Top Stories: June 2012

Thursday, June 28, 2012

NASA's Next Mars Rover to Face 7 Minutes of Terror

NASA's Next Mars Rover to Face 7 Minutes of Terror

It may be described as reasoned - even genius - engineering. But even the engineers who designed it agree it looks crazy. Six vehicle configurations, 76 pyrotechnic devices, 500,000 lines of code, zero margin for error. What exactly will it take to land NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, on the surface of Mars on Aug. 5? The latest video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory breaks down all "7 minutes of terror."

Watch it now at http://bit.ly/edlemail.

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Cassini Finds Likely Subsurface Ocean on Saturn Moon

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

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

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

News release: 2012-190 June 28, 2012

Cassini Finds Likely Subsurface Ocean on Saturn Moon

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-190&cid=release_2012-190

PASADENA, Calif. -- Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have revealed Saturn's moon Titan
likely harbors a layer of liquid water under its ice shell.

Researchers saw a large amount of squeezing and stretching as the moon orbited Saturn. They
deduced that if Titan were composed entirely of stiff rock, the gravitational attraction of Saturn
would cause bulges, or solid "tides," on the moon only 3 feet (1 meter) in height. Spacecraft data
show Saturn creates solid tides approximately 30 feet (10 meters) in height, which suggests Titan is
not made entirely of solid rocky material. The finding appears in today's edition of the journal
Science.

"Cassini's detection of large tides on Titan leads to the almost inescapable conclusion that there is a
hidden ocean at depth," said Luciano Iess, the paper's lead author and a Cassini team member at the
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. "The search for water is an important goal in solar system
exploration, and now we've spotted another place where it is abundant."

Titan takes only 16 days to orbit Saturn, and scientists were able to study the moon's shape at
different parts of its orbit. Because Titan is not spherical, but slightly elongated like a football, its
long axis grew when it was closer to Saturn. Eight days later, when Titan was farther from Saturn, it
became less elongated and more nearly round. Cassini measured the gravitational effect of that
squeeze and pull.

Scientists were not sure Cassini would be able to detect the bulges caused by Saturn's pull on Titan.
By studying six close flybys of Titan from Feb. 27, 2006, to Feb. 18, 2011, researchers were able to
determine the moon's internal structure by measuring variations in the gravitational pull of Titan
using data returned to NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN).

"We were making ultrasensitive measurements, and thankfully Cassini and the DSN were able to
maintain a very stable link," said Sami Asmar, a Cassini team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The tides on Titan pulled up by Saturn aren't huge compared to the
pull the biggest planet, Jupiter, has on some of its moons. But, short of being able to drill on Titan's
surface, the gravity measurements provide the best data we have of Titan's internal structure."

An ocean layer does not have to be huge or deep to create these tides. A liquid layer between the
external, deformable shell and a solid mantle would enable Titan to bulge and compress as it orbits
Saturn. Because Titan's surface is mostly made of water ice, which is abundant in moons of the outer
solar system, scientists infer Titan's ocean is likely mostly liquid water.

On Earth, tides result from the gravitational attraction of the moon and sun pulling on our surface
oceans. In the open oceans, those can be as high as two feet (60 centimeters). While water is easier to
move, the gravitational pulling by the sun and moon also causes Earth's crust to bulge in solid tides of
about 20 inches (50 centimeters).

The presence of a subsurface layer of liquid water at Titan is not itself an indicator for life. Scientists
think life is more likely to arise when liquid water is in contact with rock, and these measurements
cannot tell whether the ocean bottom is made up of rock or ice. The results have a bigger implication
for the mystery of methane replenishment on Titan.

"The presence of a liquid water layer in Titan is important because we want to understand how
methane is stored in Titan's interior and how it may outgas to the surface," said Jonathan Lunine, a
Cassini team member at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "This is important because everything that
is unique about Titan derives from the presence of abundant methane, yet the methane in the
atmosphere is unstable and will be destroyed on geologically short timescales."

A liquid water ocean, "salted" with ammonia, could produce buoyant ammonia-water liquids that
bubble up through the crust and liberate methane from the ice. Such an ocean could serve also as a
deep reservoir for storing methane.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the
Italian Space Agency. The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. DSN, also managed by JPL, is an international network of antennas that supports
interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of
the solar system and the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions.
Cassini's radio science team is based at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. JPL is a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Astronomers Spot Rare Arc From Hefty Galaxy Cluster

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

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Donna Weaver / Ray Villard 410-338-4493 / 338-4514
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
dweaver@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu

News release: 2012-187 June 26, 2012

Astronomers Spot Rare Arc From Hefty Galaxy Cluster

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-187&cid=release_2012-187

PASADENA, Calif. -- Seeing is believing, except when you don't believe what you see.
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a puzzling arc of light behind
an extremely massive cluster of galaxies residing 10 billion light-years away. The galactic
grouping, discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, was observed as it existed when the
universe was roughly a quarter of its current age of 13.7 billion years.

The giant arc is the stretched shape of a more distant galaxy whose light is distorted by the
monster cluster's powerful gravity, an effect called gravitational lensing. The trouble is, the arc
shouldn't exist.

"When I first saw it, I kept staring at it, thinking it would go away," said study leader Anthony
Gonzalez of the University of Florida in Gainesville, whose team includes researchers from
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "According to a statistical analysis, arcs
should be extremely rare at that distance. At that early epoch, the expectation is that there are not
enough galaxies behind the cluster bright enough to be seen, even if they were 'lensed,' or
distorted by the cluster. The other problem is that galaxy clusters become less massive the further
back in time you go. So it's more difficult to find a cluster with enough mass to be a good lens
for gravitationally bending the light from a distant galaxy."

Galaxy clusters are collections of hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity.
They are the most massive structures in our universe. Astronomers frequently study galaxy
clusters to look for faraway, magnified galaxies behind them that would otherwise be too dim to
see with telescopes. Many such gravitationally lensed galaxies have been found behind galaxy
clusters closer to Earth.

