Public Presentation About Mars Obiter's Images and Findings

Upcoming Event November 26, 2008

Public Presentation About Mars Obiter's Images and Findings

Mars scientists will present dramatic images and key findings from NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter at a free evening program in Pasadena on Thursday,
Dec. 4, celebrating completion of the mission's first two-year science phase.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has already collected more data than all other
past and current Mars missions combined. Its findings point to a complex history
of climate change on the Red Planet, both early in its history and in more recent
times.

The orbiter has cameras examining Mars at scales from revealing details the size
of a desk to providing daily weather observations of the entire planet. Other
instruments map minerals on the surface, probe with radar beneath the surface
and monitor the atmosphere.

The public program will being at 7 p.m. Dec. 4 in the von Karman Auditorium at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena. JPL, a
division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate,
Washington.

JPL's Richard Zurek and Suzanne Smrekar, the project scientist and deputy
project scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, will introduce the evening's
program. Featured presenters will be Roger Phillips of Washington University in
St. Louis, principal investigator for the orbiter's Shallow Subsurface Radar; Scott
Murchie of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel,
Md., principal investigator for the orbiter's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging
Spectrometer for Mars; and Candice Hansen of JPL, deputy principal investigator
for the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera.

Some examples of images taken by that high-resolution camera on the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter are shots of an active avalanche
(http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10245), the landing of NASA's
Phoenix spacecraft (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10705); gullies
(http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10001); and tracks of the Opportunity
rover at Victoria Crater (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09692).

Thousands more examples are on the camera team's Web site,
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ .

More information about the mission is available at
http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ . Directions to JPL are available at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/about_JPL/maps.cfm .

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Enceladus Jets -- Are They Wet or Just Wild?

Enceladus Jets -- Are They Wet or Just Wild?

Scientists continue to search for the cause of the geysers on Saturn's moon
Enceladus. The geysers are visible as a large plume of water vapor and ice
particles escaping the moon. Inside the plume are jets of dust and gas. What
causes and controls the jets is a mystery. The Cassini spacecraft continues to
collect new data to look for clues.

At the heart of the search is the question of whether the jets originate from an
underground source of liquid water. Some theories offer models where the jets
could be caused by mechanisms that do not require liquid water. Painstaking
detective work by Cassini scientists is testing the possibilities to get closer to an
answer.

What generates Enceladus' jets is a burning question in planetary science,
because if liquid water is involved, Enceladus would be shown to have everything
it needs, in theory, to provide a habitable environment.

One recent model offered the possibility that the jets could be violent bursts of
volatile ices freshly exposed to space when Saturn's tidal forces would open
vents inside the "tiger stripe" region of the moon's south pole.

New Cassini findings reported in the Nov. 27 issue of the journal Nature,
however, cast doubt on that hypothesis. When Enceladus is farther away from
Saturn, the theory goes, the vents would compress, reducing or shutting off the
jets.

"Our observations do not agree with the predicted timing of the faults opening
and closing due to tidal tension and compression," said JPL scientist Candice
Hansen of Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph team.

At the same time, Hansen said, the new findings support at least one theory that
attributes the jets to a liquid water source inside Enceladus.

Hansen and her team conducted experiments in 2005 and 2007 to observe
starlight passing through Enceladus' plume. During this so-called "stellar
occultation," the spectrometer measured the water vapor content and density of
the jets. The experiment tested the prediction that a greater amount of material
would be measured coming from open fissures in 2005, and less material in 2007
when the fissures would be closing.

Instead, reports Hansen, the opposite was found to be true. The observations
showed that the plume was almost two times as dense in 2007 as in 2005,
contradicting the model that holds tidal squeezing is in control of the plumes.
"We don't rule it out entirely because of the different geometries of our two
occultation, but we also definitely do not substantiate this hypothesis," said
Hansen.

Hansen said the new Cassini observations, however, do support a mathematical
model developed in 2007, which treats the vents as nozzles that channel water
vapor from a warm, probably liquid source, to the surface at supersonic speeds.

The authors of that model theorize that only high temperatures close to the
melting point of water ice could account for the large number of ice particles
present in steady state in Enceladus' jets. A liquid water source inside
Enceladus, they said, could be similar to Earth's Lake Vostok, beneath
Antarctica, where liquid water exists beneath the ice. In Enceladus' case, the ice
grains would then condense from the vapor escaping from the water source and
stream through cracks in the ice crust to the surface and out into space.

What causes and controls the jets, and whether there is liquid water remain
uncertain, but there may be more clues soon, because Enceladus is a prime
target for Cassini to study in its extended Equinox Mission. The presence of
liquid water inside Enceladus would have major implications for future
astrobiological studies on the possibility of life within icy bodies of the outer solar
system.

For more information:

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. JPL designed, developed and
assembled the Cassini orbiter.

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NASA Prepares for New Juno Mission to Jupiter

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

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

News release: 2008-222 November 24, 2008

NASA Prepares for New Juno Mission to Jupiter

WASHINGTON -- NASA is officially moving forward on a mission to conduct an
unprecedented, in-depth study of Jupiter.

Called Juno, the mission will be the first in which a spacecraft is placed in a highly elliptical
polar orbit around the giant planet to understand its formation, evolution and structure.
Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental
processes and conditions that governed our early solar system.

"Jupiter is the archetype of giant planets in our solar system and formed very early,
capturing most of the material left after the sun formed," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal
investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Unlike Earth, Jupiter's
giant mass allowed it to hold onto its original composition, providing us with a way of tracing
our solar system's history."

The spacecraft is scheduled to launch aboard an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in
August 2011, reaching Jupiter in 2016. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 32 times, skimming
about 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) over the planet's cloud tops for approximately one
year. The mission will be the first solar powered spacecraft designed to operate despite the
great distance from the sun.

"Jupiter is more than 644 million kilometers (400 million miles) from the sun or five times
further than Earth," Bolton said. "Juno is engineered to be extremely energy efficient."

The spacecraft will use a camera and nine science instruments to study the hidden world
beneath Jupiter's colorful clouds. The suite of science instruments will investigate the
existence of an ice-rock core, Jupiter's intense magnetic field, water and ammonia clouds in
the deep atmosphere, and explore the planet's aurora borealis.

