Classrooms Invited to Virtually Join 'Saturn Smackdown' on Mon., Oct. 4

Classrooms Invited to Virtually Join 'Saturn Smackdown' on Mon., Oct. 4
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

09.30.10 -- How do scientists and engineers plan a NASA mission from conception to launch and successful arrival at a planetary destination? It takes a lot of people working together as a team!

Classrooms can participate in "Saturn Smackdown," a live humorous debate featuring team members from the Cassini Mission at Saturn on Monday, Oct. 4, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (Pacific Time). Trina Ray, who works in the Cassini Science Project Office, and Todd Barber, the mission's lead propulsion engineer, will give students a taste of the healthy intellectual debate that occurs while mission teams plan space events. During the program, classrooms can email questions and suggested mission plans for Trina and Todd to perform. Please include your school name and grade level.

The Saturn Smackdown will be performed live at the Division of Planetary Science meeting at the Pasadena Convention Center. A student audience at the meeting will also participate in the program.

Classrooms can watch the Smackdown live at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2.

Teachers can email questions during the program to jplspaceeducation@gmail.com . They can also ask questions using the chat box on the Ustream page.

To learn more about the Cassini mission, go to http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

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Atmosphere Checked, One Mars Year Before a Landing

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2010-316 Sept. 29, 2010

Atmosphere Checked, One Mars Year Before a Landing

PASADENA, Calif. -- What will the Martian atmosphere be like when the next Mars
rover descends through it for landing in August of 2012?

An instrument studying the Martian atmosphere from orbit has begun a four-week
campaign to characterize daily atmosphere changes, one Mars year before the arrival
of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity. A Mars year equals 687 Earth days.

The planet's thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide is highly repeatable from year to year
at the same time of day and seasonal date during northern spring and summer on
Mars.

The Mars Climate Sounder instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter maps
the distribution of temperature, dust, and water ice in the atmosphere. Temperature
variations with height indicate how fast air density changes and thus the rates at which
the incoming spacecraft slows down and heats up during its descent.

"It is currently one Mars year before the Mars Science Laboratory arrival season," said
atmospheric scientist David Kass of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif. "This campaign will provide a set of observations to support the Mars Science
Laboratory engineering team and Mars atmospheric modelers. The information will
constrain the expected climate at their landing season. It will also help define the
range of possible weather conditions on landing day."

During the four years the Mars Climate Sounder has been studying the Martian
atmosphere, its observations have seen conditions only at about three in the afternoon
and three in the morning. For the new campaign, the instrument team is inaugurating
a new observation mode, looking to both sides as well as forward. This provides views
of the atmosphere earlier and later in the day by more than an hour, covering the
range of possible times of day that the rover will pass through the atmosphere before
landing.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, provided the Mars Climate
Sounder instrument and manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars
Science Laboratory projects for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For
more about NASA's Mars exploration program, see http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Public Invited to Free Climate Change Science Symposium at JPL

Public Invited to Free Climate Change Science Symposium at JPL
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

09.29.10 -- JPL's Green Club is sponsoring a free public science symposium about climate change on Saturday, Oct. 16,
from 2 to 4 p.m. at JPL. Climate scientists with expertise in Earth's atmosphere, ocean and ice will present a series of brief
talks on the scientific evidence for global warming. Attendees will learn what they as individuals and as part of society can
do to address global warming.
Brief question-and-answer periods will follow each presentation.

This event is open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis, with a seating capacity of 200. All ages are welcome but
the presentations will be geared to adults. The symposium will be held in JPL's von Karman Auditorium. Directions to the
Lab can be found here: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/about_JPL/maps.cfm .

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New Views of Saturn's Aurora, Captured by Cassini

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov

Anita Heward 011-44-7756-034243
European Planetary Science Congress, Rome, Italy
anita.heward@europlanet-eu.org

Image advisory: 2010-313 Sept. 23, 2010

New Views of Saturn's Aurora, Captured by Cassini

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-313&cid=release_2010-313

PASADENA, Calif. – A new movie and images showing Saturn's shimmering aurora
over a two-day period are helping scientists understand what drives some of the solar
system's most impressive light shows.

The new, false-color images and video are available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini
and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

The movie and images are part of a new study that, for the first time, extracts auroral
information from the entire catalogue of Saturn images taken by the visual and infrared
mapping spectrometer instrument (VIMS) aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft. These
images and preliminary results are being presented by Tom Stallard, lead scientist on a
joint VIMS and Cassini magnetometer collaboration, at the European Planetary Science
Congress in Rome on Friday, Sept. 24.

In the movie, the aurora phenomenon clearly varies significantly over the course of a
Saturnian day, which lasts around 10 hours 47 minutes. On the noon and midnight sides
(left and right sides of the images, respectively), the aurora can be seen to brighten
significantly for periods of several hours, suggesting the brightening is connected with the
angle of the sun. Other features can be seen to rotate with the planet, reappearing at the
same time and the same place on the second day, suggesting that these are directly
controlled by the orientation of Saturn's magnetic field.

"Saturn's auroras are very complex and we are only just beginning to understand all the
factors involved," Stallard said. "This study will provide a broader view of the wide
variety of different auroral features that can be seen, and will allow us to better
understand what controls these changes in appearance."

