New NASA Web Site Launches Kids on Mission to Save Our 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

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

INTERNET ADVISORY: 2010-033 Jan. 28, 2010

New NASA Web Site Launches Kids on Mission to Save Our Planet

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-033&cid=release_2010-033

Climate change can be a daunting topic for most adults to grasp, let alone kids. A new
NASA Web site can help our future explorers and leaders understand how and why their
planet is changing and what they can do to help keep it habitable.

Called "Climate Kids," the new Web site is the latest companion to NASA's award-
winning Global Climate Change Web site, http://climate.nasa.gov . Geared toward
students in grades 4 through 6, the multimedia-rich Climate Kids site uses age-appropriate
language, games and humorous illustrations and animations to help break down the
important issue of climate change. Climate Kids can be found at
http://climate.nasa.gov/kids .

Visitors to Climate Kids can:

- Command an interactive Climate Time Machine to travel back and forth through
time and see how climate changes have affected our world or may affect it in the
future.
- Choose the "greenest" transportation options in a game called "Go Green," or go
on a "Wild Weather Adventure."
- Learn about green careers from people who are working to understand climate
change.

"The climate our children inherit will be different from what we as adults know today,"
said Diane Fisher of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who
developed the content for the site. "Climate Kids aims to answer some of the big
questions about global climate change using simple, fun illustrations and language kids
can relate to, helping them become better stewards of our fragile planet. Students will
learn basic Earth science concepts such as what the difference is between weather and
climate, how we know Earth's climate is changing and what the greenhouse effect is."

Climate Kids is a collaboration between JPL's Earth Science Communications Team and
NASA's award-winning Space Place website, which is at http://spaceplace.nasa.gov .

NASA's Global Climate Change Web site is devoted to educating the public about
Earth's changing climate, providing easy-to-understand information about the causes and
effects of climate change and how NASA studies it. For more on NASA's Earth Science
Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov.

JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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NASA Airborne Radar to Study Quake Faults in Haiti, Dominican Republic

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

Beth Hagenauer 661-276-7960
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.
Beth.hagenauer@nasa.gov

News release: 2010-031 Jan. 26, 2010

NASA Airborne Radar to Study Quake Faults in Haiti, Dominican Republic

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-031&cid=release_2010-031

PASADENA, Calif. – In response to the disaster in Haiti on Jan. 12, NASA has added a series of
science overflights of earthquake faults in Haiti and the Dominican Republic on the island of
Hispaniola to a previously scheduled three-week airborne radar campaign to Central America.

NASA's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, or UAVSAR, left NASA's Dryden
Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., on Jan. 25 aboard a modified NASA Gulfstream III
aircraft.

During its trek to Central America, which will run through mid-February, the repeat-pass L-band
wavelength radar, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will study the
structure of tropical forests; monitor volcanic deformation and volcano processes; and examine
Mayan archeology sites. After the Haitian earthquake, NASA managers added additional science
objectives that will allow UAVSAR's unique observational capabilities to study geologic processes in
Hispaniola following the earthquake. UAVSAR's ability to provide rapid access to regions of
interest, short repeat flight intervals, high resolution and its variable viewing geometry make it a
powerful tool for studying ongoing Earth processes.

"UAVSAR will allow us to image deformations of Earth's surface and other changes associated with
post-Haiti earthquake geologic processes, such as aftershocks, earthquakes that might be triggered by
the main earthquake farther down the fault line, and the potential for landslides," said JPL's Paul
Lundgren, the principal investigator for the Hispaniola overflights. "Because of Hispaniola's complex
tectonic setting, there is an interest in determining if the earthquake in Haiti might trigger other
earthquakes at some unknown point in the future, either along adjacent sections of the Enriquillo-
Plantain Garden fault that was responsible for the main earthquake, or on other faults in northern
Hispaniola, such as the Septentrional fault."

Lundgren says these upcoming flights, and others NASA will conduct in the coming weeks, months
and years, will help scientists better assess the geophysical processes associated with earthquakes
along large faults and better understand the risks.

UAVSAR uses a technique called interferometric synthetic aperture radar, or InSAR, that sends
pulses of microwave energy from the aircraft to the ground to detect and measure very subtle
deformations in Earth's surface, such as those caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and
glacier movements. Flying at a nominal altitude of 12,500 meters (41,000 feet), the radar, located in a
pod under the aircraft's belly, collects data over a selected region. It then flies over the same region
again, minutes to months later, using the aircraft's advanced navigation system to precisely fly over
the same path to an accuracy of within 5 meters (16.5 feet). By comparing these camera-like images,
interferograms are formed that have encoded the surface deformation, from which scientists can
measure the slow surface deformations involved with the buildup and release of strain along
earthquake faults.

Since November of 2009, JPL scientists have collected data gathered on a number of Gulfstream III
flights over California's San Andreas fault and other major California earthquake faults, a process
that will be repeated about every six months for the next several years. From such data, scientists will
create 3-D maps for regions of interest.

Flight plans call for multiple observations of the Hispaniola faults this week and in early to mid-
February. Subsequent flights may be added based on events in Haiti and aircraft availability. After
processing, NASA will make the UAVSAR imagery available to the public through the JPL
UAVSAR website and the Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center. The initial
data will be available in several weeks.

Lundgren said the Dominican Republic flights over the Septentrional fault will provide scientists with
a baseline set of radar imagery in the event of future earthquakes there. Such observations, combined
with post-event radar imagery, will allow scientists to measure ground deformation at the time of the
earthquakes to determine how slip on the faults is distributed and also to monitor longer-term motions
after the earthquakes to learn more about fault zone properties. The UAVSAR data could also be
used to pinpoint exactly which part of the fault slipped during an earthquake, data that can be used
by rescue and damage assessment officials to better estimate what areas might be most affected.

For more on UAVSAR, visit: http://uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov . For more on how UAVSAR is being used to
study earthquake faults and landslide processes, visit:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2190 .

