NASA Comet Hunter Spots Its Valentine

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

Feature: 2011-029 Jan. 26, 2011

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

NASA Comet Hunter Spots Its Valentine

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-029&cid=release_2011-029

NASA's Stardust spacecraft has downlinked its first images of comet Tempel 1, the target of a
flyby planned for Valentine's Day, Feb. 14. The images were taken on Jan. 18 and 19 from a
distance of 26.3 million kilometers (16.3 million miles), and 25.4 million kilometers (15.8
million miles) respectively. On Feb. 14, Stardust will fly within about 200 kilometers (124 miles)
of the comet's nucleus.

"This is the first of many images to come of comet Tempel 1," said Joe Veverka, principal
investigator of NASA's Stardust-NExT mission from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
"Encountering something as small and fast as a comet in the vastness of space is always a
challenge, but we are very pleased with how things are setting up for our Valentine's Day
flyby."

The composite image is a combination of several images taken by Stardust's navigation
camera. Future images will be used to help mission navigators refine Stardust's trajectory, or
flight path, as it closes the distance between comet and spacecraft at a rate of about 950,000
kilometers (590,000 miles) a day. On the night of encounter, the navigation camera will be
used to acquire 72 high-resolution images of the comet's surface features. Stardust-NExT
mission scientists will use these images to see how surface features on comet Tempel 1 have
changed over the past five-and-a-half years. (Tempel 1 had previously been visited and imaged
in July of 2005 by NASA's Deep Impact mission).

Launched on Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust became the first spacecraft in history to collect samples
from a comet (comet Wild 2), and return them to Earth for study. While its sample return
capsule parachuted to Earth in January 2006, mission controllers were placing the still-viable
spacecraft on a path that would allow NASA the opportunity to re-use the already-proven flight
system if a target of opportunity presented itself. In January 2007, NASA re-christened the
mission "Stardust-NExT" (New Exploration of Tempel), and the Stardust team began a four-and-
a-half year journey for the spacecraft to comet Tempel 1. This will be the second exploration of
Tempel 1 by a spacecraft (Deep Impact).

Along with the high-resolution images of the comet's surface, Stardust-NExT will also measure
the composition, size distribution and flux of dust emitted into the coma, and provide important
new information on how Jupiter-family comets evolve and how they formed 4.6 billion years
ago.

Stardust-NExT is a low-cost mission that will expand the investigation of comet Tempel 1
initiated by NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft. JPL, a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, manages Stardust-NExT for the NASA Science Mission Directorate,
Washington, D.C. Joe Veverka of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., is the mission's principal
investigator. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft and manages
day-to-day mission operations.

For more information about Stardust-NExT, please visit: http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Asteroids Ahoy! Jupiter Scar Likely from Rocky Body

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

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

Feature: 2011-028 Jan. 26, 2011

Asteroids Ahoy! Jupiter Scar Likely from Rocky Body

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-028&cid=release_2011-028

A hurtling asteroid about the size of the Titanic caused the scar that appeared in
Jupiter's atmosphere on July 19, 2009, according to two papers published recently
in the journal Icarus.

Data from three infrared telescopes enabled scientists to observe the warm
atmospheric temperatures and unique chemical conditions associated with the
impact debris. By piecing together signatures of the gases and dark debris
produced by the impact shockwaves, an international team of scientists was able to
deduce that the object was more likely a rocky asteroid than an icy comet. Among
the teams were those led by Glenn Orton, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Leigh Fletcher, researcher at Oxford University,
U.K., who started the work while he was a postdoctoral fellow at JPL.

"Both the fact that the impact itself happened at all and the implication that it may
well have been an asteroid rather than a comet shows us that the outer solar
system is a complex, violent and dynamic place, and that many surprises may be
out there waiting for us," said Orton. "There is still a lot to sort out in the outer
solar system."

The new conclusion is also consistent with evidence from results from NASA's
Hubble Space Telescope indicating the impact debris in 2009 was heavier or
denser than debris from comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, the last known object to hurl
itself into Jupiter's atmosphere in 1994.

Before this collision, scientists had thought that the only objects that hit Jupiter
were icy comets whose unstable orbits took them close enough to Jupiter to be
sucked in by the giant planet's gravitational attraction. Those comets are known as
Jupiter-family comets. Scientists thought Jupiter had already cleared most other
objects, such as asteroids, from its sphere of influence. Besides Shoemaker-Levy,
scientists know of only two other impacts in the summer of 2010, which lit up
Jupiter's atmosphere.

The July 19, 2009 object likely hit Jupiter between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. UTC. Amateur
astronomer Anthony Wesley from Australia was the first to notice the scar on
Jupiter, which appeared as a dark spot in visible wavelengths. The scar appeared
at mid-southern latitudes. Wesley tipped off Orton and colleagues, who
immediately used existing observing time at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in
Mauna Kea, Hawaii, the following night and proposed observing time on a host of
other ground-based observatories, including the Gemini North Observatory in
Hawaii, the Gemini South Telescope in Chile, and the European Southern
Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. Data were acquired at regular
intervals during the week following the 2009 collision.

The data showed that the impact had warmed Jupiter's lower stratosphere by as
much as 3 to 4 Kelvin at about 42 kilometers above its cloudtops. Although 3 to 4
Kelvin does not sound like a lot, it is a significant deposition of energy because it is
spread over such an enormous area.

Plunging through Jupiter's atmosphere, the object created a channel of super-
heated atmospheric gases and debris. An explosion deep below the clouds –
probably releasing at least around 200 trillion trillion ergs of energy, or more than
5 gigatons of TNT -- then launched debris material back along the channel, above
the cloud tops, to splash back down into the atmosphere, creating the aerosol
particulates and warm temperatures observed in the infrared. The blowback
dredged up ammonia gas and other gases from a lower part of the atmosphere
known as the troposphere into a higher part of the atmosphere known as the
stratosphere.

"Comparisons between the 2009 images and the Shoemaker-Levy 9 results are
beginning to show intriguing differences between the kinds of objects that hit
Jupiter," Fletcher said. "The dark debris, the heated atmosphere and upwelling of
ammonia were similar for this impact and Shoemaker-Levy, but the debris plume in
this case didn't reach such high altitudes, didn't heat the high stratosphere, and
contained signatures for hydrocarbons, silicates and silicas that weren't seen
before. The presence of hydrocarbons, and the absence of carbon monoxide,
provide strong evidence for a water-depleted impactor in 2009."

