Cassini Finds Saturn Moon has Planet-Like Qualities

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

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

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

News release: 2012-119 April 26, 2012

Cassini Finds Saturn Moon has Planet-Like Qualities

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-119&cid=release_2012-119

PASADENA, Calif. -- Data from NASA's Cassini mission reveal Saturn's moon Phoebe has more
planet-like qualities than previously thought.

Scientists had their first close-up look at Phoebe when Cassini began exploring the Saturn system in
2004. Using data from multiple spacecraft instruments and a computer model of the moon's
chemistry, geophysics and geology, scientists found Phoebe was a so-called planetesimal, or remnant
planetary building block. The findings appear in the April issue of the Journal Icarus.

"Unlike primitive bodies such as comets, Phoebe appears to have actively evolved for a time before it
stalled out," said Julie Castillo-Rogez, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif. "Objects like Phoebe are thought to have condensed very quickly. Hence, they
represent building blocks of planets. They give scientists clues about what conditions were like
around the time of the birth of planets and their moons."

Cassini images suggest Phoebe originated in the far-off Kuiper Belt, the region of ancient, icy, rocky
bodies beyond Neptune's orbit. Data show Phoebe was spherical and hot early in its history, and has
denser rock-rich material concentrated near its center. Its average density is about the same as Pluto,
another object in the Kuiper Belt. Phoebe likely was captured by Saturn's gravity when it somehow
got close to the giant planet.

Saturn is surrounded by a cloud of irregular moons that circle the planet in orbits tilted from Saturn's
orbit around the sun, the so-called equatorial plane. Phoebe is the largest of these irregular moons and
also has the distinction of orbiting backward in relation to the other moons. Saturn's large moons
appear to have formed from gas and dust orbiting in the planet's equatorial plane. These moons
currently orbit Saturn in that same plane.

"By combining Cassini data with modeling techniques previously applied to other solar system
bodies, we've been able to go back in time and clarify why it is so different from the rest of the Saturn
system," said Jonathan Lunine, a co-author on the study and a Cassini team member at Cornell
University, Ithaca, N.Y.

Analyses suggest that Phoebe was born within the first 3 million years of the birth of the solar
system, which occurred 4.5 billion years ago. The moon may originally have been porous but appears
to have collapsed in on itself as it warmed up. Phoebe developed a density 40 percent higher than the
average inner Saturnian moon.

Objects of Phoebe's size have long been thought to form as "potato-shaped" bodies and remained that
way over their lifetimes. If such an object formed early enough in the solar system's history, it could
have harbored the kinds of radioactive material that would produce substantial heat over a short
timescale. This would warm the interior and reshape the moon.

"From the shape seen in Cassini images and modeling the likely cratering history, we were able to see
that Phoebe started with a nearly spherical shape, rather than being an irregular shape later smoothed
into a sphere by impacts," said co-author Peter Thomas, a Cassini team member at Cornell.

Phoebe likely stayed warm for tens of millions of years before freezing up. The study suggests the
heat also would have enabled the moon to host liquid water at one time. This could explain the
signature of water-rich material on Phoebe's surface previously detected by Cassini.

The new study also is consistent with the idea that several hundred million years after Phoebe cooled,
the moon drifted toward the inner solar system in a solar-system-wide rearrangement. Phoebe was
large enough to survive this turbulence.

More than 60 moons are known to orbit Saturn, varying drastically in shape, size, surface age and
origin. Scientists using both ground-based observatories and Cassini's cameras continue to search for
others.

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

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

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NASA's WISE Catches Aging Star Erupting With Dust

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

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

J.D. Harrington 202-358-0321
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-118 April 26, 2012

NASA's WISE Catches Aging Star Erupting With Dust

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-118&cid=release_2012-118

PASADENA, Calif. -- Images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) reveal
an old star in the throes of a fiery outburst, spraying the cosmos with dust. The findings offer a
rare, real-time look at the process by which stars like our sun seed the universe with building
blocks for other stars, planets and even life.

The star, catalogued as WISE J180956.27–330500.2, was discovered in images taken during the
WISE survey in 2010, the most detailed infrared survey to date of the entire celestial sky. It
stood out from other objects because it glowed brightly with infrared light. When compared to
images taken more than 20 years ago, astronomers found the star was 100 times brighter.

"We were not searching specifically for this phenomenon, but because WISE scanned the whole
sky, we can find such unique objects," said Poshak Gandhi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency (JAXA), lead author of a new paper to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Results indicate the star recently exploded with copious amounts of fresh dust, equivalent in
mass to our planet Earth. The star is heating the dust and causing it to glow with infrared light.

"Observing this period of explosive change while it is actually ongoing is very rare," said co-
author Issei Yamamura of JAXA. "These dust eruptions probably occur only once every 10,000
years in the lives of old stars, and they are thought to last less than a few hundred years each
time. It's the blink of an eye in cosmological terms."