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

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Now A Stationary Research Platform, NASA's Mars Rover Spirit Starts a New Chapter in Red Planet Scientific Studies

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

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 2010-030 Jan. 26, 2010

NOW A STATIONARY RESEARCH PLATFORM, NASA'S MARS ROVER SPIRIT STARTS A
NEW CHAPTER IN RED PLANET SCIENTIFIC STUDIES

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-030&cid=release_2010-030

WASHINGTON -- After six years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, NASA's Mars
Exploration Rover Spirit no longer will be a fully mobile robot. NASA has designated the once-
roving scientific explorer a stationary science platform after efforts during the past several months to
free it from a sand trap have been unsuccessful.

The venerable robot's primary task in the next few weeks will be to position itself to combat the
severe Martian winter. If Spirit survives, it will continue conducting significant new science from its
final location. The rover's mission could continue for several months to years.

"Spirit is not dead; it has just entered another phase of its long life," said Doug McCuistion, director
of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We told the world last year
that attempts to set the beloved robot free may not be successful. It looks like Spirit's current location
on Mars will be its final resting place."

Ten months ago, as Spirit was driving south beside the western edge of a low plateau called Home
Plate, its wheels broke through a crusty surface and churned into soft sand hidden underneath.

After Spirit became embedded, the rover team crafted plans for trying to get the six-wheeled vehicle
free using its five functioning wheels – the sixth wheel quit working in 2006, limiting Spirit's
mobility. The planning included experiments with a test rover in a sandbox at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., plus analysis, modeling and reviews. In November, another wheel quit
working, making a difficult situation even worse.

Recent drives have yielded the best results since Spirit became embedded. However, the coming
winter mandates a change in strategy. It is mid-autumn at the solar-powered robot's home on Mars.
Winter will begin in May. Solar energy is declining and expected to become insufficient to power
further driving by mid-February. The rover team plans to use those remaining potential drives for
improving the rover's tilt. Spirit currently tilts slightly toward the south. The winter sun stays in the
northern sky, so decreasing the southward tilt would boost the amount of sunshine on the rover's solar
panels.

"We need to lift the rear of the rover, or the left side of the rover, or both," said Ashley Stroupe, a
rover driver at JPL. "Lifting the rear wheels out of their ruts by driving backward and slightly uphill
will help. If necessary, we can try to lower the front right of the rover by attempting to drop the right-
front wheel into a rut or dig it into a hole."

At its current angle, Spirit probably would not have enough power to keep communicating with Earth
through the Martian winter. Even a few degrees of improvement in tilt might make enough difference
to enable communication every few days.

"Getting through the winter will all come down to temperature and how cold the rover electronics
will get," said John Callas, project manager at JPL for Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity. "Every
bit of energy produced by Spirit's solar arrays will go into keeping the rover's critical electronics
warm, either by having the electronics on or by turning on essential heaters."

Even in a stationary state, Spirit continues scientific research.

"There's a class of science we can do only with a stationary vehicle that we had put off during the
years of driving," said Steve Squyres, a researcher at Cornell University and principal investigator for
Spirit and Opportunity. "Degraded mobility does not mean the mission ends abruptly. Instead, it lets
us transition to stationary science."

One stationary experiment Spirit has begun studies tiny wobbles in the rotation of Mars to gain
insight about the planet's core. This requires months of radio-tracking the motion of a point on the
surface of Mars to calculate long-term motion with an accuracy of a few inches.

"If the final scientific feather in Spirit's cap is determining whether the core of Mars is liquid or solid,
that would be wonderful -- it's so different from the other knowledge we've gained from Spirit," said
Squyres.

Tools on Spirit's robotic arm can study variations in the composition of nearby soil, which has been
affected by water. Stationary science also includes watching how wind moves soil particles and
monitoring the Martian atmosphere.

Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004. They have been exploring for six years, far
surpassing their original 90-day mission. Opportunity currently is driving toward a large crater called
Endeavor and continues to make scientific discoveries. It has driven approximately 12 miles and
returned more than 133,000 images.

JPL manages the rovers for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more
information about Spirit and Opportunity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers .

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NASA's WISE Eye Spies Near-Earth Asteroid

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

News release: 2010-028 Jan. 25, 2009

NASA's WISE Eye Spies Near-Earth Asteroid

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-028&cid=release_2010-028

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has spotted its
first never-before-seen near-Earth asteroid, the first of hundreds it is expected to find during its
mission to map the whole sky in infrared light. There is no danger of the newly discovered
asteroid hitting Earth.

The near-Earth object, designated 2010 AB78, was discovered by WISE Jan. 12. The mission's
sophisticated software picked out the moving object against a background of stationary stars. As
WISE circled Earth, scanning the sky above, it observed the asteroid several times during a
period of one-and-a-half days before the object moved beyond its view. Researchers then used
the University of Hawaii's 2.2-meter (88-inch) visible-light telescope near the summit of Mauna
Kea to follow up and confirm the discovery.

The asteroid is currently about 158 million kilometers (98 million miles) from Earth. It is
estimated to be roughly 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter and circles the sun in an elliptical orbit
tilted to the plane of our solar system. The object comes as close to the sun as Earth, but because
of its tilted orbit, it will not pass very close to Earth for many centuries. This asteroid does not
pose any foreseeable impact threat to Earth, but scientists will continue to monitor it.

Near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets with orbits that pass relatively close to Earth's path
around the sun. In extremely rare cases of an impact, the objects may cause damage to Earth's
surface. An asteroid about 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide is thought to have plunged into our
planet 65 million years ago, triggering a global disaster and killing off the dinosaurs.

Additional asteroid and comet detections will continue to come from WISE. The observations
will be automatically sent to the clearinghouse for solar system bodies, the Minor Planet Center in
Cambridge, Mass., for comparison against the known catalog of solar system objects. A
community of professional and amateur astronomers will provide follow-up observations,
establishing firm orbits for the previously unseen objects.

"This is just the beginning," said Ned Wright, the mission's principal investigator from UCLA.
"We've got a fire hose of data pouring down from space."

On Jan. 14, the WISE mission began its official survey of the entire sky in infrared light, one
month after it rocketed into a polar orbit around Earth from Vandenberg Air Force Base in
California. By casting a wide net, the mission will catch all sorts of cosmic objects, from
asteroids in our own solar system to galaxies billions of light-years away. Its data will serve as a
cosmic treasure map, pointing astronomers and telescopes, such as NASA's Spitzer Space
Telescope and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, to the most interesting finds.