The detection of silica in this mixture of Jovian atmospheric gases, processed bits
from the impactor and byproducts of high-energy chemical reactions was
significant because abundant silica could only be produced in the impact itself, by a
strong rocky body capable of penetrating very deeply into the Jovian atmosphere
before exploding, but not by a much weaker comet nucleus. Assuming that the
impactor had a rock-like density of around 2.5 grams per cubic centimeter (160
pounds per cubic foot), scientists calculated a likely diameter of 200 to 500 meters
(700 to 1,600 feet).

Scientists computed the set of possible orbits that would bring an object into
Jupiter in the right range of times and at the right locations. Then they searched the
catalog of known asteroids and comets to find the kinds of objects in these orbits.
An object named 2005 TS100 – which is probably an asteroid but could be an
extinct comet – was one of the closest matches. Although this object was not the
actual impactor, it has a very chaotic orbit and made several very close approaches
to Jupiter in computer models, demonstrating that an asteroid could have hurtled
into Jupiter.

"We weren't expecting to find that an asteroid was the likely culprit in this impact,
but we've now learned Jupiter is getting hit by a diversity of objects," said Paul
Chodas, a scientist at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL. " Asteroid
impacts on Jupiter were thought to be quite rare compared to impacts from the so-
called 'Jupiter-family comets,' but now it seems there may be a significant
population of asteroids in this category."

Scientists are still working to figure out what that frequency at Jupiter is, but
asteroids of this size hit Earth about once every 100,000 years. The next steps in
this investigation will be to use detailed simulations of the impact to refine the size
and properties of the impactor, and to continue to use imaging at infrared, as well
as visible wavelengths, to search for debris from future impacts of this size or
smaller.

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

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An Astronomer's Field of Dreams

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

Feature: 2011-027 Jan. 26, 2011

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

An Astronomer's Field of Dreams

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-027&cid=release_2011-027

An innovative new radio telescope array under construction in central New Mexico
will eventually harness the power of more than 13,000 antennas and provide a
fresh eye to the sky. The antennas, which resemble droopy ceiling fans, form the
Long Wavelength Array, designed to survey the sky from horizon to horizon over a
wide range of frequencies.

The University of New Mexico leads the project, and NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., provides the advanced digital electronic systems,
which represent a major component of the observatory.

The first station in the Long Wavelength Array, with 256 antennas, is scheduled to
start surveying the sky by this summer. When complete, the Long Wavelength
Array will consist of 53 stations, with a total of 13,000 antennas strategically placed
in an area nearly 400 kilometers (248 miles) in diameter. The antennas will
provide sensitive, high-resolution images of a region of the sky hundreds of times
larger than the full moon. These images could reveal radio waves coming from
planets outside our solar system, and thus would turn out to be a new way to
detect these worlds. In addition to planets, the telescope will pick up a host of other
cosmic phenomena.

"We'll be looking for the occasional celestial flash," said Joseph Lazio, a radio
astronomer at JPL. "These flashes can be anything from explosions on surfaces of
nearby stars, deaths of distant stars, exploding black holes, or even perhaps
transmissions by other civilizations." JPL scientists are working with multi-
institutional teams to explore this new area of astronomy. Lazio is lead author of
an article reporting scientific results from the Long Wavelength Demonstrator
Array, a precursor to the new array, in the December 2010 issue of Astronomical
Journal.

The new Long Wavelength Array will operate in the radio-frequency range of 20 to
80 megahertz, corresponding to wavelengths of 15 meters to 3.8 meters (49.2 feet
to 12.5 feet). These frequencies represent one of the last and most poorly
explored regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

In recent years, a few factors have triggered revived interest in radio astronomy at
these frequencies. The cost and technology required to build these low-frequency
antennas has improved significantly. Also, advances in computing have made the
demands of image processing more attainable. The combination of cost-effective
hardware and technology gives scientists the ability to return to these wavelengths
and obtain a much better view of the universe.
The predecessor Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array was also in New Mexico.
It was successful in identifying radio flashes, but all of them came from non-
astronomy targets -- either the sun, or meteors reflecting TV signals high in Earth's
atmosphere. Nonetheless, its findings indicate how future searches using the Long
Wavelength Array technology might lead to new discoveries.

Radio astronomy was born at frequencies below 100 megahertz and developed
from there. The discoveries and innovations at this frequency range helped pave
the way for modern astronomy. Perhaps one of the most important contributions
made in radio astronomy was by a young graduate student at New Hall (since
renamed Murray Edwards College) of the University of Cambridge, U.K. Jocelyn
Bell discovered the first hints of radio pulsars in 1967, a finding that was later
awarded a Nobel Prize. Pulsars are neutron stars that beam radio waves in a
manner similar to a lighthouse beacon.

Long before Bell's discovery, astronomers believed that neutron stars, remnants of
certain types of supernova explosions, might exist. At the time, however, the
prediction was that these cosmic objects would be far too faint to be detected.
When Bell went looking for something else, she stumbled upon neutron stars that
were in fact pulsing with radio waves -- the pulsars. Today about 2,000 pulsars are
known, but within the past decade, a number of discoveries have hinted that the
radio sky might be far more dynamic than suggested by just pulsars.

"Because nature is more clever than we are, it's quite possible that we will discover
something we haven't thought of," said Lazio.

More information on the Long Wavelength Array is online at: http://lwa.unm.edu .

The Long Wavelength Array project is led by the University of New Mexico,
Albuquerque, N.M., and includes the Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M., the
United States Naval Research Laboratories, Washington, and NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The California Institute of Technology manages JPL for
NASA.
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Reminder: Live Rover Web Chat for Students on Thurs., Jan. 27

Reminder: Live Rover Web Chat for Students on Thurs., Jan. 27
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

01.25.11 -- January is a great month to talk to students about rovers and robotics. Seven years ago,
in January 2004, the rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars. This month, engineers and technicians
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory continue to put finishing touches on the rovers' successor, the Mars
Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity.

This Thursday, Jan. 27 at 11 a.m. Pacific, schools are invited to watch a live web program featuring questions
submitted by students on the topics of Mars exploration and rovers. (We are no longer accepting questions for the chat.)
Our guest will be NASA/JPL engineer Nagin Cox. Nagin is currently on the mission operations team for the Mars Science
Laboratory. She was the Deputy Team Chief of the Spacecraft/Rover Engineering Flight Team for Spirit and Opportunity.
In addition, Nagin spent most of 2010 looking into a future Mars mission.

The live chat will be online at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 . It will be archived on the same website after the program.

Technical requirements: To watch the live or archived chat, classrooms must be able to view the live video and hear
the audio on http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 . It is not necessary for classrooms to use the Ustream chat functionality.