"In Greek and Roman mythology, Jupiter's wife Juno peered through Jupiter's veil of clouds
to watch over her husband's mischief," said Professor Toby Owen, co-investigator at the
University of Hawaii in Honolulu. "Our Juno looks through Jupiter's clouds to see what the
planet is up to, not seeking signs of misbehavior, but searching for whispers of water, the
ultimate essence of life."

Understanding the formation of Jupiter is essential to understanding the processes that led
to the development of the rest of our solar system and what the conditions were that led to
Earth and humankind. Similar to the sun, Jupiter is composed mostly of hydrogen and
helium. A small percentage of the planet is composed of heavier elements. However,
Jupiter has a larger percentage of these heavier elements than the sun.

"Juno's extraordinarily accurate determination of the gravity and magnetic fields of Jupiter
will enable us to understand what is going on deep down in the planet," said Professor
Dave Stevenson, co-investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
"These and other measurements will inform us about how Jupiter's constituents are
distributed, how Jupiter formed and how it evolved, which is a central part of our growing
understanding of the nature of our solar system."

Deep in Jupiter's atmosphere, under great pressure, hydrogen gas is squeezed into a fluid
known as metallic hydrogen. At these great depths, the hydrogen acts like an electrically
conducting metal which is believed to be the source of the planet's intense magnetic field.
Jupiter also may have a rocky solid core at the center.

"Juno gives us a fantastic opportunity to get a picture of the structure of Jupiter in a way
never before possible," said James Green, director of NASA's Planetary Division at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "It will allow us to take a giant step forward in our
understanding on how giant planets form and the role that plays in putting the rest of the
solar system together. "

The Juno mission is the second spacecraft designed under NASA's New Frontiers
Program. The first was the Pluto New Horizons mission, launched in January 2006 and
scheduled to reach Pluto's moon Charon in 2015. The program provides opportunities to
carry out several medium-class missions identified as top priority objectives in the Decadal
Solar System Exploration Survey, conducted by the Space Studies Board of the National
Research Council in Washington.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission.
Lockheed Martin of Denver is building the spacecraft. The Italian Space Agency is
contributing an infrared spectrometer instrument and a portion of the radio science
experiment.

For more information about the Juno mission, visit: http://juno.nasa.gov

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Dawn Glides Into New Year

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Dawn Glides Into New Year Nov. 20, 2008

JPL's Dawn spacecraft shut down its ion propulsion system today as scheduled.
The spacecraft is now gliding toward a Mars flyby in February of next year.

"Dawn has completed the thrusting it needs to use Mars for a gravity assist to
help get us to Vesta," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer, of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Dawn will now coast in its orbit around
the sun for the next half a year before we again fire up the ion propulsion system
to continue our journey to the asteroid belt."

Dawn's ion engines may get a short workout next January to provide any final
orbital adjustments prior to its encounter with the Red Planet. Ions are also
scheduled to fly out of the propulsion system during some systems testing in
spring. But mostly, Dawn's three ion engines will remain silent until June, when
they will again speed Dawn toward its first appointment, with asteroid Vesta.

Dawn's ion engines are vital to the success of the misson's 8-year, 4.9-billion-
kilometer (3-billion-mile) journey to asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres. One
of these extremely frugal powerhouses can generate more than 24 hours of
thrusting while consuming about .26 kilograms (about 9 ounces) of the
spacecraft's xenon fuel supply -- less than the contents of a can of soda. Over
their lifetime, Dawn's three ion propulsion engines will fire cumulatively for about
50,000 hours (over five years) -- a record for spacecraft.

Dawn will begin its exploration of asteroid Vesta in 2011 and the dwarf planet
Ceres in 2015. These two icons of the asteroid belt have been witness to so
much of our solar system's history. By utilizing the same set of instruments at two
separate destinations, scientists can more accurately formulate comparisons and
contrasts. Dawn's science instrument suite will measure shape, surface
topography, tectonic history, elemental and mineral composition, and will seek
out water-bearing minerals. In addition, the Dawn spacecraft itself and how it
orbits both Vesta and Ceres will be used to measure the celestial bodies' masses
and gravity fields.

The Dawn mission to asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres is managed and
operated by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The
University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission
science. Other scientific partners include: Max Planck Institute for Solar System
Research, Katlenburg, Germany; DLR Institute for Planetary Research, Berlin,
Germany; Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, Rome; and the Italian Space
Agency. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the
Dawn spacecraft.

Additional information about Dawn is online at http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

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NASA Spacecraft Detects Buried Glaciers on Mars

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: 2008-220 November 20, 2008

NASA Spacecraft Detects Buried Glaciers on Mars

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed vast Martian glaciers of
water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris at much lower latitudes than any ice previously
identified on the Red Planet.

Scientists analyzed data from the spacecraft's ground-penetrating radar and report in the Nov. 21
issue of the journal Science that buried glaciers extend for dozens of miles from edges of mountains
or cliffs. A layer of rocky debris blanketing the ice may have preserved the underground glaciers as
remnants from an ice sheet that covered middle latitudes during a past ice age. This discovery is
similar to massive ice glaciers that have been detected under rocky coverings in Antarctica.

"Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that is
not in the polar caps," said John W. Holt of the University of Texas at Austin, who is lead author of
the report. "Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles
and up to one-half-mile thick. And there are many more. In addition to their scientific value, they
could be a source of water to support future exploration of Mars."

Scientists have been puzzled by what are known as aprons – gently sloping areas containing rocky
deposits at the bases of taller geographical features – since NASA's Viking orbiters first observed
them on the Martian surface in the 1970s. One theory has been that the aprons are flows of rocky
debris lubricated by a small amount of ice. Now, the shallow radar instrument on the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter has provided scientists an answer to this Martian puzzle.

"These results are the smoking gun pointing to the presence of large amounts of water ice at these
latitudes," said Ali Safaeinili, a shallow-radar instruments team member with NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Radar echoes received by the spacecraft indicated radio waves pass through the aprons and reflect off
a deeper surface below without significant loss in strength. That is expected if the apron areas are
composed of thick ice under a relatively thin covering. The radar does not detect reflections from the
interior of these deposits as would occur if they contained significant rock debris. The apparent
velocity of radio waves passing through the apron is consistent with a composition of water ice.

