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Tag: NASA

  • Dust Storm on Mars Now Dissipating

    NASA this week announced that a dust storm on Mars appears to be dissipating, instead of growing into a global storm. The dust storm has been tracked since November 10 using the Mars Color Imager camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

    “During the past week, the regional storm weakened and contracted significantly,” said Bruce Cantor of Malin Space Science Systems, a NASA contractor that operates space camera systems, including the Mars Color Imager.

    The week before, the storm had grown large enough for NASA to label it a “regional” storm. The changes the storm had on Mars’ global air-pressure patterns were extensive enough that Mars rover Curiosity‘s Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) detected them on the red planet’s surface. The storm also came within 837 miles of Mars rover Opportunity, which saw the atmospheric clarity above it lower slightly.

    In edition to the measurements taken by the Curiosity’s REMS, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Mars Climate Sounder has also been detecting the effects of the dust storm on atmospheric temperatures. Researchers hope to be able to use the REMS, which is located near Mars’ equator, and daily orbital observations to help them understand why some Martian dust storms dissipate, while others grow to a global scale. Two dust storms – one in 2001 and one in 2007 – have been observed growing into global hazes.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

  • 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)

  • NASA Spots Pac-Man-Shaped Thermal Pattern on Saturn Moon

    Scientists working on NASA‘s Cassini mission have spotted a second feature shaped like Pac-Man on one of Saturn’s Moon. The pattern appears in thermal data from the moon Tethys, taken using Cassini’s composite infrared spectrometer. A similar thermal pattern was spotted on Saturn’s moon Mimas back in 2010.

    “Finding a second Pac-Man in the Saturn system tells us that the processes creating these Pac-Men are more widespread than previously thought,” said Carly Howett, lead author of a paper about the phenomenon that was recently published in the journal Icarus. “The Saturn system – and even the Jupiter system – could turn out to be a veritable arcade of these characters.”

    The current hypothesis about the Pac-Men holds that high energy electrons bombard low latitudes on the sides of Mimas and Tethys that face the sun as they orbit Saturn. These electrons turn those sections of the surface into hard-packed ice, causing them to resist heating or cooling more than the rest of the surface. Also, since Tethys is bombarded by icy particles from Enceladus, the thermal pattern suggests to researchers that the surface alteration is occurring more quickly than the particles can re-coat the object’s surface. The Pac-Man pattern can actually be seen subtly in visible-light images of Tethys’ surface, appearing as a dark lens-shaped region.

    “Studies at infrared wavelengths give us a tremendous amount of information about the processes that shape planets and moons,” said Mike Flasar, the Cassini spectrometer’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “A result like this underscores just how powerful these observations are.”

    When the Cassini data was taken, the daytime temperatures inside the “mouth” of the Pac-Man pattern were 29 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than their surroundings. The warmest temperature recorded on Tethys was -300 degrees Fahrenheit.

    “Finding a new Pac-Man demonstrates the diversity of processes at work in the Saturn system,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Future Cassini observations may reveal other new phenomena that will surprise us and help us better understand the evolution of moons in the Saturn system and beyond.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/SWRI)

  • Mars Rovers Detect Regional Dust Storm Effects

    A recent regional Martian dust storm has grown large enough for both of the functioning NASA Mars rovers, Curiosity and Opportunity, to detect atmospheric changes on opposite sides of the red planet.

    The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been tracking the storm using its Mars Color Imager since mid-November. The storm came within 837 miles of Opportunity, slightly lowering the atmospheric clarity above it. On the other side of the planet, Curiosity was able to detect atmospheric changes using its Rover Environmental monitoring Station (REMS). Decreased air pressure and a rise in overnight temperature were observed.

    “This is now a regional dust storm,” said Rich Zurek, chief mars scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It has covered a fairly extensive region with its dust haze, and it is in a part of the planet where some regional storms in the past have grown into global dust hazes. For the first time since the Viking missions of the 1970s, we are studying a regional dust storm both from orbit and with a weather station on the surface.”