The aging star is in the "red giant" phase of its life. Our own sun will expand into a red giant in
about 5 billion years. When a star begins to run out of fuel, it cools and expands. As the star
puffs up, it sheds layers of gas that cool and congeal into tiny dust particles. This is one of the
main ways dust is recycled in our universe, making its way from older stars to newborn solar
systems. The other way, in which the heaviest of elements are made, is through the deathly
explosions, or supernovae, of the most massive stars.

"It's an intriguing glimpse into the cosmic recycling program," said Bill Danchi, WISE program
scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Evolved stars, which this one appears to be,
contribute about 50 percent of the particles that make up humans."

Astronomers know of one other star currently pumping out massive amounts of dust. Called
Sakurai's Object, this star is farther along in the aging process than the one discovered recently
by WISE.

After Poshak and his team discovered the unusual, dusty star with WISE, they went back to look
for it in previous infrared all-sky surveys. The object was not seen at all by the Infrared
Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), which flew in 1983, but shows up brightly in images taken as
part of the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) in 1998.

Poshak and his colleagues calculated the star appears to have brightened dramatically since 1983.
The WISE data show the dust has continued to evolve over time, with the star now hidden
behind a very thick veil. The team plans to follow up with space- and ground-based telescopes to
confirm its nature and to better understand how older stars recycle dust back into the cosmos.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages and operates WISE for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft was put into hibernation mode after
it scanned the entire sky twice, completing its main objectives. The principal investigator for
WISE, Edward Wright, is at the University of California, Los Angeles. The mission was selected
competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in
Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder,
Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis
Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for
NASA.

The IRAS mission was a collaborative effort between NASA (JPL), the Netherlands and the
United Kingdom. The 2MASS mission was a joint effort between Caltech, the University of
Massachusetts and NASA (JPL). Data are archived at the Infrared Processing and Analysis
Center at Caltech.

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

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Dawn Reveals Secrets of Giant Asteroid Vesta

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

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

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

News release: 2012-117 April 25, 2012

Dawn Reveals Secrets of Giant Asteroid Vesta

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-117&cid=release_2012-117

PASADENA, Calif. – Findings from NASA's Dawn spacecraft reveal new details about the giant
asteroid Vesta, including its varied surface composition, sharp temperature changes and clues to its
internal structure. The findings were presented today at the European Geosciences Union meeting in
Vienna, Austria, and will help scientists better understand the early solar system and processes that
dominated its formation.

Images from Dawn's framing camera and visible and infrared mapping spectrometer, taken 420
miles (680 kilometers) and 130 miles (210 kilometers) above the surface of the asteroid, show a
variety of surface mineral and rock patterns. Coded false-color images help scientists better
understand Vesta's composition and enable them to identify material that was once molten below the
asteroid's surface.

Researchers also see breccias, which are rocks fused during impacts from space debris. Many of the
materials seen by Dawn are composed of iron- and magnesium-rich minerals, which often are found
in Earth's volcanic rocks. Images also reveal smooth pond-like deposits, which might have formed
as fine dust created during impacts settled into low regions.

"Dawn now enables us to study the variety of rock mixtures making up Vesta's surface in great
detail," said Harald Hiesinger, a Dawn participating scientist at Münster University in Germany.
"The images suggest an amazing variety of processes that paint Vesta's surface."

At the Tarpeia crater near the south pole of the asteroid, Dawn imagery revealed bands of minerals
that appear as brilliant layers on the crater's steep slopes. The exposed layering allows scientists to
see farther back into the geological history of the giant asteroid.

The layers closer to the asteroid's surface bear evidence of contamination from space rocks
bombarding Vesta. Layers below preserve more of their original characteristics. Frequent landslides
on the slopes of the craters also have revealed other hidden mineral patterns.

"These results from Dawn suggest Vesta's 'skin' is constantly renewing," said Maria Cristina De
Sanctis, lead of the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer team based at Italy's National Institute
for Astrophysics in Rome.

Dawn has given scientists a near 3-D view into Vesta's internal structure. By making ultra-sensitive
measurements of the asteroid's gravitational tug on the spacecraft, Dawn can detect unusual densities
within its outer layers. Data now show an anomalous area near Vesta's south pole, suggesting denser
material from a lower layer of Vesta has been exposed by the impact that created a feature called the
Rheasilvia basin. The lighter, younger layers coating other parts of Vesta's surface have been blasted
away in the basin.

Dawn obtained the highest-resolution surface temperature maps of any asteroid visited by a
spacecraft. Data reveal temperatures can vary from as warm as minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus
23 degrees Celsius) in the sunniest spots to as cold as minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 100
degrees Celsius) in the shadows. This is the lowest temperature measurable by Dawn's visible and
infrared mapping spectrometer. These findings show the surface responds quickly to illumination
with no mitigating effect of an atmosphere.

"After more than nine months at Vesta, Dawn's suite of instruments has enabled us to peel back the
layers of mystery that have surrounded this giant asteroid since humankind first saw it as just a
bright spot in the night sky," said Carol Raymond, Dawn deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We are closing in on the giant asteroid's secrets."