More information about the Mars Science Laboratory can be found at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . Highlights of the
rover can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-302 .

Information about Spirit and Opportunity can be found online at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html .


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Voyager Celebrates 25 Years Since Uranus Visit

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

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

Feature: 2011-023 Jan. 21, 2011

Voyager Celebrates 25 Years Since Uranus Visit

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-023&cid=release_2011-023

As NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft made the only close approach to date of our
mysterious seventh planet Uranus 25 years ago, Project Scientist Ed Stone and the
Voyager team gathered at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., to
pore over the data coming in.

Images of the small, icy Uranus moon Miranda were particularly surprising. Since
small moons tend to cool and freeze over rapidly after their formation, scientists
had expected a boring, ancient surface, pockmarked by crater-upon-weathered-
crater. Instead they saw grooved terrain with linear valleys and ridges cutting
through the older terrain and sometimes coming together in chevron shapes. They
also saw dramatic fault scarps, or cliffs. All of this indicated that periods of tectonic
and thermal activity had rocked Miranda's surface in the past.

The scientists were also shocked by data showing that Uranus's magnetic north
and south poles were not closely aligned with the north-south axis of the planet's
rotation. Instead, the planet's magnetic field poles were closer to the Uranian
equator. This suggested that the material flows in the planet's interior that are
generating the magnetic field are closer to the surface of Uranus than the flows
inside Earth, Jupiter and Saturn are to their respective surfaces.

"Voyager 2's visit to Uranus expanded our knowledge of the unexpected diversity
of bodies that share the solar system with Earth," said Stone, who is based at the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Even though similar in many ways,
the worlds we encounter can still surprise us."

Voyager 2 was launched on Aug. 20, 1977, 16 days before its twin, Voyager 1. After
completing its prime mission of flying by Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 was sent on
the right flight path to visit Uranus, which is about 3 billion kilometers (2 billion
miles) away from the sun. Voyager 2 made its closest approach – within
81,500 kilometers (50,600 miles) of the Uranian cloud tops – on Jan. 24, 1986.

Before Voyager 2's visit, scientists had to learn about Uranus by using Earth-based
and airborne telescopes. By observing dips in starlight as a star passed behind
Uranus, scientists knew Uranus had nine narrow rings. But it wasn't until the
Voyager 2 flyby that scientists were able to capture for the first time images of the
rings and the tiny shepherding moons that sculpted them. Unlike Saturn's icy rings,
they found Uranus' rings to be dark gray, reflecting only a few percent of the
incident sunlight.

Scientists had also determined an average temperature for Uranus (59 Kelvin, or
minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit) before this encounter, but the distribution of that
temperature came as a surprise. Voyager showed there was heat transport from
pole to pole in Uranus' atmosphere that maintained the same temperature at both
poles, even though the sun was shining directly for decades on one pole and not
the other.

By the end of the Uranus encounter and science analysis, data from Voyager 2
enabled the discovery of 11 new moons and two new rings, and generated dozens
of science papers about the quirky seventh planet.

Voyager 2 moved on to explore Neptune, the last planetary target, in August 1989.
It is now hurtling toward interstellar space, which is the space between stars. It is
about 14 billion kilometers (9 billion miles) away from the sun. Voyager 1, which
explored only Jupiter and Saturn before heading on a faster track toward
interstellar space, is about 17 billion kilometers (11 billion miles) away from the
sun.

"The Uranus encounter was one of a kind," said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project
manager, based at JPL. "Voyager 2 was healthy and durable enough to make it to
Uranus and then to Neptune. Currently both Voyager spacecraft are on the cusp of
leaving the sun's sphere of influence and once again blazing a trail of scientific
discovery."

The Voyagers were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,
which continues to operate both spacecraft. For more information about the
Voyager spacecraft, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager . JPL is a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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Mars Sliding Behind Sun After Rover Anniversary

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. 20, 2011
Guy.Webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status Report

Mars Sliding Behind Sun After Rover Anniversary

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-022&cid=release_2011-022

PASADENA, Calif. -- The team operating NASA's Mars rover Opportunity will
temporarily suspend commanding for 16 days after the rover's seventh anniversary next
week, but the rover will stay busy.

For the fourth time since Opportunity landed on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time
(Jan. 24, Pacific Time), the planets' orbits will put Mars almost directly behind the sun from
Earth's perspective.

During the days surrounding such an alignment, called a solar conjunction, the sun can
disrupt radio transmissions between Earth and Mars. To avoid the chance of a command
being corrupted by the sun and harming a spacecraft, NASA temporarily refrains from
sending commands from Earth to Mars spacecraft in orbit and on the surface. This year, the
commanding moratorium will be Jan. 27 to Feb. 11 for Opportunity, with similar periods
for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey orbiter.

Downlinks from Mars spacecraft will continue during the conjunction period, though at a
much reduced rate. Mars-to-Earth communication does not present risk to spacecraft
safety, even if transmissions are corrupted by the sun.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will scale back its observations of Mars during the
conjunction period due to reduced capability to download data to Earth and a limit on how
much can be stored onboard.

Opportunity will continue sending data daily to the Odyssey orbiter for relay to Earth.
"Overall, we expect to receive a smaller volume of daily data from Opportunity and none at
all during the deepest four days of conjunction," said Alfonso Herrera, a rover mission
manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The rover team has developed a set of commands to be sent to Opportunity in advance so
that the rover can continue science activities during the command moratorium.

"The goal is to characterize the materials in an area that shows up with a mineralogical
signal, as seen from orbit, that's different from anywhere else Opportunity has been," said
JPL's Bruce Banerdt, project scientist for Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit. The area is
at the southeastern edge of a crater called "Santa Maria," which Opportunity approached
from the west last month.

Drives last week brought Opportunity to the position where it will spend the conjunction
period. From that position, the rover's robotic arm can reach an outcrop target called "Luis
de Torres." The rover's Moessbauer spectrometer will be placed onto the target for several
days during the conjunction to assess the types of minerals present. The instrument uses a
small amount of radioactive cobalt-57 to elicit information from the target. With a half-life
of less than a year, the cobalt has substantially depleted during Opportunity's seven years
on Mars, so readings lasting several days are necessary now to be equivalent to much
shorter readings when the mission was newer.

Opportunity will also make atmospheric measurements during the conjunction period. After
conjunction, it will spend several more days investigating Santa Maria crater before
resuming a long-term trek toward Endurance crater, which is about 22 kilometers (14 miles)
in diameter and, at its closest edge, about 6 kilometers (4 miles) from Santa Maria.

