than a decade after the initial impact of the asteroid, causing a secondary and more long-lasting effect -- the coup-de-grace or final knockout blow -- which killed much of life on Earth."The entire ecosystem of Earth, including plants and animals, was subjected to extreme environmental conditions, which a large number of well-established species, such as the dinosaurs, simply could not cope with," Baines said.Six months of total darkness and 10 years of global freezing ultimately destroyed the dinosaurs and many other organisms, Pope added. Miraculously, many species survived the catastrophe and evolution took a new turn, ushering in the era of mammals and, eventually, humankind.Results of the Belize research are scheduled to appear with other works in an upcoming Special Paper of the Geological Society of America, which will feature recent research on major catastrophes in Earth's history.The research was sponsored by the Exobiology Program in NASA's Solar System Exploration Division. Fieldwork in Belize was supported in part by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cassini-sees-saturn-and-moons-in-holiday-dress

Cassini Sees Saturn and Moons in Holiday Dress

This holiday season, feast your eyes on images of Saturn and two of its most fascinating moons, Titan and Enceladus, in a care package from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

This holiday season, feast your eyes on images of Saturn and two of its most fascinating moons, Titan and Enceladus, in a care package from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. All three bodies are dressed and dazzling in this special package assembled by Cassini's imaging team.The new images are available online at:http://www.nasa.gov/cassini,http://saturn.jpl.nasa.govandhttp://ciclops.org."During this, our tenth holiday season at Saturn, we hope that these images from Cassini remind everyone the world over of the significance of our discoveries in exploring such a remote and beautiful planetary system," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader, based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "Happy holidays from all of us on Cassini."Two views of Enceladus are included in the package and highlight the many fissures, fractures and ridges that decorate the icy moon's surface. Enceladus is a white, glittering snowball of a moon, now famous for the nearly 100 geysers that are spread across its south polar region and spout tiny icy particles into space. Most of these particles fall back to the surface as snow. Some small fraction escapes the gravity of Enceladus and makes its way into orbit around Saturn, forming the planet's extensive and diffuse E ring. Because scientists believe these geysers are directly connected to a subsurface, salty, organic-rich, liquid-water reservoir, Enceladus is home to one of the most accessible extraterrestrial habitable zones in the solar system.Packaged along with Saturn and Enceladus is a group of natural-color images of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, highlighting two of Titan's most outstanding features. Peering through the moon's hazy, orange atmosphere, the Cassini narrow-angle camera spots dark, splotchy features in the polar regions of the moon. These features are the lakes and seas of liquid methane and ethane for which the moon is renowned. Titan is the only other place in the solar system that we know has stable liquids on its surface, though in Titan's case, the liquids are ethane and methane rather than water. At Titan's south pole, a swirling high-altitude vortex stands out distinctly against the darkness of the moon's un-illuminated atmosphere. Titan's hazy atmosphere and surface environment are believed to be similar in certain respects to the early atmosphere of Earth.But the planet that towers over these moons is a celestial wonder itself. The north and south poles of Saturn are highlighted and appear drastically different from each other, as seen in new natural-color views. The globe of Saturn resembles a holiday ornament in a wide-angle image overlooking its north pole, bringing into view the hexagonal jet stream and rapidly spinning polar vortex that reside there. And the planet's south pole, now in winter, looking very different than the springtime north, displays brilliant blue hues, reminiscent of a frosty winter wonderland."Until Cassini arrived at Saturn, we didn't know about the hydrocarbon lakes of Titan, the active drama of Enceladus' jets, and the intricate patterns at Saturn's poles," said Linda Spilker, the Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Spectacular images like these highlight that Cassini has given us the gift of knowledge, which we have been so excited to share with everyone."Launched in 1997, Cassini has explored the Saturn system for more than nine years. NASA plans to continue the mission through 2017, with the anticipation of much more groundbreaking science and imagery to come.The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the U.S., England, France, and Germany. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-hosts-150-twitter-followers-at-mars-rover-launch

NASA Hosts 150 Twitter Followers at Mars Rover Launch

NASA has invited 150 followers of the agency's Twitter account to a two-day launch Tweetup on Nov. 23 and 25 at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA has invited 150 followers of the agency's Twitter account to a two-day launch Tweetup on Nov. 23 and 25 at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.The Tweetup is expected to culminate in the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity rover aboard an Atlas V rocket from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.The launch window is scheduled to open at 7:25 a.m. PST (10:25 a.m. EST) on Nov. 25. Curiosity's arrival at Mars' Gale Crater is anticipated in August 2012. During the nearly two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether a selected area of Mars offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and preserved that evidence, if it existed.Tweetup participants were selected from more than 1,050 people who registered online. They will share their Tweetup experiences with their followers through the social networking site Twitter and other online forums.Participants represent the United States, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom. Attendees from the U.S. come from the District of Columbia and 37 states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.Beginning at 8 a.m. PST (11 a.m. EST) on Wednesday, Nov. 23, NASA will broadcast a portion of the Tweetup when attendees talk with Jim Green, Planetary Science division director, and Doug McCuistion, Mars Exploration program director, both from NASA Headquarters in Washington. Engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., where the rover was designed and built, will speak, as will mission scientists.To watch the launch broadcast, visit:http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-tweetup. The broadcast with live chat will begin at 6:30 a.m. PST (9:30 a.m. EST) onhttp://ustream.tv/nasajpl.Tweetup participants also will tour Kennedy and Cape Canaveral, including a close-up visit to the launch pad. On launch day, they will speak with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden; Leland Melvin, NASA's assistant administrator for education; astronaut Doug Wheelock and Bill Nye the Science Guy.NASA invited its Twitter followers to attend eight previous launches: NASA's newest Earth-observing satellite, NPP; the twin GRAIL spacecraft bound for the moon; the Juno spacecraft on its way to Jupiter; and five space shuttle missions.To follow participants on Twitter as they experience the prelaunch events and Curiosity's liftoff, follow the #NASATweetup hashtag and the list of attendees at:https://twitter.com/NASATweetup/mars-curiosity.JPL manages the mission. NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy is managing the launch.For more information about the Mars Curiosity rover, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/mslandhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.Interact with the mission via Twitter and Facebook accounts at:http://Twitter.com/MarsCuriosityandhttp://Facebook.com/MarsCuriosity.To connect with NASA on Twitter and other social networking sites, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/connect.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/dead-stars-tell-story-of-planet-birth

Dead Stars Tell Story of Planet Birth

Observations made with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveal six dead "white dwarf" stars littered with the remains of shredded asteroids.

PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers have turned to an unexpected place to study the evolution of planets -- dead stars.Observations made with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveal six dead "white dwarf" stars littered with the remains of shredded asteroids. This might sound pretty bleak, but it turns out the chewed-up asteroids are teaching astronomers about the building materials of planets around other stars.So far, the results suggest that the same materials that make up Earth and our solar system's other rocky bodies could be common in the universe. If the materials are common, then rocky planets could be, too."If you ground up our asteroids and rocky planets, you would get the same type of dust we are seeing in these star systems," said Michael Jura of the University of California, Los Angeles, who presented the results today at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, Calif. "This tells us that the stars have asteroids like ours -- and therefore could also have rocky planets." Jura is the lead author of a paper on the findings accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal.Asteroids and planets form out of dusty material that swirls around young stars. The dust sticks together, forming clumps and eventually full-grown planets. Asteroids are the leftover debris. When a star like our sun nears the end of its life, it puffs up into a red giant that consumes its innermost planets, while jostling the orbits of remaining asteroids and outer planets. As the star continues to die, it blows off its outer layers and shrinks down into a skeleton of its former self -- a white dwarf.Sometimes, a jostled asteroid wanders too close to a white dwarf and meets its demise -- the gravity of the white dwarf shreds the asteroid to pieces. A similar thing happened to Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 when Jupiter's gravity tore it up, before the comet ultimately smashed into the planet in 1994.Spitzer observed shredded asteroid pieces around white dwarfs with its infrared spectrograph, an instrument that breaks light apart into a rainbow of wavelengths, revealing imprints of chemicals. Previously, Spitzer analyzed the asteroid dust around two so-called polluted white dwarfs; the new observations bring the total to eight."Now, we've got a bigger sample of these polluted white dwarfs, so we know these types of events are not extremely rare," said Jura.In all eight systems observed, Spitzer found that the dust contains a glassy silicate mineral similar to olivine and commonly found on Earth. "This is one clue that the rocky material around these stars has evolved very much like our own," said Jura.The Spitzer data also suggest there is no carbon in the rocky debris -- again like the asteroids and rocky planets in our solar system, which have relatively little carbon.A single asteroid is thought to have broken apart within the last million years or so in each of the eight white-dwarf systems. The biggest of the bunch was once about 200 kilometers (124 miles) in diameter, a bit larger than Los Angeles County.Jura says the real power of observing these white dwarf systems is still to come. When an asteroid "bites the dust" around a dead star, it breaks into very tiny pieces. Asteroid dust around living stars, by contrast, is made of larger particles. By continuing to use spectrographs to analyze the visible light from this fine dust, astronomers will be able to see exquisite details -- including information about what elements are present and in what abundance. This will reveal much more about how other star systems sort and process their planetary materials."It's as if the white dwarfs separate the dust apart for us," said Jura.Other authors are Ben Zuckerman at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jay Farihi at Leicester University, England.This research was funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visithttp://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzerandhttp://www.nasa.gov/spitzer.

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

Stardust Can See Clearly Now -- Just Before Earth Flyby

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

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

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-reaches-a-total-of-30-minutes-aloft

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Reaches a Total of 30 Minutes Aloft

With its recent 17th flight, the Red Planet rotorcraft reaches an airborne milestone the team never considered achievable. Its 18th flight is scheduled for no earlier than today.

Loading Image Comparison...Ingenuity sits on a slightly inclined surface with about 6-degree tilt at the center of the frame, just north of the southern ridge of “Séíitah” geologic unit. The Perseverance rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument took this image on Dec. 1, 2021, when the rotorcraft was about 970 feet (295 meters) away. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSSThe 17th flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on Dec. 5 pushed the total flight time past the 30-minute mark. The 117-second sortie brought history’s first aircraft to operate from the surface of another world closer to its original airfield, “Wright Brothers Field,” where it will await the arrival of the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover, currently exploring “South Séítah” region of Mars’ Jezero Crater.Along with accumulating 30 minutes and 48 seconds of flight time, the trailblazing helicopter has traveled over the surface a distance of 2.2 miles (3,592 meters), flying as high as 40 feet (12 meters) and as fast as 10 mph (5 meters per second).The rotorcraft’s status after the Dec. 5 flight was previously unconfirmed due to an unexpected cutoff to thein-flight data streamas the helicopter descended toward the surface at the conclusion of its flight. Perseverance serves as the helicopter’s communications base station with controllers on Earth. A handful of data radio packets the rover received later suggested a healthy helicopter on the surface but did not provide enough information for the team to declare a flight success.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERBut data downlinked to mission engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Friday, Dec. 10, indicates that Flight 17 was a success and that Ingenuity is in excellent condition.The 30-minute mark far surpasses the original plans for the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft. Designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights, Ingenuityfirst flewon April 19, 2021, with a short up-and-down hop to prove powered, controlled flight on Mars was possible. The next four experimental flights expanded the rotorcraft’s flight envelope, making increasingly longer flights with more complicated maneuvering, which further helped engineers at JPL better understand its performance.With the sixth flight, the helicopter embarked on anew operations demonstration phase, investigating how aerial scouting and other functions could benefit future exploration of Mars and other worlds. In this new chapter, the helicopter has operated from airfields well south of Wright Brothers Field, scouting rocky outcrops and other geologic features of interest to the Perseverance rover’s science team.“Few thought we would make it to flight one, fewer still to five. And no one thought we would make it this far,” said Ingenuity Team Lead Teddy Tzanetos of JPL. “On the way to accumulating over a half-hour aloft Ingenuity has survived eight months of bitter cold, and operated out of nine unique Martian airfields. The aircraft’s continued operations speaks to the robustness of the design and the diligence and passion of our small operations team.”Flight 18Flight 18 is scheduled to take place no earlier than today, Dec. 15, with Ingenuity covering another 754 feet (230 meters) at a speed of 5.6 mph (2.5 meters per second) over 125 seconds. The new airfield, close to the northern boundary of Séítah, will be the rotorcraft’s 10th on Mars. Data from the flight is expected to be received at JPL no earlier than in the late afternoon today.As with the previous effort, Flight 18 will push the limits of Ingenuity’s radio range and performance. To provide it with the best chance of maintaining a link throughout landing, the Mars Helicopter team has modified the flight sequence to communicate in a low-data-rate mode, which will provide an additional signal-strength boost to the radio link.“If we do lose radio link on landing, it may be several days or weeks until the line-of-sight between Ingenuity and Perseverance improves enough to attempt a communication session,” said Tzanetos. “While delaying our post-flight data analysis is an inconvenience, it is not unexpected and becoming the new normal as we continue to operate in challenging terrain in the weeks ahead.”More About IngenuityThe Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages this technology demonstration project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science, Aeronautics, and Space Technology mission directorates. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Space in designed and manufactured theMars Helicopter Delivery System.At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.More About PerseveranceA key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars isastrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includesArtemismissions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.For more information about Ingenuity:https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopterFor more about Perseverance:mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-marks-earths-big-day

JPL Marks Earth's Big Day

It's your planet. It's your future. It's our mission. Join NASA and JPL in celebrating Earth Day April 22 with events, interactive activities and online resources.

The need to understand the planet we call home has never been greater. As the population of our pale blue dot continues to grow, humans and all living things vie for an ever-shrinking pool of natural resources. Fresh water. Clean air. Food. Habitable land. As Earth's climate changes in response to human and natural causes, these resources are strained.NASA's contingent of dedicated Earth scientists and engineers -- the world's largest -- together with its armada of Earth satellites and airborne instruments, study all aspects of the Earth system--its ocean, atmosphere, ice, land and biosphere. Together, this conflux of humans and machines is advancing our scientific understanding of our ever-changing Earth system, helping to meet the needs of society.JPL studies help us identify how Earth's climate is changing, understand the causes of these changes, and support development of models used to predict future global change. Currently, JPL has six dedicated Earth science spacecraft in orbit, with another five instruments flying aboard NASA's Terra, Aqua and Aura spacecraft. Several more missions are planned for launch in the next few years. Decision makers around the world use JPL Earth science data to support policy-making and resource management decisions.Interactive Activities/Events:Earth Day Web ChatThurs., April 22, 10-11 a.m. PDTJoin JPL's Mike Gunson, project scientist for NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission, for this live, text-based Earth Day Web chat geared toward students in grades 3 through 8. Learn more about how and why NASA and JPL are studying Earth's climate.› Read moreHow Do You Help Our Planet?How do you and your family help our planet? Students, classrooms and families are invited to share comments and learn how NASA studies Earth.› Read moreA Hot Challenge for Earth DayTake our quiz to test your knowledge of global temperature and its impact on Earth's climate.› View hereEvents:Earth Day Celebration at the Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, Calif.Sat. and Sun., April 24-25, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. PDTJPL will join in the Earth Day celebration at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif. The event will include exhibits and handouts on NASA's Earth science research.› Read moreEarth Day Activities at Other NASA CentersFor a comprehensive listing of NASA's Earth Day activities, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/earthday.Online resources:"Elements" Image GalleryAt NASA, every day is Earth Day. Take a minute to appreciate the majesty of our home planet. Our video takes you through some amazing views from space.› View galleryGlobal climate change website/Eyes on the Earth 3-DVisit NASA's award-winning and Webby-nominated Global Climate Change website, devoted to educating the public about Earth's changing climate. The site provides easy-to-understand information about the causes and effects of climate change and how NASA studies it. New content is added daily. A highlight is "Eyes on the Earth 3-D," an interactive program that allows the public to "fly along" with JPL's fleet of Earth science missions and others from NASA and even see near-real-time satellite data.› Global Climate Change web site› Launch "Eyes on the Earth 3-D" interactiveFor the latest JPL Earth science news and images and a listing of JPL Earth observing missions, visithttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/earth/index.cfm.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/next-nasa-mars-mission-reaches-milestone

Next NASA Mars Mission Reaches Milestone

NASA's InSight mission has begun its assembly, test and launch operations phase, on track for a March 2016 launch to Mars.

NASA's InSight mission has begun the assembly, test and launch operations (ATLO) phase of its development, on track for a March 2016 launch to Mars.The lander, its aeroshell and cruise stage are being assembled by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver."Reaching this stage that we call ATLO is a critical milestone," said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "This is a very satisfying point of the mission as we transition from many teams working on their individual elements to integrating these elements into a functioning system. The subsystems are coming from all over the globe, and the ATLO team works to integrate them into the flight vehicle. We will then move rapidly to rigorous testing when the spacecraft has been assembled, and then to the launch preparations."Over the next six months, technicians at Lockheed Martin will add subsystems such as avionics, power, telecomm, mechanisms, thermal systems and navigation systems onto the spacecraft. The propulsion system was installed earlier this year on the lander's main structure."The InSight mission is a mix of tried-and-true and new-and-exciting. The spacecraft has a lot of heritage from Phoenix and even back to the Viking landers, but the science has never been done before at Mars," said Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. "Physically, InSight looks a lot like the Phoenix lander we built, but most of the electronic components are similar to what is currently flying on the MAVEN spacecraft."InSight stands for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport," and it is more than a Mars mission. This NASA Discovery-class mission is a terrestrial planet explorer that will address one of the most fundamental issues of planetary and solar system science: understanding the processes that shaped the rocky planets of the inner solar system (including Earth) more than four billion years ago.To investigate the planet's interior, the stationary lander will carry a robotic arm that will deploy surface and burrowing instruments contributed by France and Germany. The national space agencies of France and Germany -- Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), respectively -- are partnering with NASA by providing InSight's two main science instruments.The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will be built by CNES in partnership with DLR and the space agencies of Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It will measure waves of ground motion carried through the interior of the planet, from "marsquakes" and meteor impacts. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, from DLR, will measure heat coming toward the surface from the planet's interior.Guided by images of the surroundings taken by the lander, InSight's robotic arm will place the seismometer on the surface and then place a protective covering over it to minimize effects of wind and temperature on the sensitive instrument. The arm will also put the heat-flow probe in position to hammer itself into the ground to a depth of 3 to 5 yards, or meters.Another experiment will use the radio link between InSight and NASA's Deep Space Network antennas on Earth to measure precisely a wobble in Mars' rotation that could reveal whether the planet has a molten or solid core. Wind and temperature sensors from Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia and a pressure sensor will monitor weather at the landing site, and a magnetometer will measure magnetic disturbances caused by the Martian ionosphere.The InSight mission is led by JPL's Bruce Banerdt. It is part of NASA's Discovery Program of competitively selected, cost-capped missions. Its international science team combines researchers from Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program. Lockheed Martin is building the lander and other parts of the spacecraft near Denver.For more about InSight, visit:http://insight.jpl.nasa.govFor more information about Mars missions:http://www.nasa.gov/marsFor more about the Discovery Program, visit:http://discovery.nasa.gov

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/warm-neptune-has-unexpectedly-primitive-atmosphere

'Warm Neptune' Has Unexpectedly Primitive Atmosphere

A study combining observations from NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes reveals that the distant planet HAT-P-26b has a primitive atmosphere composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium.

A study combining observations from NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes reveals that the distant planet HAT-P-26b has a primitive atmosphere composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. Located about 437 light-years away, HAT-P-26b orbits a star roughly twice as old as the sun.The analysis is one of the most detailed studies to date of a "warm Neptune," or a planet that is Neptune-sized and close to its star. The researchers determined that HAT-P-26b's atmosphere is relatively clear of clouds and has a strong water signature, although the planet is not a water world. This is the best measurement of water to date on an exoplanet of this size.The discovery of an atmosphere with this composition on this exoplanet has implications for how scientists think about the birth and development of planetary systems. Compared to Neptune and Uranus, the planets in our solar system with about the same mass, HAT-P-26b likely formed either closer to its host star or later in the development of its planetary system, or both."Astronomers have just begun to investigate the atmospheres of these distant Neptune-mass planets, and almost right away, we found an example that goes against the trend in our solar system," said Hannah Wakeford, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study published in the May 12, 2017, issue of Science. "This kind of unexpected result is why I really love exploring the atmospheres of alien planets."To study HAT-P-26b's atmosphere, the researchers used data from transits -- occasions when the planet passed in front of its host star. During a transit, a fraction of the starlight gets filtered through the planet's atmosphere, which absorbs some wavelengths of light but not others. By looking at how the signatures of the starlight change as a result of this filtering, researchers can work backward to figure out the chemical composition of the atmosphere.In this case, the team pooled data from four transits measured by Hubble and two seen by Spitzer. Together, those observations covered a wide range of wavelengths from yellow light through the near-infrared region."To have so much information about a warm Neptune is still rare, so analyzing these data sets simultaneously is an achievement in and of itself," said co-author Tiffany Kataria of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.Because the study provided a precise measurement of water, the researchers were able to use the water signature to estimate HAT-P-26b's metallicity. Astronomers calculate the metallicity, an indication of how rich the planet is in all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, because it gives them clues about how a planet formed.To compare planets by their metallicities, scientists use the sun as a point of reference, almost like describing how much caffeine beverages have by comparing them to a cup of coffee. Jupiter has a metallicity about 2 to 5 times that of the sun. For Saturn, it's about 10 times as much as the sun. These relatively low values mean that the two gas giants are made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium.The ice giants Neptune and Uranus are smaller than the gas giants but richer in the heavier elements, with metallicities of about 100 times that of the sun. So, for the four outer planets in our solar system, the trend is that the metallicities are lower for the bigger planets.Scientists think this happened because, as the solar system was taking shape, Neptune and Uranus formed in a region toward the outskirts of the enormous disk of dust, gas and debris that swirled around the immature sun. Summing up the complicated process of planetary formation in a nutshell: Neptune and Uranus would have been bombarded with a lot of icy debris that was rich in heavier elements. Jupiter and Saturn, which formed in a warmer part of the disk, would have encountered less of the icy debris.Two planets beyond our solar system also fit this trend. One is the Neptune-mass planet HAT-P-11b. The other is WASP-43b, a gas giant twice as massive as Jupiter.But Wakeford and her colleagues found that HAT-P-26b bucks the trend. They determined its metallicity is only about 4.8 times that of the sun, much closer to the value for Jupiter than for Neptune."This analysis shows that there is a lot more diversity in the atmospheres of these exoplanets than we were expecting, which is providing insight into how planets can form and evolve differently than in our solar system," said David K. Sing of the University of Exeter and the second author of the paper. "I would say that has been a theme in the studies of exoplanets: Researchers keep finding surprising diversity."JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.For more information about Spitzer, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/spitzerFor images and more information about Hubble, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/herschel-finds-a-hole-in-space

Herschel Finds a Hole in Space

The Herschel Space Observatory has made an unexpected discovery: a gaping hole in the clouds surrounding a batch of young stars.

