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  • Mars Rover Opportunity Celebrates 9 Years on Mars

    Though the focus of 2012 was the new Curiosity rover, NASA’s Opportunity rover is still exploring the Martian landscape. The rover has now been examining the red planet for nine years.

    This week NASA revealed that Opportunity is currently examining veined rocks on the rim of an ancient crater named “Endeavor.” The rover is examining the area, called “Matijevic Hill,” and has found evidence of a wet environment in Mars’ past, and a less acidic environment than was found earlier in the rover’s mission.

    Opportunity has now driven 35.46 kilometers (22.03 miles) since it landed on Mars in January 2004. The rover’s primary mission was only three months long. It was to drive 600 meters (2,000 feet) and determine whether the area surrounding it had ever been wet. Opportunity has now operated for 36 times longer than what was originally planned. Since that time, researchers have driven the rover to successively larger craters, examining soil exposed from successively older layers of Mars.

    “What’s most important is not how long it has lasted or even how far it has driven, but how much exploration and scientific discovery Opportunity has accomplished,” said John Callas, manager of the Mars Exploration Rover Project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

    Opportunity’s twin, the Spirit rover, also operated past its original mission, though it hasn’t fared as well as Opportunity. In 2009 Spirit became stuck in soft soil, and communications with the rover ceased in 2010.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.)

  • Climate Change is Threatening the Amazon Rainforest, Says NASA

    Climate Change is Threatening the Amazon Rainforest, Says NASA

    A NASA-led study has shown that a part of the Amazon rainforest twice the size of California is still suffering from a “megadrought” that began in 2005. Researchers cited this and damage due to drought recurrences in the Amazon during the past decade as evidence that the rainforest may face “large-scale degradation due to climate change.”

    The study looked at satellite microwave radar data from 2000 to 2009, measurements of rainfall from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, and moisture content from the rainforest canopy from the Seawinds scatterometer on NASA’s QuikScat satellite.

    During the summer of 2005, over 270,000 square miles of old-growth forest in the Amazon experienced “extensive, severe drought.” This megadrought caused changes in the forest canopy, including possible dieback of branches and tree falls. Though rainfall levels recovered in the years after the drought, much of the damage to the forest canopy remained until the next drought in 2010.

    “The biggest surprise for us was that the effects appeared to persist for years after the 2005 drought,” said Yadvinder Malhi, co-author of the study at the University of Oxford. “We had expected the forest canopy to bounce back after a year with a new flush of leaf growth, but the damage appeared to persist right up to the subsequent drought in 2010.”

    The study shows that around 30% of the Amazon basin’s total forest area was affected by the 2005 drought. Almost half of the entire Amazon rainforest was affected by the 2010 drought. The drought rate in the area has been abnormally high during the past decade. Research has shown that rainfall over the southern Amazon rainforest fell by nearly 3.2% from 1970 to 1998.

    Malhi and his colleagues attribute recent Amazonian droughts to long-term warming of tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures.

    “In effect, the same climate phenomenon that helped form hurricanes Katrina and Rita along U.S. southern coasts in 2005 also likely caused the severe drought in southwest Amazonia,” said Sassan Saatchi, leader on the research at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “An extreme climate event caused the drought, which subsequently damaged the Amazonian trees.

    “Our results suggest that if droughts continue at five- to 10-year intervals or increase in frequency due to climate change, large areas of the Amazon forest are likely to be exposed to persistent effects of droughts and corresponding slow forest recovery. This may alter the structure and function of Amazonian rainforest ecosystems.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • NASA Looks For the Origin of Life at the Bottom of the Ocean

    NASA Looks For the Origin of Life at the Bottom of the Ocean

    NASA this week revealed that it is simulating the conditions believed to have created the organic molecules that may have been the precursors to life on Earth.

    An experiment at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is mimicking the conditions observed at hydrothermal vents in the deepest parts of the ocean. Glass tubes, thin barrels, and valves are sending carbon dioxide-rich ocean water and alkaline fluid through a sample of rock that simulates ancient volcanic ocean crust. The experiment runs at 100 times the pressure on the Earth’s surface and at around 90 degrees Celsius (200 degrees Fahrenheit) A detector system detects the compounds coming out of the set-up, keeping watch for organic compounds such as ethane and methane.