Opportunity's drives to the southeastern edge of Santa Maria brought the total distance
driven by the rover during its seventh year on Mars to 7.4 kilometers (4.6 miles), which is
more than in any previous year. The rover's total odometry for its seventh anniversary is
26.7 kilometers (16.6 miles).

Opportunity and Spirit, which landed three weeks apart, successfully completed their
three-month prime missions in April 2004, then began years of bonus extended missions.
Both have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may
have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Spirit's most recent communication was
on March 22, 2010. On the possibility that Spirit may yet awaken from a low-power
hibernation status, NASA engineers continue to listen for a signal from that rover.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars
Exploration Rover project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

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Lunar Eclipse Wallpaper Contest Yields Hundreds of Photos

Lunar Eclipse Wallpaper Contest Yields Hundreds of Photos

December's total lunar eclipse, which coincided with the winter solstice, offered moon-gazers and
photo-lovers the chance to capture one of the sky's most spectacular events. As a result, hundreds of
people joined "NASAJPL's I'm There: Lunar Eclipse Group" on Flickr to share their photos and compete
for the opportunity to have their snapshots turned into an official JPL Wallpaper at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wallpaper?cid=lec_email .

After searching through the nearly 2,000 lunar eclipse photos at http://www.flickr.com/groups/imthere, we selected the 13 finalists (featured at http://bit.ly/hcnRkY), who submitted unique and stunning perspectives of the Dec. 21 event and shared with us their stories of braving the cold, waiting out clouds, and even driving hours to capture the eclipse.

We were especially impressed by Keith Burns' photo montage, which captures the phases of the
waning moon up through its red-orange glow at totality. Burns shot this series under clear skies in the
Pine Barrens of New Jersey. His photo is now available to download as an official JPL wallpaper at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wallpaper?cid=lec_email .

Flip through the slideshow at http://bit.ly/hcnRkY to view some of our other picks and vote for your
favorite lunar eclipse scene. To find more lunar eclipse photos and learn about NASAJPL's "I'm There:
Lunar Eclipse" campaign, visit: http://www.flickr.com/groups/imthere/ .

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

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Half a Million Take a Gander at Space

Half a Million Take a Gander at Space

The first-ever NASA/JPL iPhone app, Space Images, has reached 500,000 downloads just as JPL
prepares to release its newest version of the free app. Space Images features breathtaking views of
Earth, the solar system and the universe beyond.

Soon after its release in January 2010, Space Images was selected as a "Staff Favorite" in
iTunes and quickly became a top app in the Education category. It has since received praise
from users for its extensive and stunning collection of images taken by NASA/JPL spacecraft and
for its educational uses.

The new version, Space Images 2.0, optimized for iPad and iPhone 4, brings even more stellar photos to viewers' fingertips, plus videos, Facebook and Twitter connectivity, and a new format that makes it
easier to browse through photos at a higher resolution. It will be available in the iTunes Store
this spring.

Droid more your style? Space Images 2.0 for Android devices is coming soon.

Visit http://bit.ly/e2yy4y to download Space Images free in the iTunes App Store. Explore more
mobile offerings from JPL at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/onthego/index.cfm?cid=500kemail .

#2011-020

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

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NASA Spacecraft Prepares for Valentine's Day Comet Rendezvous

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

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

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

News Release: 2011-019 Jan. 19, 2011

NASA Spacecraft Prepares for Valentine's Day Comet Rendezvous

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-019&cid=release_2011-019

PASADENA, Calif., -- NASA's Stardust-NExT spacecraft is nearing a celestial date with
comet Tempel 1 at approximately 8:37 p.m. PST (11:37 p.m. EST), on Feb. 14. The
mission will allow scientists for the first time to look for changes on a comet's surface that
occurred following an orbit around the sun.

The Stardust-NExT, or New Exploration of Tempel, spacecraft will take high-resolution
images during the encounter, and attempt to measure the composition, distribution, and
flux of dust emitted into the coma, or material surrounding the comet's nucleus. Data
from the mission will provide important new information on how Jupiter-family comets
evolved and formed.

The mission will expand the investigation of the comet initiated by NASA's Deep Impact
mission. In July 2005, the Deep Impact spacecraft delivered an impactor to the surface of
Tempel 1 to study its composition. The Stardust spacecraft may capture an image of the
crater created by the impactor. This would be an added bonus to the huge amount of data
that mission scientists expect to obtain.

"Every day we are getting closer and closer and more and more excited about answering
some fundamental questions about comets," said Joe Veverka, Stardust-NExT principal
investigator at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "Going back for another look at Tempel 1
will provide new insights on how comets work and how they were put together four-and-
a-half billion years ago."

At approximately 336 million kilometers (209 million miles) away from Earth, Stardust-
NExT will be almost on the exact opposite side of the solar system at the time of the
encounter. During the flyby, the spacecraft will take 72 images and store them in an
onboard computer.
Initial raw images from the flyby will be sent to Earth for processing that will begin at
approximately midnight PST (3 a.m. EST) on Feb. 15. Images are expected to be available
at approximately 1:30 a.m. PST (4:30 a.m. EST).

As of today, the spacecraft is approximately 24.6 million kilometers (15.3 million miles)
away from its encounter. Since 2007, Stardust-NExT executed eight flight path
correction maneuvers, logged four circuits around the sun and used one Earth gravity
assist to meet up with Tempel 1.

Another three maneuvers are planned to refine the spacecraft's path to the comet. Tempel
1's orbit takes it as close in to the sun as the orbit of Mars and almost as far away as the
orbit of Jupiter. The spacecraft is expected to fly past the nearly 6-kilometer-wide comet
(3.7 miles) at a distance of approximately 200 kilometers (124 miles).

In 2004, the Stardust mission became the first to collect particles directly from comet
Wild 2, as well as interstellar dust. Samples were returned in 2006 for study via a capsule
that detached from the spacecraft and parachuted to the ground southwest of Salt Lake
City. Mission controllers placed the still viable Stardust spacecraft on a trajectory that
could potentially reuse the flight system if a target of opportunity presented itself.

In January 2007, NASA re-christened the mission Stardust-NExT and began a four-and-
a-half year journey to comet Tempel 1.

"You could say our spacecraft is a seasoned veteran of cometary campaigns," said Tim
Larson, project manager for Stardust-NExT at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif. "It's been half-way to Jupiter, executed picture-perfect flybys of an
asteroid and a comet, collected cometary material for return to Earth, then headed back
out into the void again, where we asked it to go head-to-head with a second comet
nucleus."