The Herschel Space Observatory has made an unexpected discovery: a gaping hole in the clouds surrounding a batch of young stars. The hole has provided astronomers with a surprising glimpse into the end of the star-forming process.Stars are born hidden in dense clouds of dust and gas, which can now be studied in remarkable detail with Herschel, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA participation. Although jets and winds of gas have been seen streaming from young stars in the past, it has always been a mystery exactly how a star uses the jets to blow away its surroundings and emerge from its birth cloud. For the first time, Herschel may be seeing an unexpected step in this process.A cloud of bright reflective gas known to astronomers as NGC 1999 sits next to a black patch of sky. For most of the 20th century, such black patches were known to be dense clouds of dust and gas that block light from passing through.When Herschel looked in its direction to study nearby young stars, astronomers were surprised to see the cloud continued to look black, which shouldn't have been the case. Herschel's infrared eyes are designed to see into such clouds. Either the cloud was immensely dense or something was wrong.Investigating further using ground-based telescopes, astronomers found the same story no matter how they looked: this patch looks black not because it is a dense pocket of gas but because it is truly empty. Something has blown a hole right through the cloud."No one has ever seen a hole like this," says Tom Megeath of the University of Toledo, Ohio, the principal investigator of the research. "It's as surprising as knowing you have worms tunneling under your lawn, but finding one morning that they have created a huge, yawning pit."The astronomers think that the hole must have been opened when the narrow jets of gas from some of the young stars in the region punctured the sheet of dust and gas that forms NGC 1999. The powerful radiation from a nearby adolescent star may also have helped to clear the hole. Whatever the precise chain of events, it could be an important glimpse into the way newborn stars rip apart their birth clouds.Other members of the research team include Thomas Stanke of the European Southern Observatory, Germany; Amy Stutz of the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany, and the Steward Observatory, Tucson; John Tobin of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Lori Allen of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson; Ali Babar of the NASA Herschel Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; and Will Fischer and Erin Kryukova, University of Toledo, Ohio.Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes and with important participation by NASA. NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, supports the United States astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.More information is online athttp://www.herschel.caltech.edu,http://www.nasa.gov/herschelandhttp://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/index.html.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-insight-gets-a-few-extra-weeks-of-mars-science

NASA’s InSight Gets a Few Extra Weeks of Mars Science

The mission’s team has chosen to operate its seismometer longer than previously planned, although the lander will run out of power sooner as a result.

As the power available to NASA’s InSight Mars landerdiminishes by the day, the spacecraft’s team has revised the mission’s timeline in order to maximize the science they can conduct. The lander was projected to automatically shut down the seismometer – InSight’s last operational science instrument – by the end of June in order to conserve energy, surviving on what power itsdust-ladensolar panels can generate until around December.Instead, the team now plans to program the lander so that the seismometer can operate longer, perhaps until the end of August or into early September. Doing so will discharge the lander’s batteries sooner and cause the spacecraft to run out of power at that time as well, but it might enable the seismometer to detect additional marsquakes.“InSight hasn’t finished teaching us about Mars yet,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division in Washington. “We’re going to get every last bit of science we can before the lander concludes operations.”The InSight team will be available to answer your questions directly on June 28 at 3 p.m. EDT (noon PDT) during a livestream event on YouTube. Questions can be asked using the #AskNASA hashtag.InSight(short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is in anextended missionafter achieving its science goals. The lander has detected more than 1,300 marsquakes since touching down on Mars in 2018, providing information that has allowed scientists to measure the depth and composition ofMars’ crust, mantle, and core. With its other instruments, InSight has recorded invaluable weather data, investigated the soil beneath the lander, and studied remnants of Mars’ ancient magnetic field.All instruments but the seismometer have already been powered down. Like other Mars spacecraft, InSight has a fault protection system that automatically triggers “safe mode” in threatening situations and shuts down all but its most essential functions, allowing engineers to assess the situation. Low power and temperatures that drift outside predetermined limits can both trigger safe mode.Send a postcard to InSight and the lander’s teamTo enable the seismometer to continue to run for as long as possible, the mission team is turning off InSight’s fault protection system. While this will enable the instrument to operate longer, it leaves the lander unprotected from sudden, unexpected events that ground controllers wouldn’t have time to respond to.“The goal is to get scientific data all the way to the point where InSight can’t operate at all, rather than conserve energy and operate the lander with no science benefit,” said Chuck Scott, InSight’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.Regular updates on InSight’s power and observations from mission team members will appear onblogs.nasa.gov/insight.The InSight team will also be available to answer your questions directly on June 28 at 3 p.m. EDT (noon PDT) during a livestream event onYouTube. Questions can be asked using the #AskNASA hashtag.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTERMore About the MissionJPL manages InSight for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain's Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/saturn-with-a-side-of-bacon

Saturn With a Side of Bacon

Take a peek inside the Cassini team's beloved tradition of Friday breakfast together.

Take a peek inside the Cassini team's beloved tradition ofFriday breakfasttogether.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-map-shows-frequency-of-small-asteroid-impacts-provides-clues-on-larger-asteroid-population

New Map Shows Frequency of Small Asteroid Impacts, Provides Clues on Larger Asteroid Population

A new map from NASA's Near Earth Object Program reveals that small asteroids frequently enter and disintegrate in Earth's atmosphere with random distribution around the globe.

A map released today by NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program reveals that small asteroids frequently enter and disintegrate in the Earth's atmosphere with random distribution around the globe. Released to the scientific community, the map visualizes data gathered by U.S. government sensors from 1994 to 2013. The data indicate that Earth's atmosphere was impacted by small asteroids, resulting in a bolide (or fireball), on 556 separate occasions in a 20-year period. Almost all asteroids of this size disintegrate in the atmosphere and are usually harmless. The notable exception was the Chelyabinsk event which was the largest asteroid to hit Earth in this period. The new data could help scientists better refine estimates of the distribution of the sizes of NEOs including larger ones that could pose a danger to Earth.Finding and characterizing hazardous asteroids to protect our home planet is a high priority for NASA. It is one of the reasons NASA has increased by a factor of 10 investments in asteroid detection, characterization and mitigation activities over the last five years. In addition, NASA has aggressively developed strategies and plans with its partners in the U.S. and abroad to detect, track and characterize NEOs. These activities also will help identify NEOs that might pose a risk of Earth impact, and further help inform developing options for planetary defense.The public can help participate in the hunt for potentially hazardous Near Earth Objects through the Asteroid Grand Challenge, which aims to create a plan to find all asteroid threats to human populations and know what to do about them. NASA is also pursuing an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) which will identify, redirect and send astronauts to explore an asteroid. Among its many exploration goals, the mission could demonstrate basic planetary defense techniques for asteroid deflection.For more information about the map and data, go to:http://neo.jpl.nasa.govFor details about ARM, and the Asteroid Grand Challenge, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiativeNASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/aquarius-makes-first-ocean-salt-measurements

Aquarius Makes First Ocean Salt Measurements

NASA's Aquarius instrument has successfully completed its commissioning phase and is now "tasting" the saltiness of Earth's ocean surface.

Aquarius Mission UpdatePASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Aquarius instrument has successfully completed its commissioning phase and is now "tasting" the saltiness of Earth's ocean surface, making measurements from its perch in near-polar orbit."This marks the end of the long odyssey to design, build and launch this mission, and the start of a new journey of scientific exploration," said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef of Earth & Space Research, Seattle. "Scientists from around the world are ready and waiting to study this important new satellite measurement for ocean and climate research."The Aquarius/SAC-D (Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas) observatory, a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's space agency, Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), launched from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on June 10 aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket and was placed in its proper initial orbit. Ground controllers at the SAC-D Mission Operations Center in Teófilo Tabanera Space Center in Cordoba, Argentina, then began a complete in-orbit checkout of all SAC-D spacecraft systems.With all observatory systems confirmed to be healthy, SAC-D spacecraft commissioning activities were completed on July 24. The spacecraft's propulsion system then underwent a series of tests, and preliminary orbit adjustments were performed in preparation for turning on the observatory's eight science instruments.Aquarius will make NASA's first space observations of the salinity, or concentration of salt, at the ocean surface, a key variable in satellite studies of Earth. Variations in salinity influence the ocean's deep circulation, outline the path freshwater takes around our planet and help drive Earth's climate.On Aug. 14, the Aquarius Instrument Flight Operations Team, together with the SAC-D Mission Flight Operations Team, began powering up the Aquarius instrument, and successfully completed deployment of the Aquarius antenna on Aug. 17. The team then began sequentially powering on the instrument's subsystems. On Aug. 20, the Aquarius radiometer, which collects the brightness temperature data from which salinity measurements are derived, was powered on for the first time in space and transmitted its first science data back to Earth, which were analyzed and found to be as expected. On Aug. 21, the team began powering on Aquarius' radar scatterometer, which corrects for the effects of ocean roughness on the radiometer readings. Commissioning of Aquarius was completed and regular data collection began on Aug. 24.The Aquarius science team will spend the coming months analyzing and calibrating the measurements and releasing preliminary data.With the Aquarius instrument commissioning now complete, the SAC-D Instruments Flight Operations Teams, together with the SAC-D Mission Flight Operations Team in Argentina, are now engaged in commissioning the other seven SAC-D instruments. Once all the observatory instruments are commissioned, a maneuver will be conducted to place Aquarius/SAC-D in its final orbit, 408 miles (657 kilometers) above Earth.Aquarius was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NASA's Launch Services Program, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, managed the launch. JPL is managing Aquarius through its commissioning phase and will archive mission data. Goddard will manage Aquarius mission operations and process science data. CONAE is providing the SAC-D spacecraft, an optical camera, a thermal camera with Canada, a microwave radiometer, other sensors and the mission operations center. France and Italy also are contributing instruments.For more information about Aquarius/SAC-D, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/aquariusandhttp://www.conae.gov.ar/eng/principal.html.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-drills-at-telegraph-peak

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Drills at 'Telegraph Peak'

Sample-collection drilling that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover completed Tuesday will likely be the last before the rover departs "Pahrump Hills."

-- "Telegraph Peak" is third drilling site in outcrop at base of Mount Sharp-- Choice of drilling site motivated by chemistry measurements-- Mission heading through "Artist's Drive" and higher on Mount SharpNASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its drill on Tuesday, Feb. 24 to collect sample powder from inside a rock target called "Telegraph Peak." The target sits in the upper portion of "Pahrump Hills," an outcrop the mission has been investigating for five months.The Pahrump Hills campaign previously drilled at two other sites. The outcrop is an exposure of bedrock that forms the basal layer of Mount Sharp. Curiosity's extended mission, which began last year after a two-year prime mission, is examing layers of this mountain that are expected to hold records of how ancient wet environments on Mars evolved into drier environments.The rover team is planning to drive Curiosity away from Pahrump Hills in coming days, exiting through a narrow valley called "Artist's Drive," which will lead the rover along a strategically planned route higher on the basal layer of Mount Sharp.The Telegraph Peak site was selected after the team discussed the large set of physical and chemical measurements acquired throughout the campaign. In particular, measurements of the chemistry of the Telegraph Peak site, using the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on the rover's arm, motivated selection of this target for drilling before the departure from Pahrump Hills.Compared to the chemistry of rocks and soils that Curiosity assessed before reaching Mount Sharp, the rocks of Pahrump Hills are relatively enriched in the element silicon in proportion to the amounts of the elements aluminum and magnesium. The latest drilling site exhibits that characteristic even more strongly than the earlier two, which were lower in the outcrop."When you graph the ratios of silica to magnesium and silica to aluminum, 'Telegraph Peak' is toward the end of the range we've seen," said Curiosity co-investigator Doug Ming, of NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston. "It's what you would expect if there has been some acidic leaching. We want to see what minerals are present where we found this chemistry."The rock-powder sample from Telegraph Peak goes to the rover's internal Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument for identification of the minerals. After that analysis, the team may also choose to deliver sample material to Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite of laboratory instruments.The sample-collection drilling at Telegraph Peak was the first in Curiosity's 30 months on Mars to be conducted without a preliminary "mini drill" test of the rock's suitability for drilling. The team judged full-depth drilling to be safe for the drill based on similarities of the target to the previous Pahrump Hills targets. The rover used a low-percussion-level drilling technique that it first used on the previous drilling target, "Mojave 2."Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp after two years of examining other sites inside Gale Crater and driving toward the mountain at the crater's center.NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover's APXS was provided by the Canadian Space Agency. CheMin was developed by NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Air Force Base, California, and SAM was developed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.For more information about Curiosity, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/mslhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosityhttp://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-atlases-use-nasa-data-to-chart-ocean-winds

New Atlases Use NASA Data to Chart Ocean Winds

Researchers have compiled years of data from NASA's QuikScat satellite to create three new atlases of ocean wind patterns around the globe.

Several new atlases of ocean wind patterns around the globe, based on data from NASA's QuikScat satellite, are benefiting a wide range of users, from those who sail the seas to those responsible for managing their precious resources.Researchers compiled seven years of QuikScat data to create a never-before-available monthly atlas of how frequently high winds blow over the open ocean all over the world. The maps, which show where gales (winds greater than 39 knots or 45 miles per hour) are common, are available athttp://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/~takeaki/highwind/. A paper on the findings was published recently in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society by researchers Takeaki Sampe and Shang-Ping Xie of the International Pacific Research Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.Navigators can use these data to chart shipping routes. Energy companies can use the information to determine where to place oil rigs and plan offshore wind farms. Marine resource managers can use the data to help prevent coastal erosion and track oil spills. The U.S. Coast Guard and other organizations can use the data to conduct search and rescue efforts.The data also provide insights into many ocean wind phenomena. High winds play an important role in Earth's climate. They remove heat from the ocean, leading to the formation of "deep water" -- cold, salty, dense water that helps drive global ocean circulation patterns. They also help exchange gases, such as carbon dioxide, between the oceans and the atmosphere, mix different types of ocean water, and pump nutrients up from the deep sea for plankton to feed on.Among the researchers' findings:- Earth's windiest ocean location is Cape Farewell, Greenland, where gale winds blow 16 percent of the time.- Half of the top 10 windiest spots occur where tall coastlines or high mountains meet the sea.- Strong winds are much more frequent on the warm side of cold-warm fronts formed where the Atlantic's warm Gulf Stream flows northward into cold ocean regions. This gives climate scientists important clues about how sharp differences in ocean surface temperatures affect the atmosphere, with warm ocean temperatures creating an unstable atmosphere that sucks strong winds down from aloft.- Typhoons and hurricanes have little impact on the frequency of overall high winds, since they are less frequent than other types of storms in Earth's mid-latitudes."People know high winds are found in big storms," said Xie. "What is most surprising from our research is that narrow ocean currents have such a large effect on the occurrence of high winds. For example, in cold meanders (bends) of the Atlantic's Gulf Stream, the frequency of high winds drops by an order of magnitude. This knowledge can provide navigators with a 'safe harbor' for ships."Another NASA-funded wind atlas based on QuikScat data was published in late 2006 by researchers Craig Risien and Dudley Chelton of the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Corvallis, Ore., in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment. The first high-resolution, observationally-based, online interactive atlas of global ocean winds, it provides highly accurate, global information on wind statistics throughout Earth's oceans. These data are especially important in regions of the world where there are few ships and buoys to gather data. The resolution of the data is equivalent to having data from about 150,000 ocean buoys distributed uniformly across the global oceans. It is available online athttp://cioss.coas.oregonstate.edu/cogow.Risien and Chelton are also authors of another QuikScat winds atlas currently in press for the Journal of Physical Oceanography. It documents the seasonal cycles of numerous wind variables, and is available for download athttp://cioss.coas.oregonstate.edu/scow. This new database is specifically designed for ocean modelers to use in climate studies.QuikScat, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., measures ocean surface winds by transmitting high-frequency microwave pulses to Earth's ocean surface and measuring the strength of the radar pulses that bounce back to the instrument. These ocean surface winds drive Earth's oceans and control the exchange of heat, moisture and gases between the atmosphere and the sea. For more information on QuikScat, see:http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm.Additional media contact: Gisela Speidel, International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 808-956-9252,gspeidel@hawaii.edu.JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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

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

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

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

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-media-telecon-today-first-spacecraft-successfully-enters-orbit-around-a-dwarf-planet

NASA Media Telecon Today: First Spacecraft Successfully Enters Orbit Around a Dwarf Planet

NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) today to discuss the historic arrival of the agency's Dawn spacecraft at the dwarf planet Ceres.

NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) today to discuss the historic arrival of the agency's Dawn spacecraft at the dwarf planet Ceres.Ceres, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is the largest unexplored world of the inner solar system. Dawn is not only the first spacecraft to reach a dwarf planet, it is the first spacecraft ever to orbit two different worlds in deep space.Dawn was the first spacecraft to orbit a body in the main asteroid belt when it explored the giant asteroid Vesta from 2011 to 2012.Participants in the teleconference will be:• Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington• Carol Raymond, Dawn mission deputy principal investigator, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CaliforniaThe teleconference will be streamed live on NASA's website, at:http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudioFor information about NASA's Dawn mission, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/dawn

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/steep-slopes-on-mars-reveal-structure-of-buried-ice

Steep Slopes on Mars Reveal Structure of Buried Ice

Researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have found eight sites where thick deposits of ice beneath Mars' surface are exposed in faces of eroding slopes.

Researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have found eight sites where thick deposits of ice beneath Mars' surface are exposed in faces of eroding slopes.These eight scarps, with slopes as steep as 55 degrees, reveal new information about the internal layered structure of previously detected underground ice sheets in Mars' middle latitudes.The ice was likely deposited as snow long ago. The deposits are exposed in cross section as relatively pure water ice, capped by a layer one to two yards (or meters) thick of ice-cemented rock and dust. They hold clues about Mars' climate history. They also may make frozen water more accessible than previously thought to future robotic or human exploration missions.Researchers who located and studied the scarp sites with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on MRO reported the findings today in the journal Science. The sites are in both northern and southern hemispheres of Mars, at latitudes from about 55 to 58 degrees, equivalent on Earth to Scotland or the tip of South America."There is shallow ground ice under roughly a third of the Martian surface, which records the recent history of Mars," said the study's lead author, Colin Dundas of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. "What we've seen here are cross-sections through the ice that give us a 3-D view with more detail than ever before."Windows into underground iceThe scarps directly expose bright glimpses into vast underground ice previously detected with spectrometers on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, with ground-penetrating radar instruments on MRO and on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, and with observations of fresh impact craters that uncover subsurface ice. NASA sent the Phoenix lander to Mars in response to the Odyssey findings; in 2008, the Phoenix mission confirmed and analyzed the buried water ice at 68 degrees north latitude, about one-third of the way to the pole from the northernmost of the eight scarp sites.The discovery reported today gives us surprising windows where we can see right into these thick underground sheets of ice," said Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Tucson, a co-author on today's report. "It's like having one of those ant farms where you can see through the glass on the side to learn about what's usually hidden beneath the ground."Scientists have not determined how these particular scarps initially form. However, once the buried ice becomes exposed to Mars' atmosphere, a scarp likely grows wider and taller as it "retreats," due to sublimation of the ice directly from solid form into water vapor. At some of them, the exposed deposit of water ice is more than 100 yards, or meter, thick. Examination of some of the scarps with MRO's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) confirmed that the bright material is frozen water. A check of the surface temperature using Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera helped researchers determine they're not seeing just thin frost covering the ground.Researchers previously used MRO's Shallow Radar (SHARAD) to map extensive underground water-ice sheets in middle latitudes of Mars and estimate that the top of the ice is less than about 10 yards beneath the ground surface. How much less? The radar method did not have sufficient resolution to say. The new ice-scarp studies confirm indications from fresh-crater and neutron-spectrometer observations that a layer rich in water ice begins within just one or two yards of the surface in some areas.Astronauts' access to Martian waterThe new study not only suggests that underground water ice lies under a thin covering over wide areas, it also identifies eight sites where ice is directly accessible, at latitudes with less hostile conditions than at Mars' polar ice caps. "Astronauts could essentially just go there with a bucket and a shovel and get all the water they need," Byrne said.The exposed ice has scientific value apart from its potential resource value because it preserves evidence about long-term patterns in Mars' climate. The tilt of Mars' axis of rotation varies much more than Earth's, over rhythms of millions of years. Today the two planets' tilts are about the same. When Mars tilts more, climate conditions may favor buildup of middle-latitude ice. Dundas and co-authors say that banding and color variations apparent in some of the scarps suggest layers "possibly deposited with changes in the proportion of ice and dust under varying climate conditions."This research benefited from coordinated use of multiple instruments on Mars orbiters, plus the longevities at Mars now exceeding 11 years for MRO and 16 years for Odyssey. Orbital observations will continue, but future missions to the surface could seek additional information."If you had a mission at one of these sites, sampling the layers going down the scarp, you could get a detailed climate history of Mars," suggested MRO Deputy Project Scientist Leslie Tamppari of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "It's part of the whole story of what happens to water on Mars over time: Where does it go? When does ice accumulate? When does it recede?"The University of Arizona operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, leads MRO's CRISM investigation. The Italian Space Agency provided MRO's SHARAD instrument, Sapienza University of Rome leads SHARAD operations, and the Planetary Science Institute, based in Tucson, Arizona, leads U.S. involvement in SHARAD. Arizona State University, Tempe, leads the Odyssey mission's THEMIS investigation. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the MRO and Odyssey projects for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space, Denver, built both orbiters and supports their operation.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/trench-on-mars-ready-for-next-sampling-by-nasa-lander

Trench on Mars Ready for Next Sampling by NASA Lander

Phoenix Mars Lander has groomed the bottom of a shallow trench to prepare for collecting a sample to be analyzed from a hard subsurface layer where the soil may contain frozen water.