    Each year on Mars lasts around two Earth years, and the dust-storm season began a few weeks ago, coinciding with the start of spring in the southern hemisphere. Regional dust storms, like the one measured last week, expanded to global hazes in 2001 and 2007, but such large storms have not been detected since.

    “One thing we want to learn is why do some Martian dust storms get to this size and stop growing, while others this size keep growing and go global,” said Zurek.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

  • Massive Solar Eruption Spotted by NASA Observatory

    NASA announced this week that a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted on the sun early Tuesday morning. The phenomenon can send solar particles flying into space, some of which can affect electronic systems in satellites orbiting Earth. The particles can reach Earth one to four days after the eruption.

    A CME is not a solar flare, and occurs when the solar atmosphere confined where magnetic fields are closed releases bubbles of gas and magnetic fields. The one spotted this week erupted from the sun as speeds of 450 miles per second, which NASA stated is slow to average for a CME. The eruption was seen by the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft.

    CME’s can also create a geomagnetic storm, which occurs when a CME interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field in a certain way, causing solar wind particles to hit the atmosphere over the poles. This causes a rapid drop in the Earth’s magnetic field strength, which lasts for around six to twelve hours.

    NASA stated that CMEs of the type seen this week “have not usually caused substantial geomagnetic storms.” They have, though, put on a light show with auroras near the Earth’s poles. NASA predicts that this week’s CME is “unlikely to cause disruptions to electrical systems on Earth or interfere with GPS or satellite-based communications systems.” The National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center currently predicts a relatively minor geomagnetic storm on Wednesday, with possible weak power grid fluctuations.

    (Image courtesy NASA/STEREO)

  • Astronomers Spot ‘Bridge’ of Hot Gas Connecting Galaxy Clusters

    Astronomers using the Planck space telescope have confirmed the presence of a bridge of hot gas bridging the 10 million light-years of intergalactic space between two galaxy clusters.

    “Planck is helping to reveal hidden material between galaxy clusters that we couldn’t see clearly before,” said James Bartlett, a member of the U.S. Planck science team at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

    The European Space Agency (ESA) runs the Planck mission, with NASA also participating. The mission’s main goal is to capture light from the cosmic microwave background – the radiation left over from the earliest stages of the universe.

    The presence of the hot gas between the clusters Abell 399 and Abel 401 was first detected by the ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory. Astronomers using the Planck telescope and the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect were able to confirm the phenomenon.

    The Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect is the result of the cosmic microwave background radiation interacting with the hot gas that envelops the galaxy clusters, which are huge collections of thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. As the background radiation encounters the hot gas, its energy distribution is modified in a characteristic way predicted by the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect.

    Early analysis by astronomers suggests the much of the gas is from gaseous matter that pervaded the early universe. The gas is compressed and heated up by the interacting galaxy clusters, making it easier to spot. By combining the Planck data with X-ray observations from the German satellite Rosat, astronomers have estimated the temperature of the gas to be close to 80 million degrees Celsius (144 million degrees Fahrenheit).

    (Image courtesy Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect: ESA Planck Collaboration; optical image: STScI Digitized Sky Survey)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity On the Move Again, With Rumors of a “Big” Discovery

    After spending weeks stationed at the “Rocknest” site scooping up soil samples, Mars rover Curiosity this past week got the chance to once again drive across the surface of Mars.

    NASA announced today that over the weekend the rover first drove about six feet to reach a rock named “Rocknest 3.” Curiosity used the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) on its arm to touch the rock and take two 10-minute readings of the chemical elements in the rock. It then drove 83 feet eastward toward an area named “Point Lake,” stopping at what NASA is calling the Thanksgiving overlook location.

    “We have done touches before, and we’ve done goes before, but this is our first ‘touch-and-go’ on the same day,” said Michael Watkins, Curiosity mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “It is a good sign that the rover team is getting comfortable with more complex operational planning, which will serve us well in the weeks ahead.”