Auroras on Saturn occur in a process similar to Earth's northern and southern lights.
Particles from the solar wind are channeled by Saturn's magnetic field toward the
planet's poles, where they interact with electrically charged gas (plasma) in the upper
atmosphere and emit light. At Saturn, however, auroral features can also be caused by
electromagnetic waves generated when the planet's moons move through the plasma that
fills Saturn's magnetosphere.

Previous data from Cassini have contributed to a number of detailed snapshots of the
aurora. But understanding the overall nature of the auroral region requires a huge number
of observations, which can be difficult because Cassini observation time close to Saturn is
in high demand, Stallard said.

However, VIMS observations of numerous other scientific targets also include auroral
information. Sometimes the aurora can be clearly seen, but sometimes Stallard and
colleagues add multiple images together to produce a signal. This wide set of observations
allows Cassini scientists to understand the aurora in general, rather than the beautiful
specific cases that dedicated auroral observations allow, Stallard said.

Stallard and his colleagues have investigated about 1,000 images from the 7,000 that
VIMS has taken to date of Saturn's auroral region.

The new, false-color images show Saturn's aurora glowing in green around the planet's
south pole. The auroral information in the two images was extracted from VIMS data
taken on May 24, 2007, and Nov. 1, 2008. The video covers about 20 Earth hours of
VIMS observations, from Sept. 22 and 23, 2007.

"Detailed studies like this of Saturn's aurora help us understand how they are generated
on Earth and the nature of the interactions between the magnetosphere and the uppermost
regions of Saturn's atmosphere," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, based at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and
assembled at JPL. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the
University of Arizona, Tucson. Stallard's work on Saturn's auroras is funded by the
Science and Technologies Facilities Council, Swindon, U.K.

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Shining Starlight on the Dark Cocoons of Star Birth

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Whitney Clavin/Guy Webster 818-354-4673/6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.b.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov/guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature September 23, 2010

Shining Starlight on the Dark Cocoons of Star Birth

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-311&cid=release_2010-311

Astronomers have discovered a new, cosmic phenomenon, termed "coreshine,"
which is revealing new information about how stars and planets come to be.

The scientists used data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to measure
infrared light deflecting off cores -- cold, dark cocoons where young stars and
planetary systems are blossoming. This coreshine effect, which occurs when
starlight from nearby stars bounces off the cores, reveals information about their
age and consistency. In a new paper, to be published Friday, Sept. 24, in the
journal Science, the team reports finding coreshine across dozens of dark
cores.

"Dark clouds in our Milky Way galaxy, far from Earth, are huge places where
new stars are born. But they are shy and hide themselves in a shroud of dust so
that we cannot see what happens inside," said Laurent Pagani of the
Observatoire de Paris and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,
both in France. "We have found a new way to peer into them. They are like
ghosts because we see them but we also see through them."

Pagani and his team first observed one case of the coreshine phenomenon in
2009. They were surprised to see that starlight was scattering off a dark core in
the form of infrared light that Spitzer could see. They had thought the grains of
dust making up the core were too small to deflect the starlight; instead, they
expected the sunlight would travel straight through. Their finding told them that
the dust grains were bigger than previously thought -- about 1 micron instead of
0.1 micron (a typical human hair is about 100 microns).

That might not sound like a big difference, but it can significantly change
astronomers' models of star and planet formation. For one thing, the larger grain
size means that planets -- which form as dust circling young stars sticks
together -- might take shape more quickly. In other words, the tiny seeds for
planet formation may be forming very early on, when a star is still in its pre-
embryonic phase.

But this particular object observed in 2009 could have been a fluke. The
researchers did not know if what they found was true of other dark clouds -- until
now. In the new study, they examine 110 dark cores, and find that about half of
them exhibit coreshine.

The finding amounts to a new tool for not only studying the dust making up the
dark cores, but also for assessing their age. The more developed star-forming
cores will have larger dust grains, so, using this tool, astronomers can better
map their ages across our Milky Way galaxy. Coreshine can also help in
constructing three-dimensional models of the cores -- the deflected starlight is
scattered in a way that is dependent on the cloud structures.

Said Pagani, "We're opening a new window on the realm of dark, star-forming
cores."

Other authors are Aurore Bacmann of the Astrophysics Laboratory of Grenoble,
France, and Jürgen Steinacker, Amelia Stutz and Thomas Henning of the Max-
Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany. Steinacker is also with the
Observatoire de Paris, and Stutz is also with the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The Spitzer measurements are based on data from the mission's public archive,
taken before the telescope ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009 and began
its current warm mission.

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, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu/ and
http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

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Teacher Professional Development in Downey, Calif.

Teacher Professional Development in Downey, Calif.
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

09.23.10 -- Free teacher workshops are being offered this fall at the Columbia Memorial
Space Center in Downey, Calif. The workshops are a collaboration between the Space Center
and the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center. Interested educators must RSVP to the Columbia
Memorial Space Center in advance at (562) 231-1200.

Lunar and Meteorite Sample Certification
October 16, 2010, 10:00-12:00 p.m.
Recommended for teachers, grades K-12

NASA makes real moon rocks and regolith (moon dirt) available for teachers to borrow.
The samples are from NASA's historic Apollo missions. This certification workshop is required
in order to bring the excitement of real lunar rocks and regolith samples to your students.