WISE is expected to find about 100,000 previously unknown asteroids in our main asteroid belt,
a rocky ring of debris between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It will also spot hundreds of
previously unseen near-Earth objects.

By observing infrared light, WISE will reveal the darkest members of the near-Earth object
population -- those that don't reflect much visible light. The mission will contribute important
information about asteroid and comet sizes. Visible-light estimates of an asteroid's size can be
deceiving, because a small, light-colored space rock can look the same as a big, dark one. In
infrared, however, a big dark rock will give off more of a thermal, or infrared glow, and reveal its
true size. This size information will give researchers a better estimate of how often Earth can
expect potentially devastating impacts.

"We are thrilled to have found our first new near-Earth object," said Amy Mainzer of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Mainzer is the principal investigator of NEOWISE,
a program to mine the collected WISE data for new solar system objects. "Many programs are
searching for near-Earth objects using visible light, but some asteroids are dark, like pavement,
and don't reflect a lot of sunlight. But like a parking lot, the dark objects heat up and emit
infrared light that WISE can see."

"It is great to receive the first of many anticipated near-Earth object discoveries by the WISE
system," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL.
"Analysis of the WISE data will go a long way toward understanding the true nature of this
population."

JPL manages the WISE mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The
principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected
under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the
spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations
and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The ground-based
observations are partly supported by the National Science Foundation.

More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu .

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Study Links Spring Ozone Over North America With Emissions Abroad

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

Feature: 2010-021 January 20, 2010

Study Links Spring Ozone Over North America With Emissions Abroad

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-021&cid=release_2010-021

Springtime ozone levels above western North America are rising, primarily due to air
flowing eastward from the Pacific Ocean, a trend that is most significant when the air
originates in Asia. These increases in ozone could make it more difficult for the United
States to meet Clean Air Act standards for ozone pollution at ground level, according to a
new international study published online Jan. 20 in the journal Nature.

The study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
analyzed large quantities of ozone data captured since 1984. Among the data sources for
the study were profiles of ozone in Earth's troposphere (lowermost atmosphere) measured
since 1999 by the differential absorption lidar (laser detection and ranging) system
located at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Table Mountain Facility near
Wrightwood, Calif. That remote, high-altitude facility enables research in atmospheric
science, optical communication and astronomy. Measurements from atmospheric balloons
launched from Table Mountain also contributed to the findings.

"In springtime, pollution from across the hemisphere, not nearby sources, contributes to
the ozone increases above western North America," said lead author Owen R. Cooper of
the NOAA-funded Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the
University of Colorado at Boulder. "When air is transported from a broad region of south
and east Asia, the trend is largest."

The study focused on springtime ozone in a slice of the atmosphere from 3 to 8 kilometers
(2 to 5 miles) above the surface of western North America, far below the protective ozone
layer but above ozone-related, ground-level smog that is harmful to human health and
crops. Ozone in this intermediate region constitutes the northern hemisphere background,
or baseline level, of ozone in the lower atmosphere. The study was the first to pull
together and then analyze the nearly 100,000 ozone observations gathered in separate
studies by instruments on aircraft, balloons and other platforms.

Combustion of fossil fuels releases pollutants like nitrogen oxides and volatile organic
compounds, which react in the presence of sunlight to form ozone. North American
emissions contribute to global ozone levels, but the researchers did not find any evidence
that these local emissions are driving the increasing trend in ozone above western North
America.

Cooper and colleagues from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder,
Colo., and eight other research institutes, including JPL, used historical data of global
atmospheric wind records and sophisticated computer modeling to match each ozone
measurement with air-flow patterns for several days before it was recorded. This
approach essentially let the scientists track ozone-producing emissions back to a broad
region of origin.

This method is like imagining a box full of 40,000 tiny, weightless balls at the exact
location of each ozone measurement, explained Cooper. Considering winds in the days
prior to the measurement, the computer model estimates which winds brought the balls to
that spot and where they originated.

When the dominant airflow came from south and east Asia, the scientists saw the largest
increases in ozone measurements. When airflow patterns were not directly from Asia,
ozone still increased but at a lower rate, indicating the possibility that emissions from
other places could be contributing to the ozone increases above North America. The study
used springtime ozone measurements because previous studies had shown that air
transport from Asia to North America is strongest in spring, making it easier to discern
possible effects of distant pollution on the North American ozone trends.

Ozone-measuring research balloons and research aircraft collected a portion of the data.
Commercial flights equipped with ozone-measuring instruments also collected a large
share of the data through the MOZAIC program, initiated by European scientists in 1994.
The bulk of the data were collected between 1995 and 2008, but the team also included a
large ozone dataset from 1984.

The analysis shows an overall significant increase in springtime ozone of 14 percent from
1995 to 2008. When they included data from 1984, the year with the lowest average
ozone level, the scientists saw a similar rate of increase from that time through 2008 and
an overall increase in springtime ozone of 29 percent.

"This study did not quantify how much of the ozone increase is solely due to Asia,"
Cooper said. "But we can say that the background ozone entering North America
increased over the past 14 years and probably over the past 25 years."

The influence of ozone from Asia and other sources on ground-level air quality is a
question for further study, Cooper said. Scientists will need to routinely measure ozone
levels close to the surface at several locations along the West Coast to see whether similar
trends are impacting ground-level air quality. More information on the study is online at:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100120_ozone.html .

More information on JPL's Table Mountain Facility is at: http://tmf-web.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

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Public Invited To Pick Pixels on Mars

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

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

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

Daniel Stolte 520-626-4402
University of Arizona, Tucson
stolte@email.arizona.edu

News release: 2010-018 Jan. 20, 2010

Public Invited To Pick Pixels on Mars

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-018&cid=release_2010-018

PASADENA, Calif. -- The most powerful camera aboard a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars will
soon be taking photo suggestions from the public.

Since arriving at Mars in 2006, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera
on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has recorded nearly 13,000 observations of the Red
Planet's terrain. Each image covers dozens of square miles and reveals details as small as a desk.
Now, anyone can nominate sites for pictures.