    Curiosity will use its mast camera during the Thanksgiving break to photograph possible routes and targets to the east of its location. Rover team members are particularly looking for a good rock to break-in Curiosity’s hammering drill on.

    Meanwhile, rumors are beginning to circulate that Curiosity’s first chemical analysis of Martian soil using its Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument has found something very interesting. An NPR interview with John Grotzinger, principal investigator for the rover mission at JPL, called the results of the tests “Earth-shaking.” Though the rover has left the Rocknest site, its arm still carries some of the soil from the fifth and final scoop at that location. The sample will be available for analysis as researchers work to verify their big finding during the next few weeks.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • NASA Study Finds Global Sea Level Rising Once Again

    Though the world’s oceans have been steadily rising at a rate of 3.2 mm per year for decades now, NASA scientists reported last year that the global sea level had actually dropped sharply between early 2010 and summer 2011, by about half a centimeter in total. However, a new study now shows that, as predicted, the global mean sea level has recovered from its drop and is once again rising.

    “The water the ocean ‘lost’ was compensated for rather quickly,” said Carmen Boening, lead author of the study and ocean/atmosphere researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “The newest data clearly indicate that the drop in 2010-11 was only temporary.”

    The paper, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research, shows that the “pothole” on the road to rising sea levels was caused by a strong La Nina event that began in late 2010. La Nina is a periodic Pacific Ocean climate phenomenon, and the counterpart to El Nino. The paper shows that the event changed rainfall patterns all over Earth, moving a huge volume of water from the ocean to land. In particular, rainfall in Australia, Northern South America, and Southeast Asia was heavy.

    “In 2011, we detected a lot of water that was temporarily stored over land, causing severe flooding in some regions,” said Felix Landerer, co-author of the study and research scientist at JPL. “In 2012, we have seen much of this water find its way back into the ocean.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/CNES)

  • New “Super-Jupiter” Directly Imaged by Astronomers

    Astronomers have directly imaged a “super-Jupiter” planet orbiting around the star Kappa Andromedae.

    According to NASA, Kappa Andromedae now holds the record for the most massive star to host a directly imaged planet or lightweight brown dwarf companion. The planet, designated Kappa Andromedae b (Kappa And b), has a mass 12.8 times greater than Jupiter’s, making it almost a low-mass brown dwarf.

    “According to conventional models of planetary formation, Kappa And b falls just shy of being able to generate energy by fusion, at which point it would be considered a brown dwarf rather than a planet,” said Michael McElwain, a member of the discovery team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “But this isn’t definitive, and other considerations could nudge the object across the line into brown dwarf territory.”

    The mass necessary for an object to be considered a brown dwarf is around 13 times the mass of Jupiter. At that point, the object is massive enough for deuterium (a heavy isotope of hydrogen) fusion to begin.

    Kappa And b imaged with the Subaru Telescope

    Kappa And b was imaged using infrared data from the Subaru Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The research is part of the Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru (SEEDS) project, which images extrasolar planets and protoplanetary disks around nearby stars. Researchers project images at near-infrared wavelengths using the Subaru Telescope’s adaptive optics system.

    Kappa Andromedae is a massive star that is only 30 million years old. The B9-type star is located 170 light-years from the solar system and is visible with the naked eye near the constellation Andromeda. Kappa And b has a temperature of around 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,600 degrees Fahrenheit) and orbits Kappa Andromedae at around 55 times the Earth’s distance from the Sun. A paper describing the SEEDS team’s observations of the objects is set to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

  • New NASA Spray Paint Protects Spacecraft From New Car Smell

    It turns out that the appealing new car smell that comes with new toys isn’t very healthy. The smell is called outgas, and comes from the chemicals and residual solvents used to manufacture dashboards, car seats, and carpeting. In addition to being harmful to humans, outgas also harms contamination-sensitive spacecraft parts such as telescope mirrors and solar arrays. To combat outgas from solvents, epoxies, and lubricants, NASA engineers have created a new technique to prevent the gasses from adhereing to spacecraft surfaces.