Robotics and the Marsbound Challenge
November 6, 2010, 10:00-12:00 p.m.
Recommended for teachers, grades 5-12

Learn how to use the Marsbound Challenge board activity to teach students how to plan a mission
to Mars, practice basic math skills and work in collaborative groups just like real engineers. In this activity,
students begin with a $250,000,000 budget and see what they can achieve! On Blooms Taxonomy, this activity
is at the evaluation level.

For more information and directions to the Columbia Memorial Space Center, go to
www.ColumbiaSpaceScience.org .

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Students Can Be 'Scientists for a Day' With Saturn Mission

Students Can Be 'Scientists for a Day' With Saturn Mission
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

09.21.10 -- How do scientists decide what images the Cassini spacecraft should take of Saturn and its
moons? Students have the opportunity to learn the scientific process when they enter Cassini's Scientist
for a Day Essay Contest. The contest is for students in grades 5 through 12. The deadline for entries is
Wed., Oct. 27, 2010, at noon Pacific Time.

Students will be presented with three scientifically interesting locations around Saturn or its moons for the
Cassini spacecraft to capture. They will have to research each location and choose which image they think
would yield the best scientific results. Each student must explain his or her choice in a 500-word essay.
Winners participate in a teleconference with Cassini scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

For more info, including videos about Saturn and its moons, visit: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/education/scientistforaday9thedition/ .

Questions can be sent to: scientistforaday@jpl.nasa.gov

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Spring on Titan Brings Sunshine and Patchy Clouds

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov

Anita Heward 011-44-7756-034243
European Planetary Science Congress, Rome, Italy
anita.heward@europlanet-eu.org

Spring on Titan Brings Sunshine and Patchy Clouds

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-308&cid=release_2010-308

The northern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Titan is set for mainly fine spring weather, with
polar skies clearing since the equinox in August last year. The visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer (VIMS) aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been monitoring clouds on Titan
regularly since the spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn in 2004. Now, a group led by
Sébastien Rodriguez, a Cassini VIMS team collaborator based at Université Paris Diderot,
France, has analyzed more than 2,000 VIMS images to create the first long-term study of
Titan's weather using observational data that also includes the equinox. Equinox, when the
sun shone directly over the equator, occurred in August 2009.

Rodriguez is presenting the results and new images at the European Planetary Science
Congress in Rome on Sept. 22.

Though Titan's surface is far colder and lacks liquid water, this moon is a kind of "sister
world" to Earth because it has a surface covered with organic material and an atmosphere
whose chemical composition harkens back to an early Earth. Titan has a hydrological cycle
similar to Earth's, though Titan's cycle depends on methane and ethane rather than water.

A season on Titan lasts about seven Earth years. Rodriguez and colleagues observed
significant atmospheric changes between July 2004 (early summer in Titan's southern
hemisphere) and April 2010 (the very start of northern spring). The images showed that cloud
activity has recently decreased near both of Titan's poles. These regions had been heavily
overcast during the late southern summer until 2008, a few months before the equinox.

Over the past six years, the scientists found that clouds clustered in three distinct latitude
regions of Titan: large clouds at the north pole, patchy clouds at the south pole and a narrow
belt around 40 degrees south. "However, we are now seeing evidence of a seasonal
circulation turnover on Titan -- the clouds at the south pole completely disappeared just before
the equinox and the clouds in the north are thinning out," Rodriguez said. "This agrees with
predictions from models and we are expecting to see cloud activity reverse from one
hemisphere to another in the coming decade as southern winter approaches."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency
and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington, D.C. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at
the University of Arizona, Tucson.

For a full version of this release, go to: http://www.europlanet-
eu.org/outreach/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=288&Itemid=41

For more information about Cassini, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Mars Rover Opportunity Approaching Possible Meteorite

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, California

Mars Rover Opportunity Approaching Possible Meteorite

PASADENA, Calif. -- Images that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took at the end
of an 81-meter (266-foot) drive on Sept. 16 reveal a dark rock about 31 meters (102 feet) away.
The rover's science team has decided to go get a closer look at the toaster-sized rock and
determine whether it is an iron meteorite.

"The dark color, rounded texture and the way it is perched on the surface all make it look like an
iron meteorite," said science-team member Matt Golombek of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Opportunity has found four iron meteorites during the rover's
exploration of the Meridiani Planum region of Mars since early 2004. Examination of these rocks
has provided information about the Martian atmosphere, as well as the meteorites themselves.

The newfound rock has been given the informal name "Oileán Ruaidh" (pronounced ay-lan
ruah), which is the Gaelic name for an island off the coast of northwestern Ireland. The rock is
about 45 centimeters (18 inches) wide from the angle at which it was first seen.

Opportunity has driven 23.3 kilometers (14.5 miles) on Mars. The drive to this rock will take the
total combined distance driven by Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, to more than 31 kilometers
(19.26 miles).

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars
Exploration Rover mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Opportunity
landed on Mars in January 2004 for what was planned as a three-month mission. For more
information about the mission, see http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov .

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NASA Study Shows Desert Dust Cuts Colorado River Flow

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole 202-358-0918
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-306 Sept. 20, 2010

NASA STUDY SHOWS DESERT DUST CUTS COLORADO RIVER FLOW

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-306&cid=release_2010-306

PASADENA, Calif. – Snowmelt in the Colorado River basin is occurring earlier, reducing runoff and
the amount of crucial water available downstream. A new study shows this is due to increased dust
caused by human activities in the region during the past 150 years.