Launched in 2007, Dawn began its exploration of the approximately 330-mile-wide (530-kilometers)
asteroid in mid-2011. The spacecraft's next assignment will be to study the dwarf planet Ceres in
2015. These two icons of the asteroid belt have been witness to much of our solar system's history.

Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn
is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences
Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max
Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National
Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. The California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

To view the new images and for more information about Dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn .

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Cassini Investigates Titan’s Chemical Factory

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

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

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

News feature: 2012-115 April 24, 2012

Cassini Investigates Titan's Chemical Factory

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-116&cid=release_2012-116

Saturn's giant moon Titan hides behind a thick, smoggy atmosphere that's well known to scientists as
one of the most complex chemical environments in the solar system. It's a productive "factory"
cranking out hydrocarbons that rain down on Titan's icy surface and cloak it in soot. With a brutally
cold surface temperature of around minus 270 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 170 degrees Celsius), the
hydrocarbons form lakes of liquid methane and ethane.

However, the most important raw ingredient in Titan's chemical factory is methane gas. Methane is a
molecule made up of one carbon atom joined to four hydrogen atoms. It should not last long because
it's being continuously destroyed by sunlight and converted to more complex molecules and particles.
New research from NASA-funded scientists attempts to estimate how long this factory has been
operating. The results are presented in two papers appearing in the April 20 issue of the Astrophysical
Journal.

These papers used data collected by two instruments onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft in orbit
around Saturn and one instrument on the European Space Agency's Huygens probe that landed on
Titan's surface in January 2005. All three instruments were built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md. A paper led by Conor Nixon of the University of Maryland, College Park
uses infrared signatures (spectra) of methane from Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer to
estimate how much "heavy" methane containing rare isotopes is present in Titan's atmosphere.

Isotopes are versions of an element with different weights, or masses. For example, carbon 13 is a
heavier (and rare) version of the most common type of carbon, called carbon 12. Occasionally, a
carbon-13 atom replaces a carbon-12 atom in a methane molecule. Because methane made with
carbon 12 is slightly lighter, the chemical reactions that convert it to more complex hydrocarbons
happen a bit faster. This means carbon-12 methane gets used up at a slightly faster rate than heavy
carbon-13 methane, so the concentration of heavy methane in Titan's atmosphere increases slowly.

By modeling how the concentration of heavy methane changes over time, the scientists predicted how
long Titan's chemical factory has been running.

"Under our baseline model assumptions, the methane age is capped at 1.6 billion years, or about a
third the age of Titan itself," said Nixon, who is stationed at Goddard. "However, if methane is also
allowed to escape from the top of the atmosphere, as some previous work has suggested, the age must
be much shorter -- perhaps only 10 million years -- to be compatible with observations."

Both scenarios assume that methane entered the atmosphere in one burst of outgassing, probably from
the restructuring of Titan's interior as heavier materials sank towards the center and lighter ones rose
toward the surface.

"However, if the methane has been continuously replenished from a source, then its isotopes would
always appear 'fresh' and we can't restrict the age in our model," said Nixon. Possible sources include
methane clathrates, basically a methane molecule inside a "cage" or lattice of ice molecules. Methane
clathrates are found in the frigid depths of Earth's oceans, and some scientists think there could be an
ocean of liquid water mixed with ammonia (acting as antifreeze) beneath Titan's water-ice crust. If
this is so, methane might be released from its clathrate cages during the eruptions of proposed
'cryovolcanoes' of water-ammonia slurry, or more simply could slowly seep out through fractures in
the crust.

The second Titan paper by Kathleen Mandt of the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, and
colleagues also models the time-evolution of methane. In this work, the concentration of the heavy
methane is determined from measurements by Cassini's ion and neutral mass spectrometer, which
counts molecules in the atmosphere of different masses (weights). Measurements made by the
Huygens gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, which also counts molecules of different masses,
were used to constrain the impact of escape on the heavy methane in the atmosphere.

"We compute that, even if methane has been replenished from the interior over time to match or
exceed the amounts fed into the atmospheric chemical factory, the process must have been running
for a maximum of one billion years," said Mandt. "If the process had started any earlier, we would
see a build-up of methane in the lakes on the surface and in the atmosphere beyond what is observed
today."

Together these papers add important new perspectives and constraints on the history of Titan's
methane atmosphere, confirming that it must have formed long after Titan itself. Previous work
considering the evolution of Titan's interior predicted the last major methane eruption occurred 350
million to 1.35 billion years ago, while crater counting has put the age of the current surface at 200
million to one billion years. (Crater counting works on the principle that an older surface has more
craters, just as the longer you're in a paintball game, the more hits you'll get.)

The present work for the first time estimates the methane age from the atmosphere itself, at less than
one billion years, considering both papers.

This research was supported by the NASA Cassini Mission and the NASA Cassini Data Analysis
Program grant NNX09AK55G. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington.