The surprise in this Hubble observation is spotting a galaxy lensed by an extremely distant
cluster. Dubbed IDCS J1426.5+3508, the cluster is the most massive found at that epoch,
weighing as much as 500 trillion suns. It is 5 to 10 times larger than other clusters found at such
an early time in the history of the universe. The team spotted the cluster in a search using
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in combination with archival optical images taken as part of
the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Deep Wide Field Survey at the Kitt Peak National
Observatory, Tucson, Ariz. The combined images allowed them to see the cluster as a grouping
of very red galaxies, indicating they are far away.

This unique system constitutes the most distant cluster known to "host" a giant gravitationally
lensed arc. Finding this ancient gravitational arc may yield insight into how, during the first
moments after the Big Bang, conditions were set up for the growth of hefty clusters in the early
universe.

The arc was spotted in optical images of the cluster taken in 2010 by Hubble's Advanced Camera
for Surveys. The infrared capabilities of Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 helped provide a precise
distance, confirming it to be one of the farthest clusters yet discovered.

Once the astronomers determined the cluster's distance, they used Hubble, the Combined Array
for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) radio telescope, and NASA's Chandra
X-ray Observatory to independently show that the galactic grouping is extremely massive.

"The chance of finding such a gigantic cluster so early in the universe was less than one percent
in the small area we surveyed," said team member Mark Brodwin of the University of Missouri-
Kansas City. "It shares an evolutionary path with some of the most massive clusters we see
today, including the Coma cluster and the recently discovered El Gordo cluster."

An analysis of the arc revealed that the lensed object is a star-forming galaxy that existed 10
billion to 13 billion years ago. The team hopes to use Hubble again to obtain a more accurate
distance to the lensed galaxy.

The team's results are described in three papers, which will appear online today and will be
published in the July 10, 2012 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. Gonzalez is the first author on
one of the papers; Brodwin, on another; and Adam Stanford of the University of California at
Davis, on the third. Daniel Stern and Peter Eisenhardt of JPL are co-authors on all three papers.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at
the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. 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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Monday, June 25, 2012

Cassini Shows Why Jet Streams Cross-Cut Saturn

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.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

Joe Mason 720-974-5859
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
media@ciclops.org

Bill Steigerwald/Nancy Neal Jones 301-286-5017/6-0039
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
william.a.steigerwald@nasa.gov / nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov

News feature: 2012-186 June 25, 2012

Cassini Shows Why Jet Streams Cross-Cut Saturn

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-186&cid=release_2012-186

Turbulent jet streams, regions where winds blow faster than in other places, churn east and west
across Saturn. Scientists have been trying to understand for years the mechanism that drives these
wavy structures in Saturn's atmosphere and the source from which the jets derive their energy.

In a new study appearing in the June edition of the journal Icarus, scientists used images collected
over several years by NASA's Cassini spacecraft to discover that the heat from within the planet
powers the jet streams. Condensation of water from Saturn's internal heating led to temperature
differences in the atmosphere. The temperature differences created eddies, or disturbances that move
air back and forth at the same latitude, and those eddies, in turn, accelerated the jet streams like
rotating gears driving a conveyor belt.

A competing theory had assumed that the energy for the temperature differences came from the sun.
That is how it works in the Earth's atmosphere.

"We know the atmospheres of planets such as Saturn and Jupiter can get their energy from only two
places: the sun or the internal heating. The challenge has been coming up with ways to use the data
so that we can tell the difference," said Tony Del Genio of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space
Studies, N.Y., the lead author of the paper and a member of the Cassini imaging team.

The new study was possible in part because Cassini has been in orbit around Saturn long enough to
obtain the large number of observations required to see subtle patterns emerge from the day-to-day
variations in weather. "Understanding what drives the meteorology on Saturn, and in general on
gaseous planets, has been one of our cardinal goals since the inception of the Cassini mission," said
Carolyn Porco, imaging team lead, based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "It is very
gratifying to see that we're finally coming to understand those atmospheric processes that make Earth
similar to, and also different from, other planets."

Rather than having a thin atmosphere and solid-and-liquid surface like Earth, Saturn is a gas giant
whose deep atmosphere is layered with multiple cloud decks at high altitudes. A series of jet streams
slice across the face of Saturn visible to the human eye and also at altitudes detectable to the near-
infrared filters of Cassini's cameras. While most blow eastward, some blow westward. Jet streams
occur on Saturn in places where the temperature varies significantly from one latitude to another.

Thanks to the filters on Cassini's cameras, which can see near-infrared light reflected to space,
scientists now have observed the Saturn jet stream process for the first time at two different, low
altitudes. One filtered view shows the upper part of the troposphere, a high layer of the atmosphere
where Cassini sees thick, high-altitude hazes and where heating by the sun is strong. Views through
another filter capture images deeper down, at the tops of ammonia ice clouds, where solar heating is
weak but closer to where weather originates. This is where water condenses and makes clouds and
rain.

In the new study, which is a follow-up to results published in 2007, the authors used automated cloud
tracking software to analyze the movements and speeds of clouds seen in hundreds of Cassini images
from 2005 through 2012.

"With our improved tracking algorithm, we've been able to extract nearly 120,000 wind vectors from
560 images, giving us an unprecedented picture of Saturn's wind flow at two independent altitudes on
a global scale," said co-author and imaging team associate John Barbara, also at the Goddard Institute
for Space Studies. The team's findings provide an observational test for existing models that
scientists use to study the mechanisms that power the jet streams.

By seeing for the first time how these eddies accelerate the jet streams at two different altitudes,
scientists found the eddies were weak at the higher altitudes where previous researchers had found
that most of the sun's heating occurs. The eddies were stronger deeper in the atmosphere. Thus, the
authors could discount heating from the sun and infer instead that the internal heat of the planet is
ultimately driving the acceleration of the jet streams, not the sun. The mechanism that best matched
the observations would involve internal heat from the planet stirring up water vapor from Saturn's
interior. That water vapor condenses in some places as air rises and releases heat as it makes clouds
and rain. This heat provides the energy to create the eddies that drive the jet streams.