    According to NASA, the low-cost, easy-to-apply solution is a sprayable paint that is more effective than current outgas protection techniques. A team led by Principal Investigator Sharon Straka at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center developed the paint, which absorbs gaseous molecules and stops them from harming instrument components. The paint is made of zeolite, which is used for water purification, and a colloidal silica binder that holds the coating together. Also, the paint itself doesn’t contain volatile organics, meaning it doesn’t cause outgassing itself.

    “We’re ready for primetime,” said Straka. “The coating is undergoing qualification tests and is ready for infusion into flight projects or ground vacuum systems.”

    Prior to the new paint, NASA engineers would use zeolite-coated cordierite devices shaped like hockey pucks to absorb outgas. The necessary number of these devices required designers to install complex mounting hardware onto spacecraft. Now, though, the low-mass paint will be able to be placed directly onto surfaces or on adhesive strips that can be placed in strategic locations.

    “This is an easy technology to insert at a relatively low risk and cost,” said Mark Hasegawa, co-principal investigator on the project. “The benefits are significant.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/Pat Izzo)

  • Space Station Astronauts Safely Return To Earth

    Three members of the International Space Station’s (ISS) Expedition 33 crew safely touched down on the surface of Earth this weekend. They landed just north of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, in the first pre-dawn landing in darkness for an ISS crew since Expedition 12 returned in 2006.

    Expedition 33 Commander Sunita “Suni” Williams, Flight Engineer Akihiko Hoshide, and Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko spent more than three hours in the Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft while descending to Earth. They spent a total of 127 days in space, on a mission that lasted more than four months.

    NASA stated that Expedition 33 advanced research by testing radiation levels on the ISS, assessing how microgravity affects the spinal cord, and investigating melting glaciers, seasonal changes, and human impacts on the ecosystem of Earth. The crew members also participated in the Integrated Resistance and Aerobic Training Study-Sprint, a program designed to evaluate the use of high-intensity, low-volume exercise training to minimize the loss of muscle, bone, and cardiovascular functions while in microgravity. The first contracted commercial resupply mission by SpaceX was also overseen by the Expedition 33 crew.

    Hoshide and Williams performed three spacewalks during their mission to repair ISS equipment. Commander Williams now holds the record for cumulative spacewalk time for a female astronaut, with 50 hours, 40 minutes.

    Expedition 34 has now begun on the ISS, and NASA astronaut Kevin Ford has taken command of the space station. He and cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin will operate the ISS themselves for one month until the arrival of three new crew members.

    (Image courtesy NASA/Bill Ingalls)

  • NASA May Have Found A New Most Distant Galaxy

    NASA today announced that astronomers have found a candidate for the new most distant galaxy ever seen. This comes just after a similar announcement in September, when a different red blob took the record.

    The object, dubbed MACS0647-JD, is observed to have existed only 420 million years after the big bang. The light from the small galaxy has traveled 13.3 billion years to reach Earth.

    MACS0647-JD is the latest find from the Cluster Lensing and Supernova Survey with Hubble (CLASH) group, which uses massive galaxy clusters as gravitational lenses to magnify the distant galaxies behind them. The technique magnifies the brightness of these galaxies in the Hubble telescope’s images. Specifically, astronomers used the galaxy cluster MACS J0647+7015 to magnify the image of the newly discovered galaxy.

    “This cluster does what no man-made telescope can do,” said Marc Postman, head of the Community Missions Office at the Space Telescope Science Institute. “Without the magnification, it would require a Herculean effort to observe this galaxy.”

    The new galaxy is only 600 light-years wide. As a comparison, the Milky Way galaxy is 150,000 light-years wide. Due to its size, astronomers have speculated that MACS0647-JD may be the early form of a larger galaxy.