For related images to this story, please visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/factory20120420.html

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NASA's Spitzer Finds Galaxy With Split Personality

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

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

J.D. Harrington 202-358-0321
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-115 April 24, 2012

NASA's Spitzer Finds Galaxy With Split Personality

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-115&cid=release_2012-115

PASADENA, Calif. -- While some galaxies are rotund and others are slender disks like our
spiral Milky Way, new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show that the
Sombrero galaxy is both. The galaxy, which is a round elliptical galaxy with a thin disk
embedded inside, is one of the first known to exhibit characteristics of the two different types.
The findings will lead to a better understanding of galaxy evolution, a topic still poorly
understood.

"The Sombrero is more complex than previously thought," said Dimitri Gadotti of the European
Southern Observatory in Chile and lead author of a new paper on the findings appearing in the
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "The only way to understand all we know
about this galaxy is to think of it as two galaxies, one inside the other."

The Sombrero galaxy, also known as NGC 4594, is located 28 million light-years away in the
constellation Virgo. From our viewpoint on Earth, we can see the thin edge of its flat disk and a
central bulge of stars, making it resemble a wide-brimmed hat. Astronomers do not know
whether the Sombrero's disk is shaped like a ring or a spiral, but agree it belongs to the disk
class.

"Spitzer is helping to unravel secrets behind an object that has been imaged thousands of times,"
said Sean Carey of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena. "It is intriguing Spitzer can read the fossil record of events that occurred billions of
years ago within this beautiful and archetypal galaxy."

Spitzer captures a different view of the galaxy than visible-light telescopes. In visible views, the
galaxy appears to be immersed in a glowing halo, which scientists had thought was relatively
light and small. With Spitzer's infrared vision, a different view emerges. Spitzer sees old stars
through the dust and reveals the halo has the right size and mass to be a giant elliptical galaxy.

While it is tempting to think the giant elliptical swallowed a spiral disk, astronomers say this is
highly unlikely because that process would have destroyed the disk structure. Instead, one
scenario they propose is that a giant elliptical galaxy was inundated with gas more than nine
billion years ago. Early in the history of our universe, networks of gas clouds were common, and
they sometimes fed growing galaxies, causing them to bulk up. The gas would have been pulled
into the galaxy by gravity, falling into orbit around the center and spinning out into a flat disk.
Stars would have formed from the gas in the disk.

"This poses all sorts of questions," said Rubén Sánchez-Janssen from the European Southern
Observatory, co-author of the study. "How did such a large disk take shape and survive inside
such a massive elliptical? How unusual is such a formation process?"

Researchers say the answers could help them piece together how other galaxies evolve. Another
galaxy, called Centaurus A, appears also to be an elliptical galaxy with a disk inside it. But its
disk does not contain many stars. Astronomers speculate that Centaurus A could be at an earlier
stage of evolution than the Sombrero and might eventually look similar.

The findings also answer a mystery about the number of globular clusters in the Sombrero
galaxy. Globular clusters are spherical nuggets of old stars. Ellipticals typically have a few
thousand, while spirals contain a few hundred. The Sombrero has almost 2,000, a number that
makes sense now but had puzzled astronomers when they thought it was only a disk galaxy.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope
mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted
at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data
are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis
Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit
http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

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NASA Tests GPS Monitoring System for Big U.S. Quakes

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

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

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

News release: 2012-113 April 24, 2012

NASA Tests GPS Monitoring System for Big U.S. Quakes

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-113&cid=release_2012-113

PASADENA, Calif. – The space-based technology that lets GPS-equipped motorists constantly
update their precise location will undergo a major test of its ability to rapidly pinpoint the location
and magnitude of strong earthquakes across the western United States. Results from the new Real-
time Earthquake Analysis for Disaster (READI) Mitigation Network soon could be used to assist
prompt disaster response and more accurate tsunami warnings.

The new research network builds on decades of technology development supported by the National
Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The network uses real-time GPS measurements from nearly 500 stations throughout California,
Oregon and Washington. When a large earthquake is detected, GPS data are used to automatically
calculate its vital characteristics, including location, magnitude and details about the fault rupture.

"With the READI network, we are enabling continued development of real-time GPS technologies to
advance national and international early warning disaster systems," said Craig Dobson, natural
hazards program manager in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This
prototype system is a significant step towards realizing the goal of providing Pacific basin-wide
natural hazards capability around the Pacific 'Ring of Fire.'"

Accurate and rapid identification of earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 and stronger is critical for disaster
response and mitigation efforts, especially for tsunamis. Calculating the strength of a tsunami
requires detailed knowledge of the size of the earthquake and associated ground movements.
Acquiring this type of data for very large earthquakes is a challenge for traditional seismological
instruments that measure ground shaking.

High-precision, second-by-second measurements of ground displacements using GPS have been
shown to reduce the time needed to characterize large earthquakes and to increase the accuracy of
subsequent tsunami predictions. After the capabilities of the network have been fully demonstrated, it
is intended for use by appropriate natural hazard monitoring agencies. The USGS and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are responsible for detecting and issuing warnings on
earthquakes and tsunamis, respectively.

"By using GPS to measure ground deformation from large earthquakes, we can reduce the time
needed to locate and characterize the damage from large seismic events to several minutes," said
Yehuda Bock, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Orbit and Permanent Array
Center in La Jolla, Calif. "We now are poised to fully test the prototype system this year."