"The HiRISE team is pleased to give the public this opportunity to propose imaging targets and share
the excitement of seeing your favorite spot on Mars at people-scale resolution," said Alfred McEwen,
principal investigator for the camera and a researcher at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The idea to take suggestions from the public follows through on the original concept of the HiRISE
instrument, when its planners nicknamed it "the people's camera." The team anticipates that more
people will become interested in exploring the Red Planet, while their suggestions for imaging targets
will increase the camera's already bountiful science return. Despite the thousands of pictures already
taken, less than 1 percent of the Martian surface has been imaged.

Students, researchers and others can view Mars maps using a new online tool to see where images
have been taken, check which targets have already been suggested and make new suggestions.
"The process is fairly simple," said Guy McArthur, systems programmer on the HiRISE team at the
University of Arizona. "With the tool, you can place your rectangle on Mars where you'd like."

McArthur developed the online tool, called "HiWish," with Ross Beyer, principal investigator and
research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and the SETI Institute
in Mountain View, Calif.

In addition to identifying the location on a map, anyone nominating a target will be asked to give the
observation a title, explain the potential scientific benefit of photographing the site and put the
suggestion into one of the camera team's 18 science themes. The themes include categories such as
impact processes, seasonal processes and volcanic processes.

The HiRISE science team will evaluate suggestions and put high-priority ones into a queue.
Thousands of pending targets from scientists and the public will be imaged when the orbiter's track
and other conditions are right.

HiRISE is one of six instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Launched in August 2005,
the orbiter reached Mars the following year to begin a two-year primary science mission. The
spacecraft has found that Mars has had diverse wet environments at many locations for differing
durations in the planet's history, and Martian climate-change cycles persist into the present era. The
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in an extended science phase and will continue to take several
thousand images a year. The mission has returned more data about Mars than all other spacecraft
combined.

"This opportunity opens up a new path to students and others to participate in ongoing exploration of
Mars, said the mission's project scientist, Rich Zurek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif.

The University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory operates the HiRISE camera, which was
built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is managed by JPL
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the
prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft.

To make camera suggestions, visit http://uahirise.org/suggest/ .

More information about the MRO mission is at http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

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Land Ho! Huygens Plunged to Titan Surface 5 Years Ago

Land Ho! Huygens Plunged to Titan Surface 5 Years Ago

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2448&cid=feature_2448

The Huygens probe parachuted down to the surface of Saturn's haze-shrouded
moon Titan exactly five years ago on Jan. 14, 2005, providing data that scientists on
NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn are still building upon today.

"Huygens has gathered critical on-the-scene data on the atmosphere and surface of
Titan, providing valuable groundtruth to Cassini's ongoing investigations," said Bob
Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The Huygens probe, built and managed by the European Space Agency, was bolted
to Cassini and rode along during its nearly seven-year journey to Saturn. Huygens'
descent marked mankind's first and only attempt to land a probe on another world
in the outer solar system.

Huygens transmitted data for more than four hours, as it plunged through Titan's
hazy atmosphere and landed near a region now known as Adiri. Atmospheric
density measurements from Huygens have helped engineers refine calculations for
how low Cassini can fly through the moon's thick atmosphere.

Huygens captured the most attention for providing the first view from inside
Titan's atmosphere and on its surface. The pictures of drainage channels and
pebble-sized ice blocks surprised scientists with the extent of the moon's similarity
to Earth. They showed evidence of erosion from methane and ethane rain.

"It was eerie," said Jonathan Lunine, an interdisciplinary Cassini scientist at the
University of Rome, Tor Vergata, and University of Arizona, Tucson, and was with
the Huygens camera team five years ago as they combed through the images
coming down. "We saw bright hills above a dark plain, a weird combination of light
and dark. It was like seeing a landscape out of Dante."

Combining these images with detections of methane and other gasses emanating
from the surface, scientists came to believe Titan had a hydrologic cycle similar to
Earth's, though Titan's cycle depends on methane and ethane rather than water.
Titan is the only other body in the solar system other than Earth believed to have
an active hydrologic cycle.

Huygens also gave scientists an opportunity to make electric field measurements
from the atmosphere and surface, revealing a signature consistent with a water-
and-ammonia ocean under an icy crust.

While the Huygens probe itself remains inactive on the Titan surface, insights
inspired by the probe continue and ESA has convened a conference this week to
extend the discussion, said Jean-Pierre Lebreton, Huygens Project Scientist for ESA.

"Huygens was a unique, once-in-a-lifetime mission," he said. "But we still have a lot
to learn and I hope it will provide guidance for future missions to Titan."

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. Huygens data was sent to NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and was recorded and
relayed to Earth by NASA's Deep Space Network. JPL also manages the Deep Space
Network.

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

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Educators Needed to Assist With NASA INSPIRE

Educators Needed to Assist With NASA INSPIRE


Are you interested in working with students, earning money and receiving graduate credit this summer? Come join our NASA team on the Interdisciplinary National Science Project Incorporating Research and Education Experience (INSPIRE) as a Chaperone. INSPIRE offers opportunities for ascending high school students to be mentored by NASA personnel in STEM disciplines at a NASA field center.

For details on the INSPIRE program, go to http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/descriptions/INSPIRE_Project.html .

The Chaperone assists students participating in the Residential Internship during their off time away from the NASA field center. Oklahoma State University is looking for outgoing, confident and lifelong learners to help guide INSPIRE students. Only certified educators with at least three years of classroom experience need apply. In addition to working with students, you will be provided the opportunity to earn graduate credit during this experience, if desired.

For details regarding employment and graduate credit opportunities, go to https://opportunities.nasa.okstate.edu/index.cfm?liftoff=applications.LookforJobs .

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NASA's New Museum Grant Allies Will Make the Universe Accessible to Families from Alaska to Florida

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

Stephanie Schierholz/David Steitz 202-358-1600
Headquarters, Washington
stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov, david.steitz@nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-010 Jan. 12, 2010

NASA'S NEW MUSEUM GRANT ALLIES WILL MAKE THE UNIVERSE ACCESSIBLE
TO FAMILIES FROM ALASKA TO FLORIDA

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-010&cid=release_2010-010

WASHINGTON -- Interactive museum exhibits about climate change, Earth science, and
missions beyond Earth are among the projects NASA has selected to receive agency funding.
Nine informal education providers from Alaska to New York will share $6.2 million in grants
through NASA's Competitive Program for Science Museums and Planetariums.