The study, led by a NASA scientist and funded by the agency and the National Science Foundation,
showed peak spring runoff now comes three weeks earlier than before the region was settled and soils
were disturbed. Annual runoff is lower by more than five percent on average compared to pre-
settlement levels.

The findings have major implications for the 27 million people in the seven U.S. states and Mexico
who rely on the Colorado River for drinking, agricultural and industrial water. The results were
published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research team was led by Tom Painter, a snow hydrologist at both NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and UCLA. The team examined the impact of human-produced dust
deposits on mountain snowpacks over the Upper Colorado River basin between 1915 and 2003.
Studies of lake sediment cores showed the amount of dust falling in the Rocky Mountains increased
by 500 to 600 percent since the mid-to-late 1800s, when grazing and agriculture began to disturb
fragile but stable desert soils.

The team used an advanced hydrology model to simulate the balance of water flowing into and out
of the river basin under current dusty conditions, and those that existed before soil was disturbed.
Hydrologic data gathered from field studies funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation,
and measurements of the absorption of sunlight by dust in snow, were combined with the modeling.

More than 80 percent of sunlight falling on fresh snow is typically reflected back into space. In the
semi-arid regions of the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin, winds blow desert dust east, triggering
dust-on-snow events. When dark dust particles fall on snow, they reduce its ability to reflect sunlight.
The snow also absorbs more of the sun's energy. This darker snow cover melts earlier, with some
water evaporating into the atmosphere.

Earlier melt seasons expose vegetation sooner, and plants lose water to the atmosphere through the
exhalation of vapor. The study shows an annual average of approximately 35-billion cubic feet of
water is lost from this exhalation and the overall evaporation that would otherwise feed the Colorado
River. This is enough water to supply Los Angeles for 18 months.

"The compressed mountain runoff period makes water management more difficult than a slower
runoff," Painter said. "With the more rapid runoff under dust-accelerated melt, costly errors are more
likely to be made when water is released from and captured in Colorado River reservoirs."

Prior to the study, scientists and water managers had a poor understanding of dust-on-snow events.
Scientists knew from theory and modeling studies that dust could be changing the way snowfields
reflect and absorb sunlight, but no one had measured its full impact on snowmelt rates and runoff
over the river basin. The team addressed these uncertainties by making systematic measurements of
the sources, frequency and snowmelt impact of dust-on-snow events.

"These researchers brought together their collective expertise to provide a historical context for how
the Colorado River and its runoff respond to dust deposition on snow," said Anjuli Bamzai, program
director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences in
Arlington, Va. "The work lays the foundation for future sound water resource management."

Painter believes steps can be taken to reduce the severity of dust-on-snow events in the Colorado
River basin. He points to the impact of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 for potential guidance on how
dust loads can be reduced. The act regulated grazing on public lands to improve rangeland conditions.
Lake sediment studies show it decreased the amount of dust falling in the Rocky Mountains by about
one quarter.

"Restoration of desert soils could increase the duration of snow cover, simplifying water
management, increasing water supplies and reducing the need for additional reservoir storage of
water. Peak runoff under cleaner conditions would then come later in summer, when agricultural and
other water demands are greater," Painter said.

"It could also at least partially mitigate the expected regional impacts of climate change, which
include reduced Colorado River flows, increased year-to-year variability in its flow rate, and more
severe and longer droughts," he added. "Climate models project a seven to 20 percent reduction in
Colorado River basin runoff in this century due to climate change."

Other institutions participating in the study include the National Snow and Ice Center in Boulder,
Colo.; U.S. Geological Survey Southwest Biological Center in Moab, Utah; University of Washington
in Seattle; Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies in Silverton, Colo.; and the University of
Colorado-NOAA Western Water Assessment in Boulder.

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov . JPL is
managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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NASA's LRO Exposes Moon's Complex, Turbulent Youth

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
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jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov

Nancy Neal Jones/Bill Steigerwald 301-286-0039/5071
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov/william.a.steigerwald@nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-303 Sept. 16, 2010

NASA'S LRO EXPOSES MOON'S COMPLEX, TURBULENT YOUTH

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-303&cid=release_2010-303

PASADENA, Calif. – The moon's surface is more complex than previously thought and was
bombarded by two distinct populations of asteroids or comets in its youth, according to three new
papers in the Sept. 17 issue of Science that describe data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter.

Two of the papers describe data from LRO's Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment instrument that
reveal the complex geologic processes that forged the lunar surface. The data showed previously
unseen compositional differences in the crustal highlands, and confirmed the presence of anomalously
silica-rich material in five distinct regions.

All minerals and rocks absorb and emit energy with unique signatures that reveal their identity and
formation mechanisms. For the first time, the Diviner instrument is providing scientists with global,
high-resolution infrared maps of the moon, enabling them to make a definitive identification of
silicate minerals commonly found within its crust. "Diviner is literally viewing the moon in a whole
new light," said Benjamin Greenhagen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., lead
author of one of the Diviner papers.

Lunar geology can be roughly broken down into two categories – the anorthositic highlands, rich in
calcium and aluminium, and the basaltic "maria," giant impact basins filled with solidified lava flows
that are abundant in iron and magnesium. Both of these crustal rocks are considered the direct result
of crystallization from lunar mantle material, the partially molten layer beneath the crust.