TUCSON, Ariz. -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has groomed the bottom of a shallow trench to prepare for collecting a sample to be analyzed from a hard subsurface layer where the soil may contain frozen water.Images received Thursday morning confirmed that the lander's robotic arm had scraped the top of the hard layer clean during activities of Phoenix's 58th Martian day, or sol, corresponding to overnight Wednesday to Thursday.The Phoenix team developed commands for sending to the spacecraft Thursday to complete two remaining preparations necessary before collecting a sample and delivering it to the lander's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA). One part of the plan for Sol 59 (overnight Thursday to Friday) would assure that the scoop is empty of any soil collected earlier. Another would complete a final cleaning of any volatile materials from the oven that will receive the sample.In the past two weeks, the team has refined techniques for using a powered rasp on the back of the arm's scoop to cut and collect shavings of material from the bottom of the trench. The trench, informally named "Snow White," is 4 to 5 centimeters deep (about 2 inches), about 23 centimeters wide (9 inches), and about 60 centimeters long (24 inches) long."The rasped material ends up in the back of the scoop, and we have to transfer it to the front through a pathway. That takes a series of arm moves to be sure the material gets through the pathway," said Robert Bonitz of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manager for the robotic arm. "The reason we're doing it today is we want to be sure the pathway is free of any material collected previously before we collect the next sample for delivery to TEGA."The planned activity would repeat the series of pathway-clearing moves twice, and check visually to be sure the front of the scoop is empty. It is also important to get the background counts as low as possible in TEGA's evolved-gas analyzer, which receives vapors emitted from the oven. The instrument was heated repeatedly before launch and during the flight to Mars to drive off any volatile material in it, such as water and carbon-dioxide gases that tend to stick on surfaces. It got another heating on Sol 58."The baking last night was to remove background volatiles stuck on the walls of the instrument," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, lead scientist for TEGA. "What we're planning today is pumping out any gas we might have released with the baking."Other activities in the plan for the sol beginning today include weather monitoring and photography of several areas. Some planned use of the Surface Stereo Imager would record the same view consecutively through 15 different filters. Each filter lets through only a limited band of wavelengths of visible or infrared light. Using just red, green and blue filters allows the team to make full-color images. Using the additional filters provides more information useful for interpreting geological or atmospheric qualities of the image target.The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For more about Phoenix, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/phoenixandhttp://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-mission-named-europa-clipper

NASA Mission Named 'Europa Clipper'

NASA's upcoming mission to investigate the habitability of Jupiter's icy moon Europa now has a formal name: Europa Clipper.

NASA's upcoming mission to investigate the habitability of Jupiter's icy moon Europa now has a formal name: Europa Clipper.The moniker harkens back to the clipper ships that sailed across the oceans of Earth in the 19th century. Clipper ships were streamlined, three-masted sailing vessels renowned for their grace and swiftness. These ships rapidly shuttled tea and other goods back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean and around the globe.In the grand tradition of these classic ships, the Europa Clipper spacecraft would sail past Europa at a rapid cadence, as frequently as every two weeks, providing many opportunities to investigate the moon up close. The prime mission plan includes 40 to 45 flybys, during which the spacecraft would image the moon's icy surface at high resolution and investigate its composition and the structure of its interior and icy shell.Europa has long been a high priority for exploration because it holds a salty liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust. The ultimate aim of Europa Clipper is to determine if Europa is habitable, possessing all three of the ingredients necessary for life: liquid water, chemical ingredients, and energy sources sufficient to enable biology."During each orbit, the spacecraft spends only a short time within the challenging radiation environment near Europa. It speeds past, gathers a huge amount of science data, then sails on out of there," said Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.Previously, when the mission was still in the conceptual phase, it was sometimes informally called Europa Clipper, but NASA has now adopted that name as the formal title for the mission.The mission is being planned for launch in the 2020s, arriving in the Jupiter system after a journey of several years.JPL manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.For more information about NASA's Europa Clipper mission, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/europa

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/scientists-confirm-comet-samples-ecstatic-with-return

Scientists Confirm Comet Samples, Ecstatic with Return

Scientists said they were delighted with Stardust samples returned from the tail of a comet after an almost three-billion-mile journey.

Scientists said they were delighted with Stardust samples returned from the tail of a comet after an almost three-billion-mile journey.Speaking at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Dr. Peter Tsou, Stardust deputy principal investigator, said researchers were ecstatic with the collection of the cometary and solar materials from outer space."Stardust is the realization of a 25-year dream to capture and return samples from a comet," Dr. Tsou, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Pasadena, Calif., told news media representatives at Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center and NASA Headquarters."This exceeded all of our grandest expectations," stated Dr. Donald Brownlee, Stardust principal investigator, also astronomy professor at the University of Washington, as he described the capsule return and capture process. The material responsible for capturing the tiny particles -- Aerogel -- is a sponge-like solid made of 99 percent empty space.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/take-the-drivers-seat-on-sea-level-science

Take the Driver's Seat on Sea Level Science

Anyone with a computer can take the driver's seat using this new NASA model of sea level rise and ice sheet melt.

A newNASA sea level simulatorlets you bury Alaska's Columbia glacier in snow, and, year by year, watch how it responds. Or you can melt the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and trace rising seas as they inundate the Florida coast.Computer models are critical tools for understanding the future of a changing planet, including melting ice, rising seas and shifting precipitation patterns. But typically, these mathematical representations -- long chains of computer code giving rise to images of dynamic change -- are accessible mainly to scientists.› DOWNLOAD VIDEO DIY Glacier Modeling with NASA's Virtual Earth System LaboratoryThe new simulator, however, allows anyone with a computer to perform idealized experiments with sea level and learn about its complexities. Developed by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the interactive platform, called the Virtual Earth System Laboratory (VESL), provides the public with a taste of how NASA models important Earth processes.The platform will also prove useful to scientists as a convenient way to create visual representations of data.While many interface tools are available to explore sea level effects, VESL stands apart for its strong representation of Earth's cryosphere - the melting ice caps, ice sheets and glaciers that are major contributors to sea level rise.And the simulator is not just a simplified version of a model or a menu of preexisting results. It is direct access to the complex, number-crunching model itself, though with limited scenarios and factors that can be adjusted."It's the real software, being used on the fly, live, without being prerecorded or precomputed," said Eric Larour of JPL, who led VESL's development. "You have access to a segment of an ice sheet model or sea level model, running NASA's software."Despite these capabilities, VESL won't overtax computers."A key to making the interface tool work is cloud computing," Larour said. Instead of burdening your own computer with heavy demand, "you can access a JPL cloud to run big simulations."The VESL platform allows the user to control one or two parameters for each model scenario. For example, in a version of the model configured to represent Columbia Glacier, a slider allows users to change snowfall amounts and examine how the change affects the glacier's behavior in subsequent years. For a sea level simulation, sliders control the rates at which the ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland are melting."You can explore different aspects of the model that maybe even the scientists didn't explore," Larour said.The site will be updated frequently to keep up with the latest, peer-reviewed research. Scientists will eventually be able to use the graphical interface to display and present new data sets or model results, while lay users will be able to replicate published research results for themselves using models that are "open source," or publicly available."As we make progress, [the public] can rerun the science that we actually do," Larour said. "If anybody has concerns or finds issues with our simulation, they have the ability to replicate our results. We would welcome feedback and inputs to improve our science."VESL was developed over five years by members of the Ice Sheet System Model development team at JPL and the University of California, Irvine (UCI), with the help of several students, including Dan Cheng from UCI and Gilberto Perez, who attended both Cal Poly Pomona and UCI.The website hosting the simulator will also include a public outreach section, being developed by Daria Halkides, a scientist and outreach exhibit developer of Earth & Space Research in Seattle and a JPL affiliate."VESL was initially intended for scientists," Larour said. "Then we realized it could also be an excellent tool for public outreach. These simulations are so easy to run, and visually so compelling, that any person from the public can go and run them and probably understand what is going on."You can find VESL at:https://vesl.jpl.nasa.gov/A paper describing the development of the ice sheet simulator, titled "A JavaScript API for the Ice Sheet System Model: Towards on online interactive model for the Cryosphere Community," appears today in the journal Geoscientific Model Development.Apaperdescribing the development of the ice sheet simulator appears today in the journal Geoscientific Model Development.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/visionary-tech-concepts-could-pioneer-the-future-in-space

Visionary Tech Concepts Could Pioneer the Future in Space

Dozens of concepts are being presented at this year’s NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium, including eight led by technologists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA missions make it seem like the future is now – rovers exploring Mars with cutting-edge gadgets, a spacecraft venturing home with an asteroid sample, and a complex space telescope peering at the early universe. So, what’s the next big thing? What might space missions in 2050 and beyond set out to discover?One small NASA program aims to see what could be possible. The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, funds early-stage research into sci-fi sounding, futuristic technology concepts. The goal is to find what might work, what might not, and what exciting new ideas researchers may come up with along theway.During NIAC’sannual SymposiumSept. 21-23, 2021, researchers will present ideas that could one day be game-changers in space.Watch the eventto learn more about these four technology concepts and more.1. Swimming micro-robots for ocean worlds.Ocean worlds, where liquid oceans lie beneath miles of icy crust, are some of the most likely locations in our solar system to harbor life – an enticing prospect for scientists. Accessing and exploring these aquatic environments present unique challenges.Ethan Schaler, a robotics mechanical engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, is researching one promising idea for exploration: Using 3D-printed, centimeter-scale robots equipped with sensors and actuators. A mothercraft that drilled through the ice and deployed the micro-bots would also wirelessly control them using ultrasound waves.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER2. Long-reach crawling and anchoring robots for Martian caves.While swimming robots could be ideal for some destinations, others will require something with a firmer grip.Marco Pavone, an associate professor at Stanford University, is developing a potential solution. His ReachBot concept could quickly crawl through caves, using extendable booms to grasp over long distances. Its various features would allow small and lightweight robots to move around in tricky environments, such as vertical cliff walls or the rocky and uneven floors of caves on Mars.3. Lightweight deployable structures that expand in space.Getting extra-large spacecraft off Earth takes lots of planning, as the size of what can go to space depends on how much a rocket can fit. Multiple launches and in-space assembly have proven successful in the past, but there could be another way. Assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon UniversityZachary Manchesteris considering ways to integrate recent advances in mechanical metamaterials into a lightweight deployable structure design. Such a structure could be launched inside a single rocket fairing and then deploy autonomously to a final size of the length of 10 football fields.4. Seeding asteroids with fungi to create space soil.Space habitat concepts come in all shapes and sizes. But all designs have a common challenge requiring innovative thinking: How will space travelers sustain themselves during long journeys?Jane Shevtsov, working with Trans Astronautica Corporation, offers creating soil from carbon-rich asteroid material. The fungi would physically break down the material and chemically degrade toxic substances. Similar processes take place on Earth, like oyster mushrooms cleaning up petroleum-contaminated soil. The NIAC research aims to find a way for future space habitats to have ample green space and robust agricultural systems.The 2021 NIAC symposium will kick off Tuesday, Sept. 21. A keynote address by the Mars 2020 Planetary Protection Lead Moogega Cooper will air on NASA Television, the agency’swebsite, and theNASA app.NASA selects NIAC proposals through a peer-review process that evaluates innovation and technical viability. All projects are still in the early stages of development, with most requiring a decade or more of technology maturation. They are not considered official NASA missions.To learn more about NIAC, visit:www.nasa.gov/niac

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-spots-perseverance-from-above

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Spots Perseverance From Above

Can you see NASA’s newest rover in this picture from Jezero Crater?

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recently completed its 11th flight at the Red Planet, snapping multiple photographs during its trip. Along with capturing the boulders, sand dunes, and rocky outcrops prevalent in the “South Séítah” region of Jezero Crater, a few of the images capture NASA’s Perseverance rover amid its first science campaign.Ingenuity began as a technological demonstration to prove that powered, controlled flight on Mars is possible. It is now an operations demonstration intended to investigate how a rotorcraft can add an aerial dimension to missions like Perseverance, scouting possible areas of scientific interest and offering detailed views of nearby areas too hazardous for the rover to explore.“Ingenuity’s aerial images are awesome – but even better when you get to play ‘Where’s Perseverance?’ with them,” said Robert Hogg. “Once you find our rover and zoom in, you can make out some details, like the wheels, remote sensing mast, and the MMRTG” – theMulti-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator– “on the aft end.”Larger image for PIA24793So where is Perseverance? At the bottom center of the image, you can find Ingenuity’s shadow. From there, go straight up. Just beyond South Seítah’s dune field near the top of the image and just to the right of center is a bright white speck. That’s what a Mars rover looks like from about 1,600 feet (500 meters) away and 39 feet (12 meters) up.Flight 11 was essentially designed to keep Ingenuity ahead of the rover, allowing it to continue to support Perseverance’s science goals by photographing intriguing geologic features from the air. Flying north-by-northwest at 11 mph (five meters per second), it took Ingenuity 130.9 seconds to make the trip to its 8th airfield. From this new staging area, the helicopter is scheduled to make at least one reconnaissance flight of the geologically intriguing South Séítah area.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERMore About IngenuityThe Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages the technology demonstration project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA's Science, Aeronautics Research, and Space Technology mission directorates. NASA's Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity's development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Martin Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System.More About PerseveranceA key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars isastrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includesArtemismissions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.For more about Perseverance:mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/andnasa.gov/perseverance

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/one-year-out-nasas-psyche-mission-moves-closer-to-launch

One Year Out: NASA’s Psyche Mission Moves Closer to Launch

As part of NASA’s Discovery Program, the mission to explore a metal-rich asteroid is well on its way to an August 2022 launch.

With NASA’sPsychemission now less than a year from launch, anticipation is building. By next spring, the fully assembled spacecraft will ship from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a launch period that opens Aug. 1, 2022.In early 2026, the Psyche spacecraft will arrive at its target, anasteroidof the same name in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists believe asteroid Psyche, which is about 140 miles (226 kilometers) wide, is made largely of iron and nickel and could be the core of an early planet.Click on this interactive visualization of asteroid Psyche and take it for a spin. The "HD" button in the lower right offers for more detailed textures. The full interactive experience is atEyes on the Solar System. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechThe spacecraft will spend 21 months orbiting the asteroid and gathering science data with a magnetometer, a multispectral imager, and a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer. The information the instruments gather won’t just help scientists understand this particular object; it will lend valuable insight into how Earth and other planets formed.“It’s incredible to be at this point now, with a big spacecraft coming together and one year until launch,” said Arizona State University’s Lindy Elkins-Tanton, who as principal investigator leads the Psyche mission. “Like everyone in the world, our team has faced many challenges of the COVID pandemic, and we are putting in maximum effort to make it to the finish line. I’m so proud of this incredible group of people!”Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERIn March, Maxar Technologiesdelivered to JPLthe spacecraft’s Solar Electric Propulsion Chassis, with most of the engineering hardware needed for the electrical system, the propulsion systems, the thermal system, and the guidance and navigation system. Psyche will use Maxar’s superefficient electric propulsion system to travel through deep space. The spacecraft’s delivery coincided with the kickoff of the mission phase known as assembly, test, and launch operations.The mission also will test a sophisticated new laser communications technology, recently completed by JPL, called Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC). The technology demonstration will focus on using lasers to enhance communications speeds and prepare for data-intensive transmissions, which could potentially include livestream videos for future missions.Engineers already have completed the successful integration of the magnetometer and DSOC with the Psyche spacecraft. The Psyche spectrometer will be integrated over the next few months, along with the imager.When the spacecraft is fully assembled, it will move into JPL’s huge thermal vacuum chamber for testing that simulates the environment of deep space. The entire spacecraft then will be attached to a large shaker table in an acoustic chamber to simulate the environment of launch.“We have all been watching the spacecraft come together on the floor of the clean room. It’s tremendously exciting after all the years of hard work designing the system, and building and testing its myriad of components,” said JPL’s Henry Stone, the Psyche project manager. “The pressure is now on to complete assembly and test of the vehicle prior to shipment to Cape Canaveral in less than a year. It’s both exhilarating and stressful for all involved, but I have total confidence in this team’s ability to get the job done in time for our launch. Go, Psyche!”More About the MissionASU leads the mission. JPL is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and testing, and mission operations. Psyche is the 14th mission selected as part ofNASA’s Discovery Program.For more information about NASA’s Psyche mission go to:http://www.nasa.gov/psychehttps://psyche.asu.edu/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-aids-response-to-nepal-quake

NASA Aids Response to Nepal Quake

NASA and its partners are gathering the best available science and information on the April 25 magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Nepal to assist in relief and humanitarian operations.

NASA and its partners are gathering the best available science and information on the April 25, 2015, magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Nepal, referred to as the Gorkha earthquake, to assist in relief and humanitarian operations. Organizations using these NASA data products and analyses include the U.S. Geological Survey, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, World Bank, American Red Cross, and the United Nations Children's Fund.NASA and its collaborators are pulling optical and radar satellite data from international and domestic partners and compiling them into a variety of products. The products include "vulnerability maps," used to determine risks that may be present; and "damage proxy maps," used to determine the type and extent of existing damage. Such products can be used to better direct response efforts.The satellite data will be used to compile maps of ground surface deformation and to create risk models. NASA and its partners are also contributing to assessments of damage to infrastructure. They are tracking remote areas that may be a challenge for relief workers to reach, as well as areas that could be at risk for landslides, river damming, floods and avalanches. The data will contribute to ongoing investigations of our restless Earth and its impacts on society.NASA is helping get satellite data into the hands of government officials in Nepal where Internet bandwidth is limited. The joint NASA-USAID SERVIR project is supporting disaster response mapping efforts through the SERVIR-Himalaya office at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu. SERVIR staff at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, are coordinating image tasking, processing, compression, and distribution efforts with colleagues from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.NASA technology that can locate people trapped beneath collapsed buildings is being deployed to Nepal. A remote-sensing radar technology called FINDER (Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response), developed by JPL in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate, can locate individuals buried as deep as 30 feet (9.1 meters) in crushed materials, hidden behind 20 feet (6 meters) of solid concrete, and from a distance of 100 feet (30.5 meters) in open spaces. This technology, licensed by the private entity R4 Incorporated of Edgewood, Maryland, has been taken to Nepal to assist with recovery efforts.NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new in-sights into how our planet is changing.Data and images will be released as they become available at:http://www.nasa.gov/content/images-of-the-april-2015-nepal-earthquake

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-jason-1-achieves-a-one-decade-landmark

NASA's Jason-1 Achieves a One-Decade Landmark

In Greek mythology, Jason embarked on an epic quest for the Golden Fleece. Today, NASA's modern-day Jason-1 achieves its own heroic status, marking its 10th birthday.

On Dec. 7, 2001, NASA and the French Space Agency Centre Nationale d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) launched the Jason-1 satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., embarking on a planned three-to-five-year mission to study Earth's ocean from space. Today, Jason-1 celebrates 10 years of precisely measuring ocean surface topography. The mission continues to reveal new insights into the ocean's complicated circulation patterns, while providing a critical measure of climate change by contributing to a nearly 20-year record of global sea level monitoring from space.Jason-1 is the successful follow-on mission to the NASA/French Space Agency's pioneering Topex/Poseidon mission, which revolutionized our understanding of the dynamics of ocean circulation and global climate from 1992 to 2006. In 2008, the meteorological agencies of the United States and Europe collaborated with NASA and CNES to launch the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 satellite to build upon this unprecedented long-term record of consistent, continuous global observations of Earth's ocean.Early calibration phases of the missions allowed Topex/Poseidon and Jason-1, and now Jason-1 and Jason-2, to fly over identical ground tracks. The resulting data streams from these "tandem missions" have provided seamless coverage between the three missions, allowing scientists to observe and study both short-lived events such as hurricanes, and interannual climate phenomena such as El Nino, La Nina and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.Other significant science results from the mission include studies of ocean circulation; the ties between the ocean and the atmosphere; and improved global climate forecasts and predictions."Jason-1 extended Topex/Poseidon's record of global sea level rise, one of our most important indicators of climate change, into a second decade," said Lee-Lueng Fu, Jason-1 project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., which manages the U.S. portion of the Jason-1 mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "The altimeter-observed geographic pattern of long-term sea level change is a landmark discovery of oceanography."The Jason missions don't collect their observations in isolation, however. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-supported ocean-profiling float project, called Argo, was created to collect observations measured directly from the ocean surface and to complement the Jason data. More recently, data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) mission have been combined with the altimetry data from Jason and Argo to give scientists a more complete picture of Earth's changing ocean, providing an important global observing system for sea level and ocean circulation studies.NASA is currently working with its partners NOAA, CNES and EUMETSAT on the next mission in the series, Jason-3, projected for launch in 2014. Concepts for future missions, including Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) and the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT), are currently in development."Jason-1 measures the ongoing rise in global sea level, which is a result of human-caused global warming," said Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and Jason-3 project scientist. "Driven by melting ice and expanding seawater, global sea level rise has become a powerful reminder of how fast humans are changing the climate. Along with its predecessor, Topex/Poseidon, and its successor, Jason-2, Jason-1 has kept a finger on the pulse of global climate change."For more information on Jason-1 and NASA's satellite altimetry missions, visit:http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/.JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-heads-toward-active-dunes

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Heads Toward Active Dunes

The NASA Mars rover that is studying layers of a Martian mountain will soon get its first taste of the "Bagnold Dunes," a dark sea of sand along the mountain's base.

On its way to higher layers of the mountain where it is investigating how Mars' environment changed billions of years ago, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover will take advantage of a chance to study some modern Martian activity at mobile sand dunes.In the next few days, the rover will get its first close-up look at these dark dunes, called the "Bagnold Dunes," which skirt the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp. No Mars rover has previously visited a sand dune, as opposed to smaller sand ripples or drifts. One dune Curiosity will investigate is as tall as a two-story building and as broad as a football field. The Bagnold Dunes are active: Images from orbit indicate some of them are migrating as much as about 3 feet (1 meter) per Earth year. No active dunes have been visited anywhere in the solar system besides Earth."We've planned investigations that will not only tell us about modern dune activity on Mars but will also help us interpret the composition of sandstone layers made from dunes that turned into rock long ago," said Bethany Ehlmann of the California Institute of Technology and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in Pasadena, California.As of Monday, Nov. 16, Curiosity has about 200 yards or meters remaining to drive before reaching "Dune 1." The rover is already monitoring the area's wind direction and speed each day and taking progressively closer images, as part of the dune research campaign. At the dune, it will use its scoop to collect samples for the rover's internal laboratory instruments, and it will use a wheel to scuff into the dune for comparison of the surface to the interior.Curiosity has driven about 1,033 feet (315 meters) in the past three weeks, since departing an area where its drill sampled two rock targets just 18 days apart. The latest drilled sample, "Greenhorn," is the ninth since Curiosity landed in 2012 and sixth since reaching Mount Sharp last year. The mission is studying how Mars' ancient environment changed from wet conditions favorable for microbial life to harsher, drier conditions.Before Curiosity's landing, scientists used images from orbit to map the landing region's terrain types in a grid of 140 square quadrants, each about 0.9 mile (1.5 kilometers) wide. Curiosity entered its eighth quadrant this month. It departed one called Arlee, after a geological district in Montana, and drove into one called Windhoek, for a geological district in Namibia. Throughout the mission, the rover team has informally named Martian rocks, hills and other features for locations in the quadrant's namesake area on Earth. There's a new twist for the Windhoek Quadrant: scientists at the Geological Society of Namibia and at the Gobabeb Research and Training Center in Namibia have provided the rover team with a list of Namibian geological place names to use for features in this quadrant. The Windhoek theme was chosen for this sand-dune-bearing quadrant because studies of the Namib Desert have aided interpretation of dune and playa environments on Mars.What distinguishes actual dunes from windblown ripples of sand or dust, like those found at several sites visited previously by Mars rovers, is that dunes form a downwind face steep enough for sand to slide down. The effect of wind on motion of individual particles in dunes has been studied extensively on Earth, a field pioneered by British military engineer Ralph Bagnold (1896-1990). Curiosity's campaign at the Martian dune field informally named for him will be the first in-place study of dune activity on a planet with lower gravity and less atmosphere.Observations of the Bagnold Dunes with the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that mineral composition is not evenly distributed in the dunes. The same orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment has documented movement of Bagnold Dunes."We will use Curiosity to learn whether the wind is actually sorting the minerals in the dunes by how the wind transports particles of different grain size," Ehlmann said.As an example, the dunes contain olivine, a mineral in dark volcanic rock that is one of the first altered into other minerals by water. If the Bagnold campaign finds that other mineral grains are sorted away from heavier olivine-rich grains by the wind's effects on dune sands, that could help researchers evaluate to what extent low and high amounts of olivine in some ancient sandstones could be caused by wind-sorting rather than differences in alteration by water.Ehlmann and Nathan Bridges of the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, lead the Curiosity team's planning for the dune campaign."These dunes have a different texture from dunes on Earth," Bridges said. "The ripples on them are much larger than ripples on top of dunes on Earth, and we don't know why. We have models based on the lower air pressure. It takes a higher wind speed to get a particle moving. But now we'll have the first opportunity to make detailed observations."JPL, managed by Caltech for NASA, built Curiosity and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about Curiosity, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/mslhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosityhttp://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-stardust-good-to-the-last-drop

NASA's Stardust: Good to the Last Drop

NASA's most traveled comet hunter goes out in style with one final burn of its rocket motors.