The mission team expects this flyby to write the final chapter of the spacecraft's success-
filled story. The spacecraft is nearly out of fuel as it approaches 12 years of space travel,
logging almost 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) since launch in 1999. This flyby and
planned post-encounter imaging are expected to consume the remaining fuel.

JPL manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft and manages day-to-day
mission operations. JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

For more information about the Stardust-NExT mission, visit:

http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/

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NASA Mars Rover Will Check for Ingredients of Life

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

Feature: 2011-018 Jan. 18, 2011

NASA Mars Rover Will Check for Ingredients of Life

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-018&cid=release_2011-018

PASADENA, Calif. -- Paul Mahaffy, the scientist in charge of the largest instrument on NASA's
next Mars rover, watched through glass as clean-room workers installed it into the rover.

The specific work planned for this instrument on Mars requires more all-covering protective garb
for these specialized workers than was needed for the building of NASA's earlier Mars rovers.

The instrument is Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, Md. At the carefully selected landing site for the Mars rover named Curiosity,
one of SAM's key jobs will be to check for carbon-containing compounds called organic
molecules, which are among the building blocks of life on Earth. The clean-room suits worn by
Curiosity's builders at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are just part of the
care being taken to keep biological material from Earth from showing up in results from SAM.

Organic chemicals consist of carbon and hydrogen and, in many cases, additional elements. They
can exist without life, but life as we know it cannot exist without them. SAM can detect a fainter
trace of organics and identify a wider variety of them than any instrument yet sent to Mars. It
also can provide information about other ingredients of life and clues to past environments.

Researchers will use SAM and nine other science instruments on Curiosity to study whether one
of the most intriguing areas on Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for life and
favorable for preserving evidence about whether life has ever existed there. NASA will launch
Curiosity from Florida between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011, as part of the Mars Science
Laboratory mission's spacecraft. The spacecraft will deliver the rover to the Martian surface in
August 2012. The mission plan is to operate Curiosity on Mars for two years.

"If we don't find any organics, that's useful information," said Mahaffy, of NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center. "That would mean the best place to look for evidence about life on Mars
may not be near the surface. It may push us to look deeper." It would also aid understanding of
the environmental conditions that remove organics.

"If we do find detectable organics, that would be an encouraging sign that the immediate
environment in the rocks we're sampling is preserving these clues," he said. "Then we would use
the tools we have to try to determine where the organics may have come from." Organics
delivered by meteorites without involvement of biology come with more random chemical
structures than the patterns seen in mixtures of organic chemicals produced by organisms.

Mahaffy paused in describing what SAM will do on Mars while engineers and technicians
lowered the instrument into its position inside Curiosity this month. A veteran of using earlier
spacecraft instruments to study planetary atmospheres, he has coordinated work of hundreds of
people in several states and Europe to develop, build and test SAM after NASA selected his
team's proposal for it in 2004.

"It has been a long haul getting to this point," he said. "We've taken a set of experiments that
would occupy a good portion of a room on Earth and put them into that box the size of a
microwave oven."

SAM has three laboratory tools for analyzing chemistry. The tools will examine gases from the
Martian atmosphere, as well as gases that ovens and solvents pull from powdered rock and soil
samples. Curiosity's robotic arm will deliver the powdered samples to an inlet funnel. SAM's
ovens will heat most samples to about 1,000 degrees Celsius (about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit).

One tool, a mass spectrometer, identifies gases by the molecular weight and electrical charge of
their ionized states. It will check for several elements important for life as we know it, including
nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur, oxygen and carbon.

Another tool, a laser spectrometer, uses absorption of light at specific wavelengths to measure
concentrations of selected chemicals, such as methane and water vapor. It also identifies the
proportions of different isotopes in those gases. Isotopes are variants of the same element with
different atomic weights, such as carbon-13 and carbon-12, or oxygen-18 and oxygen-16. Ratios
of isotopes can be signatures of planetary processes. For example, Mars once had a much denser
atmosphere than it does today, and if the loss occurred at the top of the atmosphere, the process
would favor increased concentration of heavier isotopes in the retained, modern atmosphere.

Methane is an organic molecule. Observations from Mars orbit and from Earth in recent years
have suggested transient methane in Mars' atmosphere, which would mean methane is being
actively added and subtracted at Mars. With SAM's laser spectrometer, researchers will check to
confirm whether methane is present, monitor any changes in concentration, and look for clues
about whether Mars methane is produced by biological activity or by processes that do not
require life. JPL provided SAM's laser spectrometer.

SAM's third analytical tool, a gas chromatograph, separates different gases from a mixture to aid
identification. It does some identification itself and also feeds the separated fractions to the mass
spectrometer and the laser spectrometer. France's space agency, Centre National d'Études
Spatiales, provided support to the French researchers who developed SAM's gas chromatograph.

NASA's investigation of organics on Mars began with the twin Viking landers in 1976. Science
goals of more recent Mars missions have tracked a "follow the water" theme, finding multiple
lines of evidence for liquid water -- another prerequisite for life -- in Mars' past. The Mars Science
Laboratory mission will seek more information about those wet environments, while the
capabilities of its SAM instrument add a trailblazing "follow the carbon" aspect and information
about how well ancient environments may be preserved.

The original reports from Viking came up negative for organics. How, then, might Curiosity find
any? Mahaffy describes three possibilities.

The first is about locations. Mars is diverse, not uniform. Copious information gained from Mars
orbiters in recent years is enabling the choice of a landing site with favorable attributes, such as
exposures of clay and sulfate minerals good at entrapping organic chemicals. Mobility helps too,
especially with the aid of high-resolution geologic mapping generated from orbital observations.
The stationary Viking landers could examine only what their arms could reach. Curiosity can use
mapped geologic context as a guide in its mobile search for organics and other clues about
habitable environments. Additionally, SAM will be able to analyze samples from interiors of
rocks drilled into by Curiosity, rather than being restricted to soil samples, as Viking was.

Second, SAM has improved sensitivity, with a capability to detect less than one part-per-billion
of an organic compound, over a wider mass range of molecules and after heating samples to a
higher temperature.

Third, a lower-heat method using solvents to pull organics from some SAM samples can check a
hypothesis that a reactive chemical recently discovered in Martian soil may have masked organics
in soil samples baked during Viking tests.

The lower-heat process also allows searching for specific classes of organics with known
importance to life on Earth. For example, it can identify amino acids, the chain links of proteins.
Other clues from SAM could also be hints about whether organics on Mars -- if detected at all --
come from biological processes or without biology, such as from meteorites. Certain carbon-
isotope ratios in organics compared with the ratio in Mars' atmosphere could suggest meteorite
origin. Patterns in the number of carbon atoms in organic molecules could be a clue. Researchers
will check for a mixture of organics with chains of carbon atoms to see if the mix is
predominated either by chains with an even number of carbon atoms or with an odd number.
That kind of pattern, rather than a random blend, would be typical of biological assembly of
carbon chains from repetitious subunits.