Diviner's observations have confirmed that most lunar terrains have signatures consistent with
compositions in these two broad categories. But they have also revealed lunar soil compositions with
more sodium than that of typical anorthosite crust. The widespread nature of these soils reveals that
there may have been variations in the chemistry and cooling rate of the magma ocean that formed the
early lunar crust, or they could be the result of secondary processing of the early lunar crust.

Most impressively, in several locations around the moon, Diviner has detected highly silicic minerals
such as quartz, potassium-rich and sodium-rich feldspar -- minerals that are only associated with
highly evolved lithologies, or rocks that have undergone extensive magmatic processing. Detection of
silicic minerals at these locations is significant, as they occur in areas previously shown to exhibit
anomalously high abundances of the element thorium, another proxy for highly evolved lithologies.

"The silicic features we've found on the moon are fundamentally different from the more typical
basaltic mare and anorthositic highlands," said Timothy Glotch of Stony Brook University, N.Y., lead
author of the second Diviner paper. "The fact that we see this composition in multiple geologic
settings suggests that there may have been multiple processes producing these rocks."

One thing not apparent in the data is evidence for pristine lunar mantle material, which previous
studies have suggested may be exposed at some places on the lunar surface. Even in the South Pole
Aitken basin, also known as SPA, the largest, oldest, and deepest impact crater on the moon -- deep
enough to have penetrated through the crust and into the mantle -- there is no evidence of mantle
material.

The implications of this are as yet unknown. Perhaps there are no such exposures of mantle material,
or maybe they occur in areas too small for Diviner to detect. But it's likely that if the impact that
formed this crater did excavate any mantle material, it has since been mixed with crustal material from
later impacts inside and outside the basin.

"The new Diviner data will help in selecting the appropriate landing sites for potential future robotic
missions to return samples from SPA," Greenhagen said. "We want to use these samples to date the
SPA-forming impact and potentially study the lunar mantle, so it's important to use Diviner data to
identify areas with minimal mixing."

In the other paper, lead author James Head of Brown University in Providence, R.I., describes an
analysis of a detailed global topographic map of the moon created using LRO's Lunar Orbiter Laser
Altimeter. This new dataset shows that the older highland impactor population can be clearly
distinguished from the younger population in the lunar maria. The highlands have a greater density of
large craters, implying that the earlier population of impactors had a proportionally greater number of
large fragments than the population characterizing later lunar history, Head said.

Head said details about impactor populations on the moon have implications for the earliest history of
all the planets in the inner solar system, including Earth. "Like the Rosetta stone, the lunar record can
be used to translate the 'hieroglyphics' of the poorly preserved impact record on Earth," he said.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., built and manages the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter, a NASA mission with international participation from the Institute for Space
Research in Moscow. JPL designed, built and operates the Diviner instrument. The University of
California, Los Angeles is the home institution of Diviner's principal investigator, David Paige.
LOLA was built by Goddard.

A more detailed release on the LRO results is available at http://www.nasa.gov/lro . More information
is also available on the Diviner website at http://diviner.ucla.edu .

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NASA Data Shed New Light About Water and Volcanoes on Mars

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
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Guy Webster 818-354-6278
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guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

William Jeffs 281-483-5111
Johnson Space Center, Houston
william.p.jeffs@nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-294 Sept. 9, 2010

NASA DATA SHED NEW LIGHT ABOUT WATER AND VOLCANOES ON MARS

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-294&cid=release_2010-294

PASADENA, Calif. -- Data from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest liquid water has
interacted with the Martian surface throughout the planet's history and into modern times. The
research also provides new evidence that volcanic activity has persisted on the Red Planet into
geologically recent times, several million years ago.

Although the lander, which arrived on Mars on May 25, 2008, is no longer operating, NASA
scientists continue to analyze data gathered from that mission. These recent findings are based on
data about the planet's carbon dioxide, which makes up about 95 percent of the Martian
atmosphere.

"Atmospheric carbon dioxide is like a chemical spy," said Paul Niles, a space scientist at NASA's
Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It infiltrates every part of the surface of Mars and can
indicate the presence of water and its history."

Phoenix precisely measured isotopes of carbon and oxygen in the carbon dioxide of the Martian
atmosphere. Isotopes are variants of the same element with different atomic weights. Niles is
lead author of a paper about the findings published in Thursday's online edition of the journal
Science. The paper explains the ratios of stable isotopes and their implications for the history of
Martian water and volcanoes.

"Isotopes can be used as a chemical signature that can tell us where something came from, and
what kinds of events it has experienced," Niles said.

This chemical signature suggests that liquid water primarily existed at temperatures near freezing
and that hydrothermal systems similar to Yellowstone's hot springs have been rare throughout
the planet's past. Measurements concerning carbon dioxide showed Mars is a much more active
planet than previously thought. The results imply Mars has replenished its atmospheric carbon
dioxide relatively recently, and the carbon dioxide has reacted with liquid water present on the
surface.

Measurements were performed by an instrument on Phoenix called the Evolved Gas Analyzer.
The instrument was capable of doing more accurate analysis of carbon dioxide than similar
instruments on NASA's Viking landers in the 1970s. The Viking Program provided the only
previous Mars isotope data sent back to Earth.