    “This object may be one of many building blocks of a galaxy,” said Dan Coe, and a astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute. “Over the next 13 billion years, it may have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of merging events with other galaxies and galaxy fragments.”

    Coe is also the lead author of a new study on the galaxy which will appear in a December issue of The Astrophysical Journal. Coe and other CLASH researchers spent months ruling out other explanations for the object , including red stars, brown dwarfs, and red galaxies.

    NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was used to gain images of the galaxy at longer wavelengths and help determine the object’s great distance. Spitzer will be used in the future to estimate the age and dust content of the galaxy.

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Measures Wind, Radiation Patterns on Mars

    NASA announced today that, aside from scooping and analyzing Martian soil, Mars rover Curiosity’s measurements of wind and radiation patterns on Mars are helping researchers better understand the environment near the surface of Mars.

    Researchers with the Mars Science Laboratory mission have identified transient whirlwinds, mapped winds in relation to slopes, tracked changes in air pressure, and linked radiation changes to atmospheric changes. The goal of the mission is to discover whether the environment in Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed earlier this year, could ever have been habitable for microbes.

    Since the rover touched down on Mars, researchers have analyzed 20 atmospheric events recorded by Curiosity’s Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), one of which is characteristic of a whirlwind. In the past, dust-devil track and shadows have been seen on the surface of Mars from orbit, but no such tracks have been seen in Gale Crater. NASA suggests that it is possible vortex whirlwinds in the crater do not lift as much dust as they do elsewhere on the red planet.

    “Dust in the atmosphere has a major role in shaping the climate on Mars,” said Manuel de la Torre Juarez, investigation scientist for REMS at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The dust lifted by dust devils and dust storms warms the atmosphere.”

    Researchers were expecting to find that slope effects from the mountain just south of Curiosity would produce north-south winds in the crater, but have found that east-west winds predominate.

    “With the crater rim slope to the north and Mount Sharp to the south, we may be seeing more of the wind blowing along the depression in between the two slopes, rather than up and down the slope of Mount Sharp,” said Claire Newman, an REMS investigator at Ashima Research. “If we don’t see a change in wind patterns as Curiosity heads up the slope of Mount Sharp — that would be a surprise.”

    Curiosity’s REMS has also been tracking a seasonal increase and daily rhythm in air pressure. Researchers will use this information to understand atmospheric cycles on Mars and estimate how cycles may have operated in the past. NASA stated that the seasonal air pressure increase comes as a result of tons of carbon dioxide frozen in Mars’ southern ice caps returning to the atmosphere as the southern summer begins. The daily rhythm comes from a thermal tide – a wave of heated atmosphere that moves along with the daytime heat from the Sun. Along with the thermal tide comes high-energy radiation detected by Curiosity’s Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD).

    “We see a definite pattern related to the daily thermal tides of the atmosphere,” said Don Hassler, RAD principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute’s Boulder, Colo., branch. “The atmosphere provides a level of shielding, and so charged-particle radiation is less when the atmosphere is thicker. Overall, Mars’ atmosphere reduces the radiation dose compared to what we saw during the flight to Mars.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • NASA’s Kepler Telescope Ends Its Prime Mission, Begins Another

    NASA this week marked the end of the Kepler Space Telescope’s prime mission, which began in March 2009. Like other NASA equipment, the telescope is now beginning another, extended mission NASA says could last as long as four years.

    Kepler’s prime mission was to determine what fraction of stars might have Earth-like planets in their orbit. So far, the telescope has identified over 2,300 planet candidates and hundreds of Earth-size planet candidates. There are also candidates that orbit in the habitable zone of their system, where liquid water can exist. Kepler has confirmed more than 100 planets so far.

    “The initial discoveries of the Kepler mission indicate at least a third of the stars have planets and the number of planets in our galaxy must number in the billions,” said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “The planets of greatest interest are other Earths, and these could already be in the data awaiting analysis. Kepler’s most exciting results are yet to come.”