"Even if we see a signature such as mostly even-numbered chains in a mix of organics, we would
be hesitant to make any definitive statements about life, but that would certainly indicate that
our landing site would be a good place to come back to," Mahaffy said. A future mission could
bring a sample back to Earth for more extensive analysis with all the methods available on Earth.

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

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New Educator Workshops: Climate Change, Space Discoveries and Physics of Sound

New Educator Workshops: Climate Change, Space Discoveries and Physics of Sound
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

01.14.11 -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is helping sponsor the following educator workshops at locations around the country.

Climate Change
Free Workshop
Saturday, February 5, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Location: Columbia Memorial Space Center, Downey, CA
Meets science standards for grades 2 through 5

Join us for a free workshop on a timely and fascinating subject. We will focus on the history of climate change and NASA missions. Teachers will take away exciting lessons that can be used in your classroom.

Interested educators must RSVP to the Columbia Memorial Space Center in advance at (562) 231-1200. For more information and directions to the Columbia Memorial Space Center, go to www.ColumbiaSpaceScience.org .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thrill of Discovery
About $25 registration fee
Saturday, March 19, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
4 locations:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD
Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston, TX
Jackson Middle School Observatory, Champlin, MN For K -12 teachers and out-of-school time educators

NASA's Discovery and New Frontiers missions are traveling vast distances to find answers to age-old questions. These robotic spacecraft are celestial detectives, revealing how our solar system formed and evolved, and doing brilliant science utilizing way cool technologies.

Come celebrate NASA's Year of the Solar System and receive a great packet of resources, including your own DVD of "Space School Musical."

More details will appear on http://discovery.nasa.gov .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Physics of Sound
Free Workshop
Saturday, April 9, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Location: Columbia Memorial Space Center, Downey, CA
Meets science standards for grades 2 and 3

Do you know why there is no sound in space? Did you know that elephants and whales communicate using the similar low frequencies? Learn these and other exciting ways to teach the physics of sound to your students.

Interested educators must RSVP to the Columbia Memorial Space Center in advance at (562) 231-1200. For more information and directions to the Columbia Memorial Space Center, go to www.ColumbiaSpaceScience.org .

To see more workshops, go to http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=110 .

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Partner Galaxies Wildly Different in New WISE Image

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

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

Image advisory: 2010-016 Jan. 13, 2011

Partner Galaxies Wildly Different in New WISE Image

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-016&cid=release_2011-016

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer has captured a new view of
two companion galaxies -- a somewhat tranquil spiral beauty and its rambunctious partner blazing
with smoky star formation.

The unlikely pair, named Messier 81 and Messier 82, got to know each other a lot better during
an encounter that occurred a few hundred million years ago. As they swept by each other,
gravitational interactions triggered new bursts of star formation. In the case of Messier 82, also
known as the Cigar galaxy, the encounter has likely triggered a tremendous wave of new star
birth at its core. Intense radiation from newborn massive stars is blowing copious amounts of gas
and smoky dust out of the galaxy, as seen in the WISE image in yellow hues.

The new image is online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/pia13454.html . The Cigar galaxy
is pictured above Messier 81.

"What's unique about the WISE view of this duo is that we can see both galaxies in one shot, and
we can really see their differences," said Ned Wright of UCLA, the principal investigator of
WISE. "Because the Cigar galaxy is bursting with star formation, it's really bright in the infrared,
and looks dramatically different from its less active companion."

The WISE mission completed its main goal of mapping the sky in infrared light in October 2010,
covering it one-and-one-half times before its frozen coolant ran out, as planned. During that time,
it snapped pictures of hundreds of millions of objects, the first batch of which will be released to
the astronomy community in April 2011. WISE is continuing its scan of the skies without coolant
using two of its four infrared channels -- the two shorter-wavelength channels not affected by
the warmer temperatures. The mission's ongoing survey is now focused primarily on asteroids and
comets.

Because WISE has imaged the entire sky, it excels at producing large mosaics like this new
picture of Messier 81 and Messier 82, which covers a patch of sky equivalent to three-by-three
full moons, or 1.5 by 1.5 degrees.

It is likely these partner galaxies will continue to dance around each other, and eventually merge
into a single entity. They are both spiral galaxies, but Messier 82 is seen from an edge-on
perspective, and thus appears in visible light as a thin, cigar-like bar. When viewed in infrared
light, Messier 82 is the brightest galaxy in the sky. It is what scientists refer to as a starburst
galaxy because it is churning out large amounts of new stars.

"The WISE picture really shows how spectacular Messier 82 shines in the infrared even though it
is relatively puny in both size and mass compared to its big brother, Messier 81," said Tom Jarrett,
a member of the WISE team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

In this WISE view, infrared light has been color coded so that we can see it with our eyes. The
shortest wavelengths (3.4 and 3.6 microns) are shown in blue and blue-green, or cyan, and the
longer wavelengths (12 and 22 microns) are green and red. Messier 82 appears in yellow hues
because its cocoon of dust gives off longer wavelengths of light (the yellow is a result of
combining green and red). This dust is made primarily of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,
which are found on Earth as soot.

Messier 81, also known as Bode's galaxy, appears blue in the infrared image because it is not as
dusty. The blue light is from stars in the galaxy. Knots of yellow seen dotting the spiral arms are
dusty areas of recent star formation, most likely triggered by the galaxy's encounter with its
rowdy partner.

"It's striking how the same event stimulated a classic spiral galaxy in Messier 81, and a raging
starburst in Messier 82," said WISE Project Scientist Peter Eisenhardt of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "WISE is finding the most extreme starbursts across the whole
sky, out to distances over a thousand times greater than Messier 82."

Messier 81 is one of the brightest galaxies in the sky in visible light. Both it and its partner can be
seen with binoculars on a dark, clear night in the northern constellation of Ursa Major, which
contains the Big Dipper. The galaxies are 12 million light-years away from Earth.

JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The mission was competitively
selected under NASA's Explorers Program, which NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., manages. The Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science
instrument, and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., built the spacecraft.
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 , http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .

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NASA Telescopes Help Identify Most Distant Galaxy Cluster

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

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

Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321
NASA Headquarters, Washington
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2011-013 Jan. 12, 2011

NASA Telescopes Help Identify Most Distant Galaxy Cluster

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-013&cid=release_2011-013

PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers have uncovered a burgeoning
galactic metropolis, the most distant known in the early universe. This
ancient collection of galaxies presumably grew into a modern galaxy
cluster similar to the massive ones seen today.