    “What we’re trying to do is to climb down and create the conditions for the very first steps to the beginning of life as we know it,” said Mike Russell, leader on the experiment and a senior geologist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Icy Worlds team at JPL. “That’s the hard part.”

    The Icy Worlds project is trying to learn more about potentially habitable environments like Mars, as well as liquid water environments on icy objects such as Saturn’s moon Enceladus, where signs of water ice have been found.

    The hydrothermal vent experiments are based on Russell’s 1989 theory that life on Earth may have begun at alkaline hydrothermal vents some 4 billion years ago. The carbon dioxide at these vents could have supplied the carbon needes to produce organic molecules. Evidence for this was found in 2000, when a vent showing signs of producing organic molecules was found in the Atlantic Ocean.

    “If this ocean experiment is successful, scientists would have a better handle on where to look for the building blocks of life on Earth and beyond, and what signatures we should be looking for of life and of habitable environments in the solar system,” said Isik Kanik, Icy Worlds Principal Investigator.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Drilling Rock Chosen

    For more than a month now, Mars Rover Curiosity has been preparing to test its hammering drill on a Martian rock. The rover team took great pains to scan a low-lying area called “Yellowknife Bay” for the perfect rock specimen.

    Today, researchers have announced that the a flat rock with pale veins has been chosen as the target. Curiosity is currently on-route to the rock, which NASA has named “John Klein” in tribute to the former Mars Science Laboratory deputy manager of the same name who died in 2011. If the rock still looks interesting to researchers when the rover gets a closer view, it will become the first Martian rock to be drilled for a sample.

    “Drilling into a rock to collect a sample will be this mission’s most challenging activity since the landing,” said Richard Cook, Mars Science Laboratory project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “It has never been done on Mars. The drill hardware interacts energetically with Martian material we don’t control. We won’t be surprised if some steps in the process don’t go exactly as planned the first time through.”

    The rover team is hoping to find evidence of Mars’ watery past inside John Klein. The rock was chosen because of the light-toned veins that were detected using Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam), indicating elevated levels of calcium, sulfur, and hydrogen.

    “These veins are likely composed of hydrated calcium sulfate, such as bassinite or gypsum,” said Nicolas Mangold, ChemCam team member at the Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique de Nantes. “On Earth, forming veins like these requires water circulating in fractures.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

  • “Doomsday” Asteroid Won’t Hit Earth in 2036

    Earlier this week, astronomers with the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that they were collecting data on the asteroid Apophis as it made its most recent approach to Earth. The data was, among other things, meant to narrow the prediction as to whether the asteroid might impact the Earth in 2036.

    Now, NASA has announced that Apophis will not be a threat to humanity in 2036. The asteroid will still make a close flyby of Earth, but it will not be impacting the planet or otherwise heralding “doomsday.”

    “With the new data provided by the Magdalena Ridge [New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology] and the Pan-STARRS [University of Hawaii] optical observatories, along with very recent data provided by the Goldstone Solar System Radar, we have effectively ruled out the possibility of an Earth impact by Apophis in 2036,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “The impact odds as they stand now are less than one in a million, which makes us comfortable saying we can effectively rule out an Earth impact in 2036. Our interest in asteroid Apophis will essentially be for its scientific interest for the foreseeable future.”

    When Apophis was discovered in 2004 initial calculations gave it a 2.7% chance of impacting the Earth in 2029. Subsequent observations ruled out an impact in that year, and this new announcement means Apophis is harmless for the foreseeable future. In 2036 Apophis will come within 31,300 kilometers (19,400) of Earth – around one-twelfth the distance between Earth and the moon.

    “But much sooner, a closer approach by a lesser-known asteroid is going to occur in the middle of next month when a 40-meter-sized asteroid, 2012 DA14, flies safely past Earth’s surface at about 17,200 miles,” said Yeomans. “With new telescopes coming online, the upgrade of existing telescopes, and the continued refinement of our orbital determination process, there’s never a dull moment working on near-Earth objects.”