On Thursday, March 24 at about 4 p.m. PDT (7 p.m. EDT), NASA's Stardust spacecraft will perform a final burn with its main engines.At first glance, the burn is something of an insignificant event. After all, the venerable spacecraft has executed 40 major flight path maneuvers since its 1999 launch, and between these main engines and the reaction control system, its rocket motors have collectively fired more than 2 million times. But the March 24 burn will be different from all others. This burn will effectively end the life of NASA's most traveled comet hunter."We call it a 'burn to depletion,' and that is pretty much what we're doing – firing our rockets until there is nothing left in the tank," said Stardust-NExT project manager Tim Larson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It's a unique way for an interplanetary spacecraft to go out. Essentially, Stardust will be providing us useful information to the very end."Burn to depletion will answer the question about how much fuel Stardust had left in its tank."We'll take those data and compare them to what our estimates told us was left," said Allan Cheuvront, Lockheed Martin Space Systems program manager for Stardust-NExT. "That will give us a better idea how valid our fuel consumption models are and make our predictions even more accurate for future missions."Fuel consumption models are necessary because no one has invented an entirely reliable fuel gauge for spacecraft. Until that day arrives, mission planners can approximate fuel usage by looking at the history of the vehicle's flight and how many times and for how long its rocket motors have fired.Stardust's burn to depletion is expected to impart valuable information, because the spacecraft has essentially been running on borrowed time -- for some time. Launched on Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust had already flown past an asteroid (Annefrank), flown past and collected particle samples from a comet (Wild 2), and returned those particles to Earth in a sample return capsule in January 2006 – and in so doing racked up 4.63 billion kilometers (2.88 billion miles) on its odometer. NASA then re-tasked the still-healthy spacecraft to perform a flyby of comet Tempel 1, a new, low-cost mission that required another five years and 1.04 billion kilometers (646 million miles). After all those milestones and all that time logged on the spacecraft, the Stardust team knew the end was near. They just didn't know exactly how close.Prior to this final burn, Stardust will point its medium-gain antenna at Earth – some 312 million kilometers (194 million miles) away. As there is no tomorrow for Stardust, the spacecraft is expected to downlink information on the burn as it happens. The command from the spacecraft computer ordering the rockets to fire will be sent for 45 minutes, but the burn is expected to last only between a couple of minutes to somewhat above 10 minutes. It is estimated the burn could accelerate the spacecraft anywhere from 2.5 to 35.2 meters per second (6 to 79 mph)."What we think will happen is that when the fuel reaches a critically low level, gaseous helium will enter the thruster chambers," said Larson. "The resulting thrust will be less than 10 percent of what was expected. While Stardust will continue to command its rocket engines to fire until the pre-planned firing time of 45 minutes has elapsed, the burn is essentially over."Twenty minutes after the engines run dry, the spacecraft's computer will command its transmitters off. They actively shut off their radios to preclude the remote chance that at some point down the road Stardust's transmitter could turn on and broadcast on a frequency being used by other operational spacecraft. Turning off the transmitter ensures that there will be no unintended radio interference in the future.Without fuel to power the spacecraft's attitude control system, Stardust's solar panels will not remain pointed at the sun. When this occurs, the spacecraft's batteries are expected to drain of power and deplete within hours."When we take into account all the possibilities for how long the burn could be and then the possible post-burn trajectories, we project that over the next 100 years, Stardust will not get any closer than 1.7 million miles of Earth's orbit, or within 13 million miles of Mars orbit," said Larson. "That is far enough from protected targets to meet all of NASA's Planetary Protection directives. "Some planetary spacecraft, like the Galileo mission to Jupiter, are intentionally sent into the planet's atmosphere to make sure it is destroyed in a controlled way. Others have their transmitters shut off or just fade away, said Larson. "I think this is a fitting end for Stardust. It's going down swinging."Stardust-NExT is a low-cost mission to expand the investigation of comet Tempel 1 initiated by NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Stardust-NExT project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C., and is part of the Discovery Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Joe Veverka of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., is the mission's principal investigator. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft and manages day-to-day mission operations.Use this link to experience Stardust's final hour before decommissioning, then use Eyes on the Solar System to relive the entire mission from 1999 to 2011:http://go.usa.gov/2ry. A free software download is required.For more information about Stardust-NExT, please visit:http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-orbiter-image-shows-comet-nucleus-is-small

Mars Orbiter Image Shows Comet Nucleus is Small

A camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken the highest-resolution image ever made of an Oort Cloud comet, taking advantage of the comet's Mars flyby.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured views of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring while that visitor sped past Mars on Sunday (Oct. 19), yielding information about its nucleus.The images are the highest-resolution views ever acquired of a comet coming from the Oort Cloud at the fringes of the solar system. Other spacecraft have approached and studied comets with shorter orbits. This comet's flyby of Mars provided spacecraft at the Red Planet an opportunity to investigate from close range.Images of comet Siding Spring from HiRISE are online at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA18618The highest-resolution of images of the comet's nucleus, taken from a distance of about 86,000 miles (138,000 kilometers), have a scale of about 150 yards (138 meters) per pixel. Telescopic observers had modeled the size of the nucleus as about half a mile, or one kilometer wide. However, the best HiRISE images show only two to three pixels across the brightest feature, probably the nucleus, suggesting a size smaller than half that estimate.For more about HiRISE, visit:http://hirise.lpl.arizona.eduFor more about Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit:http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/For more about comet Siding Spring, including other images of the comet, visit:http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/comets/sidingspring/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-radar-penetrates-thick-thin-of-gulf-oil-spill

NASA Radar Penetrates Thick, Thin of Gulf Oil Spill

Researchers at JPL and Caltech have developed a method to use a specialized NASA 3-D imaging radar to characterize the oil in oil spills like the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill.

PASADENA, Calif. - Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena have developed a method to use a specialized NASA 3-D imaging radar to characterize the oil in oil spills, such as the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The research can be used to improve response operations during future marine oil spills.Caltech graduate student Brent Minchew and JPL researchers Cathleen Jones and Ben Holt analyzed NASA radar imagery collected over the main slick of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill on June 22 and June 23, 2010. The data were acquired by the JPL-developed Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) during the first of its three deployments over the spill area between June 2010 and July 2012. The UAVSAR was carried in a pod mounted beneath a NASA C-20A piloted aircraft, a version of the Gulfstream III business jet, based at NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. The researchers demonstrated, for the first time, that a radar system like UAVSAR can be used to characterize the oil within a slick, distinguishing very thin films like oil sheen from more damaging thick oil emulsions."Our research demonstrates the tremendous potential of UAVSAR to automate the classification of oil in a slick and mitigate the effects of future oil spill tragedies," said Jones. "Such information can help spill incidence response commanders direct cleanup operations, such as the mechanical recovery of oil, to the areas of thick oil that would have the most damaging environmental impacts."Current visual oil classification techniques are qualitative, and depend upon the skill of the people doing the assessment and the availability of skilled observers during an emergency. Remote sensing allows larger areas to be covered in a consistent manner in a shorter amount of time. Radar can be used at night or in other low-light or poor weather conditions when visual surveys can't be conducted.Radar had previously been used to detect the extent of oil slicks, but not to characterize the oil within them. It had generally been assumed that radar had little to no use for this purpose. The team demonstrated that UAVSAR could be used to identify areas where thick oil had mixed with the surface seawater to form emulsions, which are mixtures of oil and seawater.Identifying the type of oil in a spill is vital for assessing its potential harm and targeting response efforts. For example, thin oil consists of sheens that measure from less than 0.0002 inches (0.005 millimeters) to about 0.002 inches (0.05 millimeters) thick. Sheens generally form when little oil is released, as in the initial stages of a spill, or from lightweight, volatile components of spill material. Because sheens contain little oil volume, they weather and evaporate quickly, and are of minor concern from an environmental standpoint. Oil emulsions, on the other hand, are 0.04 inches (1 millimeter) thick, contain more oil, and persist on the ocean surface for much longer, thereby potentially having a greater environmental impact in the open sea and along the shoreline."Knowing the type of oil tells us a lot about the thickness of the oil in that area," said Jones.The researchers acquired data in June 2010 along more than 3,400 miles (5,500 kilometers) of flight lines over an area of more than 46,330 square miles (120,000 square kilometers), primarily along the Gulf Coast. They found that at the time the slick was imaged by UAVSAR, much of the surface layer of the Deepwater Horizon spill's main slick consisted of thick oil emulsions.UAVSAR characterizes an oil spill by detecting variations in the roughness of its surface and, for thick slicks, changes in the electrical conductivity of its surface layer. Just as an airport runway looks smooth compared to surrounding fields, UAVSAR "sees" an oil spill at sea as a smoother (radar-dark) area against the rougher (radar-bright) ocean surface because most of the radar energy that hits the smoother surface is deflected away from the radar antenna. UAVSAR's high sensitivity and other capabilities enabled the team to separate thick and thin oil for the first time using a radar system."We knew we were going to detect the extent of the spill," said Holt. "But we had this great new instrument, so we wanted to see how it would work in this extreme situation, and it turned out to be really unique and valuable, beyond all previous radar results for spills.""We studied an unprecedented event using data collected by a sophisticated instrument and were able to show that there was a lot more information contained in the data than was apparent when we began," said Minchew. "This is a good example of how the tools of science could be used to help mitigate disasters in real time."UAVSAR is returning to the Gulf of Mexico area this month and will image the area around the Deepwater Horizon site to look for leaks. In the future, UAVSAR data may be combined with imaging spectroscopic data from JPL's Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) instrument to further improve the ability to characterize oil spills under a broader range of environmental conditions.In addition to characterizing the oil slick, UAVSAR imaged most of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico coastline, extending from the Florida Keys to Corpus Christi, Texas, with extensive inland coverage of the southern Louisiana wetlands around Barataria Bay, the terrestrial ecosystem that ultimately sustained the greatest oiling from the massive spill. Researchers tracked the movement of the oil into coastal waterways and marshlands, monitored impact and recovery of oil-affected wetlands, and assessed how UAVSAR can support emergency responders in future disasters.UAVSAR is also used to detect detailed Earth movements related to earthquakes, volcanoes and glaciers, as well as for soil moisture and forestry biomass studies. For more on UAVSAR, see:http://uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov/mission_flights.html.Results of this study are published this month in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers journal Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/rosettas-comet-target-releases-plentiful-water

Rosetta's Comet Target 'Releases' Plentiful Water

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is releasing the Earthly equivalent of two glasses of water into space every second.

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is releasing the Earthly equivalent of two glasses of water into space every second. The observations were made by the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO), aboard the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft on June 6, 2014. The detection of water vapor has implications not only for cometary science, but also for mission planning, as the Rosetta team prepares the spacecraft to become the first ever to orbit a comet (planned for August), and the first to deploy a lander to its surface (planned for November 11)."We always knew we would see water vapor outgassing from the comet, but we were surprised at how early we detected it," said Sam Gulkis, principal investigator of the MIRO instrument at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "At this production rate, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko would fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in about 100 days. But, as the comet gets closer to the sun, the gas production rate will increase. With Rosetta, we have an amazing vantage point to observe these changes up close and learn more about exactly why they happen."MIRO first detected water vapor from the comet when the Rosetta spacecraft was about 217,000 miles (350,000 kilometers) away from it. At the time, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was 363 million miles (583 million kilometers) from the sun. After the initial June 6 discovery, water vapor was also detected every time the MIRO instrument was pointed toward the comet. Observations are continuing to monitor variability in the production rate, and to determine the global gas production rate, as a function of its distance from the sun. The gas production rate that MIRO determined provides scientists a measure of the evolution of the comet as it moves both toward, and then away, from the sun. The gas production rate is also important to the Rosetta navigation team controlling the spacecraft, as this flowing gas can alter the trajectory of spacecraft."Our comet is coming out of its deep-space slumber and beginning to put on a show for Rosetta's science instruments," said Matt Taylor, Rosetta's project scientist from the European Space Agency's Science and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. "The mission's engineers will be using this MIRO data to help them plan for future mission events when we are operating in close proximity to the comet's nucleus."Rosetta is currently about halfway between Mars and Jupiter, 261 million miles (420 million kilometers) from Earth and 354 million miles (569 million kilometers) from the sun. Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when the sun and its planets formed. By studying the gas, dust and structure of the nucleus and organic materials associated with the comet, via both remote and in-situ observations, the Rosetta mission should be a key to unlocking the history and evolution of our solar system, as well as answering questions regarding the origin of Earth's water and perhaps even life. Rosetta will be the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the sun, and deploy a lander to its surface.MIRO is a small and lightweight spectrometer instrument, the first of its kind launched into deep space. The MIRO science team is composed of 22 scientists from the United States, France, Germany and Taiwan. Resembling a miniaturized ground-based radio telescope, it was designed to study the composition, velocity and temperature of gases on or near the comet's surface and measure the temperature of the nucleus down to a depth of several inches, or centimeters. Studying the nucleus temperature and evolution of the coma and tail provides information on how the comet evolves as it approaches and leaves the vicinity of the sun, and addresses questions about why that happens. During Rosetta flybys of the asteroids (2867) Steins and (21) Lutetia in 2008 and 2010 respectively, the instrument measured thermal emission from these asteroids and searched for water vapor.MIRO is one of three U.S. instruments aboard the Rosetta spacecraft. The other two are an ultraviolet spectrometer called Alice, and the Ion and Electron Sensor (IES). They are part of a suite of 11 science instruments aboard the Rosetta orbiter. NASA also provided part of the electronics package for the Double Focusing Mass Spectrometer, which is part of the Swiss-built Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument. NASA's Deep Space Network is supporting ESA's Ground Station Network for spacecraft tracking and navigation.The Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) was built at JPL. Hardware subsystems for MIRO were provided by the Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the Laboratoire d'Etudes du Rayonnement et de la Matiere en Astrophysique of the Observatoire de Paris. The consortium also includes the Laboratoire d'Etudes Spatiales ed d'Instrumentation en Astrophysique of the Observatoire de Paris.Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by the German Aerospace Center, Cologne; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Go?ttingen; French National Space Agency, Paris; and the Italian Space Agency, Rome. JPL, a Division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the U.S. contribution of the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL also built the MIRO and hosts its principal investigator, Samuel Gulkis. The Southwest Research Institute (San Antonio and Boulder), developed the Rosetta orbiter's IES and Alice instruments, and hosts their principal investigators, James Burch (IES) and Alan Stern (Alice).For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit:http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.govMore information about Rosetta is available at:http://www.esa.int/rosettaFor more information on the DSN, visit:http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/first-images-from-telescope-larger-than-earth-reveal-ancient-quasars

First Images from Telescope Larger Than Earth Reveal Ancient Quasars

Images of quasars billions of light-years away are among the striking initial results of the Very Long Base Interferometry (VLBI) Space Observatory Program, a new type of astronomy mission that uses a combination of satellite- and Earth-based radio antennas to create a telescope larger than Earth.

Images of quasars billions of light-years away are among the striking initial results of the Very Long Base Interferometry (VLBI) Space Observatory Program, a new type of astronomy mission that uses a combination of satellite- and Earth-based radio antennas to create a telescope larger than Earth.Initial results of the radio interferometry mission, launched in February 1997 by Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), are reported in the September 18, 1998, issue of Science magazine.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, is part of an international consortium of organizations that support the mission, that creates the largest astronomical "instrument" ever built -- a radio telescope more than two-and-a-half times the diameter of the Earth. One of the most complex space missions ever attempted, Space VLBI has given astronomers one of their sharpest views yet of the universe.The Science article releases four new images, all depicting quasars whose emissions are estimated to have traveled billions of years to reach Earth. "These images probe some of the most distant and ancient objects in the universe, giving us a glimpse of quasars as they existed billions of years ago," said co-author Dr. Robert Preston, project scientist for the mission at JPL. "These powerful objects exist at the center of many galaxies, including our own familiar Milky Way, which has a weak version of a quasar."Key results detailed in the article revolve around images of extremely distant objects created through a combination of raw data from the space radio telescope and an array of ground radio telescopes, along with highly sophisticated digital imaging techniques. Of special note is the value of such images in clearly resolving individual components in the observed quasars' jets, which are composed of material rushing away from quasars at nearly the speed of light. The four quasar images are available athttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/98/spacevlbi.html.Quasars are enormously bright point-like optical objects, often shining with an intensity many hundreds of times that of an entire galaxy. It is believed that quasars are powered by gas and the remnants of stars spiraling into black holes that have masses of millions to billions of times that of our Sun. Black holes are objects that are so massive that no light or matter can escape from them. Some of the material rushing into the black hole is thought to be thrown away at enormous speeds to form the observed narrow, radio-emitting jets. By studying these jets, astronomers hope to learn more about the black holes that power them.Very long baseline interferometry is a technique used by radio astronomers that electronically links widely separated radio telescopes together to form a single instrument with extraordinarily sharp "vision," or resolving power. The wider the distance between the telescopes, the greater the resolving power. In this first-ever dedicated mission of its kind, astronomers have approximately tripled the resolving power previously available with only ground-based telescopes. The Space VLBI satellite system has resolving power more than 100 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope has at optical wavelengths. In fact, its resolving power is almost equivalent to being able to see a grain of rice in Tokyo from Los Angeles.The project, a major international undertaking, is led by Japan's ISAS, backed by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Collaborators include JPL; the National Science Foundation's National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO); the Canadian Space Agency; the Australia Telescope National Facility; the European VLBI Network and the Joint Institute for Very Long Baseline Interferometry in Europe. More than 50 scientists associated with these and other collaborating institutions contributed to report published in Science magazine overview paper.The Space VLBI project's eight meter (26-foot)-diameter orbiting radio telescope observes celestial radio sources in concert with a number of the world's ground-based radio telescopes. It is in an elliptical orbit, varying between 580 and 21,700 kilometers (360 and 13,484 miles) above the Earth's surface. This orbit provides a wide range of distances between the satellite and ground-based telescopes, which is important for producing a high-quality image of the radio source being observed. One orbit of the Earth takes about six hours.Approximately 40 radio telescopes from more than 15 countries have committed time to co-observe with the satellite. These telescopes include NASA's Deep Space Network antennas in California, Spain, and Australia; the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), an array of 10 telescopes spanning the United States from Hawaii to Saint Croix; the European VLBI Network, more than a dozen telescopes ranging from the United Kingdom to China; a Southern Hemisphere array of telescopes stretching from eastern Australia to South Africa; and Japan's network of domestic radio telescopes.JPL manages the U.S. Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-reaches-a-total-of-30-minutes-aloft

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Reaches a Total of 30 Minutes Aloft

With its recent 17th flight, the Red Planet rotorcraft reaches an airborne milestone the team never considered achievable. Its 18th flight is scheduled for no earlier than today.

Loading Image Comparison...Ingenuity sits on a slightly inclined surface with about 6-degree tilt at the center of the frame, just north of the southern ridge of “Séíitah” geologic unit. The Perseverance rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument took this image on Dec. 1, 2021, when the rotorcraft was about 970 feet (295 meters) away. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSSThe 17th flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on Dec. 5 pushed the total flight time past the 30-minute mark. The 117-second sortie brought history’s first aircraft to operate from the surface of another world closer to its original airfield, “Wright Brothers Field,” where it will await the arrival of the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover, currently exploring “South Séítah” region of Mars’ Jezero Crater.Along with accumulating 30 minutes and 48 seconds of flight time, the trailblazing helicopter has traveled over the surface a distance of 2.2 miles (3,592 meters), flying as high as 40 feet (12 meters) and as fast as 10 mph (5 meters per second).The rotorcraft’s status after the Dec. 5 flight was previously unconfirmed due to an unexpected cutoff to thein-flight data streamas the helicopter descended toward the surface at the conclusion of its flight. Perseverance serves as the helicopter’s communications base station with controllers on Earth. A handful of data radio packets the rover received later suggested a healthy helicopter on the surface but did not provide enough information for the team to declare a flight success.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERBut data downlinked to mission engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Friday, Dec. 10, indicates that Flight 17 was a success and that Ingenuity is in excellent condition.The 30-minute mark far surpasses the original plans for the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft. Designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights, Ingenuityfirst flewon April 19, 2021, with a short up-and-down hop to prove powered, controlled flight on Mars was possible. The next four experimental flights expanded the rotorcraft’s flight envelope, making increasingly longer flights with more complicated maneuvering, which further helped engineers at JPL better understand its performance.With the sixth flight, the helicopter embarked on anew operations demonstration phase, investigating how aerial scouting and other functions could benefit future exploration of Mars and other worlds. In this new chapter, the helicopter has operated from airfields well south of Wright Brothers Field, scouting rocky outcrops and other geologic features of interest to the Perseverance rover’s science team.“Few thought we would make it to flight one, fewer still to five. And no one thought we would make it this far,” said Ingenuity Team Lead Teddy Tzanetos of JPL. “On the way to accumulating over a half-hour aloft Ingenuity has survived eight months of bitter cold, and operated out of nine unique Martian airfields. The aircraft’s continued operations speaks to the robustness of the design and the diligence and passion of our small operations team.”Flight 18Flight 18 is scheduled to take place no earlier than today, Dec. 15, with Ingenuity covering another 754 feet (230 meters) at a speed of 5.6 mph (2.5 meters per second) over 125 seconds. The new airfield, close to the northern boundary of Séítah, will be the rotorcraft’s 10th on Mars. Data from the flight is expected to be received at JPL no earlier than in the late afternoon today.As with the previous effort, Flight 18 will push the limits of Ingenuity’s radio range and performance. To provide it with the best chance of maintaining a link throughout landing, the Mars Helicopter team has modified the flight sequence to communicate in a low-data-rate mode, which will provide an additional signal-strength boost to the radio link.“If we do lose radio link on landing, it may be several days or weeks until the line-of-sight between Ingenuity and Perseverance improves enough to attempt a communication session,” said Tzanetos. “While delaying our post-flight data analysis is an inconvenience, it is not unexpected and becoming the new normal as we continue to operate in challenging terrain in the weeks ahead.”More About IngenuityThe Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages this technology demonstration project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science, Aeronautics, and Space Technology mission directorates. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Space in designed and manufactured theMars Helicopter Delivery System.At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.More About PerseveranceA key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars isastrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includesArtemismissions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.For more information about Ingenuity:https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopterFor more about Perseverance:mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-dawn-prepares-for-trek-toward-dwarf-planet

NASA's Dawn Prepares for Trek Toward Dwarf Planet

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on track to become the first probe to orbit and study two distant destinations, to help scientists answer questions about the formation of our solar system.