    Over the three and a half years of its prime mission, Kepler’s discoveries have revealed much about planetary systems. Just this year, Kepler Astronomers have confirmed a planet in a two-star system (like Tatooine) and even one in a four-star system.

    “Kepler’s bounty of new planet discoveries, many quite different from anything found previously, will continue to astound,” said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at Ames. “But to me, the most wonderful discovery of the mission has not been individual planets, but the systems of two, three, even six planets crowded close to their stars, and, like the planets orbiting about our sun, moving in nearly the same plane. Like people, planets interact with their neighbors and can be greatly affected by them. What are the neighborhoods of Earth-size exoplanets like? This is the question I most hope Kepler will answer in the years to come.”

    Back in April, NASA extended Kepler’s mission, which might run through 2016. Astronomers will use the extra time to continue to search for Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of their system.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • ESA Releases New Supernova Remnant Photo

    ESA Releases New Supernova Remnant Photo

    The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a new image of the aftershock of a supernova remnant named W44. The image, seen above, combines infrared and X-ray light captured by the ESA’s Herschel and XMM-Newton space observatories.

    W44 is located around 10,000 light-years away from our solar system, residing in a nebula in the constellation Aquila. NASA stated that the phenomenon is one of the best examples found of a supernova remnant interacting with its parent cloud. W44 is all that remains of the star’s outer layer, which was thrown out in an explosion called a supernova at the end of the star’s life.

    What remains of the star itself is the spinning core of a neutron star, also known as a pulsar. Named PSR B1853+01, the pulsar is the bright blue-colored point in the top left of W44 in the photo. The object is believed to be around 20,000 old. As with all pulsars, the object spins rapidly, throwing out a wind of energetic particles and beams of light that range from radio to X-ray frequencies. The hot gas that fills the shell of the supernova remnant is also bright blue from X-rays.

    The Herschel mission is an ESA cornerstone mission. The U.S. Herschel Project Office is located at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which provides technology for two of Herschel’s three science instruments. The space observatory is examining heated gas and dust farther from W44, where new stars are forming.

    Larger versions of the image that are suitable as a wallpaper background are available through NASA’s website.

    (Image courtesy Quang Nguyen Luong & F. Motte, HOBYS Key Program consortium, Herschel SPIRE/PACS/ESA consortia, and ESA/XMM-Newton)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Chemically Analyzes Martian Soil

    Mars rover Curiosity has placed the first solid sample of Martian soil into its Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. The sample’s chemical makeup has been analyzed, looking specifically for compounds found in environments that can support life. The results of the analysis have not yet been announced.

    “We received good data from this first solid sample,” said Paul Mahaffy, SAM principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We have a lot of data analysis to do, and we are planning to get additional samples of Rocknest material to add confidence about what we learn.”

    The sample was taken from a patch of windblown sand and dust NASA has dubbed “Rocknest.” On November 9 the “pinch” of fine sand and dust was placed into an inlet port (seen above) for the SAM. For two days, the instrument used mass spectrometry, gas chromatography, and laser spectrometry to chemically analyze the sample.

    Curiosity has been stationed at the Rocknest site for weeks now, using its arm and instruments to scoop soil for testing. The rover’s Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument has already analyzed the mineral composition of the soil at Rocknest. It determined that the material resembles weathered basaltic soils of volcanic origin found in Hawaii.

    The rover’s SAM instrument has previously been used to sample the Martian atmosphere. Its findings corroborated estimates of the atmosphere determined using meteorites from Mars, showing that the loss of the atmosphere has been a significant factor in the evolution of the planet. Researchers were hoping to find traces of methane in the sample, but found little to none.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

  • New Study Shows Causes of Antarctic Sea Ice Increase

    Researchers from NASA and the British Antarctic Survey have published a new study that shows changes to Antarctic sea ice drift caused by changing winds are the cause of increases in Antarctic sea ice cover over the past two decades. The results help explain why Antarctic sea ice cover has increased while Arctic sea ice has seen heavy losses.