The condensation of water was not actually observed; most of that process occurs at lower altitudes
not visible to Cassini. But the condensation in mid-latitude storms does happen on both Saturn and
Earth. Storms on Earth – the low- and high-pressure centers on weather maps – are driven mainly by
the sun's heating and do not mainly occur because of the condensation of water, Del Genio said. On
Saturn, the condensation heating is the main driver of the storms, and the sun's heating is not
important.

Images of one of the strongest jet streams and a figure from the paper can be found at
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://ciclops.org .

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the
Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed
and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Most Quasars Live on Snacks, Not Large Meals

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

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Donna Weaver / Ray Villard 410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
dweaver@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu

News release: 2012-180 June 19, 2012

Most Quasars Live on Snacks, Not Large Meals

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-180&cid=release_2012-180

Black holes in the early universe needed a few snacks rather than one giant meal to fuel their
quasars and help them grow, according to observations from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space
telescopes.

Quasars are the brilliant beacons of light that are powered by black holes feasting on captured
material, and in the process, heating some of the matter to millions of degrees. The brightest quasars
reside in galaxies distorted by collisions with other galaxies. These encounters send lots of gas and
dust into the gravitational whirlpool of hungry black holes.

Now, however, astronomers are uncovering an underlying population of fainter quasars that thrive
in normal-looking spiral galaxies. They are triggered by black holes snacking on such tasty treats as
a batch of gas or the occasional small satellite galaxy.

A census of 30 quasar host galaxies conducted with two of NASA's premier observatories, Hubble
and Spitzer, has found that 26 of the host galaxies bear no telltale signs of collisions with neighbors,
such as distorted shapes. Only one galaxy in the sample shows evidence of an interaction with
another galaxy. The galaxies existed roughly 8 billion to 12 billion years ago, during a peak epoch
of black-hole growth.

The study, led by Kevin Schawinski of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., bolsters evidence that
the growth of most massive black holes in the early universe was fueled by small, long-term events
rather than dramatic short-term major mergers.

"Quasars that are products of galaxy collisions are very bright," Schawinski said. "The objects we
looked at in this study are the more typical quasars. They're a lot less luminous. The brilliant
quasars born of galaxy mergers get all the attention because they are so bright and their host
galaxies are so messed up. But the typical bread-and-butter quasars are actually where most of the
black-hole growth is happening. They are the norm, and they don't need the drama of a collision to
shine."

Schawinski's science paper has been accepted for publication in a letter to the Monthly Notices of
the Royal Astronomical Society.

For his analysis, Schawinski analyzed galaxies observed by the Spitzer and Hubble telescopes in the
Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey. He chose 30 dust-enshrouded
galaxies that appeared extremely bright in infrared images taken by the Spitzer telescope, a sign that
their resident black holes are feasting on surrounding material. The dust is blocking the quasar's
light at visible wavelengths. But infrared light pierces the dust, allowing Schawinski to study the
galaxies' detailed structure. The masses of those galaxies are comparable to that of our Milky Way.

Schawinski then studied the galaxies in near-infrared images taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera
3. Hubble's sharp images allowed careful analysis of galaxy shapes, which would be significantly
distorted if major galaxy mergers had taken place and were disrupting the structure. Instead, in all
but one instance, the galaxies show no such disruption.

Whatever process is stoking the quasars, it's below the detection capability of even Hubble. "I think
it's a combination of processes, such as random stirring of gas, supernovae blasts, swallowing of
small bodies, and streams of gas and stars feeding material into the nucleus," Schawinski said.

A black hole doesn't need much gas to satisfy its hunger and turn on a quasar. "There's more than
enough gas within a few light-years from the center of our Milky Way to turn it into a quasar,"
Schawinski explained. "It just doesn't happen. But it could happen if one of those small clouds of
gas ran into the black hole. Random motions and stirrings inside the galaxy would channel gas into
the black hole. Ten billion years ago, those random motions were more common and there was
more gas to go around. Small galaxies also were more abundant and were swallowed up by larger
galaxies."

The galaxies in Schawinski's study are prime targets for NASA's upcoming James Webb Space
Telescope, a large infrared observatory scheduled to launch later this decade. "To get to the heart of
what kinds of events are powering the quasars in these galaxies, we need the Webb telescope.
Hubble and Spitzer have been the trailblazers for finding them."

The team of astronomers in this study consists of K. Schawinski, B.D. Simmons, C.M. Urry and E.
Glikman (Yale University), and E. Treister (Universidad de Concepcion, Chile).

For images and more information about this study, visit http://hubblesite.org/news/2012/27 .

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 in Pasadena. Data are archived at
the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech.
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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Sunday, June 17, 2012

Study Finds Ancient Warming Greened Antarctica

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

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

J. D. Harrington 202-358-5241
NASA Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

Robert Perkins 213-740-9226
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
perkinsr@usc.edu

Zac Lemoine 225-578-1399
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
jlemo26@lsu.edu

News release: 2012-179 June 17, 2012

Study Finds Ancient Warming Greened Antarctica

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-179&cid=release_2012-179

PASADENA, Calif. -- A new university-led study with NASA participation finds ancient Antarctica
was much warmer and wetter than previously suspected. The climate was suitable to support
substantial vegetation -- including stunted trees -- along the edges of the frozen continent.

The team of scientists involved in the study, published online June 17 in Nature Geoscience, was led
by Sarah J. Feakins of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and included researchers
from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Louisiana State University in Baton
Rouge.

By examining plant leaf wax remnants in sediment core samples taken from beneath the Ross Ice
Shelf, the research team found summer temperatures along the Antarctic coast 15 to 20 million years
ago were 20 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius) warmer than today, with temperatures reaching
as high as 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius). Precipitation levels also were found to be
several times higher than today.