The low gravity and lack of a magnetic field on Mars mean that as carbon dioxide accumulates in
the atmosphere, it will be lost to space. This process favors loss of a lighter isotope named
carbon-12 compared to carbon-13. If Martian carbon dioxide had experienced only this process
of atmospheric loss without some additional process replenishing carbon-12, the ratio of carbon-
13 to carbon-12 would be much higher than what Phoenix measured. This suggests the Martian
atmosphere recently has been replenished with carbon dioxide emitted from volcanoes, and
volcanism has been an active process in Mars' recent past. However, a volcanic signature is not
present in the proportions of two other isotopes, oxygen-18 and oxygen-16, found in Martian
carbon dioxide. The finding suggests the carbon dioxide has reacted with liquid water, which
enriched the oxygen in carbon dioxide with the heavier oxygen-18.

Niles and his team theorize this oxygen isotopic signature indicates liquid water has been present
on the Martian surface recently enough and abundantly enough to affect the composition of the
current atmosphere. The findings do not reveal specific locations or dates of liquid water and
volcanic vents, but recent occurrences of those conditions provide the best explanations for the
isotope proportions.

The Phoenix mission was led by principal investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of
Arizona in Tucson, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Techology in Pasadena. The University of
Arizona provided the lander's Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer.

For more information about the Phoenix mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix .

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Amateur Astronomers are First to Detect Objects Impacting Jupiter

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-293B Sept. 9, 2010

AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS ARE FIRST TO DETECT OBJECTS IMPACTING JUPITER

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-293&cid=release_2010-293

PASADENA, Calif. -- Amateur astronomers using backyard telescopes were the first to detect two
small objects that burned up in Jupiter's atmosphere on June 3 and Aug. 20.

Professional astronomers at NASA and other institutions followed up on the discoveries and gathered
detailed information on the objects, which produced bright spots on Jupiter. The object that caused
the June 3 fireball was estimated to be 8 to 13 meters (30 to 40 feet) in diameter - comparable in size
to asteroid 2010 RF12 that flew by Earth on Sept. 8.

To see images and video of the two impacts, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/jupiter20100909.html .

Glenn Orton, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will be
available for live satellite interviews today, September 9, from 2 to 6 p.m. PDT (5 to 9 p.m.
EDT). Interviews may be conducted via NASA television, and by Skype or telephone. Interested
media can call 818-393-5467 to schedule an interview.

The June 3 fireball released five to 10 times less energy than the 1908 Tunguska meteoroid, which
exploded 6 to 10 kilometers (4 to 6 miles) above Earth's surface with a powerful burst that knocked
down millions of trees in a remote part of Russia. Scientists continue to analyze the Aug. 20 fireball,
but think it was comparable to the June 3 object.

"Jupiter is a big gravitational vacuum cleaner," said Glenn Orton, an astronomer at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and co-author of a paper that will appear online Thursday
in Astrophysical Journal Letters. "It is clear now that relatively small objects that are remnants from
the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago still hit Jupiter frequently. Scientists are trying
to figure out just how frequently."

The lead author of the paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters is Ricardo Hueso of the Universidad del
Pais Vasco in Bilbao, Spain.

Before amateurs spotted the June 3 impact, scientists were unaware collisions that small could be
observed. Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer from Australia who discovered a dark spot on
Jupiter in July 2009, was the first to see the tiny flash on June 3. Amateur astronomers had trained
their backyard telescopes on Jupiter that day because the planet was in a particularly good position for
viewing. Wesley was watching real-time video from his telescope when he saw a 2.5-second-long
flash of light near the edge of the planet.

"It was clear to me straight away it had to be an event on Jupiter," Wesley said.

Another amateur astronomer, Christopher Go, of Cebu, Philippines, confirmed the flash also appeared
in his recordings. Professional astronomers, alerted by email, looked for signs of the impact in images
from larger telescopes, including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern
Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, and Gemini Observatory telescopes in Hawaii and
Chile. Scientists saw no thermal disruptions or typical chemical signatures of debris, which allowed
them to put a limit on the size of the object.

Based on the data, the astronomers deduced the flash came from an object – probably a small comet
or asteroid – burning up in Jupiter's atmosphere. The object likely had a mass of about 500 to 2,000
metric tons (1 to 4 million pounds), about 100,000 times lighter than that other object that hit Jupiter
in July 2009.

The second fireball, on Aug. 20, was first detected by Japanese amateur astronomer Masayuki
Tachikawa. It flashed for about 1.5 seconds and left no debris observable by a large telescope.

"It is interesting to note that while Earth gets smacked by a 10-meter-sized object about every 10
years on average, it looks as though Jupiter gets hit with the same-sized object a few times each
month," said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL. "The Jupiter
impact rate is still being refined and studies like this one help to do just that."

Previous models of collisions this size on Jupiter had predicted as few as one and as many as 100 such
collisions a year. Scientists now believe the frequency must be closer to the high end of the scale.

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Tally-Ho! Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet Target

Tally-Ho! Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet Target

Release Date: Sept. 8, 2010

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-291&cid=release_2010-291

On Sunday, Sept. 5, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft beamed down
the first of more than 64,000 images it's expected to take of Comet
Hartley 2. The spacecraft, now on an extended mission known as
EPOXI, has an appointment with the comet on Nov. 4, 2010.