    (Image courtesy UH/IA)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Tidies Up a Rock

    Though most of Mars rover Curiosity‘s on-board tools have already been used successfully, a few specific instruments remain to be tested. One of those instruments is the rover’s hammering drill, which it is preparing to test on a rock in an area named “Yellowknife Bay.” Another is the rover’s Dust Removal Tool (DRT) (also known as a “brush”), which NASA announced has recently completed its first test on Mars.

    The DRT is a motorized, wire-bristle brush that was engineered to prepare rock surfaces for “enhanced inspection” by Curiosity’s other instruments. The brush is built into the turret end of the rover‘s arm alongside its Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, Mars Hand Lens Imager, and hammering drill.

    The Curiosity team chose a target rocked named “Ekwir_1” as the target for the first use of the DRT. The results of the test were successful, and can be seen in the photo above. Ekwir_1 sits in Yellowknife Bay alongside other rocks scientists are evaluating for use as drilling targets.

    “We wanted to be sure we had an optimal target for the first use,” said Diana Trujillo, activity lead for the DRT at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We need to place the instrument within less than half an inch of the target without putting the hardware at risk. We needed a flat target, one that wasn’t rough, one that was covered with dust. The results certainly look good.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Resumes Mars Exploration

    The Mars Rover Curiosity team stationed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) had a big year in 2012. Aside from nailing the rover’s landing, the researchers kept Mars hours for months while testing Curiosity’s capabilities. So, during the holidays the team got a much-deserved break, leaving the rover sitting in an area named “Yellowknife Bay.” The area is flatter and ligher-toned than the terrain the rover crossed during its first few months on Mars.

    Though Curiosity managed to take plenty of photos over the break, the rover is now back in full action. It resumed driving around Yellowknife Bay on January 3 and pulled up to a rock feature NASA has named “Snake River.” The feature is a “thin curving line of darker rock cutting through flatter rocks and jutting above the sand.”

    “It’s one piece of the puzzle,” said John Grotzinger, the mission’s project scientist. “It has a crosscutting relationship to the surrounding rock and appears to have formed after the deposition of the layer that it transects.”

    Curiosity’s latest jaunt took it 3 meters (about 10 feet), bringing the rover’s total driving distance on the red planet to 702 meters (2,303 feet). The rover is currently preparing to use its hammering drill for the first time. The drill will powder an interior sample of rock and collect if for analysis by Curiosity’s other instruments.

    “We had no surprises over the holidays,” said Richard Cook, the mission’s project manager. “Now, Curiosity is back on the move. The area the rover is in looks good for our first drilling target.”

  • 100 Billion Planets Populate the Milky Way Galaxy, Say Astronomers

    For years now, NASA‘s Kepler mission has been confirming the existence of planets outside our solar system. Now, a new review of Kepler data suggests that there are billions upon billions of planets just in the Milky Way galaxy.

    “There are at least 100 billion planets in the galaxy, just our galaxy,” said John Johnson, assistant professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech and coauthor of the new study. “That’s mind-boggling.”

    The new study, set to be published in The Astrophysical Journal, looked at the planets orbiting a star named Kepler-32, then compared the system to others discovered by the Kepler space telescope. Astronomers stated that the Kepler-32 planets are representative of a majority of planets in the Milky Way, and serve as a case study for how planets form. Systems similar to Kepler-32 comprise around three-quarters of all the stars in our galaxy, leading researchers to their 100 billion-planet estimate.

    “I usually try not to call things ‘Rosetta stones,’ but this is as close to a Rosetta stone as anything I’ve seen,” said Johnson. “It’s like unlocking a language that we’re trying to understand—the language of planet formation.”

    The prevalence of Kepler-32-type stars, however, suggests that our own solar system may be quite rare. “It’s just a weirdo,” said Johnson.

    Kepler-32 is an M dwarf star that is much cooler than our sun, with around half its mass and radius. The five planets orbiting Kepler-32 also orbit much closer to the star than the planets in our solar system. All of the Kepler-32 planets orbit their star within one-tenth of the distance from the Earth to the sun, or just one-third the distance from Mercury to the sun.