"The ultimate goal of the study was to better understand what the future of climate change may look
like," said Feakins, an assistant professor of Earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters,
Arts and Sciences. "Just as history has a lot to teach us about the future, so does past climate. This
record shows us how much warmer and wetter it can get around the Antarctic ice sheet as the climate
system heats up. This is some of the first evidence of just how much warmer it was."

Scientists began to suspect that high-latitude temperatures during the middle Miocene epoch were
warmer than previously believed when co-author Sophie Warny, assistant professor at LSU,
discovered large quantities of pollen and algae in sediment cores taken around Antarctica. Fossils of
plant life in Antarctica are difficult to come by because the movement of the massive ice sheets
covering the landmass grinds and scrapes away the evidence.

"Marine sediment cores are ideal to look for clues of past vegetation, as the fossils deposited are
protected from ice sheet advances, but these are technically very difficult to acquire in the Antarctic
and require international collaboration," said Warny.

Tipped off by the tiny pollen samples, Feakins opted to look at the remnants of leaf wax taken from
sediment cores for clues. Leaf wax acts as a record of climate change by documenting the hydrogen
isotope ratios of the water the plant took up while it was alive.

"Ice cores can only go back about one million years," Feakins said. "Sediment cores allow us to go
into 'deep time.'"

Based upon a model originally developed to analyze hydrogen isotope ratios in atmospheric water
vapor data from NASA's Aura spacecraft, co-author and JPL scientist Jung-Eun Lee created
experiments to find out just how much warmer and wetter climate may have been.

"When the planet heats up, the biggest changes are seen toward the poles," Lee said. "The southward
movement of rain bands associated with a warmer climate in the high-latitude southern hemisphere
made the margins of Antarctica less like a polar desert, and more like present-day Iceland."

The peak of this Antarctic greening occurred during the middle Miocene period, between 16.4 and
15.7 million years ago. This was well after the age of the dinosaurs, which became extinct 64 million
years ago. During the Miocene epoch, mostly modern-looking animals roamed Earth, such as three-
toed horses, deer, camel and various species of apes. Modern humans did not appear until 200,000
years ago.

Warm conditions during the middle Miocene are thought to be associated with carbon dioxide levels
of around 400 to 600 parts per million (ppm). In 2012, carbon dioxide levels have climbed to 393
ppm, the highest they've been in the past several million years. At the current rate of increase,
atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are on track to reach middle Miocene levels by the end of this
century.

High carbon dioxide levels during the middle Miocene epoch have been documented in
other studies through multiple lines of evidence, including the number of microscopic pores
on the surface of plant leaves and geochemical evidence from soils and marine organisms.
While none of these 'proxies' is as reliable as the bubbles of gas trapped in ice cores,
they are the best evidence available this far back in time. While scientists do not yet know
precisely why carbon dioxide was at these levels during the middle Miocene, high
carbon dioxide, together with the global warmth documented from many parts of
the world and now also from the Antarctic region, appear to coincide during this period in
Earth's history.

This research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation with additional support from
NASA. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about NASA programs and projects, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ .

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Friday, June 15, 2012

NASA Releases Workshop Data and Findings on Asteroid 2011 AG5

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
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Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News feature: 2012-178 June 15, 2012

NASA Releases Workshop Data and Findings on Asteroid 2011 AG5

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-178&cid=release_2012-178

WASHINGTON -- Researchers anticipate that asteroid 2011 AG5, discovered in January 2011, will
fly safely past and not impact Earth in 2040.

Current findings and analysis data were reported at a May 29 workshop at NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., attended by scientists and engineers from around the world.
Discussions focused on observations of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs).

Observations to date indicate there is a slight chance that AG5 could impact Earth in 2040. Attendees
expressed confidence that in the next four years, analysis of space and ground-based observations will
show the likelihood of 2011 AG5 missing Earth to be greater than 99 percent.

Measuring approximately 460 feet (140 meters) in size, the space rock was discovered by the NASA-
supported Catalina Sky Survey operated by the University of Arizona in Tucson. Several
observatories monitored 2011 AG5 for nine months before it moved too far away and grew too faint
to see.

"While there is general consensus there is only a very small chance that we could be dealing with a
real impact scenario for this object, we will still be watchful and ready to take further action if
additional observations indicate it is warranted," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the
Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observation Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Several years ago another asteroid, named Apophis, was thought to pose a similar impact threat in
2036. Additional observations taken from 2005 through 2008 enabled NASA scientists to refine their
understanding of the asteroid's path, which showed a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous
encounter.

"Any time we're able to observe an asteroid and obtain new location data, we're able to refine our
calculations of the asteroid's future path," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's NEO Program
Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "When few observations exist, our initial
orbit calculation will include a wider swath to account for uncertainties. With more data points, the
knowledge of the potential positions of the asteroid improves and the swath becomes smaller --
typically eliminating the risk of an impact."

Observations of 2011 AG5 have been limited to date because of its present location beyond the orbit
of Mars and in the daytime sky on the other side of the sun. In fall 2013, conditions will improve to
allow space- and ground-based telescopes to better track the asteroid's path. At that time, 2011 AG5
will be 91 million miles (147 million kilometers) from Earth but favorably located for observations in
the late evening sky.

The level of hazard will gain even more clarity in 2023, when the asteroid is approximately 1.1
million miles (1.8 million kilometers) from Earth. If 2011 AG5 passes through a 227-mile-wide (365-
kilometer) region in space called a keyhole in early February 2023, Earth's gravitational pull could
influence the object's orbital path just enough to bring it back for an impact on February 5, 2040. If
the asteroid misses the keyhole, an impact in 2040 will not occur.

"Given our current understanding of this asteroid's orbit, there is only a very remote chance of this
keyhole passage even occurring," said Johnson.

Although scientists widely expect it to be a safe flyby, they acknowledge the slight chance that
computed odds could rise as a result of observations to be taken from 2013 to 2016. According to the
experts at the workshop, even if the odds do increase, there is still ample time to plan and carry out at
least one of several viable missions to change the asteroid's course.