The developing cluster, named COSMOS-AzTEC3, was discovered
and characterized by multi-wavelength telescopes, including NASA's
Spitzer, Chandra and Hubble space telescopes, and the ground-based
W.M. Keck Observatory and Japan's Subaru Telescope.

"This exciting discovery showcases the exceptional science made
possible through collaboration among NASA projects and our
international partners," said Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics Division
director at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Scientists refer to this growing lump of galaxies as a proto-cluster.
COSMOS-AzTEC3 is the most distant massive proto-cluster known,
and also one of the youngest, because it is being seen when the
universe itself was young. The cluster is roughly 12.6 billion light-
years away from Earth. Our universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion
years old. Previously, more mature versions of these clusters had been
spotted at 10 billion light-years away.

The astronomers also found that this cluster is buzzing with extreme
bursts of star formation and one enormous feeding black hole.

"We think the starbursts and black holes are the seeds of the cluster,"
said Peter Capak of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "These seeds will eventually grow
into a giant, central galaxy that will dominate the cluster -- a trait found
in modern-day galaxy clusters." Capak is first author of a paper
appearing in the Jan. 13 issue of the journal Nature.

Most galaxies in our universe are bound together into clusters that dot
the cosmic landscape like urban sprawls, usually centered around one
old, monstrous galaxy containing a massive black hole. Astronomers
thought that primitive versions of these clusters, still forming and
clumping together, should exist in the early universe. But locating one
proved difficult—until now.

Capak and his colleagues first used the Chandra X-ray Observatory and
the United Kingdom's James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea,
Hawaii, to search for the black holes and bursts of star formation
needed to form the massive galaxies at the centers of modern galaxy
cities. The astronomers then used the Hubble and Subaru telescopes to
estimate the distances to these objects, and look for higher densities of
galaxies around them. Finally, the Keck telescope was used to confirm
that these galaxies were at the same distance and part of the same
galactic sprawl.

Once the scientists found this lumping of galaxies, they measured the
combined mass with the help of Spitzer. At this distance, the optical
light from stars is shifted, or stretched, to infrared wavelengths that can
only be observed in outer space by Spitzer. The lump sum of the mass
turned out to be a minimum of 400 billion suns -- enough to indicate
that the astronomers had indeed uncovered a massive proto-cluster.
The Spitzer observations also helped confirm that a massive galaxy at
the center of the cluster was forming stars at an impressive rate.

Chandra X-ray observations were used to find and characterize the
whopping black hole with a mass of more than 30 million suns.
Massive black holes are common in present-day galaxy clusters, but
this is the first time a feeding black hole of this heft has been linked to
a cluster that is so young.

Finally, the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique's interferometer
telescope in France and 30-meter (about 100-foot) telescope in Spain,
along with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large
Array telescope in New Mexico, measured the amount of gas, or fuel
for future star formation, in the cluster. The results indicate the cluster
will keep growing into a modern city of galaxies.

"It really did take a village of telescopes to nail this cluster," said
Capak. "Observations across the electromagnetic spectrum, from X-ray
to millimeter wavelengths, were all critical in providing a
comprehensive view of the cluster's many facets."

COSMOS-AzTEC3, located in the constellation Sextans, is named
after the region where it was found, called COSMOS after the Cosmic
Evolution Survey. AzTEC is the name of the camera used on the James
Clerk Maxwell Telescope; this camera is now on its way to the Large
Millimeter Telescope located in Mexico's Puebla state.

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 in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for
NASA. More information about Spitzer is at:
http://spitzer.caltech.edu/ and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

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Planck Mission Peels Back Layers of the Universe

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

Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321
Headquarters, Washington
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-010 Jan. 11, 2011

Planck Mission Peels Back Layers of the Universe

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-010&cid=release_2011-010

PASADENA, Calif. -- The Planck mission released a new data catalogue Tuesday from initial
maps of the entire sky. The catalogue includes thousands of never-before-seen dusty cocoons
where stars are forming, and some of the most massive clusters of galaxies ever observed. Planck
is a European Space Agency mission with significant contributions from NASA.

"NASA is pleased to support this important mission, and we have eagerly awaited Planck's first
discoveries," said Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at the agency's
headquarters in Washington. "We look forward to continued collaboration with ESA and more
outstanding science to come."

Planck launched in May 2009 on a mission to detect light from just a few hundred thousand
years after the Big Bang, an explosive event at the dawn of the universe approximately 13.7
billion years ago. The spacecraft's state-of-the-art detectors ultimately will survey the whole sky
at least four times, measuring the cosmic microwave background, or radiation left over from the
Big Bang. The data will help scientists decipher clues about the evolution, fate and fabric of our
universe. While these cosmology results won't be ready for another two years or so, early
observations of specific objects in our Milky Way galaxy, as well as more distant galaxies, are
being released.

"The data we're releasing now are from what lies between us and the cosmic microwave
background," said Charles Lawrence, the U.S. project scientist for Planck at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. We ultimately will subtract these data out to get at our
cosmic microwave background signal. But by themselves, these early observations offer up new
information about objects in our universe -- both close and far away, and everything in between."

Planck observes the sky at nine wavelengths of light, ranging from infrared to radio waves. Its
technology has greatly improved sensitivity and resolution over its predecessor missions, NASA's
Cosmic Background Explorer and Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.

The result is a windfall of data on known and never-before-seen cosmic objects. Planck has
catalogued approximately 10,000 star-forming "cold cores," thousands of which are newly
discovered. The cores are dark and dusty nurseries where baby stars are just beginning to take
shape. They also are some of the coldest places in the universe. Planck's new catalogue includes
some of the coldest cores ever seen, with temperatures as low as seven degrees above absolute
zero, or minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit. In order to see the coldest gas and dust in the Milky Way,
Planck's detectors were chilled to only 0.1 Kelvin.

The new catalogue also contains some of the most massive clusters of galaxies known, including
a handful of newfound ones. The most massive of these holds the equivalent of a million billion
suns worth of mass, making it one of the most massive galaxy clusters known.

Galaxies in our universe are bound together into these larger clusters, forming a lumpy network
across the cosmos. Scientists study the clusters to learn more about the evolution of galaxies and
dark matter and dark energy -- the exotic substances that constitute the majority of our universe.

"Because Planck is observing the whole sky, it is giving us a comprehensive look at how all the
smaller structures of the universe are connected to the whole," said Jim Bartlett, a U.S. Planck
team member at JPL and the Astroparticule et Cosmologie-Universite Paris Diderot in France.