The READI network is a collaboration of many institutions, including Scripps at the University of
California in San Diego; Central Washington University in Ellensburg; the University of Nevada in
Reno; California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena; UNAVCO in
Boulder, Colo.; and the University of California at Berkeley.

NASA, NSF, USGS and other federal, state and local partners support the GPS stations in the
network, including the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory, the Pacific Northwest Geodetic
Array, the Bay Area Regional Deformation Array and the California Real-Time Network.

"The relatively small investments in GPS-based natural hazards systems have revolutionized the way
we view Earth and allowed us to develop this prototype system with great potential benefits for the
infrastructure and population in earthquake-prone states in the western United States," said Frank
Webb, Earth Science Advanced Mission Concepts program manager at JPL.

The READI network is the outgrowth of nearly 25 years of U.S. government research efforts to
develop the capabilities and applications of GPS technology. The GPS satellite system was created by
the Department of Defense for military and ultimately civil positioning needs. NASA leveraged this
investment by supporting development of a global GPS signal receiving network to improve the
accuracy and utility of GPS positioning information. Today that capability provides real-time,
pinpoint positioning and timing for a wide variety of uses, from agriculture to Earth exploration.

"Conventional seismic networks have consistently struggled to rapidly identify the true size of great
earthquakes during the last decade," said Timothy Melbourne, director of the Central Washington
University's Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array. "This GPS system is more likely to provide accurate
and rapid estimates of the location and amount of fault slip to fire, utility, medical and other first-
response teams."

The GPS earthquake detection capability was first demonstrated by NASA-supported research on a
major 2004 Sumatra quake, conducted by Geoffrey Blewitt and colleagues at the University of
Nevada in Reno.

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

Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

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Cassini Sees Objects Blazing Trails in Saturn Ring

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

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

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

News release: 2012-111 April 23, 2012

Cassini Sees Objects Blazing Trails in Saturn Ring

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-111&cid=release_2012-111

PASADENA, Calif. – Scientists working with images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft
have discovered strange half-mile-sized (kilometer-sized) objects punching through parts
of Saturn's F ring, leaving glittering trails behind them. These trails in the rings, which
scientists are calling "mini-jets," fill in a missing link in our story of the curious behavior
of the F ring. The results will be presented tomorrow at the European Geosciences Union
meeting in Vienna, Austria.

"I think the F ring is Saturn's weirdest ring, and these latest Cassini results go to show
how the F ring is even more dynamic than we ever thought," said Carl Murray, a Cassini
imaging team member based at Queen Mary University of London, England. "These
findings show us that the F ring region is like a bustling zoo of objects from a half mile
[kilometer] to moons like Prometheus a hundred miles [kilometers] in size, creating a
spectacular show."

New images and movies of the mini-jets and other peculiar F ring behavior are available
at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20120423.html .

Scientists have known that relatively large objects like Prometheus (as long as 92 miles,
or 148 kilometers, across) can create channels, ripples and snowballs in the F ring. But
scientists didn't know what happened to these snowballs after they were created, Murray
said. Some were surely broken up by collisions or tidal forces in their orbit around
Saturn, but now scientists have evidence that some of the smaller ones survive, and their
differing orbits mean they go on to strike through the F ring on their own.

These small objects appear to collide with the F ring at gentle speeds – something on the
order of about 4 mph (2 meters per second). The collisions drag glittering ice particles out
of the F ring with them, leaving a trail typically 20 to 110 miles (40 to 180 kilometers)
long. Murray's group happened to see a tiny trail in an image from Jan. 30, 2009 and
tracked it over eight hours. The long footage confirmed the small object originated in the
F ring, so they went back through the Cassini image catalog to see if the phenomenon
was frequent.

"The F ring has a circumference of 550,000 miles [881,000 kilometers], and these mini-
jets are so tiny they took quite a bit of time and serendipity to find," said Nick Attree, a
Cassini imaging associate at Queen Mary. "We combed through 20,000 images and were
delighted to find 500 examples of these rogues during just the seven years Cassini has
been at Saturn."

In some cases, the objects traveled in packs, creating mini-jets that looked quite exotic,
like the barb of a harpoon. Other new images show grand views of the entire F ring,
showing the swirls and eddies that ripple around the ring from all the different kinds of
objects moving through and around it.

"Beyond just showing us the strange beauty of the F ring, Cassini's studies of this ring
help us understand the activity that occurs when solar systems evolve out of dusty disks
that are similar to, but obviously much grander than, the disk we see around Saturn," said
Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif. "We can't wait to see what else Cassini will show us in Saturn's rings."

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

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif., manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.
The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. JPL is a division
of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

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NASA Image Gallery Highlights Earth's Changing Face

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: 2012-109 April 19, 2012

NASA Image Gallery Highlights Earth's Changing Face

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-109&cid=release_2012-109

PASADENA, Calif. – In celebration of this year's Earth Day on April 22, NASA's
Webby Award-winning Global Climate Change website, http://climate.nasa.gov , has
unveiled a new version of its popular image gallery, "State of Flux." The gallery, which
can be found at http://climate.nasa.gov/sof , presents stunning images, mostly from space,
of our ever-changing planet, chronicling changes taking place over time periods ranging
from days to centuries.