PHAs are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. They have the closest orbits to Earth's,
coming within 5 million miles (about 8 million kilometers). They are large enough to enter Earth's
atmosphere intact and cause damage on at least a local scale. Damage from an asteroid the size of
2011 AG5 could cover a region at least a hundred miles wide.

NASA established the NEO Program in 1998 to coordinate the agency's efforts to detect, track and
characterize Earth-approaching NEOs and comets larger than 1 kilometer in size. The program now
also searches for NEOs as small as object 2011 AG5. NASA supports NEO observation, tracking and
analysis activities worldwide. Activities are coordinated through the NEO Program Office at JPL.

To read the workshop report and findings, visit: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

For information about NASA asteroid missions and activities, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/asteroids .

EDITOR'S NOTE: Lindley Johnson and Don Yeomans are available for media interviews. To
coordinate a time and date, email Dwayne Brown at dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov .

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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Data From NASA's Voyager 1 Point to Interstellar Future

First Flight Instrument Delivered for James Webb Space Telescope

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Got Salt? NASA's Salt Mapper Toasts First Birthday

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

Feature June 13, 2012

Got Salt? NASA's Salt Mapper Toasts First Birthday

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-173&cid=release_2012-173

Aquarius, NASA's pioneering instrument to measure ocean surface salinity from orbit, launched a year ago (on June 10, 2011) aboard the Argentine Space Agency's Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas (SAC-D) observatory. Designed to advance our understanding of what changes in the saltiness of the ocean's top layer say about the water cycle and variations in climate, the mission has had a busy first year. Already, its measurements of global salinity patterns have observed regional features like the freshwater plume gushing from the Amazon River, localized changes in ocean saltiness following a tropical storm, and the salinity structure of large tropical ocean waves that influence global climate patterns.

A new interactive feature on NASA's Global Climate Change website, http://climate.nasa.gov , gives visitors a 'look under the hood' at the Aquarius spacecraft and a chance to meet some of the 'salt sleuths' on the Aquarius team. To take a spin, visit: http://climate.nasa.gov/Aquarius/index.cfm .

Aquarius was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; and the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. NASA's Launch Services Program, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, managed the launch. JPL managed Aquarius through its commissioning phase and is archiving mission data. Goddard now manages Aquarius mission operations and processes science data. Argentina's space agency, Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), is providing the SAC-D spacecraft, optical camera, thermal camera with Canada, microwave radiometer, sensors from various Argentine institutions and the mission operations center. France and Italy also are contributing instruments.

For more on the Aquarius mission's first year in orbit, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/aquarius/news/first-year.html . To see recent global ocean salinity maps and movies produced from Aquarius data, visit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78250 . To learn more about the new study of tropical ocean waves produced using Aquarius data, visit: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15799 . For more information about Aquarius, see: http://www.nasa.gov/aquarius , http://aquarius.nasa.gov and http://www.conae.gov.ar/eng/principal.html .

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

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Cassini Sees Tropical Lakes on Saturn Moon

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2012-172 June 13, 2012

Cassini Sees Tropical Lakes on Saturn Moon

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-172&cid=release_2012-172

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spied long-standing methane lakes, or puddles, in the "tropics" of Saturn's moon Titan. One of the tropical lakes appears to be about half the size of Utah's Great Salt Lake, with a depth of at least 3 feet (1 meter).

The result, which is a new analysis of Cassini data, is unexpected because models had assumed the long-standing bodies of liquid would only exist at the poles. The findings appear in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

Where could the liquid for these lakes come from? "A likely supplier is an underground aquifer," said Caitlin Griffith, the paper's lead author and a Cassini team associate at the University of Arizona, Tucson. "In essence, Titan may have oases."

Understanding how lakes or wetlands form on Titan helps scientists learn about the moon's weather. Like Earth's hydrological cycle, Titan has a "methane" cycle, with methane rather than water circulating. In Titan's atmosphere, ultraviolet light breaks apart methane, initiating a chain of complicated organic chemical reactions. But existing models haven't been able to account for the abundant supply of methane.

"An aquifer could explain one of the puzzling questions about the existence of methane, which is continually depleted," Griffith said. "Methane is a progenitor of Titan's organic chemistry, which likely produces interesting molecules like amino acids, the building blocks of life."

Global circulation models of Titan have theorized that liquid methane in the moon's equatorial region evaporates and is carried by wind to the north and south poles, where cooler temperatures cause methane to condense. When it falls to the surface, it forms the polar lakes. On Earth, water is similarly transported by the circulation, yet the oceans also transport water, thereby countering the atmospheric effects.

The latest results come from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, which detected the dark areas in the tropical region known as Shangri-La, near the spot where the European Space Agency's Huygens probe landed in 2005. When Huygens landed, the heat of the probe's lamp vaporized some methane from the ground, indicating it had landed in a damp area.

Areas appear dark to the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer when liquid ethane or methane are present. Some regions could be shallow, ankle-deep puddles. Cassini's radar mapper has seen lakes in the polar region, but hasn't detected any lakes at low latitudes.

The tropical lakes detected by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer have remained since 2004. Only once has rain been detected falling and evaporating in the equatorial regions, and only during the recent expected rainy season. Scientists therefore deduce the lakes could not be substantively replenished by rain.

"We had thought that Titan simply had extensive dunes at the equator and lakes at the poles, but now we know that Titan is more complex than we previously thought," said Linda Spilker, the Cassini project scientist based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Cassini still has multiple opportunities to fly by this moon going forward, so we can't wait to see how the details of this story fill out."

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

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

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

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Small Planets Don’t Need ‘Heavy Metal’ Stars to Form

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

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

Michele Johnson 650-604-6982
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
michele.johnson@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-171 June 13, 2012

Small Planets Don't Need 'Heavy Metal' Stars to Form

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-171&cid=release_2012-171

PASADENA, Calif. – The formation of small worlds like Earth previously was thought to occur
mostly around stars rich in heavy elements such as iron and silicon. However, new ground-based
observations, combined with data collected by NASA's Kepler space telescope, show small
planets form around stars with a wide range of heavy element content and suggest they may be
widespread in our galaxy.