Planck's new catalogue also includes unique data on the pools of hot gas that permeate roughly
14,000 smaller clusters of galaxies; the best data yet on the cosmic infrared background, which is
made up of light from stars evolving in the early universe; and new observations of extremely
energetic galaxies spewing radio jets. The catalogue covers about one-and-a-half sky scans.

More information on Planck is online at http://www.nasa.gov/planck and
http://www.esa.int/planck .

Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA. NASA's
Planck Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for both of
Planck's science instruments. European, Canadian and U.S. Planck scientists will work together
to analyze the Planck data. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena.

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NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet

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

Trent J. Perrotto202-358-0321
Headquarters, Washington
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

Rachel Hoover 650-604-0643
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-007 Jan. 10, 2011

NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-007&cid=release_2011-007

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet,
named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered
outside our solar system.

The discovery of this planet, called an exoplanet, is based on more than eight months of data
collected by the spacecraft from May 2009 to early January 2010.

"All of Kepler's best capabilities have converged to yield the first solid evidence of a rocky
planet orbiting a star other than our sun," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler's deputy science team lead
at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and primary author of a paper on the
discovery accepted by the Astrophysical Journal. "The Kepler team made a commitment in 2010
about finding the telltale signatures of small planets in the data, and it's beginning to pay off."

Kepler's ultra-precise photometer measures the tiny decrease in a star's brightness that occurs
when a planet crosses in front of it. The size of the planet can be derived from these periodic dips
in brightness. The distance between the planet and the star is calculated by measuring the time
between successive dips as the planet orbits the star.

Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable
zone, the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface.
However, since it orbits once every 0.84 days, Kepler-10b is more than 20 times closer to its star
than Mercury is to our sun and not in the habitable zone.

Kepler-10 was the first star identified that could potentially harbor a small transiting planet,
placing it at the top of the list for ground-based observations with the W.M. Keck Observatory
10-meter telescope in Hawaii. Scientists waiting for a signal to confirm Kepler-10b as a planet
were not disappointed. Keck was able to measure tiny changes in the star's spectrum, called
Doppler shifts, caused by the telltale tug exerted by the orbiting planet on the star.

"The discovery of Kepler 10-b is a significant milestone in the search for planets similar to our
own," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"Although this planet is not in the habitable zone, the exciting find showcases the kinds of
discoveries made possible by the mission and the promise of many more to come."

Knowledge of the planet is only as good as the knowledge of the star it orbits. Because Kepler-
10 is one of the brighter stars being targeted by Kepler, scientists were able to detect high-
frequency variations in the star's brightness generated by stellar oscillations, or starquakes. This
analysis allowed scientists to pin down Kepler-10b's properties.

There is a clear signal in the data arising from light waves that travel within the interior of the
star. Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium scientists use the information to better understand
the star, just as earthquakes are used to learn about Earth's interior structure. As a result of this
analysis, Kepler-10 is one of the most well-characterized planet-hosting stars in the universe.

That's good news for the team studying Kepler-10b. Accurate stellar properties yield accurate
planet properties. In the case of Kepler-10b, the picture that emerges is of a rocky planet with a
mass 4.6 times that of Earth and with an average density of 8.8 grams per cubic centimeter --
similar to that of an iron dumbbell.

Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data
analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission
development. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler
flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space
Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in
Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data.

Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission
Directorate at the agency's headquarters. For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/kepler . More information about NASA's planet-hunting efforts is online
at: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

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Rover x 3: Student Questions Sought for Web Chat

Rover x 3: Student Questions Sought for Web Chat
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

01.06.11 -- January is a great month to talk to students about rovers and robotics. Seven years ago, in January 2004, the rovers Spirit and Opportunity
landed on Mars. This month, engineers and technicians at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory continue to put finishing touches on the rovers' successor,
the Mars Science Laboratory.

JPL's Education Office is hosting a 30-minute live video chat about the rovers on Thursday, Jan. 27, at 11 a.m. Pacific Time. An Education Office host
will pose pre-submitted student questions to our guest. We are currently seeking student questions about the rovers or Mars exploration from up to six
classrooms or educational groups. Educators interested in submitting student questions should send an email as soon as possible to jplspaceeducation@gmail.com
to express their interest. Classrooms will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Selected educators must email at least three questions composed by
their classes by Thursday, Jan. 20.

The live chat will be online at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 . It will be archived on the same website after the program.

Our guest will be NASA/JPL engineer Nagin Cox. Nagin is currently on the mission operations team for the Mars Science Laboratory. She was the Deputy
Team Chief of the Spacecraft/Rover Engineering Flight Team for Spirit and Opportunity. In addition, Nagin spent most of 2010 looking into a future Mars mission.

Technical requirements: To watch the live or archived chat, classrooms must be able to view the live video on JPL's Ustream page at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasajpl . It is not necessary for classrooms to use the Ustream chat functionality.

More information about the Mars Science Laboratory can be found at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . Highlights of the rover can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-302 .

Information about Spirit and Opportunity can be found online at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html .


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Extreme Planet Makeover

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

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

Feature: 2011-005 Jan. 6, 2011

Extreme Planet Makeover

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-005&cid=release_2011-005

The new "Extreme Planet Makeover" on the NASA/JPL PlanetQuest site
lets you roll up your sleeves and create your very own planet.

Balance five factors to create an Earth-like habitable world, or get wild
and make your own extreme exoplanet. Use the Image Gallery feature
to compare your creation with those of other Earthlings. Once you've
finished creating the exoplanet of your dreams, download a picture of
your custom world for posterity.

More information:
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/planetMakeover/planetMakeover.html .

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Teacher Workshop: Introduction to the Periodic Table of Elements and the Solar System

Teacher Workshop: Introduction to the Periodic Table of Elements and the Solar System
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office

01.05.11 - The Education Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is offering a free introductory-level workshop that will
teach the difference between an atom and a molecule and give an overview of the elements. Attendees will "tour" the solar system
and identify predominant elements that compose each planet. The workshop provides the basis for an engaging way to teach the
Periodic Table and learn about the planets and moons of our solar system.

The Periodic Table of Elements and the Solar System workshop will be held on Saturday, Jan. 22 from 10 a.m. to noon, at the
JPL Educator Resource Center in Pomona, Calif. To sign up, call the Resource Center at 909-397-4420.

This workshop is recommended for third and fifth grade teachers but it is open to all educators.

Directions to the JPL Educator Resource Center are online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115 .

More workshops offered by JPL's Education Office can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=110 .


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