Each image pair in the continuously updated gallery highlights before-and-after impacts
of change, including the destruction wrought by extreme events such as wildfires and
floods, the retreat of glaciers caused by climate change, and the expanding footprint of
urban areas due to population growth.

The redesigned gallery, which currently features more than 160 comparison views, is now
organized and sortable by categories, including ice, human impact, water, land cover and
extreme events. A selection of some of the Global Climate Change website team's
favorite images is highlighted in a new "Top Picks" category.

Another new feature is a map view, which places each image into its geographical
context. Guests can zoom in to specific locations on the map, or select by region, and see
where particular changes are taking place around the globe. They can also share links to
each image set and download high-resolution versions of the images.

"Seeing our planet from space gives us a global view that we can't get elsewhere," said
Amber Jenkins, editor of the Global Climate Change website, who established the gallery
in 2009. "It underscores how fragile and interconnected our planet is, and how it is
constantly changing. With this new version of the gallery, we want people to be better
able to immerse themselves in the images, and gain that sense of perspective."

NASA's Global Climate Change website is devoted to improving the public's
understanding of 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 activities, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/index.html .

For more on NASA's Earth Day activities, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/earthday .

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

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Dawn Gets Extra Time to Explore Vesta

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

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

News release: 2012-107 April 18, 2012

Dawn Gets Extra Time to Explore Vesta

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-107&cid=release_2012-107

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Dawn mission has received official confirmation that 40
extra days have been added to its exploration of the giant asteroid Vesta, the second most
massive object in the main asteroid belt. The mission extension allows Dawn to continue
its scientific observations at Vesta until Aug. 26, while still arriving at the dwarf planet
Ceres at the same originally scheduled target date in February 2015.

"We are leveraging our smooth and successful operations at Vesta to provide for even
more scientific discoveries for NASA and the world." said Robert Mase, Dawn project
manager based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This extra time
will allow us to extend our scientific investigation and learn more about this mysterious
world."

The extension will not require any new funding, and will draw on financial reserves that
have been carefully managed by the Dawn project. The flexibility provided by the
spacecraft's use of efficient ion propulsion system allows it to maintain its originally
planned Ceres arrival.

The extension allows for extra observations at Dawn's current low-altitude mapping orbit
(average altitude 130 miles or 210 kilometers), which will now last until May 1. The
additional time enables the gamma ray and neutron detector to build the best possible
maps of the elemental composition of Vesta's surface and improve data for the gravity
experiment, the two primary scientific investigations at the low-altitude orbit. The
spacecraft's camera and spectrometer are also obtaining additional high-resolution
images.

Additional time will also be spent in the planned second high-altitude mapping orbit later
this summer. When Dawn arrived at Vesta in July 2011, much of the northern hemisphere
was in shadow. But with the passage of time, more of that area will bask in sunshine.

"Dawn has beamed back to us such dazzling Vestan vistas that we are happy to stay a
little longer and learn more about this special world," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's
principal investigator at UCLA. "While we have this one-of-a-kind opportunity to orbit
Vesta, we want to make the best and most complete datasets that we can."

Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Dawn is a project of the
directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences
Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center,
the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the
Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.

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

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Explore a Virtual Comet with New Comet Quest App from NASA's Space Place

April 13, 2012

This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

Explore a Virtual Comet with New Comet Quest App from NASA's Space Place

NASA's Space Place, an online portal for games, activities and learning for elementary-school audiences, has released a new free mobile game for iPhone and iPad devices that's all about comets. The Comet Quest mobile application puts players at the controls of a virtual spacecraft modeled after the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, which, using several instruments built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is currently investigating comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Players dodge flying debris and collect data, all while investigating a mysterious comet surface covered with gas jets, craters, cracks and other phenomena. The game, available for download in the Apple App Store, also features factoids about comets and the Rosetta mission.

For more information on the game and to learn more about comets and Rosetta, visit the Comet Quest page on NASA's Space Place website: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/comet-quest/

Visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/apps/ for a list of more mobile apps from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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NASA's WISE Mission Sees Skies Ablaze With Blazars

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

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

News release: 2012-103 April 12, 2012

NASA's WISE Mission Sees Skies Ablaze With Blazars

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-103&cid=release_2012-103

PASADENA, Calif. – Astronomers are actively hunting a class of supermassive black holes
throughout the universe called blazars thanks to data collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared
Survey Explorer (WISE). The mission has revealed more than 200 blazars and has the potential to
find thousands more.

Blazars are among the most energetic objects in the universe. They consist of supermassive black
holes actively "feeding," or pulling matter onto them, at the cores of giant galaxies. As the matter is
dragged toward the supermassive hole, some of the energy is released in the form of jets traveling at
nearly the speed of light. Blazars are unique because their jets are pointed directly at us.