Participating organizations include museums, science centers, Challenger Centers and other
institutions of informal education. Selected projects will partner with NASA's Museum Alliance,
an Internet-based, nationwide network of more than 400 science centers, planetariums, museums,
aquariums, zoos, observatory visitor centers, NASA visitor centers, nature centers and park
visitor centers.

Projects in the program will engage learners of all ages as well as educators who work in formal
or informal science education. The projects will provide NASA-inspired space, science,
technology, engineering or mathematics educational opportunities, including planetarium shows
and exhibits.

In conjunction with NASA's Museum Alliance, the grants focus on NASA-themed space
exploration, aeronautics, space science, Earth science, microgravity or a combination of themes.
Some projects will include partnerships with elementary and secondary schools, colleges and
universities.

The projects are located in Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New York, North Carolina,
Oregon and South Dakota. The nine grants have a maximum five-year period of performance and
range in value from approximately $120,000 to $1.5 million. Selected projects work with the
NASA Shared Service Center in Mississippi to complete the business review necessary before a
NASA award is issued.

Proposals were selected through a merit-based, external peer-review process. NASA's Office of
Education and mission directorates collaborated to solicit and review the grant applications. This
integrated approach distinguishes NASA's investment in informal education. NASA received 67
proposals from 32 states and the District of Columbia.

Congress initially funded the Competitive Program for Science Museums and Planetariums
grants in 2008. The first group of projects began in fall 2009 in California, Colorado, Florida,
Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Vermont and
Washington. Congress has enacted funds to continue this program in 2010, and NASA
anticipates selecting additional proposals to fund from those submitted in 2009.

For a list of selected organizations and projects descriptions, click on "Selected Proposals" and
look for "Competitive Program for Science Museums and Planetariums (CP4SMP)" or solicitation
NNH09ZNE005N at: http://nspires.nasaprs.com .

For information about NASA's Education programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/education .

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., leads the Museum Alliance. For
information about the alliance, visit: http://informal.jpl.nasa.gov/museum .

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

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NASA to Check for Unlikely Winter Survival of Mars Lander

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

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Jan. 11, 2010
Guy.Webster@jpl.nasa.gov

MARS ODYSSEY AND PHOENIX MISSIONS STATUS REPORT

NASA to Check for Unlikely Winter Survival of Mars Lander

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-008&cid=release_2010-008

PASADENA, Calif. -- Beginning Jan. 18, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter will listen for
possible, though improbable, radio transmissions from the Phoenix Mars Lander, which
completed five months of studying an arctic Martian site in November 2008.

The solar-powered lander operated two months longer than its three-month prime mission
during summer on northern Mars before the seasonal ebb of sunshine ended its work. Since
then, Phoenix's landing site has gone through autumn, winter and part of spring. The
lander's hardware was not designed to survive the temperature extremes and ice-coating
load of an arctic Martian winter.

In the extremely unlikely case that Phoenix survived the winter, it is expected to follow
instructions programmed on its computer. If systems still operate, once its solar panels
generate enough electricity to establish a positive energy balance, the lander would
periodically try to communicate with any available Mars relay orbiters in an attempt to
reestablish contact with Earth. During each communications attempt, the lander would
alternately use each of its two radios and each of its two antennas.

Odyssey will pass over the Phoenix landing site approximately 10 times each day during
three consecutive days of listening this month and two longer listening campaigns in
February and March.

"We do not expect Phoenix to have survived, and therefore do not expect to hear from it.
However, if Phoenix is transmitting, Odyssey will hear it," said Chad Edwards, chief
telecommunications engineer for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We will perform a sufficient number of Odyssey contact
attempts that if we don't detect a transmission from Phoenix, we can have a high degree of
confidence that the lander is not active."

The amount of sunshine at Phoenix's site is currently about the same as when the lander last
communicated, on Nov. 2, 2008, with the sun above the horizon about 17 hours each day.
The listening attempts will continue until after the sun is above the horizon for the full 24.7
hours of the Martian day at the lander's high-latitude site. During the later attempts in
February or March, Odyssey will transmit radio signals that could potentially be heard by
Phoenix, as well as passively listening.

If Odyssey does hear from Phoenix, the orbiter will attempt to lock onto the signal and
gain information about the lander's status. The initial task would be to determine what
capabilities Phoenix retains, information that NASA would consider in decisions about any
further steps.

Mars Odyssey is managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate by JPL, a division of
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft.

The successful Phoenix mission was led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona,
Tucson, with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin.
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,
London.

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As The Crust Turns: Cassini Data Show Enceladus in Motion

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

Feature: 2010-006 January 11, 2010

As The Crust Turns: Cassini Data Show Enceladus in Motion

Blobs of warm ice that periodically rise to the surface and churn the icy crust on Saturn's
moon Enceladus explain the quirky heat behavior and intriguing surface of the moon's
south polar region, according to a new paper using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

"Cassini appears to have caught Enceladus in the middle of a burp," said Francis Nimmo,
a planetary scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz and a co-author of the new
paper in Nature Geoscience. "These tumultuous periods are rare and Cassini happens to
have been watching the moon during one of these special epochs."

The south polar region captivates scientists because it hosts the fissures known as "tiger
stripes" that spray water vapor and other particles out from the moon. While the latest
paper, released on Jan. 10, doesn't link the churning and resurfacing directly to the
formation of fissures and jets, it does fill in some of the blanks in the region's history.

"This episodic model helps to solve one of the most perplexing mysteries of Enceladus,"
said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., of the research done by his colleagues. "Why is the south polar surface
so young? How could this amount of heat be pumped out at the moon's south pole? This
idea assembles the pieces of the puzzle."

About four years ago, Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer instrument detected a
heat flow in the south polar region of at least 6 gigawatts, the equivalent of at least a
dozen electric power plants. This is at least three times as much heat as an average region
of Earth of similar area would produce, despite Enceladus' small size. The region was also
later found by Cassini's ion and neutral mass spectrometer instrument to be swiftly
expelling argon, which comes from rocks decaying radioactively and has a well-known
rate of decay.