    That doesn’t mean Kepler-32’s planets are inhospitable, though. The star’s small size also means its habitable zone, where liquid water can exist, is smaller, and the outermost Kepler-32 planet lies within that zone.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • Cassini to Track Venus Transit, Study Exoplanets

    NASA announced today that it will begin using the Cassini probe’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) for uses other than studying Saturn and its moons.

    On Friday, from its vantage point in orbit around Saturn, the VIMS will be used to track Venus as it travels across the face of the sun. A similar Venus transit could be seen from Earth earlier this summer, but Friday’s transit will be the first time a spacecraft has tracked the transit of a planet in our solar system from beyond Earth.

    The VIMS will collect data on Venus’ atmosphere during the event. The observations are also a chance for astronomers to test the VIMS’s ability to observe planets outside the solar system, in an effort to reduce the amount of signal noise. The instrument has already been used to observe a transit by an exoplanet called HD 189733b.

    “Interest in infrared investigations of extrasolar planets has exploded in the years since Cassini launched, so we had no idea at the time that we’d ask VIMS to learn this new kind of trick,” said Phil Nicholson, the VIMS team member based at Cornell University. “But VIMS has worked so well at Saturn so far that we can start thinking about other things it can do.”

    Since Cassini’s launch in 1997, astronomers have used NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to identify numerous exoplanets. Scientists are hoping to use Cassini’s VIMS to investigate the atmospheres of those planets, in particular whether they contain methane or other hydrocarbons.

    The VIMS has also been used in another novel way recently. Back in April 2012, astronomers used the instrument to take thermal data from warm fissures located on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

    “For the first time, we were able to see that the jets coming from the surface of Enceladus originated in very small, very hot spots,” said Bonnie Buratti, a VIMS scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “This new observation is good evidence for liquid water underneath the surface.”

    (Images courtesy NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Prepares to Drill a Rock

    Nearly all of the instruments packed into Mars rover Curiosity‘s frame have been utilized, but once crucial test has yet to be performed. NASA scientists will soon use Curiosity’s percussive drill to powder the interior of a rock for analysis, something that has never been done on Mars.

    To choose the perfect rock for the drilling, the rover is currently driving around in a shallow depression named “Yellowknife Bay.” The area has a different type of terrain than any Curiosity has yet encountered on Mars. It is one of three different terrain types that intersect at an area named “Glenelg,” which has been the rover’s interim destination since around two weeks after it landed back in August.

    The Curiosity team stationed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used the rover’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) and Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) to study rocks while driving toward two particular rocks of intrest. Named “Costello” and “Flaherty,” the two rocks have now been examined using the rover’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).

    Curiosity has one more drive planned for this week before the rover team’s holiday break. During the break, the environment in Yellowknife Bay will continue to be studied, and early next year the rover will perform its historic drill sampling. For most of next year, the plans for the rover consist of continued sampling and investigation while driving toward a 5-kilometer-high (3 mile) layered mound named “Mount Sharp.”

  • NASA Looks Back on a Historic Year in Space [VIDEO]

    This year, as usual, was a historic year for NASA, spaceflight, astronomy, and space exploration. Though NASA’s share of the U.S. federal budget has been falling for years now, the agency has an uncanny knack for stretching its budget and providing industry and the scientifically curious with almost daily discoveries.

    To commemorate another memorable year, NASA has released a rather long look back at the highlights of 2012. A few of the highlights include the successful first privatized resupply mission to the International Space Station by the SpaceX Dragon capsule, the landing of Mars rover Curiosity on the surface of Gale Crater, and the improvements made to the Orion capsule and the heavy-lift rocket that will carry astronauts into deep space. NASA has even included the deaths of Ray Bradbury and Neil Armstrong, and the launch of Rovio’s Angry Birds Space mobile game as part of the year’s space news.

  • NASA Probes Smash Into Moon Mountain as Planned

    NASA’s GRAIL project spacecrafts, Ebb and Flow, crash-landed on the surface of the moon yesterday afternoon. The impact had been pre-planned, and occurred as predicted at 5:28 pm December 17, 2012. The landing site has been named in honor of Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space and a member of the GRAIL mission team.