A research team led by Lars A. Buchhave, an astrophysicist at the Niels Bohr Institute and the
Centre for Star and Planet Formation at the University of Copenhagen, studied the elemental
composition of more than 150 stars harboring 226 planet candidates smaller than Neptune.

"I wanted to investigate whether small planets needed a special environment in order to form,
like the giant gas planets, which we know preferentially develop in environments with a high
content of heavy elements," said Buchhave. "This study shows that small planets do not
discriminate and form around stars with a wide range of heavy metal content, including stars
with only 25 percent of the sun's metallicity."

Astronomers refer to all chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium as metals. They
define metallicity as the metal content of heavier elements in a star. Stars with a higher fraction
of heavy elements than the sun are considered metal-rich. Stars with a lower fraction of heavy
elements are considered metal-poor.

Planets are created in disks of gas and dust around new stars. Planets like Earth are composed
almost entirely of elements such as iron, oxygen, silicon and magnesium. The metallicity of a
star mirrors the metal content of the planet-forming disk. Astronomers have hypothesized that
large quantities of heavy elements in the disk would lead to more efficient planet formation. It
has long been noted that giant planets with short orbital periods tend to be associated with metal-
rich stars.

Unlike gas giants, the occurrence of smaller planets is not strongly dependent on the heavy
element content of their host stars. Planets up to four times the size of Earth can form around
stars with a wide range of heavy element content, including stars with a lower metallicity than
the sun. The findings are described in a new study published in the journal Nature.

"Kepler has identified thousands of planet candidates, making it possible to study big-picture
questions like the one posed by Lars. Does nature require special environments to form Earth-
size planets?" said Natalie Batalha, Kepler mission scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center at
Moffett Field, Calif. "The data suggest that small planets may form around stars with a wide
range of metallicities -- that nature is opportunistic and prolific, finding pathways we might
otherwise have thought difficult."

The ground-based spectroscopic observations for this study were made at the Nordic Optical
Telescope on La Palma in the Canary Islands; Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt.
Hopkins in Arizona; McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin; and W.M.
Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Launched in March 2009, Kepler searches for planets by continuously monitoring more than
150,000 stars, looking for telltale dips in their brightness caused by passing, or transiting,
planets. At least three transits are required to verify a signal as a planet. Follow-up observations
from ground-based telescopes are also needed to confirm a candidate as a planet.

Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data
analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission
development. JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena, for
NASA.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and
supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the
University of Colorado in Boulder.

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler
science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science
Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

For more information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler .

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NASA's NuSTAR Mission Lifts Off

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

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-170 June 13, 2012

NASA's NuSTAR Mission Lifts Off

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-170&cid=release_2012-170

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) launched into
the morning skies over the central Pacific Ocean at 9 a.m. PDT (noon EDT)
Wednesday, beginning its mission to unveil secrets of buried black holes and other exotic
objects.

"We all eagerly await the launch of this novel X-ray observatory," said Paul Hertz, NASA's
Astrophysics Division Director. "With its unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution to the
previously poorly explored hard X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum, NuSTAR will
open a new window on the universe and will provide complementary data to NASA's larger
missions, including Fermi, Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer."

NuSTAR will use a unique set of eyes to see the highest energy X-ray light from the cosmos.
The observatory can see through gas and dust to reveal black holes lurking in our Milky Way
galaxy, as well as those hidden in the hearts of faraway galaxies.

"NuSTAR will help us find the most elusive and most energetic black holes, to help us
understand the structure of the universe," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal
investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

The observatory began its journey aboard a L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft, operated by Orbital
Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va. NuSTAR was perched atop Orbital's Pegasus XL rocket, both
of which were strapped to the belly of the Stargazer plane. The plane left Kwajalein Atoll in the
central Pacific Ocean one hour before launch. At 9:00:35 a.m. PDT (12:00:35 p.m. EDT), the
rocket dropped, free-falling for five seconds before firing its first-stage motor.

About 13 minutes after the rocket dropped, NuSTAR separated from the rocket, reaching its final
low Earth orbit. The first signal from the spacecraft was received at 9:14 a.m. PDT (12:14 p.m.
EDT) via NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System.

"NuSTAR spread its solar panels to charge the spacecraft battery and then reported back to Earth
of its good health," said Yunjin Kim, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We are checking out the spacecraft now and are excited to tune
into the high-energy X-ray sky."

The mission's unique telescope design includes a 33-foot (10-meter) mast, which was folded up
in a small canister during launch. In about seven days, engineers will command the mast to
extend, enabling the telescope to focus properly. About 23 days later, science operations are
scheduled to begin.

In addition to black holes and their powerful jets, NuSTAR will study a host of high-energy
objects in our universe, including the remains of exploded stars; compact, dead stars; and clusters
of galaxies. The mission's observations, in coordination with other telescopes such as NASA's
Chandra X-ray Observatory, which detects lower-energy X-rays, will help solve fundamental
cosmic mysteries. NuSTAR also will study our sun's fiery atmosphere, looking for clues as to
how it is heated.

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by the Caltech and managed by JPL for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences
Corporation. Its instrument was built by a consortium including Caltech; JPL; the University of
California, Berkeley; Columbia University, New York; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, Livermore, Calif.; and ATK Aerospace Systems, Goleta, Calif. NuSTAR will be
operated by UC Berkeley, with the Italian Space Agency providing its equatorial ground station
located at Malindi, Kenya. The mission's outreach program is based at Sonoma State University,
Rohnert Park, Calif. NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by
Caltech for NASA.

Launch management and government oversight for the mission are the responsibility of NASA's
Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA's Space Network and
Near Earth Network are providing space communication services for launch and early orbit and
critical periods during the mission.

For more information about NuSTAR, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nustar .