Calculations told scientists it would be impossible for Enceladus to have continually
produced heat and gas at this rate. Tidal movement – the pull and push from Saturn as
Enceladus moves around the planet - cannot explain the release of so much energy.

The surface ages of different regions of Enceladus also show great diversity. Heavily
cratered plains in the northern part of the moon appear to be as old as 4.2 billion years,
while a region near the equator known as Sarandib Planitia is between 170 million and 3.7
billion years old. The south polar area, however, appears to be less than 100 million years
old, possibly as young as 500,000 years.

Craig O'Neill of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and Nimmo, who was
partially funded by the NASA Outer Planets Research program, adapted a model that
O'Neill had developed for the convection of Earth's crust. For Enceladus, which has a
surface completely covered in cold ice that is fractured by the tug of Saturn's
gravitational pull, the scientists stiffened up the crust. They picked a strength somewhere
between that of the malleable tectonic plates on Earth and the rigid plates of Venus,
which are so strong, it appears they never get sucked down into the interior.

Their model showed that heat building up from the interior of Enceladus could be
released in episodic bubbles of warm, light ice rising to the surface, akin to the rising
blobs of heated wax in a lava lamp. The rise of the warm bubbles would send cold,
heavier ice down into the interior. (Warm is, of course, relative. Nimmo said the bubbles
are probably just below freezing, which is 273 degrees Kelvin or 32 degrees Farenheit,
whereas the surface is a frigid 80 degrees Kelvin or -316 degrees Farenheit.)

The model fits the activity on Enceladus when the churning and resurfacing periods are
assumed to last about 10 million years, and the quiet periods, when the surface ice is
undisturbed, last about 100 million to two billion years. Their model suggests the active
periods have occurred only 1 to 10 percent of the time that Enceladus has existed and
have recycled 10 to 40 percent of the surface. The active area around Enceladus's south
pole is about 10 percent of its surface.

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 mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

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NASA's Wise Eye Spies First Glimpse of the Starry Sky

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

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

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

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-005 Jan. 6, 2010

NASA's Wise Eye Spies First Glimpse of the Starry Sky

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-005&cid=release_2010-005

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has
captured its first look at the starry sky that it will soon begin surveying in infrared light.

Launched on Dec. 14, WISE will scan the entire sky for millions of hidden objects,
including asteroids, "failed" stars and powerful galaxies. WISE data will serve as
navigation charts for other missions, such as NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space
Telescopes, pointing them to the most interesting targets the mission finds.

A new WISE infrared image was taken shortly after the space telescope's cover was
removed, exposing the instrument's detectors to starlight for the first time. The picture
shows about 3,000 stars in the Carina constellation and can be viewed online at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/wise20100106.html .

The image covers a patch of sky about three times larger than the full moon, and was
presented today at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in
Washington. The patch was selected because it does not contain any unusually bright
objects, which could damage instrument detectors if observed for too long. The picture
was taken while the spacecraft was staring at a fixed patch of sky and is being used to
calibrate the spacecraft's pointing system.

When the WISE survey begins, the spacecraft will scan the sky continuously as it circles
the globe, while an internal scan mirror counteracts its motion. This allows WISE to take
"freeze-frame" snapshots every 11 seconds, resulting in millions of images of the entire
sky.

"Right now, we are busy matching the rate of the scan mirror to the rate of the spacecraft,
so we will capture sharp pictures as our telescope sweeps across the sky," said William
Irace, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif.

To sense the infrared glow of stars and galaxies, the WISE spacecraft cannot give off any
detectable infrared light of its own. This is accomplished by chilling the telescope and
detectors to ultra-cold temperatures. The coldest of WISE's detectors will operate at less
than 8 Kelvin, or minus 445 degrees Fahrenheit.

The first sky survey will be complete in six months, followed by a second scan of one-
half of the sky lasting three months. The mission ends when the frozen hydrogen that
keeps the instrument cold evaporates away, an event expected to occur in October 2010.

Preliminary survey images are expected to be released six months later, in April 2011,
with the final atlas and catalog coming 11 months later, in March 2012. Selected images
will be released to the public beginning in February 2010.

JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission
was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program, managed by NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the
Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and 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.

More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu.

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Teacher Workshop: Cool Astronomy with NASA's WISE Mission

Teacher Workshop: Cool Astronomy with NASA's WISE Mission


Grades: high school and middle school

NASA's latest space telescope is the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). WISE will map the sky in infrared light, searching for dangerous asteroids in our solar system, the nearest and coolest stars, the origins of stellar and planetary systems, and the most luminous galaxies in the universe.

In this full-day workshop educators will experience NASA-developed hands-on, inquiry-based lessons and other educational resources about infrared astronomy and the WISE mission. We will discuss how astronomers use infrared to learn about a variety of phenomena throughout the cosmos. Some of the activities will be from the NASA guide "Active Astronomy." These hands-on activities are designed to complement instruction on the electromagnetic spectrum for middle and high school students. Participants will receive "Active Astronomy" kits to take back to their classrooms.

We will present lessons that make use of real image data from infrared space telescopes and discuss how to involve your students in research projects using WISE data.

We will also take a tour of the invisible universe, focusing on how objects in space look in infrared light. Participants will gain hands-on familiarity with the lessons and content to feel comfortable using them in their own classrooms effectively.

We seek to enhance the teachers' content knowledge as well as model pedagogical methods for improvement of their science teaching in the classroom. Participants will receive copies of the activities presented as well as other NASA educational materials: CD-ROMs, fliers, bookmarks, lithographs, etc.

Schedule and Location:
Sat, Jan. 23, 2010
9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
JPL - Pasadena, CA
Directions: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/about_JPL/maps.cfm
Presenter - Bryan Mendez

Registration:
The registration deadline is Jan. 13, 5 p.m.
Register online here: http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/workshops/registration.aspx?eid=21

More information about WISE and the workshop can be found at http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/education_workshop.html .

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JPL Mourns Passing of Former Director Lew Allen Jr.

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

Jane Platt 818-354-0880
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Jane.platt@Jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2010-004 Jan. 5, 2010

JPL Mourns Passing of Former Director Lew Allen Jr.