    “Sally was all about getting the job done, whether it be in exploring space, inspiring the next generation, or helping make the GRAIL mission the resounding success it is today,” said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “As we complete our lunar mission, we are proud we can honor Sally Ride’s contributions by naming this corner of the moon after her.”

    The GRAIL probes were crashed into the moon at 1.7 kilometers per second (3,760 mph) because they had fulfilled their primary and extended missions, were low in orbit, and did not have enough fuel to be of any further use. The Sally K. Ride impact site, located on the southern face of a lunar mountain near Goldschmidt crater, was chosen to avoid the disturbance of U.S. and Russian historical sites scattered across the moon’s surface.

    The site was in shadow at the time of impact, so no images of the event were recorded. However, NASA‘s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be able to snap photos of the crash site in several weeks.

    During their time in orbit, Ebb and Flow collected data that allowed scientists to create the highest-resolution gravity map of any celestial body.

    “We will miss our lunar twins, but the scientists tell me it will take years to analyze all the great data they got, and that is why we came to the moon in the first place,” said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “So long, Ebb and Flow, and we thank you.”

    NASA provided live interviews and analysis by the GRAIL team in the moments leading up to the mission’s destructive finale. A recording of the events can be seen below.

  • NASA Probes Prepare to Slam Into the Moon

    NASA Probes Prepare to Slam Into the Moon

    NASA‘s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) probes today completed a burn that irreversibly altered their orbit and have begun skimming the surface of the moon. Over the weekend, the probes, named Ebb and Flow, will orbit ever closer to the surface of the moon. On Monday, December 17, at around 5:28 pm EST the probes will slam into the side of a lunar mountain while traveling at approximately 3,760 miles per hour.

    “NASA wanted to rule out any possibility of our twins hitting the surface anywhere near any of the historic lunar exploration sites like the Apollo landing sites or where the Russian Luna probes touched down,” said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “Our navigators calculated the odds before this maneuver as about seven in a million. Now, after these two successful rocket firings, there is zero chance.”

    The crash landing is a planned event, necessary because the probes’ low orbit and fuel levels make them useless for any further study. The impact will take place near the moon’s north pole, close to a crater named Goldschmidt. The area will be in shadow at the time, and no photos or video of the event are expected.

    NASA will, however, be live-streaming commentary of the event starting at 5 pm EST on Monday. The commentary will come from the control room at the JPL and will include interviews with the GRAIL team. It can be viewed on NASA TV or on the JPL Ustream channel.

    The probes began orbiting the moon on January 1, 2012. In their year of orbit, Ebb and Flow collected data that helped scientists create the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body to date.

  • Mars Rover Curiosity to Drill Rocks in Yellowknife Bay

    NASA reported this week that Mars Rover Curiosity recently drove 19 meters (63 feet) toward an area called “Yellowknife Bay. The drive represents the rover’s fourth consecutive driving day since leaving an outcrop called “Point Lake.” Curiosity has now driven a total of 598 meters (0.37 miles) on the surface of Mars.

    On the way, scientists used the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument to determine a rock outcrop’s composition and document its layering, seen above. Also, the last sample Curiosity had been carrying with it from the “Rocknest” site was placed into the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument to further test its chemical composition.

    The drive was cut short when the rover detected a tilt that activated software to automatically stop, as a precaution. Curiosity was not in immediate danger and is not stuck or tipped over.

    “The rover is traversing across terrain different from where it has driven earlier, and responding differently,” said Rick Welch, mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We’re making progress, though we’re still in the learning phase with this rover, going a little slower on this terrain than we might wish we could.”

    The rover will soon step down 20 inches into Yellowknife Bay and choose a rock to examine and drill. The rover team is currently checking for a safe way down into the bay, which is a temporary destination before Curiosity turns southwest to it’s main destination, an area on the slope of nearby Mount Sharp. This will be the first use of Curiosity’s rock-powdering drill while on Mars.