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Monday, June 11, 2012

NASA Mars Rover Team Aims for Landing Closer to Prime Science Site

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

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

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

News release: 2012-168 June 11, 2012

NASA Mars Rover Team Aims for Landing Closer to Prime Science Site

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-168&cid=release_2012-168

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has narrowed the target for its most advanced Mars rover, Curiosity,
which will land on the Red Planet in August. The car-sized rover will arrive closer to its ultimate
destination for science operations, but also closer to the foot of a mountain slope that poses a landing
hazard.

"We're trimming the distance we'll have to drive after landing by almost half," said Pete Theisinger,
Mars Science Laboratory project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"That could get us to the mountain months earlier."

It was possible to adjust landing plans because of increased confidence in precision landing
technology aboard the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, which is carrying the Curiosity rover.
That spacecraft can aim closer without hitting Mount Sharp at the center of Gale crater. Rock layers
located in the mountain are the prime location for research with the rover.

Curiosity is scheduled to land at approximately 10:31 p.m. PDT Aug. 5 (1:31 a.m. EDT, Aug. 6).
Following checkout operations, Curiosity will begin a two-year study of whether the landing vicinity
ever offered an environment favorable for microbial life.

Theisinger and other mission leaders described the target adjustment during an update to reporters on
Monday, June 11, about preparations for landing and for operating Curiosity on Mars.

The landing target ellipse had been approximately 12 miles wide and 16 miles long (20 kilometers by
25 kilometers). Continuing analysis of the new landing system's capabilities has allowed mission
planners to shrink the area to approximately 4 miles wide and 12 miles long (7 kilometers by 20
kilometers), assuming winds and other atmospheric conditions are as predicted.

Even with the smaller ellipse, Curiosity will be able to touch down at a safe distance from steep
slopes at the edge of Mount Sharp.

"We have been preparing for years for a successful landing by Curiosity, and all signs are good," said
Dave Lavery, Mars Science Laboratory program executive at NASA. "However, landing on Mars
always carries risks, so success is not guaranteed. Once on the ground we'll proceed carefully. We
have plenty of time since Curiosity is not as life-limited as the approximate 90-day missions like
NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers and the Phoenix lander."

Since the spacecraft was launched in November 2011, engineers have continued testing and
improving its landing software. Mars Science Laboratory will use an upgraded version of flight
software installed on its computers during the past two weeks. Additional upgrades for Mars surface
operations will be sent to the rover about a week after landing.

Other preparations include upgrades to the rover's software and understanding effects of debris
coming from the drill the rover will use to collect samples from rocks on Mars. Experiments at JPL
indicate that Teflon from the drill could mix with the powdered samples. Testing will continue past
landing with copies of the drill. The rover will deliver the samples to onboard instruments that can
identify mineral and chemical ingredients.

"The material from the drill could complicate, but will not prevent analysis of carbon content in rocks
by one of the rover's 10 instruments. There are workarounds," said John Grotzinger, the mission's
project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Organic carbon compounds in
an environment are one prerequisite for life. We know meteorites deliver non-biological organic
carbon to Mars, but not whether it persists near the surface. We will be checking for that and for other
chemical and mineral clues about habitability."

Curiosity will be in good company as it nears landing. Two NASA Mars orbiters, along with a
European Space Agency orbiter, will be in position to listen to radio transmissions as Mars Science
Laboratory descends through Mars' atmosphere.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Curiosity
was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity
http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

For more information on the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/msl

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NuSTAR to Drop From Plane and Rocket Into Space

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
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PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2012-169 June 11, 2012

NuSTAR to Drop From Plane and Rocket Into Space

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-169&cid=release_2012-169

NASA's NuSTAR mission is scheduled to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the central
Pacific Ocean on June 13, no earlier than 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT). The
observatory, which will hunt for black holes and other exotic objects using specialized X-
ray eyes, will be launched from a Pegasus XL rocket carried by an Orbital Science
Corporation L-1011 "Stargazer" plane. The plane will take off from Kwajalein Atoll an
hour before launch, flying out over the Pacific Ocean.

About five seconds before launch, the Pegasus XL rocket -- also from Orbital -- will drop
from the plane, ignite and propel NuSTAR to space. A video showing a previous Pegasus
launch is online at
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=80521 .

Why launch from the air? Plane-assisted launches are less expensive than those that take
place from the ground. Less fuel is needed to boost cargo away from the pull of Earth's
gravity. NuSTAR is part of NASA's Small Explorer program, which builds focused
science missions at relatively low costs.

If all goes as planned, the following milestones will occur on June 13. Times listed are
for a launch at the start of a four-hour window.

Takeoff

The Stargazer carrier aircraft, with the Pegasus launch vehicle and NuSTAR spacecraft
strapped to its belly, will take off from Kwajalein's Bucholz Auxiliary Airfield an hour
before launch, and climb to an altitude of about 39,000 feet (11,900 meters). This should
occur around 7:30 a.m. PDT (10:30 a.m. EDT).

The Drop

The carrier aircraft will release the Pegasus rocket at 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT).
The rocket will free-fall for about five seconds before igniting.

Ignition

At about 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT), the rocket carrying NuSTAR will ignite. Its
first-stage motor will burn for 70 seconds and then drop away. The second-stage motor
will burn for about a minute-and-a-half.

Splitting the Nose Cone

While the second stage is burning, pyrotechnic devices will be fired to release the nose
cone, or fairing, that encapsulates the observatory. NuSTAR will be exposed to space for
the first time. This event is scheduled to occur around 8:33 a.m. PDT (11:33 a.m. EDT).

Separating From the Rocket

At about 8:43 a.m. PDT (11:43 a.m. EDT), 13 minutes after the initial release from the
Stargazer, NuSTAR will separate from the Pegasus rocket's third stage. At this point,
NuSTAR will be in its final orbit -- a low-Earth equatorial orbit at an altitude of
approximately 340 miles (600 kilometers) and an inclination of six degrees.

Phoning Home

When NuSTAR separates from the Pegasus, the satellite's system that controls its
orientation in space, or "attitude," will begin to stabilize it, and the spacecraft solar arrays
will be deployed. Around this time, its first signal will be received on the ground via
NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. Over the following week, NuSTAR
personnel will perform a series of checkouts to ensure that all spacecraft subsystems are
operating nominally.