    The study, published this week in the journal Nature Geosciences, used maps created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from more than five million daily ice-motion measurements captured by U.S. Defense meteorological satellites over a period of 19 years. According to researchers, the maps show long-term changes to sea ice drift around Antarctica for the first time.

    “Until now, these changes in ice drift were only speculated upon, using computer models of Antarctic winds,” said Paul Holland, lead author of the study and ocean modeller at the Natural Environment Research Council’s British Antarctic Survey. “This study of direct satellite observations shows the complexity of climate change. The total Antarctic sea ice cover is increasing slowly, but individual regions are actually experiencing much larger gains and losses that are almost offsetting each other overall.

    “We now know that these regional changes are caused by changes in the winds, which, in turn, affect the ice cover through changes in both ice drift and air temperature. The changes in ice drift also suggest large changes in the ocean surrounding Antarctica, which is very sensitive to the cold and salty water produced by sea ice growth.”

    The research shows that the increase in sea ice cover in the Antarctic is the result of larger regional increases and decreases caused by wind-driven changes. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by land, meaning that changing winds cannot cause its sea ice to expand.

    “The Antarctic sea ice cover interacts with the global climate system very differently than that of the Arctic, and these results highlight the sensitivity of the Antarctic ice coverage to changes in the strength of the winds around the continent,” said Ron Kwok, a senior research scientist at JPL.

    (Image courtesy the British Antarctic Survey)

  • NASA’s Mars Odyssey is Back Up and Running

    NASA announced today that the Mars Odyssey orbiter has switched to a set of redundant equipment and has resumed its observational and relay duties. The equipment that was switched on, which included the orbiter’s backup main computer, had not been used since before the orbiter’s April 2001 launch from Earth.

    “The side-swap has gone well,” said Gaylon McSmith, Odyssey project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “All the subsystems that we are using for the first time are performing as intended.”

    Late Sunday, after switching to its redundant systems, Odyssey relayed data from Mars rover Opportunity to Earth using its “B-side” UHF radio. The radio is one of several redundant subsystems linked directly to the “B-side” computer. Later this week the orbiter is expected to relay data for Mars rover Curiosity and resume its own observations.

    The switch took place because diagnostics indicated to project managers that the “A-side” inertial measurement unit has only a few months or more of useful life. The switch leaves a fully functioning A-side, which can be used temporarily in case any problem is encountered with the B-side system.

    “It is testimony to the excellent design of this spacecraft and operation of this mission in partnership with Lockheed Martin that we have brand-new major components available to begin using after more than 11 years at Mars,” said McSmith.

    Odyssey began orbiting Mars on October 24, 2001, making it the longest-working spacecraft ever sent to Mars. The orbiter functions as a relay for the two functioning rovers currently on Mars and also takes its own measurements, following the year-to-year seasonal changes on Mars.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL)

  • NASA Celebrates Cassini Mission With an Interactive Timeline

    Like many NASA space vehicles, the Cassini-Huygens probe has completed its primary mission but continues to provide a wealth of information for scientists on Earth. In the past month, data from Cassini has revealed a “hot cross bun” structure on Saturn’s moon Titan, as well as the fact that Titan glows in the dark.

    One month ago, the Cassini probe celebrated its 15th birthday since the probe was launched back in 1997. In celebration of its progress, NASA this weekend released an interactive timeline which highlights many of the amazing discoveries that have come from Cassini’s measurements. Some of the highlights include the probe’s first flyby of Titan, the discovery of lakes on Titan, signs of water ice on Enceladus, and the launch of the Huygens probe to the surface of Titan.