    NASA also this week released a video update on Curiosity’s mission, bringing fans up to speed on where the rover is and what it has accomplished.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

  • Enormous Galaxy Cluster Spotted by NASA’s WISE

    Galaxy clusters, the rarest of galaxy groupings, can be difficult for astronomers to find. NASA‘s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope, however, has just found a gigantic galaxy cluster, and is expected to uncover thousands more. The new findings have been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

    “One of the key questions in cosmology is how did the first bumps and wiggles in the distribution of matter in our universe rapidly evolve into the massive structures of galaxies we see today,” said Anthony Gonzalez, leader of the research program at the University of Florida. “By uncovering the most massive of galaxy clusters billions of light-years away with WISE, we can test theories of the universe’s early inflation period.”

    WISE has completed two all-sky surveys at infrared wavelengths, looking for near-Earth asteroids for a project dubbed NEOWISE. Now, the WISE team is combining all of its data and making it publicly available late next year for a project called AIIWISE. Using the AIIWISE data, astronomers should be able to spot large galaxy clusters, as well as hidden cool stars nearby

    The first galaxy cluster found is called MOO J2342.0+1301 and located over 7 billion light-years from Earth. It is hundreds of times the mass of our Milky Way galaxy. Galaxy clusters are difficult to spot because their distance means not many we can observe have had sufficient time to form since the big bang.

    “I had pretty much written off using WISE to find distant galaxy clusters because we had to reduce the telescope diameter to only 16 inches [40 centimeters] to stay within our cost guidelines, so I am thrilled that we can find them after all,” said Peter Eisenhardt, co-author of the paper on the findings and a WISE project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The longer exposures from AllWISE open the door wide to see the most massive structures forming in the distant universe.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/WIYN/Subaru)

  • Mars Rover Opportunity Completes Walkabout of Matijevic Hill

    NASA announced today that Mars rover Opportunity has completed a reconnaissance circuit around an area named “Matijevic Hill.” Opportunity began its study of the location at the beginning of October. The site is named after Jacob Matijevic, who led the engineering team for Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity and died back in September.

    “If you are a geologist studying a site like this, one of the first things you do is walk the outcrop, and that’s what we’ve done with Opportunity,” said Steve Squyres, the mission’s principal investigator at Cornell University.

    Opportunity drove around 354 meters (1,160 feet) in a counter clockwise circuit around Matijevic Hill, identifying objects of interest for future study. The Hill is located on the western rim of Endeavor Crater, the result of an impact from an object more than 3 billion years ago. Researchers are determining the ages of local outcrops to understand the area’s past environment.

    “We’ve got a list of questions posed by the observations so far,” said Squyres. “We did this walkabout to determine the most efficient use of time to answer the questions. Now we have a good idea what we’re dealing with, and we’re ready to start the detailed work.”

    Of particular interest on Matijevic Hill are “Whitewater Lake” and “Kirkwood.” Whitewater lake is an area of light-toned material scientists believe might contain clay. Kirkwood contains small spheres that are similar to, but markedly different than, iron-rich spheres researchers have nicknamed “blueberries.”

    Opportunity has now driven 35.4 kilometers (22 miles) during its nearly nine years on the Martian surface. It’s twin rover, Spirit, became stuck in soft soil in 2009 and communications were cut off in 2010.

    “Almost nine years into a mission planned to last for three months, Opportunity is fit and ready for driving, robotic-arm operations and communication with Earth,” said Diana Blaney, the mission’s deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Has Fully Analyzed Martian Soil

    Mars Rover Curiosity has now used each of its on-board instruments to analyze Martian soil. Though researchers have found a complex chemistry in the soil on Mars, they haven’t found what would be considered a major discovery: carbon-based organic compounds that could represent the ingredients for life.

    Water, sulfur, and chlorine-containing substances have been found in samples analyzed using Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments. The samples were taken from five different scoops curiosity made into a drift of windblown dust and sand NASA named “Rocknest.” The rover was stationed at the Rocknest site for weeks while its instruments were prepared and utilized.

    Rumors of a big discovery were played down by NASA in advance of today’s announcement. Speculation held that organic compounds may have been found in the red planet’s soil, as a goal of the rover project is finding evidence of whether Mars could have once supported life.