Deploying the Boom

Roughly one week after launch, engineers will command NuSTAR to deploy its lengthy
33-foot (10-meter) boom, allowing the telescope to focus X-ray light into crisp images.
Unlike visible-light telescopes, X-ray telescopes require a long distance between the
mirrors and detectors to focus the light. It's a bit like wearing glasses a few feet away
from your face.

Science operations are expected to begin about 30 days after launch.

On launch day, live commentary and coverage will be broadcast online beginning at 7
a.m. PDT (10 a.m. EDT) at http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and at
http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft was built by Orbital
Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va. Its instrument was built by a consortium including
Caltech; JPL; the University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University, New York;
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University
in Denmark; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif.; and ATK
Aerospace Systems, Goleta, Calif. NuSTAR will be operated by UC Berkeley, with the
Italian Space Agency providing its equatorial ground station located at Malindi, Kenya.
The mission's outreach program is based at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, Calif.
NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for
NASA.

Launch management and government oversight for the mission is the responsibility of
NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and
http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .

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Friday, June 8, 2012

WISE Finds Few Brown Dwarfs Close to Home

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 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

News feature: 2012-164 June 8, 2012

WISE Finds Few Brown Dwarfs Close to Home

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-164&cid=release_2012-164

Astronomers are getting to know the neighbors better. Our sun resides within a spiral arm
of our Milky Way galaxy about two-thirds of the way out from the center. It lives in a
fairly calm, suburb-like area with an average number of stellar residents. Recently,
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has been turning up a new crowd
of stars close to home: the coldest of the brown dwarf family of "failed" stars.

Now, just as scientists are "meeting and greeting" the new neighbors, WISE has a
surprise in store: are far fewer brown dwarfs around us than predicted.

"This is a really illuminating result," said Davy Kirkpatrick of the WISE science team at
NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. "Now that we're finally seeing the solar neighborhood with
keener, infrared vision, the little guys aren't as prevalent as we once thought."

Previous estimates had predicted as many brown dwarfs as typical stars, but the new
initial tally from WISE shows just one brown dwarf for every six stars. It's the cosmic
equivalent to finally being able to see down a mysterious, gated block and finding only a
few homes.

Nonetheless, the observations are providing crucial information about how these exotic
worlds form, and hinting at what their population densities might be like in our galaxy
and beyond.

"WISE is finding new, cold worlds that are ripe for exploration in their own right," said
Kirkpatrick. "We think they can form by several different mechanisms, including having
their growth stunted by a variety of factors that prevent them from becoming full-blown
stars. Still, we don't know exactly how this process works."

WISE was launched in 2009 and surveyed the entire sky in infrared light in 2010. One of
the mission's main science goals was to survey the sky for the elusive brown dwarfs.
These small bodies start their lives like stars, but lack the bulk required to burn nuclear
fuel. With time, they cool and fade, making them difficult to find.

Improvements in WISE's infrared vision over past missions have allowed it to pick up the
faint glow of many of these hidden objects. In August 2011, the mission announced the
discovery of the coolest brown dwarfs spotted yet, a new class of stars called Y dwarfs.
One of the Y dwarfs is less than 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius), or about
room temperature, making it the coldest star-like body known. Since then, the WISE
science team has surveyed the entire landscape around our sun and discovered 200 brown
dwarfs, including 13 Y dwarfs.

Determining the distances to these objects is a key factor in knowing their population
density in our solar neighborhood. After carefully measuring the distance to several of the
coldest brown dwarfs via a method called parallax, the scientists were able to estimate the
distances to all the newfound brown dwarfs. They concluded that about 33 brown dwarfs
reside within 26 light-years of sun. There are 211 stars within this same volume of space,
so that means there are about six stars for every brown dwarf.

"Having fewer brown dwarfs than expected in our celestial backyard just means that each
new one we discover plays a critical role in our overall understanding of these cold
objects," said Chris Gelino, a co-author of the new research who is also at the Infrared
Processing and Analysis Center. "These brown dwarfs are fascinating objects that are
bridging the gap between the coldest stars and Jupiter."

Kirkpatrick emphasized that the results are still preliminary: it is highly likely that WISE
will discover additional Y dwarfs, but not in vast numbers, and probably not closer than
the closest known star, Proxima Centauri. Those discoveries could bring the ratio of
brown dwarfs to stars up a bit, to about 1:5 or 1:4, but not to the 1:1 level previously
anticipated.

"This is how science progresses as we obtain better and better data," said Kirkpatrick.
"With WISE, we were able to test our predictions and show they were wrong. We had
made extrapolations based on discoveries from projects like the Two-Micron All-Sky
Survey, but WISE is giving us our first look at the coldest brown dwarfs we're only now
able to detect."

The new observations still allow the possibility of free-floating planets up to a few times
the mass of Jupiter beyond a few light-years from the sun, which other surveys have
predicted might exist. Those bodies would be too faint for WISE to see in the processed
data in hand.

The new results are due to appear in the July 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
Other authors are: Michael Cushing of the University of Toledo, Ohio; Gregory Mace,
Ian McLean and Ned Wright from UCLA; Roger Griffith and Kenneth Marsh of the
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech; Michael Skrutskie of the University
of Virginia, Charlottesville; Peter Eisenhardt and Amy Mainzer of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Adam Burgasser of the University of California,
San Diego; and Christopher Tinney, Stephen Parker, and Graeme Salter of the University
of New South Wales, Australia.

JPL manages, and operated, WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The
spacecraft was put into hibernation mode after it scanned the entire sky twice, completing
its main objectives. Edward Wright is the principal investigator and is at UCLA. The
mission was selected competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the
agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was
built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball
Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in 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
and http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .

The Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) mission was a joint effort between Caltech,
the University of Massachusetts and NASA/JPL. Data are archived at the Infrared
Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech.

-end-

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