It will use all three of the spacecraft's instruments (two telescopes
with digital color cameras and an infrared spectrometer) to
scrutinize Hartley 2 for more than two months.

"Like any tourist who can't wait to get to a destination, we have
already begun taking pictures of our comet -- Hartley 2," said Tim
Larson, the project manager for EPOXI from NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We have to wait for Nov. 4 to get
the close-up pictures of the cometary nucleus, but these approach
images should keep the science team busy for quite some time as
well."

The imaging campaign, along with data from all the instruments
aboard Deep Impact, will afford the mission's science team the best
extended view of a comet in history during its pass through the
inner solar system. With the exception of one, six-day break to
calibrate instruments and perform a trajectory correction
maneuver, the spacecraft will continuously monitor Hartley 2's gas
and dust output for the next 79 days.

This first image of comet Hartley 2 taken by Deep Impact was
obtained by the spacecraft's Medium Resolution Imager on Sept. 5
when the spacecraft was 60 million kilometers (37.2 million miles)
away from the comet.

EPOXI is an extended mission that utilizes the already "in flight"
Deep Impact spacecraft to explore distinct celestial targets of
opportunity. The name EPOXI itself is a combination of the names
for the two extended mission components: the extrasolar planet
observations, called Extrasolar Planet Observations and
Characterization (EPOCh), and the flyby of comet Hartley 2, called
the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI). The spacecraft will
continue to be referred to as "Deep Impact."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the
EPOXI mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
The University of Maryland, College Park, is home to the mission's
principal investigator, Michael A'Hearn. Drake Deming of NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is the science lead for
the mission's extrasolar planet observations. The spacecraft was
built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder,
Colo. For more information about EPOXI visit
http://epoxi.umd.edu/ .

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Missing Piece Inspires New Look at Mars Puzzle

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Rachel Hoover/Ruth Marlaire 650-604-0643/650-604-4709
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov/ruth.marlaire@nasa.gov

Gabriela Frias 011-52-55-5622-4684
Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City
gabriela.frias@nucleares.unam.mx

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-286 Sept. 3, 2010

Missing Piece Inspires New Look at Mars Puzzle

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-286&cid=release_2010-286

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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NASA Hurricane Researchers Eye Earl's Eye

Feature Sept. 02, 2010

NASA Hurricane Researchers Eye Earl's Eye

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-285&cid=release_2010-285

Hurricane Earl, currently a Category Two storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale with
maximum sustained winds of 100 knots (115 miles per hour), continues to push
relentlessly toward the U.S. East Coast, and NASA scientists, instruments and
spacecraft are busy studying the storm from the air and space. Three NASA aircraft
carrying 15 instruments are busy criss-crossing Earl as part of the agency's Genesis
and Rapid Intensification Processes mission, or GRIP, which continues through Sept.
30. GRIP is designed to help improve our understanding of how hurricanes such as
Earl form and intensify rapidly.

Among the instruments participating in GRIP is the High-Altitude Monolithic
Microwave Integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer, or HAMSR, developed by NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The instrument, which flies aboard
NASA's Global Hawk uninhabited aerial vehicle, infers the 3-D distribution of
temperature, water vapor and cloud liquid water in the atmosphere.

The Global Hawk left NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., at 9
p.m. PDT on Sept. 1, and emerged off the coast of Florida seven hours later to begin its
first-ever flight over a hurricane. The plane spent the day today flying over Earl and is
returning to Dryden tonight.

HAMSR has been able to make multiple passes straight across Earl's eye. Brightness
temperature data were collected by HAMSR. The Global Hawk was flying at an altitude
of about 19.2 kilometers (63,000 feet) approximately 1,125 kilometers (700 miles) off
Florida's east coast.

HAMSR's many capabilities include measuring sea surface and atmospheric
temperature, convection and precipitation. Scientists can determine the change of
atmospheric temperatures at different altitudes within a storm's eye, an indication of
the strength of convection in the core of the storm. This warming is due to the
condensation of water vapor that has been lofted to higher altitudes by the strong
convection. This is the engine that powers the storm. That temperature data, in turn,
can be used to estimate the intensity of the hurricane. NOAA's National Hurricane
Center is currently using this method to determine hurricane intensity.

A second JPL instrument participating in GRIP and flying over Earl is the Airborne
Precipitation Radar (APR-2), a dual-frequency weather radar that is taking 3-D images
of precipitation aboard NASA's DC-8 aircraft. APR-2 is being used to help scientists
understand the processes at work in hurricanes by looking at the vertical structure of
the storms.

Two APR-2 images reveal the early evolution of Hurricane Earl from a rather
disorganized storm to a better developed hurricane with a more distinct and smaller
eye and sharper eyewall. The data, taken during southbound passes over Earl's eye
on Aug. 29 and 30, respectively, are essentially vertical slices of the storm. They
correspond to the intensity of precipitation seen by the radar along the DC-8's flight
track.

The progress of NASA's GRIP aircraft can be followed in near-real-time when they are
flying by visiting: http://grip.nsstc.nasa.gov/current_weather.html . "Click to start RTMM
Classic" will download a KML file that displays in Google Earth.