    “We have no definitive detection of Martian organics at this point, but we will keep looking in the diverse environments of Gale Crater,” said Paul Mahaffy, SAM Principal Investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

    Regardless, the SAM instrument identified perchlorate, an oxygen and chlorine compound. It reacted with other chemicals heated in the SAM to form chlorinated methane compounds – one-carbon organic compounds that were detected by the SAM. Though the chlorine is from Mars, the carbon could have been carried by Curiosity from Earth.

    A variety of Martian minerals will be tested as the rover drives toward its current destination in the Gleneg area at the base of Mount Sharp. The Rocknest soil was chosen for Curiosity’s first scooping exercises because of its fine sand particles, which were well-suited for scrubbing the interior surfaces of the rover’s sample-handling chambers.

    “We used almost every part of our science payload examining this drift,” said John Grotzinger, Curiosity Project Scientist at the California Institute of Technology. “The synergies of the instruments and richness of the data sets give us great promise for using them at the mission’s main science destination on Mount Sharp.”

  • Voyager Discovers New Region at the Edge of the Solar System

    Excited NASA researchers today announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has encountered a new, unexpected region on its way out of the solar system. The scientists believe that the region is the final hurdle before Voyager enters interstellar space.

    The new region of the heliosphere – the bubble of charged particles from the sun that envelops the solar system – is being referred to as a magnetic “highway” where lower-energy particles from inside the solar system can pass out and higher-energy particles from interstellar space can stream in. Before reaching this region, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 observed that charged particles bounced in all directions, as if trapped inside the heliosphere.

    “Although Voyager 1 still is inside the sun’s environment, we now can taste what it’s like on the outside because the particles are zipping in and out on this magnetic highway,” said Edward Stone, a Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology. “We believe this is the last leg of our journey to interstellar space. Our best guess is it’s likely just a few months to a couple years away. The new region isn’t what we expected, but we’ve come to expect the unexpected from Voyager.”

    The Voyager team believes Voyager 1 is still inside the heliosphere because the direction of the magnetic fields surrounding it has not changed. The direction of magnetic field lines is expected to change as the probe enters interstellar space.

    Excitement at the Voyager probes’ approach of deep space has been increasing since 2004, when Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock into the heliosheath, the outermost layer of the heliosphere.

    The probe crossed into the new, unexpected magnetic highway back in July of this year. At the time, researchers thought Voyager may have been approaching interstellar space, but the region ebbed and flowed toward the probe several times. Since August 25, the region has been stable.

    “If we were judging by the charged particle data alone, I would have thought we were outside the heliosphere,” said Stamatios Krimigis, principal investigator of Voyager’s low-energy charged particle instrument and a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. “But we need to look at what all the instruments are telling us and only time will tell whether our interpretations about this frontier are correct.”

    Voyager 1 and 2 were launched 16 days apart in 1977. The probes are the longest-serving NASA spacecrafts and Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object from Earth. Voyager 1 is 122 Astronomical Units (11 billion miles) from the sun, and Voyager 2 is 100 Astronomical Units (9 billion miles) from the sun. Researchers do not believe Voyager 2 has yet reached the newly discovered magnetic highway.

    “We are in a magnetic region unlike any we’ve been in before – about 10 times more intense than before the termination shock – but the magnetic field data show no indication we’re in interstellar space,” said Leonard Burlaga, a Voyager magnetometer team member based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “The magnetic field data turned out to be the key to pinpointing when we crossed the termination shock. And we expect these data will tell us when we first reach interstellar space.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • Study Shows Ice Loss at Both Poles Increasing

    A new study by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) is showing that the melting rate for ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica has increased over the past two decades. All together, the ice sheets are losing over three times as much ice as they were in the 90s.

    The study, published today in the journal Science, combined data from satellites and aircraft, producing the most comprehensive assessment of ice sheet loss to date. The inclusion of satellite data makes the new study more than twice as accurate as the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) estimates of ice sheet loss, which were broad enough to actually encompass the possibility that antarctica was growing. Researchers estimate that the ice sheets have contributed 0.44 inces to global sea levels since 1992 – one-fifth of the total seal level rise over that period.