"Blazars are extremely rare because it's not too often that a supermassive black hole's jet happens to
point towards Earth," said Franceso Massaro of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and
Cosmology near Palo Alto, Calif., and principal investigator of the research, published in a series of
papers in the Astrophysical Journal. "We came up with a crazy idea to use WISE's infrared
observations, which are typically associated with lower-energy phenomena, to spot high-energy
blazars, and it worked better than we hoped."

The findings ultimately will help researchers understand the extreme physics behind super-fast jets
and the evolution of supermassive black holes in the early universe.

WISE surveyed the entire celestial sky in infrared light in 2010, creating a catalog of hundreds of
millions of objects of all types. Its first batch of data was released to the larger astronomy community
in April 2011 and the full-sky data were released last month.

Massaro and his team used the first batch of data, covering more than one-half the sky, to test their
idea that WISE could identify blazars. Astronomers often use infrared data to look for the weak heat
signatures of cooler objects. Blazars are not cool; they are scorching hot and glow with the highest-
energy type of light, called gamma rays. However, they also give off a specific infrared signature
when particles in their jets are accelerated to almost the speed of light.

One of the reasons the team wants to find new blazars is to help identify mysterious spots in the sky
sizzling with high-energy gamma rays, many of which are suspected to be blazars. NASA's Fermi
mission has identified hundreds of these spots, but other telescopes are needed to narrow in on the
source of the gamma rays.

Sifting through the early WISE catalog, the astronomers looked for the infrared signatures of blazars
at the locations of more than 300 gamma-ray sources that remain mysterious. The researchers were
able to show that a little more than half of the sources are most likely blazars.

"This is a significant step toward unveiling the mystery of the many bright gamma-ray sources that
are still of unknown origin," said Raffaele D'Abrusco, a co-author of the papers from Harvard
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "WISE's infrared vision is actually helping
us understand what's happening in the gamma-ray sky."

The team also used WISE images to identify more than 50 additional blazar candidates and observed
more than 1,000 previously discovered blazars. According to Massaro, the new technique, when
applied directly to WISE's full-sky catalog, has the potential to uncover thousands more.

"We had no idea when we were building WISE that it would turn out to yield a blazar gold mine,"
said Peter Eisenhardt, WISE project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., who is not associated with the new studies. "That's the beauty of an all-sky survey. You can
explore the nature of just about any phenomenon in the universe."

Other authors include: A. Paggi and H.A. Smith of Harvard's Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory; G. Tosti of the University of Perugia, Italy; M. Ajello of Stanford University, Stanford,
Calif.; J.E. Grindlay of the Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, Mass; and D. Gasparrini of the
Italian Space Agency, Science Data Center, Italy.

The Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology is a joint institute of Stanford University
and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif.

JPL manages and operates WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The
principal investigator for WISE, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively
selected under NASA's Explorers Program, managed by the 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 and archiving take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis
Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

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

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One Week Left to Register for JPL Educator Workshop on Greenhouse Gases

April 11, 2012

This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

UPDATE: The workshop will take place on Saturday, April 21. Register by Tuesday, April 17 to attend.

Greenhouse Gases and Their Roles on Earth

Date: Saturday, April 21, 2012, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Target audience: Formal and informal educators teaching grades 6 through 12

Location: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Von Karman Auditorium, Pasadena, Calif.

Overview: Greenhouse gases are both naturally occurring and man-made gases that trap heat in Earth's atmosphere and play a vital role in maintaining a habitable climate. However, human activity is quickly increasing the concentration of these gases on Earth and causing concern about the future of our planet. This educator workshop will examine the role of greenhouse gases in our complex global system, and explore the ways that media delivers science content and discusses climate change.

The workshop is open to formal and informal educators teaching grades 6 through 12 and will include a group discussion, science presentations and a hands-on activity/discussion on the media's portrayal of science and climate change. Teachers will receive a certificate for continuing education hours.

Register by April 17, 2012 to attend! A $30 registration fee includes continental breakfast and a box lunch.

For more information, directions and to register visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=318

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NASA Extends Kepler, Spitzer, Planck Missions

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

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

News release: 2012-097 April 5, 2012

NASA Extends Kepler, Spitzer, Planck Missions

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-097&cid=release_2012-097

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA is extending three missions affiliated with the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. -- Kepler, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the U.S. portion of the
European Space Agency's Planck mission -- as a result of the 2012 Senior Review of
Astrophysics Missions.

The 2012 NASA Senior Review report, which includes these three missions and six others also
being extended, is available at: https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/2012-senior-review .

"This means scientists can continue using the three spacecraft to study everything from the birth
of the universe with Planck, and galaxies, stars, planets, comets and asteroids with Spitzer, while
Kepler is determining what percentage of sun-like stars host potentially habitable Earth-like
planets," said Michael Werner, the chief scientist for astronomy and physics at JPL.

Kepler has been approved for extension through fiscal year 2016, which ends Sept. 30, 2016. All
fiscal year 2015 and 2016 decisions are for planning purposes and will be revisited in the 2014
Senior Review. The extension provides four additional years to find Earth-size planets in the
habitable zone -- the region in a planetary system where liquid water could exist on the surface
of the orbiting planet -- around sun-like stars in our galaxy.