Scientists developed the shallow radar instrument for the orbiter to examine these mid-latitude
geographical features and layered deposits at the Martian poles. The Italian Space Agency provided
the instrument.

"We developed the instrument so it could operate on this kind of terrain," said Roberto Seu, leader of
the instrument science team at the University of Rome La Sapienza in Italy. "It is now a priority to
observe other examples of these aprons to determine whether they are also ice."

Holt and 11 co-authors report the buried glaciers lie in the Hellas Basin region of Mars' southern
hemisphere. The radar also has detected similar-appearing aprons extending from cliffs in the
northern hemisphere.

"There's an even larger volume of water ice in the northern deposits," said JPL geologist Jeffrey J.
Plaut, who will be publishing results about these deposits in the American Geophysical Union's
Geophysical Research Letters. "The fact these features are in the same latitude bands, about 35 to 60
degrees in both hemispheres, points to a climate-driven mechanism for explaining how they got
there."

The rocky debris blanket topping the glaciers apparently has protected the ice from vaporizing, which
would happen if it were exposed to the atmosphere at these latitudes.

"A key question is, how did the ice get there in the first place?" said James W. Head of Brown
University, Providence, R.I. "The tilt of Mars' spin axis sometimes gets much greater than it is now.
Climate modeling tells us ice sheets could cover mid-latitude regions of Mars during those high-tilt
periods. The buried glaciers make sense as preserved fragments from an ice age millions of years
ago. On Earth, such buried glacial ice in Antarctica preserves the record of traces of ancient
organisms and past climate history."

JPL manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro

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Site List Narrows For NASA's Next Mars Landing

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

News release: 2008-219 November 19, 2008

Site List Narrows For NASA's Next Mars Landing

PASADENA, Calif. -- Four intriguing places on Mars have risen to the final round as NASA
selects a landing site for its next Mars mission, the Mars Science Laboratory.

The agency had a wider range of possible landing sites to choose from than for any previous
mission, thanks to the Mars Science Laboratory's advanced technologies, and the highly
capable orbiters helping this mission identify scientifically compelling places to explore.

Mars Science Laboratory project leaders at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif., chose the four this month, after seeking input from international Mars experts and from
engineers working on the landing system and rover capabilities.

The sites, alphabetically, are: Eberswalde, where an ancient river deposited a delta in a
possible lake; Gale, with a mountain of stacked layers including clays and sulfates; Holden, a
crater containing alluvial fans, flood deposits, possible lake beds and clay-rich deposits; and
Mawrth, which shows exposed layers containing at least two types of clay.

"All four of these sites would be great places to use our roving laboratory to study the
processes and history of early Martian environments and whether any of these environments
were capable of supporting microbial life and its preservation as biosignatures," said John
Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. He is the project scientist for
the Mars Science Laboratory.

The mission's capabilities for landing more precisely than ever before and for generating
electricity without reliance on sunshine have made landing sites eligible that would not have
been acceptable for past Mars missions. During the past two years, multiple observations of
dozens of candidate sites by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have augmented data
from earlier orbiters for evaluating sites' scientific attractions and engineering risks.

JPL is assembling and testing the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for launch in fall 2009.
Paring the landing-site list to four finalists allows the team to focus further on evaluating the
sites and planning the navigation. The mission plan calls for the rover to spend a full Mars
year (23 months) examining the environment with a diverse payload of tools.

After evaluating additional Mars orbiter observations of the four sites, NASA will hold a fourth
science workshop about the candidates in the spring and plans to choose a final site next
summer. Three previous landing-site science workshops for Mars Science Laboratory, in
2006, 2007 and two months ago, drew participation of more than 100 Mars scientists and
presentations about more than 30 sites. The four sites rated highest by participants in the
latest workshop were the same ones chosen by mission leaders after a subsequent round of
safety evaluations and analysis of terrain for rover driving. One site, Gale, had been a favorite
of scientists considering 2004 landing sites for NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers, but was
ruled out as too hazardous for the capabilities of those spacecraft.

"Landing on Mars always is a risky balance between science and engineering. The safest
sites are flat, but the spectacular geology is generally where there are ups and downs, such
as hills and canyons. That's why we have engineered this spacecraft to make more sites
qualify as safe," said JPL's Michael Watkins, mission manager for the Mars Science
Laboratory. "This will be the first spacecraft that can adjust its course as it descends through
the Martian atmosphere, responding to variability in the atmosphere. This ability to land in
much smaller areas than previous missions, plus capabilities to land at higher elevations and
drive father, allows us consider more places the scientists want to explore."

For their Mars landings in 2004, Spirit and Opportunity needed safe target areas about 70
kilometers (about 40 miles) long. Mars Science Laboratory is designed to hit a target area
roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter. Also, a new "skycrane" technology to lower the
rover on a tether for the final touchdown can accommodate more slope than the airbag
method used for Spirit and Opportunity. In addition, a radioisotope power supply, like that
used by Mars Viking landers in the 1970s, will enable year-round operation farther from the
equator than the solar power systems of more recent missions.

Gale is near the equator, Eberswalde and Holden are farther south, and Mawrth is in the
north.

As a clay-bearing site where a river once flowed into a lake, Eberswalde Crater offers a
chance to use knowledge that oil industry geologists have accumulated about locations of the
most promising parts of a delta to look for any concentrations of carbon chemistry that is
crucial to life.

The mountain inside Gale Crater could provide a route for the rover to drive up a 5-kilometer
(3-mile) sequence of layers, studying a transition from environments that produced clay
deposits near the bottom to later environments that produced sulfate deposits partway up.

Running water once carved gullies and deposited sediments as alluvial fans and catastrophic
flood deposits in Holden Crater, a site that may also present the chance to evaluate layers
deposited in a lake. Exploration of key features within this target area would require drives to
the edge of a broad valley, and then down into the valley.

Mawrth Valley is an apparent flood channel near the edge of vast Martian highlands. It holds
different types of clays in clearly layered context, offering an opportunity for studying the
changes in wet conditions that produced or altered the clays. The clay signatures are
stronger than at the other sites, and this is the only one of the four for which the science
target is within the landing area, not nearby.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars
Science Laboratory for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For additional
information about the mission, see http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.