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on track to become the first probe to orbit and study two distant solar system destinations, to help scientists answer questions about the formation of our solar system. The spacecraft is scheduled to leave the giant asteroid Vesta on Sept. 4 PDT (Sept. 5 EDT) to start its two-and-a-half-year journey to the dwarf planet Ceres.Dawn began its 3-billion-mile (5-billion kilometer) odyssey to explore the two most massive objects in the main asteroid belt in 2007. Dawn arrived at Vesta in July 2011 and will reach Ceres in early 2015. Dawn's targets represent two icons of the asteroid belt that have been witness to much of our solar system's history.To make its escape from Vesta, the spacecraft will spiral away as gently as it arrived, using a special, hyper-efficient system called ion propulsion. Dawn's ion propulsion system uses electricity to ionize xenon to generate thrust. The 12-inch-wide ion thrusters provide less power than conventional engines, but can maintain thrust for months at a time."Thrust is engaged, and we are now climbing away from Vesta atop a blue-green pillar of xenon ions," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We are feeling somewhat wistful about concluding a fantastically productive and exciting exploration of Vesta, but now have our sights set on dwarf planet Ceres.Dawn's orbit provided close-up views of Vesta, revealing unprecedented detail about the giant asteroid. The mission revealed that Vesta completely melted in the past, forming a layered body with an iron core. The spacecraft also revealed the scarring from titanic collisions Vesta suffered in its southern hemisphere, surviving not one but two colossal impacts in the last two billion years. Without Dawn, scientists would not have known about the dramatic troughs sculpted around Vesta, which are ripples from the two south polar impacts."We went to Vesta to fill in the blanks of our knowledge about the early history of our solar system," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal investigator, based at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). "Dawn has filled in those pages, and more, revealing to us how special Vesta is as a survivor from the earliest days of the solar system. We can now say with certainty that Vesta resembles a small planet more closely than a typical asteroid."The mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.UCLA is responsible for the overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are part of the mission's team.  The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.For information about the Dawn mission, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/dawnandhttp://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/send-your-signature-to-saturn-draws-huge-response

'Send Your Signature to Saturn' Draws Huge Response

Volunteers have been busy sorting, counting and scanning the many thousands of postcards and letters sent in by citizens who want to fly their signatures to Saturn on a CD-ROM aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scheduled for launch in late 1997.

Volunteers have been busy sorting, counting and scanning the many thousands of postcards and letters sent in by citizens who want to fly their signatures to Saturn on a CD-ROM aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scheduled for launch in late 1997.Since the invitation was made public in February, many thousands of people worldwide have eagerly sent in their signatures to the Cassini program office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA, for a chance to send their names into space. Recently, the program office has received an average of 25,000 to 40,000 signatures each week. About 250,000 signatures have been received from all 50 U.S. states and many nations."I am overwhelmed by the response we are getting to announcements of our program to 'send your name to Saturn,'" said Suzanne Barber, manager of the Cassini administration office. "We've also gotten wonderful messages expressing people's excitement about being part of this adventure. The notes come from people of all ages and backgrounds, from school children to astronomers working at observatories around the world."Incoming mail to the signature project is picked up from JPL by volunteer members of the Planetary Society, a Pasadena-based non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of the planetary sciences. Once sorted, counted and scanned, the signatures will be digitized and placed on a CD-ROM or digital video disc (DVD) and carried aboard Cassini. The spacecraft will arrive at Saturn in July 2004 after a nearly seven-year voyage from Earth.Several groups have gathered hundreds of signatures at a time, including teachers eager to give their students a chance to send their names beyond Earth's orbit and into space."The level of enthusiasm for the Cassini signature CD-ROM effort is the greatest we've ever seen for any previous programs," said Dave Hagie, a volunteer at The Planetary Society. "We're getting boxes of manila envelopes full of signatures from school kids." So far, volunteers have counted more than 200,000 signatures from around the world, with the most having been received from California.Included among the postcards have been many inspirational messages. "This may be my only chance to make it into space," read one card, and another contained the signatures of a young girl who had recently died, her father having sent in the signatures posthumously.Postcards or letter-size sheets with multiple signatures can be sent to: Cassini Program, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109. Confirmations of receipt will be sent if a self-addressed, stamped envelope is sent along with the signatures. Notes may be sent along with the signatures, but only the signatures will be scanned. E-mail submissions will not be accepted, and the Cassini program will continue to accept signatures until January 1, 1997, unless the CD-ROM storage capacity is exhausted sooner.Cassini, scheduled for launch on October 6, 1997, is a joint mission of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. It will send an atmospheric probe called Huygens to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. The Cassini spacecraft will orbit Saturn for four years, gathering data on Saturn, its rings, magnetic environment, and moons.The Cassini home page athttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassiniprovides additional information about the Saturn mission.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/biggest-moments-on-mars-nasas-perseverance-rover-2021-year-in-review

Biggest Moments on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance Rover 2021 Year in Review

A new video looks back on the six-wheeled scientist’s first 10 months on the Red Planet and all that it’s accomplished so far.

What has NASA's Perseverance rover accomplished since landing on the surface of Mars in February 2021? Surface Operations Mission Manager Jessica Samuels reflects on a year filled with groundbreaking discoveries at Jezero Crater and counts up the rover's achievements.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, NASA/JPL-CaltechNASA’s Perseverance rover has been busy since its harrowing touchdown in Mars’ Jezero Crater this past February.In the 10 months since, the car-size rover has driven 1.8 miles (2.9 kilometers), set a record for the longest rover drive in a Martian day, taken more than 100,000 images, and collected six samples of Martian rock andatmospherethat could eventually be brought to Earth for further study.And then there’s NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet with Perseverance: Proving that powered, controlled flight is possible in Mars’ thin atmosphere, the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft has logged 18 flights and counting.In a new video, Jessica Samuels – the Perseverance surface operations mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California – looks back on a year filled with groundbreaking discoveries. She also explains the next phase of Perseverance’s mission: to explore the delta that formed in Jezero Crater billions of years ago from sediment that an ancient river carried into the lake that once existed in the crater.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER“It feels great to be a part of making history and enabling the start of a Mars Sample Return campaign,” said Samuels. “What motivates us as engineers and scientists exploring another planet is the opportunity to learn more.”More About the MissionA key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars isastrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includesArtemismissions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.For more about Perseverance:mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/andnasa.gov/perseverance

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-awarded-25th-annual-crown-city-award

JPL Awarded 25th Annual Crown City Award

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has been awarded the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce's 25th annual Crown City Award in recognition of JPL's involvement with the local community and contributions to Pasadena's prestige.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has been awarded the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce's 25th annual Crown City Award in recognition of JPL's involvement with the local community and contributions to Pasadena's prestige.The award recognizes the international interest JPL attracted in 1986 during the Voyager 2 spacecraft flyby of the planet Uranus, and the activities of the International Halley Watch during the comet's passage of Earth last year.In addition, the award notes the high level of JPL's involvement with the local community through such outlets as the United Way, American Red Cross, the Adopt-A- School program, and the Laboratory's Teacher Resource Center, which provides curricula and teaching tools for science and math educators.The award was presented at the Chamber of Commerce's annual dinner on June 4 at the Pasadena Hilton Hotel.The Crown City Award was given to JPL once before in 1972 in honor of the Laboratory's achievements surrounding the Mariner 9 mission to Mars.JPL is operated by Caltech for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/spitzer-catches-star-cooking-up-comet-crystals

Spitzer Catches Star Cooking Up Comet Crystals

Scientists have long wondered how tiny silicate crystals, which need sizzling high temperatures to form, have found their way into frozen comets, born in the deep freeze of the solar system's outer edges.

Scientists have long wondered how tiny silicate crystals, which need sizzling high temperatures to form, have found their way into frozen comets, born in the deep freeze of the solar system's outer edges. The crystals would have begun as non-crystallized silicate particles, part of the mix of gas and dust from which the solar system developed.A team of astronomers believes they have found a new explanation for both where and how these crystals may have been created, by using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to observe the growing pains of a young, sun-like star. Their study results, which appear in the May 14 issue of Nature, provide new insight into the formation of planets and comets.The researchers from Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands found that silicate appears to have been transformed into crystalline form by an outburst from a star. They detected the infrared signature of silicate crystals on the disk of dust and gas surrounding the star EX Lupi during one of its frequent flare-ups, or outbursts, seen by Spitzer in April 2008. These crystals were not present in Spitzer's previous observations of the star's disk during one of its quiet periods."We believe that we have observed, for the first time, ongoing crystal formation," said one of the paper's authors, Attila Juhasz of the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. "We think that the crystals were formed by thermal annealing of small particles on the surface layer of the star's inner disk by heat from the outburst. This is a completely new scenario about how this material could be created."Annealing is a process in which a material is heated to a certain temperature at which some of its bonds break and then re-form, changing the material's physical properties. It is one way that silicate dust can be transformed into crystalline form.Scientists previously had considered two different possible scenarios in which annealing could create the silicate crystals found in comets and young stars' disks. In one scenario, long exposure to heat from an infant star might anneal some of the silicate dust inside the disk's center. In the other, shock waves induced by a large body within the disk might heat dust grains suddenly to the right temperature to crystallize them, after which the crystals would cool nearly as quickly.What Juhasz and his colleagues found at EX Lupi didn't fit either of the earlier theories. "We concluded that this is a third way in which silicate crystals may be formed with annealing, one not considered before," said the paper's lead author, Peter Abraham of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Konkoly Observatory, Budapest, Hungary.EX Lupi is a young star, possibly similar to our sun four or five billion years ago. Every few years, it experiences outbursts, or eruptions, that astronomers think are the result of the star gathering up mass that has accumulated in its surrounding disk. These flare-ups vary in intensity, with really big eruptions occurring every 50 years or so.The researchers observed EX Lupi with Spitzer's infrared spectrograph in April 2008. Although the star was beginning to fade from the peak of a major outburst detected in January, it was still 30 times brighter than when it was quiet. When they compared this new view of the erupting star with Spitzer measurements made in 2005 before the eruption began, they found significant changes.In 2005, the silicate on the surface of the star's disk appeared to be in the form of amorphous grains of dust. In 2008, the spectrum showed the presence of crystalline silicate on top of amorphous dust. The crystals appear to be forsterite, a material often found in comets and in protoplanetary disks. The crystals also appear hot, evidence that they were created in a high-temperature process, but not by shock heating. If that were the case, they would already be cool."At outburst, EX Lupi became about 100 times more luminous," said Juhasz. "Crystals formed in the surface layer of the disk but just at the distance from the star where the temperature was high enough to anneal the silicate--about 1,000 Kelvin (1,340 degrees Fahrenheit)--but still lower than 1,500 Kelvin (2,240 degrees Fahrenheit). Above that, the dust grains will evaporate." The radius of this crystal formation zone, the researchers note, is comparable to that of the terrestrial-planet region in the solar system."These observations show, for the first time, the actual production of crystalline silicates like those found in comets and meteorites in our own solar system," said Spitzer Project Scientist Michael Werner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "So what we see in comets today may have been produced by repeated bursts of energy when the sun was young."JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.More information about Spitzer is athttp://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzerandhttp://www.nasa.gov/spitzer.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/dawn-mission-new-orbit-new-opportunities

Dawn Mission: New Orbit, New Opportunities

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is maneuvering to its lowest-ever orbit for a close-up examination of the inner solar system's only dwarf planet.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is maneuvering to its lowest-ever orbit for a close-up examination of the inner solar system's only dwarf planet.In early June, Dawn will reach its new, final orbit above Ceres. Soon after, it will begin collecting images and other science data from an unprecedented vantage point. This orbit will be less than 30 miles (50 kilometers) above the surface of Ceres -- 10 times closer than the spacecraft has ever been.Dawn will collect gamma ray and neutron spectra, which help scientists understand variations in the chemical makeup of Ceres' uppermost layer. That very low orbit also will garner some of Dawn's closest images yet.The transfer from Dawn's previous orbit to its final one is not as simple as making a lane change. Dawn's operations team worked for months to plot the course for this second extended mission of the veteran spacecraft, which is propelled by an ion engine. Engineers mapped out more than 45,000 possible trajectories before devising a plan that will allow the best science observations.Dawn was launched in 2007 and has been exploring the two largest bodies in the main asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres, to uncover new insights into our solar system. It entered Ceres' orbit in March 2015."The team is eagerly awaiting the detailed composition and high-resolution imaging from the new, up-close examination," said Dawn's Principal Investigator Carol Raymond of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "These new high-resolution data allow us to test theories formulated from the previous data sets and discover new features of this fascinating dwarf planet."More detailed information about Dawn's planned orbit is in Marc Rayman'sDawn Journal. Rayman is Dawn's mission director and chief engineer.More information about the Dawn mission is available at the following sites:https://www.nasa.gov/dawnhttps://dawn.jpl.nasa.govThe Dawn mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. JPL is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.For a complete list of mission participants, visit:https://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/spirit-healthy-but-computer-reboots-raise-concerns

Spirit Healthy but Computer Reboots Raise Concerns

The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is examining data received from Spirit in recent days to diagnose why the rover apparently rebooted its computer at least twice over the April 11-12 weekend.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status ReportThe team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is examining data received from Spirit in recent days to diagnose why the rover apparently rebooted its computer at least twice over the April 11-12 weekend."While we don't have an explanation yet, we do know that Spirit's batteries are charged, the solar arrays are producing energy and temperatures are well within allowable ranges. We have time to respond carefully and investigate this thoroughly," said John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., project manager for Spirit and twin-rover Opportunity. "The rover is in a stable operations state called automode and taking care of itself. It could stay in this stable mode for some time if necessary while we diagnose the problem."Spirit communicated with controllers Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but some of the communication sessions were irregular. One of the computer resets apparently coincided in timing with operation of the rover's high-gain dish antenna.The rover team has the advantage of multiple communication options. Spirit can communicate directly with Earth via either the pointable high-gain antenna or, at a slower data rate, through a low-gain antenna that does not move. Additionally, communications can be relayed by Mars orbiters, using the UHF (ultra-high frequency) transceiver, a separate radio system on the rover."To avoid potential problems using the pointable antenna, we might consider for the time being just communicating by UHF relay or using the low-gain antenna," Callas said.Spirit finished its three-month prime mission on Mars five years ago and has kept operating through multiple mission extensions.The rover's onboard software has been updated several times to add new capabilities for the mission, most recently last month. The team is investigating whether the unexpected behavior in recent days could be related to the new software, but the same software is operating on Opportunity without incident."We are aware of the reality that we have an aging rover, and there may be age-related effects here," Callas said.In the past five weeks, Spirit has made 119 meters (390 feet) of progress going counterclockwise around a low plateau called "Home Plate" to get from the place where it spent the past Martian winter on the northern edge of Home Plate toward destinations of scientific interest south of the plateau. On March 10, after several attempts to get past obstacles at the northeastern corner of Home Plate, the rover team decided to switch from a clockwise route to the counterclockwise one. Subsequent events have included Spirit's longest one-day drive since the rover lost use of one of its wheels three years ago, plus detailed inspection of light-toned soil exposed by the dragging of the inoperable wheel.Halfway around Mars, meanwhile, Opportunity has continued progress on a long-term trek toward Endeavour Crater, a bowl 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter and still about 12 kilometers (7 miles) away. Last week, a beneficial wind removed some dust from Opportunity's solar array, resulting in an increase by about 40 percent in the amount of electrical output from the rover's solar panels. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

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

NASA Extends Exploration for Two Planetary Science Missions

The missions - Juno and InSight - have each increased our understanding of our solar system, as well as spurred new sets of diverse questions.

As NASA prepares to send astronauts back to the Moon and on to Mars, the agency's quest to seek answers about our solar system and beyond continues to inform those efforts and generate new discoveries. The agency has extended the missions of two spacecraft, following an external review of their scientific productivity.The missions - Juno and InSight - have each increased our understanding of our solar system, as well as spurred new sets of diverse questions.An independent review panel, composed of experts with backgrounds in science, operations, and mission management, found the Juno and InSight missions have "produced exceptional science" and recommended NASA continue both missions.Get the Latest JPL NewsSubscribe to the NewsletterTheJuno spacecraftand its mission team have made discoveries about Jupiter's interior structure, magnetic field, and magnetosphere, and have found its atmospheric dynamics to be far more complex than scientists previously thought. Extended through September 2025, or its end of life (whichever comes first), the mission will not only continue key observations of Jupiter, but also will expand its investigations to the larger Jovian system including Jupiter's rings and large moons, with targeted observations and close flybys planned of the moons Ganymede, Europa, and Io.TheInSight missionis extended for two years, running through December 2022. InSight's spacecraft and team deployed and operated its highly sensitive seismometer to expand our understanding of Mars' crust and mantle. Searching for and identifying Marsquakes, the mission team collected data clearly demonstrating the robust tectonic activity of the Red Planet, and enhanced our knowledge of the planet's atmospheric dynamics, magnetic field, and interior structure. InSight's extended mission will focus on producing a long-duration, high quality seismic dataset. Continued operation of its weather station and burial of the seismic tether using the spacecraft's Instrument Deployment Arm (IDA), will contribute to the quality of this seismic dataset. The extended mission may continue deployment (at low priority) of the spacecraft's Heat Probe and Physical Properties instrument (HP3), which remains close to the surface."The Senior Review has validated that these two planetary science missions are likely to continue to bring new discoveries, and produce new questions about our solar system," said Lori Glaze, director of the planetary science division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "I thank the members of the Senior Review panel for their comprehensive analysis and thank the mission teams as well, who will now continue to provide exciting opportunities to refine our understanding of the dynamic science of Jupiter and Mars."Extended missions leverage NASA's large investments, allowing continued science operations at a cost far lower than developing a new mission. In some cases, the extensions allow missions to continue to acquire valuable long-duration datasets, while in other cases, they allow missions to visit new targets, with entirely new science goals.NASA's Planetary Science Division currently operates more than a dozen spacecraft across the solar system.The detailed reports from the 2020 Planetary Science Senior Review may be found at:https://www.lpi.usra.edu/NASA-academies-resources/More information about Juno is available at:https://www.nasa.gov/junoFor more information about InSight, visit:https://mars.nasa.gov/insight

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-rover-opportunity-mission-status-3

Mars Rover Opportunity Mission Status

With barely a week before reaching Mars, NASA's Opportunity spacecraft adjusted its trajectory, or flight path, today for the first time in four months.

With barely a week before reaching Mars, NASA's Opportunity spacecraft adjusted its trajectory, or flight path, today for the first time in four months.The spacecraft carries a twin to the Spirit rover, which is now exploring Mars' Gusev Crater. It will land halfway around Mars, in a region called Meridiani Planum, on Jan. 25 (Universal Time and EST; Jan. 24 at 9:05 p.m., PST).For today's trajectory correction maneuver, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., commanded Opportunity at 6 p.m. PST to fire thrusters in a sequence carefully calculated by the mission's navigators. The spacecraft is spinning at two rotations per minute. The maneuver began with a 20-second burn in the direction of the axis of rotation, then included two 5-second pulses perpendicular to that axis."Looks like we got a nice burn out of Opportunity," said JPL's Jim Erickson, mission manager. "We're on target for our date on the plains of Meridiani next Saturday with a healthy spacecraft."Before the thruster firings, Opportunity was headed for a landing about 384 miles west and south of the intended landing site, said JPL's Christopher Potts, deputy navigation team chief for the Mars Exploration Rover Project. The maneuver was designed to put it on course for the target.Opportunity's schedule still includes two more possible trajectory correction maneuvers, on Jan. 22 and Jan. 24, but the maneuvers will only be commanded if needed.As of 5 a.m. Sunday, PST, Opportunity will have traveled 444 million kilometers (276 million miles) since its July 7 launch, and will have 12.5 million kilometers (7.8 million miles) left to go.JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Additional information about the project is available from JPL athttp://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.govand from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., athttp://athena.cornell.edu.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-odyssey-mission-status-15

Mars Odyssey Mission Status

NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, now 18.5 million kilometers (11.5 million miles) from Mars on its way to a rendezvous with the red planet on Oct. 23, remains in overall good health.

NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, now 18.5 million kilometers (11.5 million miles) from Mars on its way to a rendezvous with the red planet on Oct. 23, remains in overall good health. Flight controllers have turned off the Martian radiation environment experiment after the instrument did not respond during a downlink session last week.Following unsuccessful attempts to reset the radiation instrument, the mission manager and project officials have decided to form a team to further study the anomaly over the next several weeks and propose a course of action to recover the instrument following Mars orbit insertion on Oct. 23.Managers suggested that the most important thing now is for the team members to devote their attention to achieving a successful Mars orbit insertion, a demanding maneuver that will require a focused team effort over the next few months."We have limited information on the nature of the problem with the radiation experiment. The investigative team will develop a fault tree containing a list of potential causes for the behavior," said David A. Spencer, Odyssey's mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.The spacecraft's other science payloads are working as expected. The thermal emission imaging system is made up of an infrared imager and a visible camera, and the gamma ray spectrometer instrument package contains a gamma ray sensor, neutron spectrometer and high-energy neutron detector.On Friday, Aug. 17, the team opened and closed the valves in the spacecraft's main engine to verify that it is working properly prior to Mars arrival. On Oct. 23, the main engine will burn for 24 minutes so the spacecraft will be captured into orbit around the planet.Today, Odyssey is traveling at 24 kilometers per second (54,600 miles per hour) relative to the Sun.The 2001 Mars Odyssey mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The Odyssey spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver. NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, built and manages the Martian radiation environment experiment. The thermal emission imaging system is managed by Arizona State University, Tempe, and the gamma ray spectrometer is managed by the University of Arizona, Tucson.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/prolific-nasa-orbiter-reaches-five-year-mark

Prolific NASA Orbiter Reaches Five-Year Mark

NASA's versatile Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which began orbiting Mars five years ago tomorrow, March 10, has radically expanded our knowledge of the Red Planet and is now working overtime.