    After its launch, Cassini took the scenic route to Saturn. After two flybys of Venus, the probe whipped past Earth on the way to Jupiter. It spent the first six months of 2001 collaborating with the Galileo probe in studying Jupiter and its moons. In the summer of 2004 Cassini finally made it to Saturn. After launching Huygens and studying Saturn’s moons, the probe’s primary mission ended in 2008 and its new mission began. That mission was completed in 2010, and Cassini’s third and final mission began. Beginning in 2016, the probe will orbit closer and closer to Saturn, and on September 15, 2017 Cassini will enter Saturn’s atmosphere. According to NASA, the probe will be “crushed and vaporized by the pressure and temperature of Saturn’s final embrace…”

  • NASA Study Grades Climate Models, Finds Higher Temperatures Likely

    NASA today announced the results of a new study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It shows that climate model projections that predict a greater rise in global temperature are more likely to be accurate than those predicting a lesser rise. NASA stated that the findings could provide a “breakthrough” in predicting the range of global warming expected in the future. The study was published this week in the journal Science.

    The study looked at 16 leading climate models and observed how well each reproduces observed relative humidity in Earth’s tropic and subtropic regions. They compared the models with data from NASA satellite instruments called the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and the Clouds an Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), as well as a NASA data analysis named the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA). The study’s findings show that the climate models that more accurately show observed relative humidity also show the greatest amounts of warming as a result of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

    “There is a striking relationship between how well climate models simulate relative humidity in key areas and how much warming they show in response to increasing carbon dioxide,” said John Fasullo, research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “Given how fundamental these processes are to clouds and the overall global climate, our findings indicate that warming is likely to be on the high side of current projections.”

    The study focused on dry subtropics, NASA stated, because seasonal drying and the associated decrease in clouds are similar to patterns projected by climate models. “If we can better represent these regions in models, we can improve our predictions and provide society with a better sense of the impacts to expect in a warming world,” said Fasullo.

    NASA stated that because established physical laws that guide the atmosphere are difficult to translate into software, each climate model differ slightly in its predictions. In particular, those associated with clouds are too small because satellite failure, observational errors, and “other inconsistencies” make a consistent global cloud census difficult. Satellites such as the AIRS, though, are more reliable at measuring water vapor and estimating the global distribution of relative humidity.

    “These results were hiding in plain sight,” said AIRS Eric Fetzer, an AIRS project scientist who was not involved in the study. “We have known for 30 years that clouds complicate climate forecasts, but instead of looking directly at clouds, this study examines clear regions. Their conclusions indicate that better model physics for clear areas will lead to improved climate forecasts, but warming is likely to be at the high end of current forecasts.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Team Switches to Earth Time

    NASA announced today that the Mars rover Curiosity team will be switching back to Earth time. The team has spent the three months since Curiosity landed on Mars operating on Martian time.

    Mars has a day (called a “sol” by NASA) that is 40 minutes longer than Earth’s. The rover team has been pushing back the beginning of the work day back each week to compensate, resulting in frequent overnight work shifts. The team will now be able to perform “most” of its work from 8 am to 8 pm. NASA credits a compression of daily planning processes for the change.

    “People are glad to be going off Mars time,” said Richard Cook, project manager for the Mars Science Laboratory Project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “The team has been successful in getting the duration of the daily planning process from more than 16 hours, during the initial weeks after landing, down to 12 hours. We’ve been getting better at operations.”

    The change will also result in more “dispersed” operations for the rover team, which consists of around 200 JPL engineers and 400 scientists from all over the the U.S. and Europe. The team will be using “dispersed participation teleconferences” and web connections to communicate.

    “The phase that we’re completing, working together at one location, has been incredibly valuable for team-building and getting to know each other under the pressure of daily timelines,” said Joy Crisp, Mars Science Laboratory deputy project scientist at JPL. “We have reached the point where we can continue working together well without needing to have people living away from their homes.”

    As for the rover itself, Curiosity is still stationed at the Rocknest site, where it has been sampling the Martian soil for weeks now. Earlier this week the rover dumped out the second soil sample analyzed by its Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument. Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument also finished an overnight analysis on a blank sample cup to prepare for its first soil sample.

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