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NASA Plans Test of 'Electronic Nose' on International Space Station

Rhea Borja
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0850
Rhea.R.Borja@jpl.nasa.gov
Grey Hautaluoma/Ashley Edwards
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668/1756
grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov
ashley.edwards-1@nasa.gov
News release : 2008-218 November 19, 2008

NASA Plans Test of 'Electronic Nose' on International Space Station
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA astronauts on Space Shuttle Endeavour's STS-126 mission
will install an instrument on the International Space Station that can "smell" dangerous
chemicals in the air. Designed to help protect crew members' health and safety, the
experimental "ENose" will monitor the space station's environment for chemicals such
as ammonia, mercury, methanol and formaldehyde.

The ENose fills the long-standing gap between onboard alarms and complex analytical
instruments. Air-quality problems have occurred on the International Space Station,
space shuttle and Russian Space Station Mir. In most cases, the chemicals were
identified only after the crew had been exposed to them, if at all. The ENose, which will
run continuously and autonomously, is the first instrument on station that will detect and
quantify chemical leaks or spills as they happen.

"The ENose is a 'first-responder' that will alert crew members of possible contaminants
in the air and also analyze and quantify targeted changes in cabin environment," said
Margaret A. Ryan, the principal investigator of the ENose project at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, in Pasadena, Calif. JPL built and manages the device.
Station crew members will unpack the ENose on Dec. 9 to begin the instrument's six-
month demonstration in the crew cabin. If the experiment is successful, the ENose
might be used in future space missions as part of an automated system to monitor and
control astronauts' in-space environments.

"This ENose is a very capable instrument that will increase crew awareness of the state
of their air quality," said Carl Walz, an International Space Station astronaut and
Director for NASA's Advanced Capabilities Division, which funds the ENose. "Having
experienced an air-quality event during my Expedition 4 mission on the space station, I
wish I had the information that this ENose will provide future crews. This technology
demonstration will provide important information for environmental control and life-
support system designers for the future lunar outpost."

Specifically, the shoebox-sized ENose contains an array of 32 sensors that can identify
and quantify several organic and inorganic chemical species, including organic solvents
and marker chemicals that signal the start of electrical fires. The ENose sensors are
polymer films that change their electrical conductivity in response to different chemicals.
The pattern of the sensor array's response depends on the particular chemical types
present in the air.

The instrument can analyze volatile aerosols and vapors, help monitor the cleanup of
chemical spills or leaks, and enable more intensive chemical analysis by collecting raw
data and streaming it to a computer at JPL's ENose laboratory. The instrument has a
wide range of chemical sensitivity, from fractional parts per million to 10,000 parts per
million. For all of its capabilities, the ENose weighs less than nine pounds and requires
only 20 watts of power.

The ENose is now in its third generation. The first ENose was tested during a six-day
demonstration on the STS-95 shuttle mission in 1998. That prototype could detect 10
compounds but could not analyze data immediately. The second-generation ENose
could detect, identify and quantify 21 chemical species. It was extensively ground-
tested. The third-generation ENose includes data-analysis software to identify and
quantify the release of chemicals within 40 minutes of detection. While it will look for 10
chemical species in this six-month experiment, the new ENose can be trained to detect
many others.

For more information about the ENose and the Advanced Environmental Monitoring and
Control Project, visit: http://aemc.jpl.nasa.gov/instruments/enose.cfm
For more information about NASA's exploration program, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration
For more information about the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station

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NASA's Quikscat Ocean-Observing Satellite Mission Honored

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

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

News Release: 2008-217 November 18, 2008

NASA's Quikscat Ocean-Observing Satellite Mission Honored

PASADENA, Calif. – An Earth-observing satellite that has provided early detection of ocean
storms and advanced the scientific exploration of global ocean wind patterns has been
recognized for helping scientists better understand our home planet. NASA and the U.S.
Department of the Interior Tuesday presented the William T. Pecora Award to NASA's Quick
Scatterometer, or QuikScat, mission team.

The two agencies present individual and group Pecora Awards annually to honor
outstanding contributions in the field of remote sensing and its application to understanding
Earth. The award was established in 1974 to honor the memory of William T. Pecora, former
director of the U.S. Geological Survey and under secretary of the Department of the Interior.

Bob Doyle, deputy director of the U.S. Geological Survey, and Margaret Luce, acting deputy
director of NASA's Earth Science Division, presented this year's awards in Denver at the
17th William T. Pecora Memorial Remote Sensing Symposium.

Since 1999, the QuikScat team has advanced Earth science research and contributed to
improved environmental predictions using measurements of global radar backscatter of
wind speed and direction over the ice-free oceans. The QuikScat mission was conceived,
developed and launched less than two years after the unexpected loss of the Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency's Advanced Earth Observing Satellite-1 spacecraft, which
carried the NASA scatterometer. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.,
developed QuikScat and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington.

QuikScat measurements have had enormous impact on marine forecasts by enabling early
detection of the location, direction, structure and strength of ocean storms. Data from the
satellite are made available within two hours of acquisition to the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and other international weather forecasting centers to enhance
marine watches and warnings, and to improve the quality of global and regional weather
forecasts. QuickScat data also help monitor changes in Arctic sea ice and icebergs, as well
as snow and soil moisture changes on land.

"We at NASA are very proud of the accomplishment of QuikScat," NASA Associate
Administrator Christopher Scolese said. "The mission has improved our understanding of
Earth, proved valuable to the research and operational communities and demonstrated
great cooperation among NASA centers, industry and academia. It also has developed
some of the best leaders in NASA and aerospace."

The QuikScat mission team includes personnel from JPL; NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md.; Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp. of Boulder, Colo.; the
University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder; and
numerous principal investigators funded by NASA's Ocean Vector Winds science team.

This year's individual Pecora Award recipient is Samuel N. Goward of the University of
Maryland, College Park. Goward, a professor of geography, was recognized for his
"outstanding and sustained scientific leadership in advancing remote-sensing science and
especially the continuation of the Landsat Program." Goward played a key role on the
Landsat 7 science team in planning the acquisition of the most robust, cloud-free global
archive of Landsat imagery ever assembled.