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's versatile Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which began orbiting Mars five years ago tomorrow, March 10, has radically expanded our knowledge of the Red Planet and is now working overtime.The mission has provided copious information about ancient environments, ice-age-scale climate cycles and present-day changes on Mars.The orbiter observes Mars' surface, subsurface and atmosphere in unprecedented detail. The spacecraft's large solar panels and dish antenna have enabled it to transmit more data to Earth -- 131 terabits and counting, including more than 70,000 images -- than all other interplanetary missions combined. Yet many things had to go well for the mission to achieve these milestones.After a seven-month journey from Earth, the spacecraft fired its six main engines for nearly 27 minutes as it approached Mars on March 10, 2006. Mars could not capture it into orbit without this critically timed maneuver to slow the spacecraft. The orbiter's intended path took it behind Mars, out of communication, during most of the engine burn."That was tense, waiting until the spacecraft came back out from behind Mars and we had contact," recalled Dan Johnston, now the mission's deputy project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission met all its science goals in a two-year primary science phase. Two extensions, the latest beginning in 2010, have added to the bounty of science returns.The mission has illuminated three very different periods of Mars history. Its observations of the heavily cratered terrains of Mars, the oldest on the planet, show that different types of ancient watery environments formed water-related minerals. Some of these would have been more favorable for life than others.In more recent times, water appears to have cycled as a gas between polar ice deposits and lower-latitude deposits of ice and snow. Extensive layering in ice or rock probably took hundreds of thousands to millions of years to form and, like ice ages on Earth, is linked to cyclic changes in the tilt of the planet's rotation axis and the changing intensity of sunlight near the poles.The present climate is also dynamic, with volatile carbon dioxide and, just possibly, summertime liquid water modifying gullies and forming new streaks. With observations of new craters, avalanches and dust storms, the orbiter has shown a partially frozen world, but not frozen in time, as change continues today.In addition to its science observations, the mission provides support for other spacecraft as they land and operate on the surface. The orbiter's cameras captured the Phoenix Mars Lander as it parachuted to the surface in 2008 and monitored the atmosphere for dust storms that would affect Phoenix and the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter augmented NASA's Mars Odyssey in performing relay functions for these missions.JPL's Phil Varghese, project manager for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, said, "The spacecraft is still in excellent health. After five years at Mars, it continues with dual capabilities for conducting science observations, monitoring the Mars environment and serving as a relay."The orbiter has examined potential landing sites for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, which will land a rover named Curiosity at one of those sites in August 2012. "We are preparing to support the arrival of the Mars Science Laboratory and the rover's surface operations," Varghese said. "In the meantime, we will extend the science observations into a third Martian year." One Mars year lasts nearly two Earth years.The orbiter's Mars Color Imager has produced more than four Earth years of daily global weather maps. More than 18,500 images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera have resolved features as small as a desk in target areas scattered around the planet that, combined, cover about as much ground as Alaska. More than 36,900 images from the Context Camera cover nearly two-thirds of the surface of Mars at a resolution that allows detection of features the size of large buildings.The Compact Reconnaissance Spectrometer for Mars has mapped minerals on more than three-fourths of the planet's surface. The Mars Climate Sounder has monitored atmospheric temperature and aerosols with more than 59 million soundings. The Shallow Radar has checked for underground layers in more than 8,600 swaths of ground-penetrating observations."Each Mars year is unique, and additional coverage gives us a better chance to understand the nature of changes in the atmosphere and on the surface," said JPL's Rich Zurek, project scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. "We have already learned that Mars is a more dynamic and diverse planet than what we knew five years ago. We continue to see new things."JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter and partners with JPL in spacecraft operations. For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/mro.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/genesis-launch-postponed-at-least-24-hours-due-to-weather

Genesis Launch Postponed at Least 24 Hours Due to Weather

The launch of NASA's Genesis spacecraft aboard a Delta II rocket was postponed today because of thick cloud conditions in the flight path of the launch vehicle.

The launch of NASA's Genesis spacecraft aboard a Delta II rocket was postponed today because of thick cloud conditions in the flight path of the launch vehicle. Launch will now occur no earlier than 12:27:09 p.m. EDT (9:27:09 a.m. PDT) on Thursday, Aug. 2.Mission managers will assemble for a weather update at about 10 p.m. EDT tonight to determine the feasibility of a launch attempt Thursday. The current forecast indicates an 80 percent chance of weather violation Thursday, a 60 percent chance of violation Friday and a 40 percent chance of violation Saturday. The primary concerns are rain showers, thick clouds and thunderstorms.No significant technical issues were worked during the countdown, and the Delta II rocket and Genesis spacecraft remain in excellent health. The two-minute launch window opens Friday at 12:23:53 p.m. EDT (9:23:53 a.m. PDT), and Saturday at 12:23:40 p.m. EDT (9:23:40 a.m. PDT).The thick cloud rule prohibits launch if the vehicle's flight path travels through nontransparent clouds greater than 4,500 feet (about 1,370 meters) thick. Updates from the weather reconnaissance aircraft reported clouds 8,000 feet (about 2,440 meters) thick in the Delta's flight path during the final built-in hold at T-4 minutes.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-2020-stands-on-its-own-six-wheels

Mars 2020 Stands on Its Own Six Wheels

In time-lapse video, taken at JPL, captures the first time NASA's Mars 2020 rover carries its full weight on its legs and wheels.

This time-lapse video, taken on Oct. 8, 2019, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, captures the first time NASA's Mars 2020 rover has carried its full weight on its legs and wheels."After years of design, analysis and testing, it is fantastic to see the rover on her wheels for the first time," said Ben Riggs, a mechanical systems engineer working on Mars 2020 at JPL. "The whole team looks forward to seeing her in the same configuration on Mars in the not too distant future."The rover's legs (the black tubing visible above the wheels) are composed of titanium, while the wheels are made of aluminum. Measuring 20.7 inches (52.5 centimeters) in diameter and machined with traction-providing cleats, or grousers, the wheels are engineering models that will be replaced with flight models next year. Every wheel has its own motor. The two front and two rear wheels also have individual steering motors that enable the vehicle to turn a full 360 degrees in place.When driving over uneven terrain, the rover's "rocker-bogie" suspension system - called that because of its multiple pivot points and struts - maintains a relatively constant weight on each wheel for stability. Rover drivers avoid terrain that would cause the vehicle to tilt more than 30 degrees, but even so, the rover can handle a 45-degree tilt in any direction without tipping over. It can also roll over obstacles and through depressions the size of its wheels.The Mars 2020 rover was photographed in the Simulator Building at JPL, where it underwent weeks of testing, including an extensive evaluation of how its instruments, systems and subsystems operate in the frigid, near-vacuum environment it will face on Mars.JPL is building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for NASA. The rover will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in July 2020 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA's Launch Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management.When the rover lands atJezero Crateron Feb. 18, 2021, it will be the first spacecraft in the history of planetary exploration with the ability to accurately retarget its point of touchdown during the landing sequence.Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA's Artemislunar exploration planswill establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028. We will use what we learn on the Moon to prepare to send astronauts to Mars.Interested K-12 students in U.S. public, private and home schools have one more week to enter the Mars 2020 Name the Rover essay contest. One grand prize winner will name the rover. The contest closes Nov. 1, 2019.For more information about the name contest, go to:https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/name-the-rover/For more information about the mission, go to:https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-study-analyzes-four-corners-methane-sources

NASA Study Analyzes Four Corners Methane Sources

A NASA-led team has analyzed a "hot spot" of methane emissions in the U.S. Four Corners region, quantifying both its overall magnitude and the magnitudes of its sources.

In an extensive airborne survey, a NASA-led team has analyzed a previously identified "hot spot" of methane emissions in the Four Corners region of the United States, quantifying both its overall magnitude and the magnitudes of its sources. The study finds that just 10 percent of the individual methane sources are contributing half of the emissions.Scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, both in Pasadena, California; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, Colorado; and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, used two JPL airborne spectrometers to identify and measure more than 250 individual sources of methane. The sources emitted the gas at rates ranging from a few pounds to 11,000 pounds (5,000 kilograms) per hour. Results are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in a paper titled "Airborne methane remote measurements reveal heavy-tail flux distribution in Four Corners region." Christian Frankenberg of JPL and Caltech is the lead author.As a greenhouse gas, methane is very efficient at trapping heat in Earth's atmosphere, contributing to global warming. In the Four Corners region, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet, methane emissions are primarily associated with the production and transport of natural gas from coal beds. The odorless, colorless gas is difficult to detect without scientific instruments.The experiment was a proof of concept for airborne detection of methane, according to Frankenberg. "That we could observe this distribution in a widespread geographical area and collect enough plumes to perform a statistical analysis was a pleasant surprise," he said.A group of researchers including Frankenberg originally detected the Four Cornersmethane hot spotusing past observations from a European satellite. Last year, he and JPL colleagues joined acampaign, led and funded by NOAA, to investigate the hot spot, called Twin Otter Projects Defining Oil/gas Well emissioNs (TOPDOWN). The campaign also included researchers from the University of Michigan. Each participating institution deployed its own suite of instruments.The NASA spectrometers used in the study can identify certain atmospheric gases, including methane, by the way the gases absorb sunlight. NOAA provided airborne plume measurements that were used to calibrate and validate the NASA data.NASA collects data from space, air, land and sea to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.For more information about NASA's Earth science activities, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/earthFull paper

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-dawn-fills-out-its-ceres-dance-card

NASA's Dawn Fills out its Ceres Dance Card

What's the schedule for Dawn's visit to the largest object in the main asteroid belt?

It's going to be a ball when NASA's Dawn spacecraft finally arrives at the dwarf planet Ceres, and mission managers have now inked in the schedule on Dawn's dance card.Dawn has been cruising toward Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, since September 2012. That's when it departed from its first dance partner, Vesta.Ceres presents an icy -- possibly watery -- counterpoint to the dry Vesta, where Dawn spent almost 14 months. Vesta and Ceres are two of the largest surviving protoplanets -- bodies that almost became planets -- and will give scientists clues about the planet-forming conditions at the dawn of our solar system.When Dawn enters orbit around Ceres, it will be the first spacecraft to see a dwarf planet up-close and the first spacecraft to orbit two solar system destinations beyond Earth."Our flight plan around Ceres will be choreographed to be very similar to the strategy that we successfully used around Vesta," said Bob Mase, Dawn's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This approach will build on that and enable scientists to make direct comparisons between these two giants of the asteroid belt."As a prelude, the team will begin approach operations in late January 2015. The next month, Ceres will be big enough in Dawn's view to be imaged and used for navigation purposes. Dawn will arrive at Ceres -- or, more accurately, it will be captured by Ceres' gravity -- in late March or the beginning of April 2015.Dawn will make its first full characterization of Ceres later in April, at an altitude of about 8,400 miles (13,500 kilometers) above the icy surface. Then, it will spiral down to an altitude of about 2,750 miles (4,430 kilometers), and obtain more science data in its survey science orbit. This phase will last for 22 days, and is designed to obtain a global view of Ceres with Dawn's framing camera, and global maps with the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR).Dawn will then continue to spiral its way down to an altitude of about 920 miles (1,480 kilometers), and in August 2015 will begin a two-month phase known as the high-altitude mapping orbit. During this phase, the spacecraft will continue to acquire near-global maps with the VIR and framing camera at higher resolution than in the survey phase. The spacecraft will also image in "stereo" to resolve the surface in 3-D.Then, after spiraling down for two months, Dawn will begin its closest orbit around Ceres in late November, at a distance of about 233 miles (375 kilometers). The dance at low-altitude mapping orbit will be a long waltz -- three months -- and is specifically designed to acquire data with Dawn's gamma ray and neutron detector (GRaND) and gravity investigation. GRaND will reveal the signatures of the elements on and near the surface. The gravity experiment will measure the tug of the dwarf planet, as monitored by changes in the high-precision radio link to NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth.At this low-altitude mapping orbit, Dawn will begin using a method of pointing control that engineers have dubbed "hybrid" mode because it utilizes a combination of reaction wheels and thrusters to point the spacecraft. Up until this final mission phase, Dawn will have used just the small thruster jets, which use a fuel called hydrazine, to control its orientation and pointing. While it is possible to explore Ceres completely using only these jets, mission managers want to conserve precious fuel. At this lowest orbit, using two of the reaction wheels to help with pointing will provide the biggest hydrazine savings. So Dawn will be spinning up two of the gyroscope-like devices to aid the thrusters.In 2011, the Dawn team prepared the capability to operate in a hybrid mode, but it wasn't needed during the Vesta mission. It was only when a second (of four) reaction wheels developed excessive friction while Dawn was leaving Vesta in 2012 that mission managers decided to use the hybrid mode at Ceres. To prove the technique works, Dawn engineers completed a 27-hour in-flight test of the hybrid mode, ending on Nov. 13. It operated just as expected."The successful test of this new way to control our orientation gives us great confidence that we'll have a steady hand at Ceres, which will enable us to get really close to a world that we only know now as a fuzzy dot amidst the stars," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director, based at JPL.Of course, mission planners have built some extra days into the schedule to account for the small uncertainty in the efficiency of the solar arrays at such a large distance from the sun, where sunlight will be very faint. The solar arrays provide power to the ion propulsion system, in addition to operating power for the spacecraft and instruments. Mission planners also account for potential variations in the gravity field of Ceres, which will not be known precisely until Dawn measures them."We are expecting changes when we get to Ceres and, fortunately, we built a very capable spacecraft and developed flexible plans to accommodate the unknowns," said Rayman. "There's great excitement in the unexpected -- that's part of the thrill of exploration."Starting on Dec. 27, Dawn will be closer to Ceres than it will be to Vesta."This transition makes us eager to see what secrets Ceres will reveal to us when we get up close to this ancient, giant, icy body," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal investigator, based at UCLA. "While Ceres is a lot bigger than the candidate asteroids that NASA is working on sending humans to, many of these smaller bodies are produced by collisions with larger asteroids such as Ceres and Vesta. It is of much interest to determine the nature of small asteroids produced in collisions with Ceres. These might be quite different from the small rocky asteroids associated with Vesta collisions."Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.To learn more about hybrid mode at Ceres, read Rayman's Dawn Journal [link].For more information about Dawn, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/dawnandhttp://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.To learn more about hybrid mode at Ceres, readRayman's Dawn Journal.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/finding-another-earth

Finding Another Earth

Kepler's newest planetary find joins a pantheon of planets with similarities to Earth.

The discovery of a super-Earth-sized planet orbiting a sun-like star brings us closer than ever to finding a twin of our own watery world. But NASA's Kepler space telescope has captured evidence of other potentially habitable planets amid the sea of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.To take a brief tour of the more prominent contenders, it helps to zero in on the "habitable zone" around their stars. This is the band of congenial temperatures for planetary orbits -- not too close and not too far. Too close and the planet is fried (we're looking at you, Venus). Too far and it's in deep freeze. But settle comfortably into the habitable zone, and your planet could have liquid water on its surface -- just right. Goldilocks has never been more relevant. Scientists have, in fact, taken to calling this water-friendly region the "Goldilocks zone."The zone can be a wide band or a narrow one, and nearer the star or farther, depending on the star's size and energy output. For small, red-dwarf stars, habitable zone planets might gather close, like marshmallow-roasting campers around the fire. For gigantic, hot stars, the band must retreat to a safer distance.About a dozen habitable zone planets in the Earth-size ballpark have been discovered so far -- that is, 10 to 15 planets between one-half and twice the diameter of Earth, depending on how the habitable zone is defined and allowing for uncertainties about some of the planetary sizes.The new discovery, Kepler-452b, fires the planet hunter's imagination because it is the most similar to the Earth-sun system found yet: a planet at the right temperature within the habitable zone, and only about one-and-a-half times the diameter of Earth, circling a star very much like our own sun. The planet also has a good chance of being rocky, like Earth, its discoverers say.Kepler-452b is more similar to Earth than any system previously discovered. And the timing is especially fitting: 2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the first exoplanet confirmed to be in orbit around a typical star.But several other exoplanet discoveries came nearly as close in their similarity to Earth.Before this, the planet Kepler-186f held the "most similar" distinction (they get the common moniker, "Kepler," because they were discovered with the Kepler space telescope). About 500 light-years from Earth, Kepler-186f is no more than 10 percent larger than Earth, and sails through its star's habitable zone, making its surface potentially watery.But its 130-day orbit carries it around a red-dwarf star that is much cooler than our sun and only half its size. Thus, the planet is really more like an "Earth cousin," says Thomas Barclay of the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, a co-author of the paper announcing the discovery in April 2014.Kepler-186f gets about one-third the energy from its star that Earth gets from our sun. And that puts it just at the outside edge of the habitable zone. Scientists say that if you were standing on the planet at noon, the light would look about as bright as it does on Earth an hour before sunset.That doesn't mean the planet is bereft of life, although it doesn't mean life exists there, either.Before Kepler-186f, Kepler-62f was the exoplanet known to be most similar to Earth. Like the new discovery, Kepler-62f is a "super Earth," about 40 percent larger than our home planet. But, like Kepler-186f, its 267-day orbit also carries it around a star that is cooler and smaller than the sun, some 1,200 light-years away in the constellation Lyra. Still, Kepler-62f does reside in the habitable zone.Kepler-62f's discovery was announced in April 2013, about the same time as Kepler-69c, another super Earth -- though one that is 70 percent larger than our home planet. That's the bad news; astronomers are uncertain about the planet's composition, or just when a "super Earth" becomes so large that it diminishes the chance of finding life on its surface. That also moves it farther than its competitors from the realm of a potential Earth twin. The good news is that Kepler-69c lies in its sun's habitable zone, with a 242-day orbit reminiscent of our charbroiled sister planet, Venus. Its star is also similar to ours in size with about 80 percent of the sun's luminosity. Its planetary system is about 2,700 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus.Kepler-22b also was hailed in its day as the most like Earth. It was the first of the Kepler planets to be found within the habitable zone, and it orbits a star much like our sun. But Kepler-22b is a sumo wrestler among super Earths, about 2.4 times Earth's size. And no one knows if it is rocky, gaseous or liquid. The planet was detected almost immediately after Kepler began making observations in 2009, and was confirmed in 2011. This planet, which could have a cloudy atmosphere, is 600 light-years away, with a 290-day orbit not unlike Earth's.Not all the planets jostling to be most like Earth were discovered using Kepler. A super Earth known as Gliese 667Cc also came to light in 2011, discovered by astronomers combing through data from the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile. The planet, only 22 light-years away, has a mass at least 4.5 times that of Earth. It orbits a red dwarf in the habitable zone, though closely enough -- with a mere 28-day orbit -- to make the planet subject to intense flares that could erupt periodically from the star's surface. Still, its sun is smaller and cooler than ours, and Gliese 667Cc's orbital distance means it probably receives around 90 percent of the energy we get from the sun. That's a point in favor of life, if the planet's atmosphere is something like ours. The planet's true size and density remain unknown, however, which means it could still turn out to be a gas planet, hostile to life as we know it. And powerful magnetic fluxes also could mean periodic drop-offs in the amount of energy reaching the planet, by as much as 40 percent. These drop-offs could last for months, according to scientists at the University of Oslo's Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics in Norway.Deduct two points.Too big, too uncertain, or circling the wrong kind of star: Shuffle through the catalog of habitable zone planets, and the closest we can come to Earth -- at least so far -- appears to be the new kid on the interstellar block, Kepler-452b.NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.JPL is managed by The California Institute of Technology for NASA.More information about Kepler is online at:http://www.nasa.gov/keplerMore information about NASA's planet-hunting efforts is online at:http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.govA related news release about Kepler's latest planetary find is online at:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4665

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/viking-mission-briefing

Viking Mission Briefing

The NASA press room for the Viking Mars landing mission will open Monday, June 14, in the von Karman auditorium at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 48OO Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena.

The NASA press room for the Viking Mars landing mission will open Monday, June 14, in the von Karman auditorium at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 48OO Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena.A mission briefing will be held at 9:OO am, Tuesday, June 15.AGENDAMission Overview------Jim S. Martin, Jr., Project ManagerPlanetary-Operations--Tom Young, Mission DirectorScience---------------Dr. Gerald Soffen, Project Scientist(Contact the JPL Public Information Office for complete schedule of daily briefings.)Viking 1 will be inserted into Mars orbit on June 19. The Viking 1 landing is scheduled for July 4th.Viking 2 will orbit Mars on August 7 with the landing scheduled for September 4.The Viking mission is conducted by the Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA. JPL is responsible for the Orbiter spacecraft and tracking and communications. Martin Marietta, Denver, Colorado, is responsible to Langley for the Lander.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/a-pioneering-nasa-mini-weather-satellite-ends-its-mission

A Pioneering NASA Mini Weather Satellite Ends Its Mission

RainCube, designed to study storms, was the first to fly a radar science instrument on a CubeSat.