    “What is unique about this effort is that it brought together the key scientists and all of the different methods to estimate ice loss,” said Tom Wagner, NASA’s cryosphere program manager. “It’s a major challenge they undertook, involving cutting-edge, difficult research to produce the most rigorous and detailed estimates of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica to date. The results of this study will be invaluable in informing the IPCC as it completes the writing of its Fifth Assessment Report over the next year.”

    The study found that ice sheet changes in Antarctica and Greenland were varied. Around two-thirds of the ice sheet loss came from Greenland.

    “Both ice sheets appear to be losing more ice now than 20 years ago, but the pace of ice loss from Greenland is extraordinary, with nearly a five-fold increase since the mid-1990s,” said Erik Ivins, a research scientist who co-coordinated the study from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “In contrast, the overall loss of ice in Antarctica has remained fairly constant, with the data suggesting a 50-percent increase in Antarctic ice loss during the last decade.”

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    (Image courtesy Ian Joughin, University of Washington)

  • Hurricane Strength Forecasts Improved by NASA Study

    A new NASA study shows that hurricane forecasters may soon be able to better predict hurricane and tropical storm strength by analyzing their relative-humidity levels.

    The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, looked at relative humidity data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft. Data from close to 200 North Atlantic hurricanes between 2002 and 2010 were analyzed and compared to all the other data available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center.

    Researchers found that hurricanes that rapidly intensified also tended to have higher relative-humidity levels than storms that weakened or stayed the same. In other words, rapidly intensifying hurricanes tend to have a more moist large-scale environment.

    “Our results show relative humidity and its variations within a hurricane’s large-scale environment may be useful predictors in improving intensity forecast models,” said Longtao Wu, lead author of the study and a reasearcher at the University of California Los Angeles-Jet Propulsion Labratory Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering. “This is the first satellite analysis to quantify this small but statistically significant correlation.”

    Since the early 90s, forecasts of hurricane paths have gotten progressively better. Forecasts of hurricane strength, however, have not improved nearly as much. This is due to the fact that hurricane intensity is sensitive to a variety of factors within the storm and its environment. In general, relative humidity decreases the further from the storm’s center it is measured.

    “We speculate that decreasing relative humidity levels farther from a storm’s center may be an important factor in a cyclone’s rapid intensification,” said Hui Su, study co-author. “A drier environment farther from a storm’s center limits the development of its outer rain bands and favors the growth of its inner core. Conversely, a wet environment farther from a storm’s center can weaken a cyclone by making it easier for rain bands to form outside the storm’s core, which compete with the inner core’s growth.”

    (Image courtesy NASA GSFC/LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Celebrates a Milestone

    This week marks one year since Mars rover Curiosity launched on the Mars Science Laboratory from Cape Canaveral on Earth. Today, NASA provided a few statistics on the “new” rover to celebrate the occasion.

    Though Curiosity has only been on Mars for 16 weeks, the rover has beamed over 23,000 raw images back to Earth. Among the latest images are photos of a rock named “Rocknest 3,” which the rover recently studied using its Chemistry and Camera laser. The short journey to Rocknest 3 was the first time in weeks the rover had driven across the surface of the Red planet, having been stationed at the “Rocknest” site to scoop up multiple samples of Martian soil. Following the Rocknest 3 observations, Curiosity drove to an area named “Point Lake” and used its mast camera to scan the horizon for possible routes and targets of study on which the rover team can use the rover’s rock-sampling drill for the first time. The rover has now driven a total of 517 meters (1,696 feet) in total.

    Meanwhile, researchers are patiently for confirmation of a “big” discovery they say could be “Earth-shaking.” Though it’s impossible to know, it could be that the rover’s findings have something to do with it’s primary mission, which is to find out whether Gale Crater ever had environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. The discovery, whatever it is, comes from the first chemical analysis Curiosity performed on a Rocknest soil sample using its Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. The rover is still carrying a fifth soil sample from the site, should it be needed to verify the exciting findings.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)