Goward's career has been dedicated to advancing geographic education and Earth
observation science. He currently leads an interagency research team to quantify the recent
history of forest disturbance for the North American Carbon Program. Because of his many
contributions to remote-sensing education, science and programs, Goward also has been
awarded the U.S. Geological Survey John Wesley Powell Award and the American Society
of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Estes Memorial Award.

For more information about the William T. Pecora Award, visit:
http://remotesensing.usgs.gov/pecora.php .
For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov .
For more information about QuikScat, visit:
http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/index.cfm .

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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NASA Tests First Deep-Space Internet

Rhea Borja 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
rhea.r.borja@jpl.nasa.gov

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

Katherine Trinidad 202-358-1100
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Katherine.trinidad@nasa.gov

News Release: 2008-216 November 18, 2008

NASA Tests First Deep-Space Internet

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA has successfully tested the first deep space communications
network modeled on the Internet.

Working as part of a NASA-wide team, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or
DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA science spacecraft
located about more than 32 million kilometers (20 million miles) from Earth.

"This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications capability, an
interplanetary Internet," said Adrian Hooke, team lead and manager of space-
networking architecture, technology and standards at NASA Headquarters in
Washington.

NASA and Vint Cerf, a vice president at Google, Inc., in Mountain View, Calif.,
partnered 10 years ago to develop this software protocol. The DTN sends information
using a method that differs from the normal Internet's Transmission-Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP communication suite, which Cerf co-designed.

The Interplanetary Internet must be robust enough to withstand delays, disruptions and
disconnections in space. Glitches can happen when a spacecraft moves behind a
planet, or when solar storms and long communication delays occur. The delay in
sending or receiving data from Mars takes between three-and-a-half to 20 minutes at
the speed of light.

Unlike TCP/IP on Earth, the DTN does not assume a continuous end-to-end connection.
In its design, if a destination path can't be found, the data packets are not discarded.
Instead, each network node keeps custody of the information as long as necessary until
it can safely communicate with another node. This store-and-forward method, similar to
basketball players safely passing the ball to the player nearest the basket, means that
information does not get lost when no immediate path to the destination exists.
Eventually, the information is delivered to the end user.

"In space today, an operations team has to manually schedule each link and generate
all the commands to specify which data to send, when to send it, and where to send it,"
said Leigh Torgerson, manager of the DTN Experiment Operations Center at JPL. "With
standardized DTN, this can all be done automatically."

Engineers began a month-long series of DTN demonstrations in October. Data were
transmitted using NASA's Deep Space Network in demonstrations occurring twice a
week. Engineers use NASA's Epoxi spacecraft as a Mars data-relay orbiter. Epoxi is on
a mission to encounter Comet Hartley 2 in two years.

"There are 10 nodes on this early interplanetary network," said Scott Burleigh of JPL,
lead software-engineer for the demonstrations. "One is the Epoxi spacecraft itself and
the other nine, which are on the ground at JPL, simulate Mars landers, orbiters and
ground mission-operations centers."

This month-long experiment is the first in a series of planned demonstrations to qualify
the technology for use on a variety of upcoming space missions, said Jay Wyatt,
manager of the Space Networking and Mission Automation Program Office at JPL. In
the next round of testing, a NASA-wide demonstration using new DTN software loaded
on board the International Space Station is scheduled to begin next summer.

In the next few years, the Interplanetary Internet could enable many new types of space
missions. Complex missions involving multiple landed, mobile and orbiting spacecraft
will be far easier to support through the use of the Interplanetary Internet. It could also
ensure reliable communications for astronauts on the surface of the moon.

The Deep Impact Networking Experiment is sponsored by the Space Communications
and Navigation Office in NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate in Washington.
NASA's Science Mission Directorate and Discovery Program in Washington provided
experimental access to the Epoxi spacecraft. The Epoxi mission team provided critical
support throughout development and operations.

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institution of Technology in Pasadena.

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NASA Invites Students to Name New Mars Rover

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: 2008-215 November 18, 2008

NASA Invites Students to Name New Mars Rover

WASHINGTON -- NASA is looking for the right stuff, or in this case, the right name for
the next Mars rover. NASA, in cooperation with Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures'
movie WALL-E from Pixar Animation Studios, will conduct a naming contest for its car-
sized Mars Science Laboratory rover that is scheduled for launch in 2009.

The contest begins Tuesday, Nov. 18, and is open to students 5 to 18 years old who
attend a U.S. school and are enrolled in the current academic year. To enter the
contest, students will submit essays explaining why their suggested name for the rover
should be chosen. Essays must be received by Jan. 25, 2009. In March 2009, the public
will have an opportunity to rank nine finalist names via the Internet as additional input
for judges to consider during the selection process. NASA will announce the winning
rover name in April 2009.

Disney will provide prizes to students submitting winning essays, including a trip to
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where the rover is under
construction. The grand prize winner will have an opportunity to place a signature on the
spacecraft and take part in the history of space exploration.

"Mars exploration has always captured the public imagination," said Mark Dahl, program
executive for the Mars Science Laboratory at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This
contest will expand our ability to inspire students' interest in science and give the public
a chance to participate in NASA's next expedition to Mars."

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in Burbank, Calif., will make it possible for WALL-
E, the name of its animated robotic hero and summer 2008 movie, to appear in online
content inviting students to participate in the naming contest. The online WALL-E
content will provide young viewers with a current connection to the human-robotic
partnership that is transforming discovery and exploration. The contest coincides with
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment's release of WALL-E on DVD and Blu-ray.
The naming contest partnership is part of a Space Act Agreement between NASA and
Disney designed to use the appeal of WALL-E in educational and public outreach
efforts.

"All of us at Disney are delighted to be working with NASA in its educational and public
outreach efforts to teach schoolchildren about space exploration, robot technology and
the universe in which they live," said Mark Zoradi, president of Walt Disney Studios
Motion Pictures Group. "WALL-E is one of the most lovable and entertaining characters
that Pixar has ever created, and he is the perfect spokes-robot for this program."