After nearly 2 1/2 years in orbit, a shoebox-size weather satellite phoned home one last time before plunging into Earth’s atmosphere and burning up on Dec. 24, 2020. RainCube (Radar in a CubeSat) was a technology demonstration meant to show that shrinking a weather radar into a low-cost, miniature satellite called a CubeSat could provide science-quality data.RainCube was deployed on July 13, 2018, from the International Space Station and had a primary mission of three months. The CubeSat’s instrument “saw” rain and other kinds of precipitation by bouncing radar signals off of raindrops, ice, and snowflakes, and measuring the strength and the time it took for the signals to return to the satellite. It provided scientists with pictures of what was happening inside of storms around the world.Get the Latest JPL NewsSUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTERRadar instruments on full-size Earth-observing satellites have carried out such measurements for years. “But the key thing with RainCube wasn’t bringing in new science,” said Simone Tanelli, RainCube principal scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Instead, it was showing that we could give you similar data with a box that’s roughly 100 times smaller in volume than a full-size satellite.”RainCube lasted far longer than the initial three months it was scheduled for, allowing researchers to collect data on hurricanes Marco and Laura in 2020 at the same time as another CubeSat called TEMPEST-D. The two CubeSats used different types of instruments to collect disparate, but complementary, observations that provided researchers with a 3D look inside these churning storms.“That opened the door to something that Earth scientists are getting really excited about, which is using multiple CubeSats at the same time to study our planet,” said Shannon Statham, RainCube project manager at JPL.Two CubeSats, RainCube and TEMPEST-D, were intended to demonstrate that small satellites could collect science-quality data of precipitation in Earth’s atmosphere.Filling in the BlanksEarth’s atmosphere is in constant motion, and some phenomena – like storms – can change from minute to minute. Current satellites in low-Earth orbit can observe a storm once or twice a day depending on the storm’s location. That means many hours can pass between observations of a single storm. Flying a fleet of satellites spaced minutes apart could provide researchers with fine-grained temporal data to help to fill in those coverage gaps.But a full-size Earth-observing satellite can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build, launch, and operate, and many are as large as cars or buses. “It’d be impossible to fly a fleet of these full-size satellites because it wouldn’t be affordable,” said Tanelli.CubeSats, on the other hand, can range from something about the size of a cereal box to a toaster oven, and their build, deployment, and operations can cost less than $10 million. This lower price tag could give researchers the chance to fly several of these tiny satellites at the same time.Big Things in Little PackagesHowever, a CubeSat’s diminutive stature requires extensive engineering to shrink down an instrument while preserving its ability to collect and transmit scientific data. Other equipment, such as the radar antenna that receives signals, must also be revamped.That’s where technology demonstrations like RainCube come in. For this particular mission, engineers whittled down the guts of a full-size radar instrument to only the essentials and redesigned how the parts fit together. The antenna – inspired by an antenna developed by the University of Southern California for their Aeneas CubeSat – went from being a rigid structure to something akin to an umbrella with collapsible components that could fold into an ultra-compact volume and unfurl once in space. RainCube engineers performed this mechanical origami, built their creation, and then launched the CubeSat within three years.“RainCube is my baby,” said Statham, who – along with Tanelli and JPL Principal Investigator Eva Peral – has been with the project since its inception. “So its ending is bittersweet because we were hoping to have a little more time with it, but we’ve shown that science missions with CubeSats are possible, which is what we set out to do.”More About the MissionRainCube is a technology-demonstration mission to enable Ka-band precipitation radar technologies on a low-cost, quick-turnaround platform. It is sponsored by NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office through the InVEST-15 program. JPL worked with Tyvak Nanosatellite Systems, Inc. in Irvine, California, to fly the RainCube mission. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.For more information, visit:https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/raincube.php

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-mission-components-delivered-to-florida

Mars Mission Components Delivered to Florida

The aeroshell and cruise stage for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., Thursday night from California and Colorado.

An Air Force C-17 transport plane delivered the heat shield, back shell and cruise stage of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on May 12, 2011. The heat shield and back shell together form the aeroshell, which will encapsulate the mission's rover and descent stage. The cruise stage will perform critical communication and navigation functions during the flight from Earth to Mars.The mission will launch in late 2011 and deliver its rover, Curiosity, to the surface of Mars in August 2012. For more information about this week's delivery of flight system components, seehttp://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/press_releases/2011/0513_ss_msl.html.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about the Mars Science Laboratory is available online athttp://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/.A live feed of Curiosity being built and tested in a clean room at JPL, with a chat feature available most days, is online at:http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl. You can also follow the mission on Facebook athttp://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosityand Twitter @MarsCuriosity .

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-celebrates-earth-day-with-public-events-and-online-activities

NASA Celebrates Earth Day with Public Events and Online Activities

NASA will celebrate the 44th anniversary of Earth Day with a variety of live and online activities April 21-27 to engage the public in the agency's mission to better understand and protect our home planet.

NASA will celebrate the 44th anniversary of Earth Day with a variety of live and online activities April 21-27 to engage the public in the agency's mission to better understand and protect our home planet.This year, for the first time in more than a decade, five NASA Earth Science missions will be launched into space in the same year. These new missions will help address some of the critical challenges facing our planet today and in the future: climate change, sea level rise, access to freshwater resources, and extreme weather events. For more information about NASA's Earth science activities in 2014, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnowEarth Day in the Nation's CapitalMonday, April 21 (11 a.m. - 5 p.m. EDT) and Tuesday, April 22 (10 a.m. - 6 p.m.) -- NASA Hyperwall and Science Gallery exhibits in the main hall of Union Station at 40 Massachusetts Ave., NE. The exhibit will include activities and displays showing how NASA uses satellite technology to better understand our changing planet. NASA scientists will give a series of talks April 22 at the Hyperwall stage. For a complete listing of events, visit:http://go.nasa.gov/1kIrbtXNASA #GlobalSelfie EventJoin NASA April 22 as we encourage people all over the world to step outside and celebrate environmental awareness. Anyone, anywhere on the globe, can participate by posting a "selfie" with their local environment as a backdrop. Post your photo to Twitter, Instagram or Google+ using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie or to the event groups on Facebook and Flickr. Photos tagged #GlobalSelfie will be used to create a mosaic image of Earth. For details on how to participate, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/globalselfie/NASA Center ActivitiesJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.:April 22 (8 p.m. PDT) -- Theater Arts Caltech will present a special Earth Day production of the play "Dr. Keeling's Curve," starring Mike Farrell, in the California Institute of Technology's Ramo Auditorium in Pasadena. The play tells the story of the scientist whose research on carbon dioxide provided the first early warnings about global warming. Tickets must be purchased for the play performance, but a 9:30 p.m. post-performance climate change discussion that includes JPL scientists is free of charge. More information is available at:http://www.caltech.edu/content/mike-farrell-dr-keelings-curveAquarium of the Pacific 14th Annual Earth Day event, Long Beach, Calif., April 26 and 27 (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT) -- JPL will host a booth in the main hall for this event, which focuses on Earth as an ocean planet. The event includes hands-on learning demonstrations for all ages. For more information, go to:http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/events/info/earth_day_celebration/Stennis Space Center, Hancock County, Miss.:April 22 (10:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. CDT) -- Demonstrations and hands-on activities will be part of the center's Earth Week at Infinity Science Center. School groups and the general public will be able to participate in the solar beads bracelet activity, tornado in a bottle experiment, Science on a Sphere presentations, and Experimentation Station demonstrations. For more information, visit:http://www.visitinfinity.com/For more information about NASA's Earth science results and programs, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/earthThe California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/topexposeidon-observes-giant-waves-in-storm-of-the-century

Topex/Poseidon Observes Giant Waves in Storm of the Century

As the "storm of the century" hit the eastern part of the United States on March 14, giant waves measuring up to approximately 40 feet (12 meters) high were observed in the North Atlantic by the U.S.-French Topex/Poseidon satellite.

As the "storm of the century" hit the eastern part of the United States on March 14, giant waves measuring up to approximately 40 feet (12 meters) high were observed in the North Atlantic by the U.S.-French Topex/Poseidon satellite.The highest waves measured by the radar altimeter onboard the satellite were observed halfway between the United States and Europe at the latitude of New York City -- approximately 41 degrees north. Strong winds of 45 miles per hour (20 meters per second) also were recorded in the vicinity of the high waves."The Topex/Poseidon mission studies the dynamics of the world's ocean currents by measuring the shape of the sea surface using a radar altimeter," said Dr. Lee Fu, project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif."The height of the waves and the speed of the wind over the ocean also are measured by the radar as byproducts of the mission," he continued. Measuring sea level allows oceanographers to study changes in ocean currents and global circulation and to determine how those changing currents affect world climate.In related activities, scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory in Mississippi report that their recent analysis of Topex/Poseidon data, as well as measurement taken by tide gauges and buoys confirms that the Kelvin wave pulse that they predicted in February has arrived at the South American coast as they anticipated.A Kelvin wave is a large warm water mass that moves along the equator in the Pacific Ocean. These pulses sometimes contribute to El Nio conditions in the eastern equatorial Pacific.JPL manages the NASA portion of the Topex/Poseidon mission for NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth. Launched Aug. 10, 1992 from Kourou, French Guiana, Topex/Poseidon is the second satellite in the Mission to Planet Earth Program, NASA's longterm effort to study Earth as a global environmental system.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-panorama-next-best-thing-to-being-there

Mars Panorama: Next Best Thing to Being There

A 360-degree view combining 817 separate images displays features that surrounded NASA's Mars rover Opportunity during a four-month winter work campaign.

PASADENA, Calif. -- From fresh rover tracks to an impact crater blasted billions of years ago, a newly completed view from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the ruddy terrain around the outcrop where the long-lived explorer spent its most recent Martian winter.This scene recorded from the mast-mounted color camera includes the rover's own solar arrays and deck in the foreground, providing a sense of sitting on top of the rover and taking in the view.  Its release this week coincides with two milestones: Opportunity completing its 3,000th Martian day on July 2, and NASA continuing past 15 years of robotic presence at Mars. Mars Pathfinder landed July 4, 1997. NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter reached the planet while Pathfinder was still active, and Global Surveyor overlapped the active missions of the Mars Odyssey orbiter and Opportunity, both still in service.The new panorama is online athttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15689. It is presented in false color to emphasize differences between materials in the scene.  It was assembled from 817 component images taken between Dec. 21, 2011, and May 8, 2012, while Opportunity was stationed on an outcrop informally named "Greeley Haven," on a segment of the rim of ancient Endeavour Crater."The view provides rich geologic context for the detailed chemical and mineral work that the team did at Greeley Haven over the rover's fifth Martian winter, as well as a spectacularly detailed view of the largest impact crater that we've driven to yet with either rover over the course of the mission," said Jim Bell of Arizona State University, Tempe, Pancam lead scientist.Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, landed on Mars in January 2004 for missions originally planned to last for three months.  NASA's next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, is on course for landing on Mars next month.Opportunity's science team chose to call the winter campaign site Greeley Haven in tribute to Ronald Greeley (1939-2011), a team member who taught generations of planetary science students at Arizona State University."Ron Greeley was a valued colleague and friend, and this scene, with its beautiful wind-blown drifts and dunes, captures much of what Ron loved about Mars," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for Opportunity and Spirit.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.More information about Opportunity is online at:http://www.nasa.gov/roversandhttp://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov. You can follow the project on Twitter athttp://twitter.com/MarsRoversand on Facebook athttp://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/saturns-dynamic-moon-enceladus-shows-more-signs-of-activity

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https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/bright-areas-on-ceres-suggest-geologic-activity

Bright Areas on Ceres Suggest Geologic Activity

Scientists have a better sense of how bright areas on Ceres formed and changed over time -- processes indicative of an active, evolving world.

If you could fly aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft, the surface of dwarf planet Ceres would generally look quite dark, but with notable exceptions. These exceptions are the hundreds of bright areas that stand out in images Dawn has returned. Now, scientists have a better sense of how these reflective areas formed and changed over time -- processes indicative of an active, evolving world."The mysterious bright spots on Ceres, which have captivated both the Dawn science team and the public, reveal evidence of Ceres' past subsurface ocean, and indicate that, far from being a dead world, Ceres is surprisingly active. Geological processes created these bright areas and may still be changing the face of Ceres today," said Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator of the Dawn mission, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Raymond and colleagues presented the latest results about the bright areas at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans on Tuesday, Dec. 12.View this post on InstagramA post shared by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (@nasajpl)Come see brand new tech that could help future astronauts breathe on Mars. Meet MOXIE:https://t.co/mC7Bm5UouOhttps://t.co/E0OHn2FrVH— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL)January 25, 2020Different Kinds of Bright AreasSince Dawn arrived in orbit at Ceres in March 2015, scientists have located more than 300 bright areas on Ceres. A new study in the journal Icarus, led by Nathan Stein, a doctoral researcher at Caltech in Pasadena, California, divides Ceres' features into four categories.The first group of bright spots contains the most reflective material on Ceres, which is found on crater floors. The most iconic examples are in Occator Crater, which hosts two prominent bright areas. Cerealia Facula, in the center of the crater, consists of bright material covering a 6-mile-wide (10-kilometer-wide) pit, within which sits a small dome. East of the center is a collection of slightly less reflective and more diffuse features called Vinalia Faculae. All the bright material in Occator Crater is made of salt-rich material, which was likely once mixed in water. Although Cerealia Facula is the brightest area on all of Ceres, it would resemble dirty snow to the human eye.› DOWNLOAD VIDEO The Bright Stuff: New NASA Dawn Findings at CeresMore commonly, in the second category, bright material is found on the rims of craters, streaking down toward the floors. Impacting bodies likely exposed bright material that was already in the subsurface or had formed in a previous impact event.Separately, in the third category, bright material can be found in the material ejected when craters were formed.The mountain Ahuna Mons gets its own fourth category -- the one instance on Ceres where bright material is unaffiliated with any impact crater. This likelycryovolcano, a volcano formed by the gradual accumulation of thick, slowly flowing icy materials, has prominent bright streaks on its flanks.Over hundreds of millions of years, bright material has mixed with the dark material that forms the bulk of Ceres' surface, as well as debris ejected during impacts. That means billions of years ago, when Ceres experienced more impacts, the dwarf planet's surface likely would have been peppered with thousands of bright areas."Previous research has shown that the bright material is made of salts, and we think subsurface fluid activity transported it to the surface to form some of the bright spots," Stein said.The Case of OccatorWhy do the different bright areas of Occator seem so distinct from one another? Lynnae Quick, a planetary geologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, has been delving into this question.The leading explanation for what happened at Occator is that it could have had, at least in the recent past, a reservoir of salty water beneath it. Vinalia Faculae, the diffuse bright regions to the northeast of the crater's central dome, could have formed from a fluid driven to the surface by a small amount of gas, similar to champagne surging out of its bottle when the cork is removed.In the case of the Vinalia Faculae, the dissolved gas could have been a volatile substance such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane or ammonia. Volatile-rich salty water could have been brought close to Ceres' surface through fractures that connected to the briny reservoir beneath Occator. The lower pressure at Ceres' surface would have caused the fluid to boil off as a vapor. Where fractures reached the surface, this vapor could escape energetically, carrying with it ice and salt particles and depositing them on the surface.Cerealia Facula must have formed in a somewhat different process, given that it is more elevated and brighter than Vinalia Faculae. The material at Cerealia may have been more like an icy lava, seeping up through the fractures and swelling into a dome. Intermittent phases of boiling, similar to what happened when Vinalia Faculae formed, may have occurred during this process, littering the surface with ice and salt particles that formed the Cerealia bright spot.Quick's analyses do not depend on the initial impact that formed Occator. However, the current thinking among Dawn scientists is that when a large body slammed into Ceres, excavating the 57-mile-wide (92-kilometer-wide) crater, the impact may have also created fractures through which liquid later emerged."We also see fractures on other solar system bodies, such as Jupiter's icy moon Europa," Quick said. "The fractures on Europa are more widespread than the fractures we see at Occator. However, processes related to liquid reservoirs that might exist beneath Europa's cracks today could be used as a comparison for what may have happened at Occator in the past."As Dawn continues the final phase of its mission, in which it willdescend to lower altitudes than ever before, scientists will continue learning about the origins of the bright material on Ceres and what gave rise to the enigmatic features in Occator.The Dawn mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. For a complete list of mission participants, visit:https://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/missionMore information about Dawn is available at the following sites:https://www.nasa.gov/dawnhttps://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-odyssey-mission-status-18

Mars Odyssey Mission Status

The United States returned to Mars tonight as NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey fired its main engine at 7:26 p.m. Pacific time and was captured into orbit around the red planet.

The United States returned to Mars tonight as NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey fired its main engine at 7:26 p.m. Pacific time and was captured into orbit around the red planet.At 7:55 p.m. Pacific time, flight controllers at the Deep Space Network station in Goldstone, Calif., and Canberra, Australia, picked up the first radio signal from the spacecraft as it emerged from behind the planet Mars."Early information indicates everything went great," said Matt Landano, the Odyssey project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "The orbit insertion burn went off just as we planned and we will now begin the three-month long aerobraking phase."Through tonight and the early morning hours tomorrow, the flight team will be analyzing the information they are receiving from Odyssey. This will help them evaluate the health and status of the spacecraft and determine the precise orbit geometry.Tonight's firing of the main engine slowed the spacecraft's speed and allowed it to be captured by Mars' gravity into an egg-shaped elliptical orbit around the planet. In the weeks and months ahead, the spacecraft will repeatedly brush against the top of the atmosphere in a process called aerobraking. By using atmospheric drag on the spacecraft, flight controllers will reduce the long, highly elliptical orbit into a shorter, 2-hour circular orbit of approximately 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) altitude for the mission's science data collection."Orbit insertion is our single most critical event during the mission, and we are glad it's behind us," said David A. Spencer, Odyssey's mission manager at JPL. "But we cannot rest on our laurels. The aerobraking phase will be a demanding, around-the-clock operation, and it requires the flight team to react as the atmosphere of Mars changes."The aerobraking phase is scheduled to begin on Friday, October 26.JPL manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Principal investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, operate the science instruments. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., will provide aerobraking support to JPL's navigation team during mission operations.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-climbing-toward-ridge-top

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Climbing Toward Ridge Top

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has begun the steep ascent of an iron-oxide-bearing ridge that's grabbed scientists' attention since before the car-sized rover's 2012 landing.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has begun the steep ascent of an iron-oxide-bearing ridge that's grabbed scientists' attention since before the car-sized rover's 2012 landing."We're on the climb now, driving up a route where we can access the layers we've studied from below," said Abigail Fraeman, a Curiosity science-team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California."Vera Rubin Ridge" stands prominently on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp, resisting erosion better than the less-steep portions of the mountain below and above it. The ridge, also called "Hematite Ridge," was informally named earlier this year in honor of pioneering astrophysicist Vera Rubin."As we skirted around the base of the ridge this summer, we had the opportunity to observe the large vertical exposure of rock layers that make up the bottom part of the ridge," said Fraeman, who organized the rover's ridge campaign. "But even though steep cliffs are great for exposing the stratifications, they're not so good for driving up."The ascent to the top of the ridge from a transition in rock-layer appearance at the bottom of it will gain about 213 feet (65 meters) of elevation -- about 20 stories. The climb requires a series of drives totaling a little more than a third of a mile (570 meters). Before starting this ascent in early September, Curiosity had gained a total of about 980 feet (about 300 meters) in elevation in drives totaling 10.76 miles (17.32 kilometers) from its landing site to the base of the ridge.Curiosity's telephoto observations of the ridge from just beneath it show finer layering, with extensive bright veins of varying widths cutting through the layers."Now we'll have a chance to examine the layers up close as the rover climbs," Fraeman said.Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of JPL said, "Using data from orbiters and our own approach imaging, the team has chosen places to pause for more extensive studies on the way up, such as where the rock layers show changes in appearance or composition. But the campaign plan will evolve as we examine the rocks in detail. As always, it's a mix of planning and discovery."In orbital spectrometer observations, the iron-oxide mineral hematite shows up more strongly at the ridge top than elsewhere on lower Mount Sharp, including locations where Curiosity has already found hematite. Researchers seek to gain better understanding about why the ridge resists erosion, what concentrated its hematite, whether those factors are related, and what the rocks of the ridge can reveal about ancient Martian environmental conditions."The team is excited to be exploring Vera Rubin Ridge, as this hematite ridge has been a go-to target for Curiosity ever since Gale Crater was selected as the landing site," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist of NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's Washington headquarters.During the first year after its landing near the base of Mount Sharp, the Curiosity mission accomplished a major goal by determining that billions of years ago, a Martian lake offered conditions that would have been favorable for microbial life. Curiosity has since traversed through a diversity of environments where both water and wind have left their imprint. Vera Rubin Ridge and layers above it that contain clay and sulfate minerals provide tempting opportunities to learn even more about the history and habitability of ancient Mars.For more about Curiosity, visit:https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-stardust-comet-chaser-passes-asteroid-test

NASA's Stardust Comet-Chaser Passes Asteroid Test

All systems on NASA's Stardust spacecraft performed successfully when tested in a flyby of asteroid Annefrank on Friday

All systems on NASA's Stardust spacecraft performed successfully when tested in a flyby of asteroid Annefrank on Friday, heightening anticipation for Stardust's encounter with its primary target, comet Wild 2, 14 months from now.As a bonus, Stardust discovered that Annefrank is about twice the size anticipated, but with a dimmer surface. The dimmer surface increased the challenge of sighting the object as the spacecraft approached. An image is available online athttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02885.The Annefrank flyby offered a unique opportunity to thoroughly test all the operations planned for the encounter at Wild 2, where Stardust will collect samples from the cloud of dust around the comet for return to Earth. "We performed a full dress rehearsal with the cometary dust collector deployed, the spacecraft poised in its flyby attitude and with all science instruments on," said Stardust's principal investigator, Prof. Donald Brownlee of the University of Washington, Seattle.The spacecraft passed within about 3,300 kilometers (2,050 miles) of Annefrank at 04:50 Nov. 2, Universal Time (8:50 p.m. Nov. 1, Pacific time). Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and at Lockheed Martin Space Systems- Astronautics, Denver, Colo., ran the operation through the hours before and after the closest approach. The approach geometry was more difficult than it will be at Wild 2 because of the angles toward the Sun and Earth relative to the angle toward the asteroid. "The spacecraft performed every command perfectly," said Allan Cheuvront, Stardust spacecraft systems engineer at Lockheed. "Its performance under these severe conditions was outstanding.""It was a challenge for the navigation camera to see Annefrank during approach," said JPL's Ray Newburn, lead scientist for the camera. The predicted brightness of Annefrank was near the lower limit of what the camera can detect. Engineers tried techniques such as taking multiple long exposures and adding them together, said Dr. T. S. Mike Wang, optical navigation specialist at JPL. "Annefrank was not cooperating," Wang said. "It was just too dim."The spacecraft still had not sighted Annefrank 12 hours before the closest approach, but the flyby had been designed to be successful without needing to see the target until 20 minutes before the encounter. "The flyby distance was chosen as one far enough away so there would be no risk to the spacecraft, but close enough for Annefrank to be in camera view at the start of the encounter sequence," said Ed Hirst, mission design manager at JPL. When Annefrank could not be seen during earlier approach, the flight team concluded the asteroid might be dimmer than anticipated, so it sent up commands for the camera to use longer exposures during the early stages of the encounter. "NASA's Deep Space Network gave us highest priority, allowing us to play back earlier images that were not received well, as well as sending our encounter commands up," said Robert Ryan, mission manager at JPL.Stardust executed the encounter commands without missing a beat -- no surprise to Joe Vellinga, flight system manager at Lockheed. "We have built up over three years of flight experience a tremendous amount of confidence for our spacecraft to perform such operations routinely," he said.The main function tested during the flyby was a flight computer program that took control of the spacecraft to keep the camera view locked on Annefrank during a 25-minute period around its closest encounter. Dr. Shyam Bhaskaran developed it based on software that NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft used for successfully tracking a comet nucleus during a flyby of comet Borrelly last year. Lockheed's David Gingerich, a flight software specialist who tested the tracking software, said, "Its performance was executed just like the coach drew it on the blackboard."The encounter images show Annefrank to be irregularly shaped, cratered, and about 8 kilometers (5 miles) in diameter. Stardust's dust instruments were on for the encounter, although no dust was anticipated. Scientists are still checking data to see if, by chance, the instruments may have seen a dust particle. "The dust flux measurement instrument ran for at least 27 minutes and performed all expected functions," said Dr. Tom Economou of the University of Chicago, lead scientist for that instrument. The lead scientist for Stardust's interstellar dust analyzer, Dr. Jochen Kissel of Max Planck Institute, Garching, Germany, said the Annefrank experience will enable him to put the German instrument into an even better configuration at Wild 2."Performing such flight testing before the primary encounter is a critical part of reducing risks and significantly increasing the probability of success at the primary target, Wild 2" said JPL's Thomas Duxbury, Stardust project manager. "We learned at lot that will improve our operations at Wild 2 based upon the lessons learned at Annefrank, but the bottom line is that if Annefrank had been Wild 2, we would have succeeded."Stardust, a part of NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, highly focused science missions, was built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems- Astronautics Operations, Denver, Colo., and is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. More information on the Stardust mission is available athttp://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-scientist-finds-a-new-way-to-the-center-of-the-earth

NASA Scientist Finds a New Way to the Center of the Earth

A new NASA study proposes a novel technique to pinpoint more precisely the location of Earth's center of mass and how it moves through space.