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-004&cid=release_2010-004

A former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Lew Allen Jr., passed away
Monday night, Jan. 4, at the age of 84, in Potomac Falls, Va. He led the laboratory from
1982 till 1990, during a period that included the launches of the Galileo mission to
Jupiter, Magellan to Venus and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, as well as Voyager 2's
Uranus and Neptune flybys.

Allen was born Dec. 30, 1925, in Miami. He studied at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, N.Y., and had a distinguished career in the U.S. Army and the
Air Force, where he remained until 1982, achieving the rank of four-star general and
serving as Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

In 1954, while still an Air Force officer assigned to the Los Alamos National Laboratory
in New Mexico, Allen completed his doctorate in nuclear physics. He specialized in the
potentially damaging effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions on the ground and on
spacecraft.

After leaving Los Alamos in 1961, Allen served in various scientific posts within the
Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.
Allen became director of the National Security Agency in 1973. Allen was also a member
of the National Academy of Engineering and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Burial is planned for Arlington National Cemetery, but funeral arrangements have not
been made yet.

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Galaxy Exposes Its Dusty Inner Workings in New Spitzer Image

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

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-003 Jan. 5, 2010

Galaxy Exposes Its Dusty Inner Workings in New Spitzer Image

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-003&cid=release_2010-003

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured an action-packed picture of the nearby
Small Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that looks like a wispy cloud when seen from
Earth.

From Spitzer's perch up in space, the galaxy's clouds of dust and stars come into clear
view. The telescope's infrared vision reveals choppy piles of recycled stardust -- dust that
is being soaked up by new star systems and blown out by old ones.

To some people, the new view might resemble a sea creature, or even a Rorschach inkblot
test. But to astronomers, it offers a unique opportunity to study the whole life cycle of
stars close-up. The image is available online at http://www.nasa.gov/AAS and
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/aas .

"It's quite the treasure trove," said Karl Gordon, the principal investigator of the latest
Spitzer observations at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. "Because
this galaxy is so close and relatively large, we can study all the various stages and facets
of how stars form in one environment."

The Small Magellanic Cloud, and its larger sister galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, are
named after the seafaring explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who documented them while
circling the globe nearly 500 years ago. From Earth's southern hemisphere, they can
appear as wispy clouds. The Small Magellanic Cloud is the farther of the pair, at 200,000
light-years away.

Recent research has shown that the galaxies may not, as previously suspected, orbit
around the Milky Way. Instead, they are thought to be merely sailing by, destined to go
their own way. Astronomers say the two galaxies, which are both less evolved than a
galaxy like ours, were triggered to create bursts of new stars by gravitational interactions
with the Milky Way and with each other. In fact, the Large Magellanic Cloud may
eventually consume its smaller companion.

Gordon and his team are interested in the Small Magellanic Cloud not only because it is
so close and compact, but also because it is very similar to young galaxies thought to
populate the universe billions of years ago. The Small Magellanic Cloud has only one-fifth
the amount of heavier elements, such as carbon, contained in the Milky Way, which
means that its stars haven't been around long enough to pump large amounts of these
elements back into their environment. Such elements were necessary for life to form in
our solar system.

Studies of the Small Magellanic Cloud therefore offer a glimpse into the different types
of environments in which stars form.

The new Spitzer observations were presented today at the 215th meeting of the American
Astronomical Society in Washington. They reveal the galaxy's youngest stars embedded
in thick dust, in addition to the older stars, which spit the dust out. Taken together with
visible-light observations, these Spitzer data help provide a census of the whole stellar
population.

"With Spitzer, we are pinpointing how to best calculate the numbers of new stars that are
forming right now," said Gordon. "Observations in the infrared give us a view into the
birthplace of stars, unveiling the dust-enshrouded locations where stars have just formed."

Infrared light is color-coded in the new picture, so that blue shows older stars, green
shows organic dust and red highlights dust-enshrouded star formation. Light encoded in
blue has a wavelength of 3.6 microns; green is 8.0 microns; and red is 24 microns. This
image was taken before Spitzer ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009 and began its
"warm" mission.

Other collaborators include: M. Meixner, M, Sewilo and B. Shiao of the Space Telescope
Science Institute; M. Meade, B. Babler, S. Bracker of the University of Wisconsin at
Madison; C. Engelbracht, M. Block, K. Misselt of the University of Arizona, Tucson; R.
Indebetouw of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville; and J. Hora and T. Robitaille
of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.

The image includes Spitzer observations taken previously by a team led by Alberto
Bolatto of the University of Maryland, College Park.

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. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer and
http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

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Centuries-Old Star Mystery Coming to a Close

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

News release: 2010-002 Jan. 5, 2010

Centuries-Old Star Mystery Coming to a Close

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-002&cid=release_2010-002

For almost two centuries, humans have looked up at a bright star called Epsilon Aurigae and
watched with their own eyes as it seemed to disappear into the night sky, slowly fading before
coming back to life again. Today, as another dimming of the system is underway, mysteries about
the star persist. Though astronomers know that Epsilon Aurigae is eclipsed by a dark companion
object every 27 years, the nature of both the star and object has remained unclear.

Now, new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope -- in combination with archived
ultraviolet, visible and other infrared data -- point to one of two competing theories, and a likely
solution to this age-old puzzle. One theory holds that the bright star is a massive supergiant,
periodically eclipsed by two tight-knit stars inside a swirling, dusty disk. The second theory
holds that the bright star is in fact a dying star with a lot less mass, periodically eclipsed by just a
single star inside a disk. The Spitzer data strongly support the latter scenario.

"We've really shifted the balance of the two competing theories," said Donald Hoard of NASA's
Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Now we can get
busy working out all the details." Hoard presented the results today at the 215th meeting of the
American Astronomical Meeting in Washington.

Epsilon Aurigae can be seen at night from the northern hemisphere with the naked eye, even in
some urban areas. Last August, it began its roughly two-year dimming, an event that happens like
clockwork every 27.1 years and results in the star fading in brightness by one-half. Professional
and amateur astronomers around the globe are watching, and the International Year of
Astronomy 2009 marked the eclipse as a flagship "citizen science" event. More information is at
http://www.citizensky.org .