The Mars Science Laboratory rover will be larger and more capable than any craft
previously sent to land there. It will check whether the environment in a carefully
selected landing region ever has been favorable for supporting microbial life. The rover
will search for minerals that formed in the presence of water and look for several
chemical building blocks of life.

"We are now in a phase when we're building and testing the rover before its journey to
Mars," said John Klein, deputy project manager for the Mars Science Laboratory at JPL.
"As the rover comes together and begins to take shape, the whole team can't wait to
call it by name."

Additional assignments include imaging its surroundings in high definition, analyzing
rocks with a high-powered laser beam, inspecting rocks and soil with a six-foot robotic
arm, and cooking and sniffing rock powder delivered from a hammering drill to
investigate what minerals are in Martian rocks.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars
Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Information about the contest is available at http://marsrovername.jpl.nasa.gov .
More information on Mars Science Laboratory is at
http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

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MRO HiRISE Images - November 12, 2008

MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER HIRISE IMAGES
November 12, 2008

o Structure of the North Polar Layered Deposits
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_010008_2630

o Layers in Candor Mensa Athabasca Valles
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_010027_1745

o Distributary Channels
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_010045_1880

o Knobs, Bright Deposits, and Inverted Channels in Eberswalde Crater
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_010052_1560

All of the HiRISE images are archived here:

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/

Information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is online at
http://www.nasa.gov/mro. The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, for the NASA
Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
of Denver, is the prime contractor and built the spacecraft. HiRISE is operated by t
he University of Arizona. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., of Boulder, Colo.,
built the HiRISE instrument.

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Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star

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

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

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

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-211 Nov. 13, 2008

Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot
of a planet circling another star. The team of astronomers who made the discovery includes
researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits
the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis
Australis, or the "Southern Fish."

Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess of dust was discovered
around the star in the early 1980s by NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite.

In 2004, the coronagraph in the High Resolution Camera on Hubble's Advanced Camera for
Surveys produced the first-ever resolved visible-light image of the region around Fomalhaut. It
clearly showed a ring of protoplanetary debris approximately 21.5 billion miles (34.6 billion
kilometers) across and having a sharp inner edge.

This large debris disk is similar to the Kuiper Belt, which encircles our solar system and contains
a range of icy bodies from dust grains to objects the size of dwarf planets, such as Pluto.

Hubble astronomer Paul Kalas, of the University of California at Berkeley, and team members
proposed in 2005 that the ring was being gravitationally modified by a planet lying between the
star and the ring's inner edge.

Circumstantial evidence came from Hubble's confirmation that the ring is offset from the center
of the star. The sharp inner edge of the ring is also consistent with the presence of a planet that
gravitationally "shepherds" ring particles. Independent researchers have subsequently reached
similar conclusions.

Now, Hubble has actually photographed a point source of light lying 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion
kilometers) inside the ring's inner edge. The results are being reported in the November 14 issue
of Science magazine.

"Our Hubble observations were incredibly demanding. Fomalhaut b is 1 billion times fainter than
the star. We began this program in 2001, and our persistence finally paid off," Kalas said.

"Fomalhaut is the gift that keeps on giving. Following the unexpected discovery of its dust ring,
we have now found an exoplanet at a location suggested by analysis of the dust ring's shape. The
lesson for exoplanet hunters is 'follow the dust,'" said team member Mark Clampin of NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Observations taken 21 months apart by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys' coronagraph
show that the object is moving along a path around the star, and is therefore gravitationally
bound to it. The planet is 10.7 billion miles (17.2 billion kilometers) from the star, or about 10
times the distance of the planet Saturn from our sun.

The planet Fomalhaut b is brighter than expected for an object of three Jupiter masses. One
possibility is that it has a Saturn-like ring of ice and dust reflecting starlight. The ring might
eventually coalesce to form moons. The ring's estimated size is comparable to the region around
Jupiter and its four largest orbiting satellites.

Kalas and his team first used Hubble to photograph Fomalhaut in 2004, and made the unexpected
discovery of its debris disk, which scatters Fomalhaut's starlight. At the time they noted a few
bright sources in the image as planet candidates. A follow-up image in 2006 showed that one of
the objects is moving through space with Fomalhaut, but changed position relative to the ring
since the 2004 exposure. The amount of displacement between the two exposures is exactly as
predicted and corresponds to an 872-year-long orbit as calculated from Kepler's laws of
planetary motion.

Future observations will attempt to see the planet in infrared light and will look for evidence of
water vapor clouds in the atmosphere. This would yield clues to the evolution of a comparatively
newborn 100-million-year-old planet. Astrometric measurements of the planet's orbit will
provide enough precision to yield an accurate mass.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2013, will be able to make
coronagraphic observations of Fomalhaut in near- and mid-infrared wavelengths. Webb will be
able to hunt for other planets in the system and probe the region interior to the dust ring for
structures such as an inner asteroid belt.

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages JPL for NASA.

More information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.nasa.gov/hubble .
More information about JPL is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov .

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NASA's Carbon-Sniffing Satellite Sleuth Arrives at Launch Site

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, D.C.
Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-209 November 12, 2008

NASA's Carbon-Sniffing Satellite Sleuth Arrives at Launch Site

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to studying carbon dioxide, the leading
human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth's climate, has arrived at Vandenberg Air
Force Base, Calif., to begin final launch preparations.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory arrived Tues., Nov. 11, at its launch site on California's central
coast after completing a cross-country trip by truck from its manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corp. in
Dulles, Va. The spacecraft left Orbital on Nov. 8. After final tests, the spacecraft will be integrated
onto an Orbital Sciences Taurus rocket in preparation for its planned January 2009 launch.

The observatory will help solve some of the lingering mysteries in our understanding of Earth's
carbon cycle and its primary atmospheric component, carbon dioxide, a chemical compound that is
produced both naturally and through human activities. Each year, humans release more than 30
billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels. As much as 5.5
billion tons of additional carbon dioxide are released each year by biomass burning, forest fires and
land-use practices such as "slash-and-burn" agriculture. These activities have increased atmospheric
carbon dioxide levels by almost 20 percent during the past 50 years.

Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide trap the sun's heat within Earth's atmosphere, warming it and
keeping it at habitable temperatures. However, scientists have concluded that increases in carbon
dioxide resulting from human activities have thrown Earth's natural carbon cycle out of balance,
increasing global temperatures and changing the planet's climate.