PASADENA, Calif. -- Humans have yet to see Earth's center, as did the characters in Jules Verne's science fiction classic, "Journey to the Center of the Earth." But a new NASA study proposes a novel technique to pinpoint more precisely the location of Earth's center of mass and how it moves through space.Knowing the location of the center of mass, determined using measurements from sites on Earth's surface, is important because it provides the reference frame through which scientists determine the relative motions of positions on Earth's surface, in its atmosphere and in space. This information is vital to the study of global sea level change, earthquakes, volcanoes and Earth’s response to the retreat of ice sheets after the last ice age.The accuracy of estimates of the motion of Earth's center of mass is uncertain, but likely ranges from 2 to 5 millimeters (.08 to .20 inches) a year. Donald Argus of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., developed the new technique, which estimates Earth's center of mass to within 1 millimeter (.04 inches) a year by precisely positioning sites on Earth's surface using a combination of four space-based techniques. The four techniques were developed and/or operated by NASA in partnership with other national and international agencies. Results of the new study appear in the June issue of Geophysical Journal International.Scientists currently define Earth's center in two ways: as the mass center of solid Earth or as the mass center of Earth's entire system, which combines solid Earth, ice sheets, oceans and atmosphere. Argus says there is room for improvement in these estimates."The past two international estimates of the motion of the Earth system's mass center, made in 2000 and 2005, differ by 1.8 millimeters (.07 inches) a year," he said. "This discrepancy suggests the motion of Earth's mass center is not as well known as we'd like."Argus argues that movements in the mass of Earth's atmosphere and oceans are seasonal and do not accumulate enough to change Earth's mass center. He therefore believes the mass center of solid Earth provides a more accurate reference frame."By its very nature, Earth's reference frame is moderately uncertain no matter how it is defined," Argus said. "The problem is very much akin to measuring the center of mass of a glob of Jell-O, because Earth is constantly changing shape due to tectonic and climatic forces. This new reference frame takes us a step closer to pinpointing Earth's exact center."Argus says this new reference frame could make important contributions to understanding global climate change. The inference that Earth is warming comes partly from observations of global sea level rise, believed to be due to ice sheets melting in Greenland, Antarctica and elsewhere. In recent years, global sea level has been rising faster, with the current rate at about 3 millimeters (.12 inches) a year. Uncertainties in the accuracy of the motion of Earth's center of mass result in significant uncertainties in measuring this rate of change."Knowing the relative motions of the mass center of Earth's system and the mass center of the solid Earth can help scientists better determine the rate at which ice in Greenland and Antarctica is melting into the ocean," Argus explained. He said the new frame of reference will improve estimates of sea level rise from satellite altimeters like the NASA/French Space Agency Jason satellite, which rely on measurements of the location and motion of the mass center of Earth's system."For scientists studying post-glacial rebound, this new reference frame helps them better understand how viscous [gooey or sticky] Earth's solid mantle is, which affects how fast Earth's crust rises in response to the retreat of the massive ice sheets that covered areas such as Canada 20,000 years ago," he said. "As a result, they'll be able to make more accurate estimates of these vertical motions and can improve model predictions."Scientists can also use the new information to more accurately determine plate motions along fault zones, improving our understanding of earthquake and volcanic processes.The new technique combines data from a high-precision network of global positioning system receivers; a network of laser stations that track high-orbiting geodetic satellites called Laser Geodynamics Satellites, or Lageos; a network of radio telescopes that measure the position of Earth with respect to quasars at the edge of the universe, known as very long baseline interferometry; and a French network of precise satellite tracking instruments called Doppler Orbit and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite, or DORIS.More information on Lageos is athttp://www.earth.nasa.gov/history/lageos/lageos.html.More information on NASA's global positioning system research is athttp://sideshow.jpl.nasa.gov/mbh/series.html.JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-mars-rover-opportunity-ascends-to-level-ground

NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Ascends to Level Ground

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has climbed out of the large crater that it had been examining from the inside since last September.

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has climbed out of the large crater that it had been examining from the inside since last September."The rover is back on flat ground," an engineer who drives it, Paolo Bellutta of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, announced to the mission's international team of scientists and engineers.Opportunity used its own entry tracks from nearly a year ago as the path for a drive of 6.8 meters (22 feet) bringing the rover out over the top of the inner slope and through a sand ripple at the lip of Victoria Crater. The exit drive, conducted late Thursday, completed a series of drives covering 50 meters (164 feet) since the rover team decided about a month ago that it had completed its scientific investigations inside the crater."We're headed to the next adventure out on the plains of Meridiani," said JPL's John Callas, project manager for Opportunity and its twin Mars rover, Spirit. "We safely got into the crater, we completed our exploration there, and we safely got out. We were concerned that any wheel failure on our aging rover could have left us trapped inside the crater."The Opportunity mission has focused on Victoria Crater for more than half of the 55 months since the rover landed in the Meridiani Planum region of equatorial Mars. The crater spans about 800 meters (half a mile) in diameter and reveals rock layers that hold clues to environmental conditions of the area through an extended period when the rocks were formed and altered.The team selected Victoria as the next major destination after Opportunity exited smaller Endurance Crater in late 2004. The ensuing 22-month traverse to Victoria included stopping for studies along the route and escaping from a sand trap. The rover first reached the rim of Victoria in September 2007. For nearly a year, it then explored partway around the rim, checking for the best entry route and examining from above the rock layers exposed in a series of promontories that punctuate the crater perimeter.Now that Opportunity has finished exploring Victoria Crater and returned to the surrounding plain, the rover team plans to use tools on the robotic arm in coming months to examine an assortment of cobbles -- rocks about fist-size and larger -- that may have been thrown from impacts that dug craters too distant for Opportunity to reach.JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the rovers for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For images and information about NASA's Opportunity and Spirit Mars rovers, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/roversandhttp://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/educators-invited-to-help-plan-live-from-mars-telecasts

Educators Invited to Help Plan 'Live from Mars' Telecasts

Educators and students ... get your passports and become virtual travelers to Mars!

Educators and students ... get your passports and become virtual travelers to Mars!NASA won't leave the public on the launchpad when the first two Mars-bound spacecraft in a decade-long program of Mars exploration blast off from Cape Canaveral, FL, this fall.Teachers and students visiting NASA host sites across the country will be able to follow these spacecraft to Mars and learn about the latest scientific discoveries through a series of "electronic field trips," designed to engage the public in international plans to continue exploring the most Earth-like planet in the solar system. If that isn't enough, virtual travelers will be transported to the surface of Mars on July 4, 1997, to see Pathfinder's landing site on an ancient flood plain known as Ares Vallis.It's all part of a new interactive series of telecasts, called "Live from Mars." NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in partnership with The Planetary Society in Pasadena and a program called "Passport to Knowledge," is inviting teachers across the country to attend a workshop on July 20 -- called "The Mars Virtual Teacher Training Conference" -- to learn more about the broadcasts and discuss plans for bringing them into classrooms via the Internet, video conferencing and public television. The conference will be held at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St., S.W., Washington, D.C.The Mars Virtual Teacher Training Conference will take place in conjunction with a three-day celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Viking landing on Mars. During the workshop, JPL will introduce a new educational CD-ROM on the next two missions to Mars, distribute classroom instruction modules to augment the Passport to Knowledge telecasts and outline NASA's objectives and strategies for exploring Mars over the next decade. Elementary, middle and high school teachers may participate remotely via the Internet and video conferencing."Live from Mars" will consist of four telecasts airing before and during the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor missions. Cosponsored by NASA, the National Science Foundation and public television's K-12 Learning Services, the telecasts are part of a recent Internet initiative which created "Passport to Knowledge," an innovative approach to science education using interactive television and online computer networks to break the barriers of time and space.Since its inception in 1994, Passport to Knowledge has aired several award-winning educational programs."Live from Antarctica" brought contemporary research on such topics as Emperor penguins, Weddell seals, continental drift and the dynamics of ice sheets to classrooms all over the country. "Live from the Stratosphere" transported students to the stratosphere aboard a NASA jet to learn more about the ozone hole, ultraviolet radiation and the interaction of Earth's upper atmosphere with the solar wind. "Live from the Hubble Space Telescope" allowed youngsters to work with leading astronomers in analyzing the results of Hubble telescope observations of Neptune and Pluto.The first two telecasts of "Live from Mars" are tentatively scheduled to air from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 1996, and 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, April 24, 1997. A third telecast originating from JPL, home of the Mars Pathfinder mission, is being planned for Pathfinder landing day on July 4, 1997. The telecast, which will include the first pictures of the Martian surface to be taken by the spacecraft, will be followed by a fourth program to be scheduled in the months ahead. All telecasts will be broadcast on NASA TV and at scheduled times on public television.For additional information on the July 20 Mars Virtual Teacher Training Conference, contact Dr. Cheick Diarra, educational outreach director in the Mars Exploration Program Office at JPL, telephone (818) 354-5428; Andrea McCurdy, NASA K-12 Internet Initiative, via e-mail to andream@quest.arc.nasa.gov; or Jan Wee, Passport to Knowledge, via e-mail to janw@quest.arc.nasa.gov.Updated information on the Passport to Knowledge programs is available on the World Wide Web athttp://www.quest.arc.nasa.gov. Continually updated information on the 1996 Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor missions is available on the Internet athttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mars.Workshop registration forms and agendas can be obtained by writing or calling Judy Cole, Mars symposium coordinator, Science and Technology Corp., 101 Research Drive, Hampton, VA, 23666, telephone (804) 865-8721, or by sending e-mail to cole@stcnet.com.818-354-5011

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-invites-media-to-new-osiris-rex-asteroid-bennu-study-briefing

NASA Invites Media to New OSIRIS-REx, Asteroid Bennu Study Briefing

The mission spent over two years with Bennu, gathering information about its size, shape, mass, and composition while monitoring its spin and orbital trajectory.

NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT) Wednesday, Aug. 11, to discuss an important finding from NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft.OSIRIS-REx spent over two years near the asteroid Bennu, which is a third of a mile (500 meters) wide. During that time, the spacecraft gathered information about Bennu’s size, shape, mass, and composition while monitoring its spin and orbital trajectory. Before leaving the near-Earth object May 10, 2021, the spacecraft scooped up a sample of rock and dust from the asteroid’s surface. OSIRIS-REx will return the sample to Earth Sept. 24, 2023, for further scientific study.Audio of the teleconference will stream live online at:http://www.nasa.gov/liveParticipants in the briefing will be:Dante Lauretta, study co-author and OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in TucsonDavide Farnocchia, study lead author and scientist with the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern CaliforniaJason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MarylandLindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA Headquarters in WashingtonFor more information about the OSIRIS-REx mission to Bennu, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/asteroid-that-flew-past-earth-has-moon

Asteroid That Flew Past Earth Has Moon

Radar Images from Goldstone indicate that asteroid 2004 BL86, which safely flew past Earth, has a moon.

January 27, 2015 Update:The Goldstone scientists observing 2004 BL86 are part of a team of astronomers from around the world who have been characterizing the asteroid. Spectroscopic observations of 2004 BL86 made by Vishnu Reddy, a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, indicate the asteroid's spectral signature is similar to that of massive asteroid Vesta. Located in the heart of the solar system's main asteroid belt, asteroid Vesta was the recent destination of NASA's Dawn mission, which is now on its way to the icy world Ceres.Scientists working with NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images of asteroid 2004 BL86. The images show the asteroid, which made its closest approach on Jan. 26, 2015 at 8:19 a.m. PST (11:19 a.m. EST) at a distance of about 745,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers, or 3.1 times the distance from Earth to the moon), has its own small moon.The 20 individual images used in the movie were generated from data collected at Goldstone on Jan. 26, 2015. They show the primary body is approximately 1,100 feet (325 meters) across and has a small moon approximately 230 feet (70 meters) across. In the near-Earth population, about 16 percent of asteroids that are about 655 feet (200 meters) or larger are a binary (the primary asteroid with a smaller asteroid moon orbiting it) or even triple systems (two moons). The resolution on the radar images is 13 feet (4 meters) per pixel.The trajectory of asteroid 2004 BL86 is well understood. Monday's flyby was the closest approach the asteroid will make to Earth for at least the next two centuries. It is also the closest a known asteroid this size will come to Earth until asteroid 1999 AN10 flies past our planet in 2027.Asteroid 2004 BL86 was discovered on Jan. 30, 2004, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey in White Sands, New Mexico. Lightcurve observations made during the days leading up to asteroid's flyby by Joseph Pollock of Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina; Petr Pravec of the Ondrejov Observatory, Czech Republic; and Julian Oey of the Blue Mountains Observatory, Leura, Australia indicated the asteroid was a binary.Radar is a powerful technique for studying an asteroid's size, shape, rotation state, surface features and surface roughness, and for improving the calculation of asteroid orbits. Radar measurements of asteroid distances and velocities often enable computation of asteroid orbits much further into the future than if radar observations weren't available.NASA places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home planet from them. In fact, the U.S. has the most robust and productive survey and detection program for discovering near-Earth objects (NEOs). To date, U.S. assets have discovered over 98 percent of the known NEOs.In addition to the resources NASA puts into understanding asteroids, it also partners with other U.S. government agencies, university-based astronomers, and space science institutes across the country, often with grants, interagency transfers and other contracts from NASA, and also with international space agencies and institutions that are working to track and better understand these objects.NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington, manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of asteroids and comets whose orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is available at:http://neo.jpl.nasa.govandhttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatchand via Twitter athttp://www.twitter.com/asteroidwatchMore information about asteroid radar research is at:http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/More information about the Deep Space Network is at:http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/prolific-sea-observing-satellite-turns-10

Prolific Sea-Observing Satellite Turns 10

An international oceanography satellite that is tracking the ongoing rise in global sea level marks its 10th year in orbit today.

An international oceanography satellite that is tracking the ongoing rise in global sea level marks its 10th year in orbit today.Designed for a three-to-five-year mission, the joint U.S./European Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM) on the Jason-2 satellite has now made more than 47,000 trips around our home planet, measuring sea level change across the globe, observing ocean currents, studying climate phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina, and monitoring the long-term rise in global mean sea level. In January 2016, it was joined in orbit by its follow-on mission, Jason-3. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages NASA's portion of both missions.In July 2017, Jason-2 began a new science mission when it was maneuvered into a slightly lower orbit. In this new orbit, Jason-2 is collecting data along a series of very closely spaced ground tracks, just 5 miles (8 kilometers) apart. It will take just over a year for Jason-2 to complete one cycle of these new ground tracks, which provide a very accurate and high-resolution estimate of the mean sea surface. The pull of gravity from underwater mountains and other features of the sea floor helps to shape the mean sea surface. These new surface measurements are already being used by scientists to improve maps of the shape and depth of the sea floor, resolving many previously unknown seamounts and other geologic features on the ocean bottom. The new maps will also allow for advances in ocean modeling, naval operations and solid Earth dynamics.Jason-2 data from the new orbit are used by operational agencies to provide societal and strategic benefits, such as real-time information used for deriving ocean currents; improving marine, fishery and naval operations; and calculating tropical cyclone heat potential to improve forecasts of the intensity of tropical hurricanes and cyclones."Along with Jason-3, Jason-2 has extended the record of global sea level rise into a third decade," said Glenn Shirtliffe, Jason-2 project manager at JPL.NASA is currently working with its partners -- the European Space Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Centre National d'etudes Spatiales and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites -- on future generations of satellite altimeters. The instruments are projected for launch in the next decade. They include the Sentinel-6/Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) and Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) missions."In addition to measuring ocean circulation and revealing the ocean's role in Earth's climate, Jason-2 and Jason-3 measure the rise in global sea level caused by global warming," said Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and NASA's project scientist for both missions. "Melting ice and expanding seawater drive global sea levels higher and higher each year. The rise has become a powerful reminder of how fast humans are changing the climate. These missions keep our finger on the pulse of climate change."Other significant science results from the Jason-2 mission include studies of ocean circulation; the ties between the ocean and the atmosphere; and improved global climate forecasts and predictions."The 10th anniversary of the launch of Jason-2 is also a landmark in the development of operational oceanography, as this was the first Jason mission involving two operational agencies, EUMETSAT and NOAA," said EUMETSAT Director-General Alain Ratier. "This paved the way for the transition from highly successful research missions to an operational altimeter system, which has now turned to reality with Jason-3, Jason-CS/Sentinel-6 and Sentinel-3 providing data until 2030.""After 10 years of excellent service, we're excited that Jason-2 is continuing to help forecast hurricane intensity and monitor winds and waves, while taking on a new mission of mapping unexplored parts of the ocean," said Eric Leuliette, NOAA's Jason program and project scientist.For more information on Jason-2 and other satellite altimetry missions, visit:http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/andhttps://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/missions/current-missions/jason-2.htmlOSTM/Jason-2 is a joint satellite mission operated by CNES, EUMETSAT, NOAA and NASA.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-oceanography-mission-data-now-available

New Oceanography Mission Data Now Available

Oceanography data that will help scientists around the world better understand climate change are now available.

PASADENA, Calif. – Oceanography data that will help scientists around the world better understand climate change are now available. The data come from the Ocean Surface Topography Mission, also known as OSTM/Jason-2, a spacecraft developed jointly by NASA and the French space agency.Launched June 20, 2008, the mission's first validated data products in support of improved weather, climate and ocean forecasts are now being distributed to the public within a few hours of observation. Beginning in 2009, other data products for climate research will be available a few days to a few weeks after observations are taken by the satellite.The satellite is monitoring 95 percent of the world's ice-free oceans every 10 days from its low Earth orbit. Like its predecessor satellites, Topex/Poseidon and Jason-1, OSTM/Jason-2 is extending the climate data record by providing a long-term survey of Earth's ocean. It tracks ocean circulation patterns and measures sea-surface height and the rate of sea-level rise, which are critical factors in understanding climate change.The mission is a joint effort among NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, or CNES, and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, or EUMETSAT. An international science team of more than 200 investigators will use data obtained from the satellite's instruments to study the world's ocean and its effect on our society."The joint development by NASA and CNES during the past 20 years of an effective technique for measuring sea level from space is a tremendous success story for both agencies and the international science community," said Lee-Lueng Fu, OSTM/Jason-2 project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "With the successful transition of this important measurement to our partners, NOAA and EUMETSAT, a new era has dawned in humankind's long-term monitoring of this vital barometer of our changing climate.""Sea level is rising at a rate of 0.13 inches per year, nearly twice as fast as the previous 100 years," said Laury Miller, chief of NOAA's Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry in Silver Spring, Md. "If this rate continues unchanged during the coming decades, it will have a huge impact on erosion and flooding in coastal regions. We need the OSTM/Jason-2 data to help us monitor what is happening."Throughout the mission, CNES will continue to monitor and evaluate the spacecraft and instruments it provided. The French space agency also will process, distribute and archive the research-quality data products that will become available next year. EUMETSAT will process and distribute operational data received by its ground station to users in Europe and will archive the data. NOAA will process and distribute operational data received by its ground stations to non-European users and archive that data along with the CNES data products.NOAA will operate the satellite. NASA will evaluate the performance of its instruments: the advanced microwave radiometer, the Global Positioning System payload, and the laser retroreflector assembly. In addition, NASA and CNES will validate scientific data products.CNES provided the OSTM/Jason 2 spacecraft, and NASA and CNES jointly provided the primary payload instruments. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.To learn more about the ocean monitoring mission, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/ostm.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/curiosity-rover-just-hours-from-mars-landing

Curiosity Rover Just Hours from Mars Landing

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is healthy and right on course for a landing in several hours that will be one of the most difficult feats of robotic exploration ever attempted.

Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status ReportPASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is healthy and right on course for a landing in several hours that will be one of the most difficult feats of robotic exploration ever attempted.Emotions are strong in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., as the hours and miles race toward touchdown of the car-size Curiosity at about 10:31 p.m. PDT tonight (about 1:31 a.m. Aug. 6, EDT)."Excitement is building while the team is diligently monitoring the spacecraft," said Mission Manager Brian Portock of JPL. "It's natural to get anxious before a big event, but we believe we are very well prepared."Descent from the top of Mars' atmosphere to the surface will employ bold techniques enabling use of a smaller target area and heavier landed payload than were possible for any previous Mars mission. These innovations, if successful, will place a well-equipped mobile laboratory into a locale especially well-suited for this mission of discovery. The same innovations advance NASA toward capabilities needed for human missions to Mars.Controllers decided Sunday morning to forgo the sixth and last opportunity on the mission calendar for a course-correction maneuver. The spacecraft is headed for its target entry point at the top of Mars' atmosphere precisely enough without that maneuver.Later today, mission controllers will choose whether or not to use a last opportunity for updating onboard information the spacecraft will use during its autonomous control of the entry, descent and landing. Parameters on a motion tracker were adjusted Saturday for fine-tuning determination of the spacecraft's orientation during the descent.At the critical moment of Curiosity's touchdown, controllers and the rest of the world will be relying on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter to provide immediate confirmation of a successful landing. Odyssey will turn to point in the right direction beforehand to listen to Curiosity during the landing. If for any reason that turn maneuver does not work, a successful landing cannot be confirmed until more than two hours later.The landing will end a 36-week flight from Earth and begin at two-year prime mission on Mars. Researchers will use Curiosity's 10 science instruments to investigate whether Martian environmental conditions have ever been favorable for microbial life.JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about Curiosity is online athttp://www.nasa.gov/marsandhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. You can follow the mission on Facebook at:http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosityand on Twitter at:http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.