Astronomers study these eclipsing binary events to learn more about the evolution of stars.
Because one star passes in front of another, additional information can be gleaned about the
nature of the stars. In the case of Epsilon Aurigae, what could have been a simple calculation has
instead left astronomers endlessly scratching their heads. Certain aspects of the event, for
example the duration of the eclipse, and the presence of "wiggles" in the brightness of the system
during the eclipse, have not fit nicely into models. Theories have been put forth to explain what's
going on, some quite elaborate, but none with a perfect fit.

The main stumper is the nature of the naked-eye star -- the one that dims and brightens. Its
spectral features indicate that it's a monstrous star, called an F supergiant, with 20 times the mass,
and up to 300 times the diameter, of our sun. But, in order for this theory to be true, astronomers
had to come up with elaborate scenarios to make sense of the eclipse observations. They said that
the eclipsing, companion star must actually be two so-called B stars surrounded by an orbiting
disk of dusty debris. And some scenarios were even more exotic, calling for black holes and
massive planets.

A competing theory proposed that the bright star was actually a less massive, dying star. But this
model had holes too. There was no simple solution.

Hoard became interested in the problem from a technological standpoint. He wanted to see if
Spitzer, whose delicate infrared arrays are too sensitive to observe the bright star directly, could
be coaxed to observe it using a clever trick. "We pointed the star at the corner of four of Spitzer's
pixels, instead of directly at one, to effectively reduce its sensitivity." What's more, the
observation used exposures lasting only one-hundredth of a second -- the fastest that images can
be obtained by Spitzer.

The resulting information, in combination with past Spitzer observations, represents the most
complete infrared data set for the star to date. They confirm the presence of the companion star's
disk, without a doubt, and establish the particle sizes as being relatively large like gravel rather
than like fine dust.

But Hoard and his colleagues were most excited about nailing down the radius of the disk to
approximately four times the distance between Earth and the sun. This enabled the team to create
a multi-wavelength model that explained all the features of the system. If they assumed the F
star was actually a much less massive, dying star, and they also assumed that the eclipsing object
was a single B star embedded in the dusty disk, everything snapped together.

"It was amazing how everything fell into place so neatly," said Steve Howell of the National
Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. "All the features of this system are interlinked,
so if you tinker with one, you have to change another. It's been hard to get everything to fall
together perfectly until now."

According to the astronomers, there are still many more details to figure out. The ongoing
observations of the current eclipse should provide the final clues needed to put this mystery of
the night sky to rest.

R.E. Stencel of the University of Denver, Colo., is also a collaborator on this research. 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 Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about
Spitzer, visit http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

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NASA's Kepler Space Telescope Discovers Five Exoplanets

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
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

Michael Mewhinney 650-604-3937
Ames Research Center
michael.s.mewhinney@nasa.gov

News release: 2010-001 Jan. 4, 2010

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope Discovers Five Exoplanets

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-001&cid=release_2010-001

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler space telescope, designed to find Earth-size planets in the
habitable zone of sun-like stars, has discovered its first five new exoplanets, or planets beyond
our solar system.

Kepler's high sensitivity to both small and large planets enabled the discovery of the exoplanets,
named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b. The discoveries were announced Monday, Jan. 4, by
members of the Kepler science team during a news briefing at the American Astronomical
Society meeting in Washington.

"These observations contribute to our understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve
from the gas and dust disks that give rise to both the stars and their planets," said William
Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Borucki is the mission's
science principal investigator. "The discoveries also show that our science instrument is working
well. Indications are that Kepler will meet all its science goals."

Known as "hot Jupiters" because of their high masses and extreme temperatures, the new
exoplanets range in size from similar to Neptune to larger than Jupiter. They have orbits ranging
from 3.3 to 4.9 days. Estimated temperatures of the planets range from 2,200 to 3,000 degrees
Fahrenheit, hotter than molten lava and much too hot for life as we know it. All five of the
exoplanets orbit stars hotter and larger than Earth's sun.

"It's gratifying to see the first Kepler discoveries rolling off the assembly line," said Jon Morse,
director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We expected
Jupiter-size planets in short orbits to be the first planets Kepler could detect. It's only a matter of
time before more Kepler observations lead to smaller planets with longer-period orbits, coming
closer and closer to the discovery of the first Earth analog."

Launched on March 6, 2009, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Kepler
mission continuously and simultaneously observes more than 150,000 stars. Kepler's science
instrument, or photometer, already has measured hundreds of possible planet signatures that are
being analyzed.

While many of these signatures are likely to be something other than a planet, such as small stars
orbiting larger stars, ground-based observatories have confirmed the existence of the five
exoplanets. The discoveries are based on approximately six weeks' worth of data collected since
science operations began on May 12, 2009.

Kepler looks for the signatures of planets by measuring dips in the brightness of stars. When
planets cross in front of, or transit, their stars as seen from Earth, they periodically block the
starlight. The size of the planet can be derived from the size of the dip. The temperature can be
estimated from the characteristics of the star it orbits and the planet's orbital period.

Kepler will continue science operations until at least November 2012. It will search for planets as
small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in a warm, habitable zone where liquid water could
exist on the surface of the planet. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars
occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is expected to take at least
three years to locate and verify an Earth-size planet.

According to Borucki, Kepler's continuous and long-duration search should greatly improve
scientists' ability to determine the distributions of planet size and orbital period in the future.
"Today's discoveries are a significant contribution to that goal," Borucki said. "The Kepler
observations will tell us whether there are many stars with planets that could harbor life, or
whether we might be alone in our galaxy."

Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery mission. NASA Ames is responsible for the ground system
development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies
Corp. of Boulder, Colo., was responsible for developing the Kepler flight system. Ball and the
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder are
supporting mission operations. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL
for NASA.

Ground observations necessary to confirm the discoveries were conducted with ground-based
telescopes: the Keck I in Hawaii; Hobby-Ebberly and Harlan J. Smith 2.7m in Texas; Hale and
Shane in California; WIYN, MMT and Tillinghast in Arizona; and Nordic Optical in the Canary
Islands, Spain. For more information about the Kepler mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

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