While scientists have a good understanding of carbon dioxide emissions resulting from burning fossil
fuels, their understanding of carbon dioxide from other human-produced and natural sources is
relatively poor. They know from ground measurements that only 40 to 50 percent of the carbon
humans emit remains in Earth's atmosphere; the other 50 to 60 percent, they believe, is absorbed by
Earth's ocean and land plants.

Scientists do not know, however, precisely where the absorbed carbon dioxide from human emissions
is stored, what natural processes are absorbing it, or whether those processes will continue to work to
limit increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the future, as they do now. The observatory's space-
based measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide will have the precision, resolution and coverage
needed to provide the first complete picture of both human and natural sources of carbon dioxide
emissions. It will show the places where they are absorbed, known as "sinks," at regional scales
everywhere on Earth. Its data will reduce uncertainties in forecasts of how much carbon dioxide is in
the atmosphere and improve the accuracy of global climate change predictions.

The observatory's science instrument features three first-of-a-kind, high-resolution spectrometers that
spread reflected sunlight into its various colors. By analyzing these spectra, scientists can detect what
gases are in Earth's atmosphere and determine their amounts. The spectrometers are specifically
tuned to measure the amount of reflected sunlight absorbed by carbon dioxide and molecular oxygen.
These measurements will be analyzed to yield monthly estimates of atmospheric carbon dioxide over
1,000-square-kilometer (621-square-mile) regions of Earth's surface to an accuracy of 0.3 to 0.5
percent. Scientists will analyze these data using global atmospheric chemical transport models,
similar to those used to predict the weather, to locate carbon dioxide sources and sinks.

The observatory will launch into a 705-kilometer (438-mile) near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit
inclined 98.2 degrees to Earth's equator, mapping the globe once every 16 days. The mission is
designed to last two years. It will fly in formation with the five other NASA missions that are part of
the "A-Train," or afternoon constellation, of Earth Observing System satellites that cross the equator
each day shortly after noon. This coordinated flight formation will enable researchers to correlate the
observatory's data with data from the other NASA spacecraft, including nearly simultaneous carbon
dioxide measurements from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory is a NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder Program mission
managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate in Washington. Orbital Sciences provides mission operations under JPL's leadership.
Hamilton Sundstrand in Pomona, Calif., designed and built the observatory's science instrument.
NASA's Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for
launch management. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena.

For more information about the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, visit: http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Cassini Finds Mysterious New Aurora on 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

Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Carolina.Martinez@jpl.nasa.gov

IMAGE ADVISORY: 2008-208 Nov. 12, 2008

Cassini Finds Mysterious New Aurora on Saturn

Saturn has its own unique brand of aurora that lights up the polar cap, unlike any other planetary
aurora known in our solar system. This odd aurora revealed itself to one of the infrared
instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

"We've never seen an aurora like this elsewhere," said Tom Stallard, a scientist working with
Cassini data at the University of Leicester, England. Stallard is lead author of a paper that
appears in the Nov. 13 issue of the journal Nature. "It's not just a ring of auroras like those we've
seen at Jupiter or Earth. This aurora covers an enormous area across the pole. Our current ideas
on what forms Saturn's aurora predict that this region should be empty, so finding such a bright
aurora here is a fantastic surprise."

The new views are available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Auroras are caused by charged particles streaming along the magnetic field lines of a planet into
its atmosphere. Particles from the sun cause Earth's auroras. Many, but not all, of the auroras at
Jupiter and Saturn are caused by particles trapped within the magnetic environments of those
planets.

Jupiter's main auroral ring, caused by interactions internal to Jupiter's magnetic environment, is
constant in size. Saturn's main aurora, which is caused by the solar wind, changes size
dramatically as the wind varies. The newly observed aurora at Saturn, however, doesn't fit into
either category.

"Saturn's unique auroral features are telling us there is something special and unforeseen about
this planet's magnetosphere and the way it interacts with the solar wind and the planet's
atmosphere," said Nick Achilleos, Cassini scientist on the Cassini magnetometer team at the
University College London. "Trying to explain its origin will no doubt lead us to physics which
uniquely operates in the environment of Saturn."

The new infrared aurora appears in a region hidden from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope,
which has provided views of Saturn's ultraviolet aurora. Cassini observed it when the spacecraft
flew near Saturn's polar region. In infrared light, the aurora sometimes fills the region from
around 82 degrees north all the way over the pole. This new aurora is also constantly changing,
even disappearing within a 45 minute-period.

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 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.

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Dusty Shock Waves Generate Planet Ingredients

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

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

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-0207 Nov. 11, 2008

Dusty Shock Waves Generate Planet Ingredients

Shock waves around dusty, young stars might be creating the raw materials for planets,
according to new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

The evidence comes in the form of tiny crystals. Spitzer detected crystals similar in
make-up to quartz around young stars just beginning to form planets. The crystals, called
cristobalite and tridymite, are known to reside in comets, in volcanic lava flows on Earth,
and in some meteorites that land on Earth.

Astronomers already knew that crystallized dust grains stick together to form larger
particles, which later lump together to form planets. But they were surprised to find
cristobalite and tridymite. What's so special about these particular crystals? They require
flash heating events, such as shock waves, to form.

The findings suggest that the same kinds of shock waves that cause sonic booms from
speeding jets are responsible for creating the stuff of planets throughout the universe.

"By studying these other star systems, we can learn about the very beginnings of our own
planets 4.6 billion years ago," said William Forrest of the University of Rochester, N.Y.
"Spitzer has given us a better idea of how the raw materials of planets are produced very
early on." Forrest and University of Rochester graduate student Ben Sargent led the
research, to appear in the Astrophysical Journal.

Planets are born out of swirling pancake-like disks of dust and gas that surround young
stars. They start out as mere grains of dust swimming around in a disk of gas and dust,
before lumping together to form full-fledged planets. During the early stages of planet
development, the dust grains crystallize and adhere together, while the disk itself starts to
settle and flatten. This occurs in the first millions of years of a star's life.