Near-real-time images from HAMSR and APR-2 are being displayed on NASA's TC-
IDEAS website at http://grip.jpl.nasa.gov . The website is a near-real-time tropical
cyclone data resource developed by JPL to support the GRIP campaign. In
collaboration with other institutions, it integrates data from satellites, models and direct
measurements, from many sources, to help researchers quickly locate information
about current and recent oceanic and atmospheric conditions. The composite images
and data are updated every hour and are displayed using a Google Earth plug-in. With
a few mouse clicks, users can manipulate data and overlay multiple data sets to
provide insights on storms that aren't possible by looking at single data sets alone.

#2010-285

Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

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NASA Selects Investigations for First Mission to Encounter the Sun

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Priscilla Vega 818-354-1357
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
priscilla.r.vega@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne C. Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News release: 2010-284 Sept. 2, 2010

NASA Selects Investigations for First Mission to Encounter the Sun

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-284&cid=release_2010-284

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

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

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

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

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

The selected proposals are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more information about the Solar Probe Plus mission, visit:
http://solarprobe.gsfc.nasa.gov/ .

For more information about the Living with a Star Program, visit:
http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/smd-programs/living-with-a-star/ .

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Spitzer Finds a Flavorful Mix of Asteroids

Feature September 2, 2010


Spitzer Finds a Flavorful Mix of Asteroids

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-283&cid=release_2010-283

New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveals that asteroids somewhat near
Earth, termed near-Earth objects, are a mixed bunch, with a surprisingly wide array of
compositions. Like a piñata filled with everything from chocolates to fruity candies, these
asteroids come in assorted colors and compositions. Some are dark and dull; others are
shiny and bright. The Spitzer observations of 100 known near-Earth asteroids
demonstrate that the objects' diversity is greater than previously thought.

The findings are helping astronomers better understand near-Earth objects as a whole -- a
population whose physical properties are not well known.

"These rocks are teaching us about the places they come from," said David Trilling of
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, lead author of a new paper on the research
appearing in the September issue of Astronomical Journal. "It's like studying pebbles in a
streambed to learn about the mountains they tumbled down."

After nearly six years of operation, in May 2009, Spitzer used up the liquid coolant
needed to chill its infrared detectors. It is now operating in a so-called "warm" mode (the
actual temperature is still quite cold at 30 Kelvin, or minus 406 degrees Fahrenheit). Two
of Spitzer's infrared channels, the shortest-wavelength detectors on the observatory, are
working perfectly.

One of the mission's new "warm" programs is to survey about 700 near-Earth objects,
cataloguing their individual traits. By observing in infrared, Spitzer is helping to gather
more accurate estimates of asteroids' compositions and sizes than what is possible with
visible light alone. Visible-light observations of an asteroid won't differentiate between an
asteroid that is big and dark, or small and light. Both rocks would reflect the same
amount of visible sunlight. Infrared data provide a read on the object's temperature,
which then tells an astronomer more about the actual size and composition. A big, dark
rock has a higher temperature than a small, light one because it absorbs more sunlight.

Trilling and his team have analyzed preliminary data on 100 near-Earth asteroids so far.
They plan to observe 600 more over the next year. There are roughly 7,000 known near-
Earth objects out of a population expected to number in the tens to hundreds of
thousands.

"Very little is known about the physical characteristics of the near-Earth population," said
Trilling. "Our data will tell us more about the population, and how it changes from one
object to the next. This information could be used to help plan possible future space
missions to study a near-Earth object."

The data show that some of the smaller objects have surprisingly high albedos (an albedo
is a measurement of how much sunlight an object reflects). Since asteroid surfaces
become darker with time due to exposure to solar radiation, the presence of lighter,
brighter surfaces for some asteroids may indicate that they are relatively young. This is
evidence for the continuing evolution of the near-Earth object population.

In addition, the fact that the asteroids observed so far have a greater degree of diversity
than expected indicates that they might have different origins. Some might come from
the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and others could come from farther out in the
solar system. This diversity also suggests that the materials that went into making the
asteroids -- the same materials that make up our planets -- were probably mixed together
like a big solar-system soup very early in its history.

The research complements that of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or
WISE, an all-sky infrared survey mission also up in space now. WISE has already
observed more than 430 near-Earth objects -- of these, more than 110 are newly
discovered.

In the future, both Spitzer and WISE will tell us even more about the "flavors" of near-
Earth objects. This could reveal new clues about how the cosmic objects might have
dotted our young planet with water and organics -- ingredients needed to kick-start life.

Other authors of the paper include Cristina Thomas, also from Northern Arizona
University; Michael Mueller and Marco Delbo of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur,
Nice, France; Joseph Hora, Giovanni Fazio, Howard Smith and Tim Spahr of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.; Alan Harris of the
DLR Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, Germany (DLR is Germany's space agency
and stands for Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt); Bidushi Bhattacharya of
the NASA Herschel Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena;
Steve Chesley and Amy Mainzer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.;
Bill Bottke of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.; Josh Emery of the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Bryan Penprase of the Pomona College, Claremont,
Calif.; and John Stansberry of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

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, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu/ and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

JPL manages the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The
mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the
Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball
Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing
take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information is online at
http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu .

#2010-283

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4671
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

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NASA Images Dissect Hurricane Earl

Feature Sept. 01, 2010

NASA Images Dissect Hurricane Earl

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-282&cid=release_2010-282

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

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

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

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

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

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

NASA imagery of Earl from various satellites and aircraft (available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2717) reveal many kinds of information about this impressive storm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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