When Forrest and his colleagues used Spitzer to examine five young planet-forming disks
about 400 light-years away, they detected the signature of silica crystals. Silica is made of
only silicon and oxygen and is the main ingredient in glass. When melted and
crystallized, it can make the large hexagonal quartz crystals often sold as mystical tokens.
When heated to even higher temperatures, it can also form small crystals like those
commonly found around volcanoes.

It is this high-temperature form of silica crystals, specifically cristobalite and tridymite,
that Forrest's team found in planet-forming disks around other stars for the first time.
"Cristobalite and tridymite are essentially high-temperature forms of quartz," said
Sargent. "If you heat quartz crystals, you'll get these compounds."

In fact, the crystals require temperatures as high as 1,220 Kelvin (about 1,740 degrees
Fahrenheit) to form. But young planet-forming disks are only about 100 to 1,000 Kelvin
(about minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit to 1,340 Fahrenheit) -- too cold to make the
crystals. Because the crystals require heating followed by rapid cooling to form,
astronomers theorized that shock waves could be the cause.

Shock waves, or supersonic waves of pressure, are thought to be created in planet-
forming disks when clouds of gas swirling around at high speeds collide. Some theorists
think that shock waves might also accompany the formation of giant planets.

The findings are in agreement with local evidence from our own solar system. Spherical
pebbles, called chondrules, found in ancient meteorites that fell to Earth are also thought
to have been crystallized by shock waves in our solar system's young planet-forming
disk. In addition, NASA's Stardust mission found tridymite minerals in comet Wild 2.

Other authors of the paper include C. Tayrien, M.K. McClure, A.R. Basu, P. Mano, Dan
Watson, C.J. Bohac, K.H. Kim and J.D. Green of the University of Rochester; A Li of the
University of Missouri, Columbia; E. Furlan of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., and G.C. Sloan of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.

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, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for
NASA. Spitzer's infrared spectrograph, which made the observations, was built by
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Its development was led by Jim Houck of Cornell.

More information about Spitzer is at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer and
http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer . More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-
finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Mars Phoenix Lander Finishes Successful Work on Red Planet

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

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

Lori Stiles 520-626-4402
University of Arizona, Tucson
lstiles@email.arizona.edu

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-205 Nov. 10, 2008

Mars Phoenix Lander Finishes Successful Work on Red Planet

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications after
operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot's
arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power
necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander's instruments.

Mission engineers last received a signal from the lander on Nov. 2. Phoenix, in addition to
shorter daylight, has encountered a dustier sky, more clouds and colder temperatures as the
northern Mars summer approaches autumn. The mission exceeded its planned operational life of
three months to conduct and return science data.

The project team will be listening carefully during the next few weeks to hear if Phoenix revives
and phones home. However, engineers now believe that is unlikely because of the worsening
weather conditions on Mars. While the spacecraft's work has ended, the analysis of data from the
instruments is in its earliest stages.

"Phoenix has given us some surprises, and I'm confident we will be pulling more gems from this
trove of data for years to come," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the
University of Arizona in Tucson.

Launched Aug. 4, 2007, Phoenix landed May 25, 2008, farther north than any previous
spacecraft to land on the Martian surface. The lander dug, scooped, baked, sniffed and tasted the
Red Planet's soil. Among early results, it verified the presence of water-ice in the Martian
subsurface, which NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter first detected remotely in 2002. Phoenix's
cameras also returned more than 25,000 pictures from sweeping vistas to near the atomic level
using the first atomic force microscope ever used outside Earth.

"Phoenix not only met the tremendous challenge of landing safely, it accomplished scientific
investigations on 149 of its 152 Martian days as a result of dedicated work by a talented team,"
said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif.

Phoenix's preliminary science accomplishments advance the goal of studying whether the
Martian arctic environment has ever been favorable for microbes. Additional findings include
documenting a mildly alkaline soil environment unlike any found by earlier Mars missions;
finding small concentrations of salts that could be nutrients for life; discovering perchlorate salt,
which has implications for ice and soil properties; and finding calcium carbonate, a marker of
effects of liquid water.

Phoenix findings also support the goal of learning the history of water on Mars. These findings
include excavating soil above the ice table, revealing at least two distinct types of ice deposits;
observing snow descending from clouds; providing a mission-long weather record, with data on
temperature, pressure, humidity and wind; observations of haze, clouds, frost and whirlwinds;
and coordinating with NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to perform simultaneous ground
and orbital observations of Martian weather.

"Phoenix provided an important step to spur the hope that we can show Mars was once habitable
and possibly supported life," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at
NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Phoenix was supported by orbiting NASA spacecraft
providing communications relay while producing their own fascinating science. With the
upcoming launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, the Mars Program never sleeps."

The University of Arizona leads the Phoenix mission with project management at JPL and
development partnership at Lockheed Martin Corporation in Denver. International contributions
came from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the
universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; the
Finnish Meteorological Institute; and Imperial College of London.

For additional information about Phoenix mission findings, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix or http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu .
uble
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Mars Odyssey THEMIS Images: November 3-7, 2008

MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES
November 3-7, 2008

o Dunes and Channel (Released 03 November 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20081103a

o Crater Dunes (Released 04 November 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20081104a

o Crater Dunes (Released 05 November 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20081105a

o Delta (Released 06 November 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20081106a

o Dust Devil Tracks (Released 07 November 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20081107a

All of the THEMIS images are archived here:

http://themis.asu.edu/latest.html

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission
for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Thermal Emission
Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University,
Tempe, in co.oration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing.
The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at Arizona State
University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor
for the Odyssey project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission
operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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MRO HiRISE Images - November 5, 2008

MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER HIRISE IMAGES
November 5, 2008

o Impact Crater amid the Deuteronilus Mensae
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_009654_2245

o Confluence of Valley and Crater
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_009669_1500

o Ancient Layered Rocks in Nili Fossae
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_009929_2020

o Inverted Channel and Yardangs in Aeolis Mensae
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_009966_1735

All of the HiRISE images are archived here:

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/

Information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is online at
http://www.nasa.gov/mro. The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, for the NASA
Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
of Denver, is the prime contractor and built the spacecraft. HiRISE is operated by t
he University of Arizona. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., of Boulder, Colo.,
built the HiRISE instrument.

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