Spitzer, launched in 2003, continues to provide the astronomical community with its unique
infrared images. It has continued to explore the cosmos since running out of coolant, as expected,
in 2009. Among its many duties during its warm mission, the observatory is probing the
atmospheres of planets beyond our sun and investigating the glow of some of the most distant
galaxies known. As requested by the project, Spitzer received two additional years of operations.
Like other NASA missions, the Spitzer team will be able to apply for a further extension in 2014.

NASA will fund one additional year of U.S. participation in the European Space Agency's
Planck mission, for the U.S. Planck data center and for operations of Planck's Low Frequency
Instrument. Planck, launched in 2009, is gathering data from the very early universe, shortly after
its explosive birth in a big bang. Planck's observations are yielding insight into the origin,
evolution and fate of our universe. The U.S. Planck team will apply for additional funding after a
third data release has been approved by the European consortiums.

Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler's ground system development,
mission operations and science data analysis. JPL managed the Kepler mission's development.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and
supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the
University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives,
hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery mission and is
funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. For
more information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler and
http://kepler.nasa.gov .

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at
the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. For more information about Spitzer,
visit: http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

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

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

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Upcoming Workshops at NASA/JPL's Educator Resource Center

Upcoming Educator Workshops April 7, 2012

This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

These workshops are being offered on Saturdays at the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center in Pomona, Calif. from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., please call 909-397-4420 to reserve your spot. For more information and directions, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115 For a full list of professional development workshops from NASA/JPL Education, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=110.

Climate

Date: Saturday, April 14, 2012, 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Target audience:Educators

Location:NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, Pomona, Calif.

Overview: In this workshop teachers will get an overview of what we know about climate change and how we know it. Enjoy some simple chemistry, videos, games, and student inventions. This is a great, standards based, way to teach and inspire students to think about our impact on our environment.This workshop is being offered at the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center located in Pomona, please call 909-397-4420 to reserve your spot.

For more information and directions, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115

Reading, Writing and Rings

Date: Saturday, May 12, 2012, 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Target audience:1st through 8th grade educators (all educators are welcome)

Location:NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, Pomona, Calif.

Overview: Cassini-Huygens Mission Writing, and Rings uses science notebooks throughout the lessons, student assessment, and a wealth of science and math integration with language arts to make this an exciting student journey! Recommended for educator grades first through eighth, all educators are welcome. This workshop is being offered at the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center located in Pomona, please call 909-397-4420 to reserve your spot.

For more information and directions, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115

Lunar and Meteorite Sample Certification Program

Date: Saturday, June 23, 2012, 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Target audience:Educators

Location:NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, Pomona, Calif.

Overview: This workshop is recommended for all grades in a classroom setting. NASA makes actual lunar samples from the historic Apollo missions available to lend to teachers. You must attend this certification workshop to bring the excitement of real lunar rocks and regolith samples to your students. This workshop is being offered at the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center located in Pomona, please call 909-397-4420 to reserve your spot.

For more information and directions, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115

Deep Space Network, Physics of Sound

Date: Saturday, July 21, 2012, 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Target audience:2nd through 8th grade educators

Location:NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, Pomona, Calif.

Overview: Have you ever wondered how NASA "talks" to our various missions? In this workshop teachers will learn about NASA's Deep Space Network of dishes here on Earth. Come enjoy "center-based" lessons that illustrate how sound moves through solids, liquids and gases. This workshop is being offered at the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center located in Pomona, please call 909-397-4420 to reserve your spot.

For more information and directions, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115

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Cosmic 'Leaf Blower' Robs Galaxy of Star-Making Fuel

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

Written by Adam Hadhazy

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

News release: 2012-094 April 3, 2012

Cosmic 'Leaf Blower' Robs Galaxy of Star-Making Fuel

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-094&cid=release_2012-094

Supernova explosions and the jets of a monstrous black hole are scattering a galaxy's star-
making gas like a cosmic leaf blower, a new study finds. The findings, which relied on
ultraviolet observations from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer and a host of other
instruments, fill an important gap in the current understanding of galactic evolution.

It has long been known that gas-rich spiral galaxies like our Milky Way smash together to create
elliptical galaxies such as the one observed in the study. These big, round galaxies have very
little star formation. The reddish glow of aging stars comes to dominate the complexion of
elliptical galaxies, so astronomers refer to them as "red and dead."

The process that drives the dramatic transformation from spiral galactic youth to elderly elliptical
is the rapid loss of cool gas, the fuel from which new stars form. Supernova explosions can start
the decline in star formation, and then shock waves from the supermassive black hole finish the
job. Now astronomers think they have identified a recently merged galaxy where this gas loss
has just gotten underway.

"We have caught a galaxy in the act of destroying its gaseous fuel for new stars and marching
toward being a red-and-dead type of galaxy," said Ananda Hota, lead author of a new paper in
the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Hota, an astronomer in Pune, India,
conducted the study as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute of Astronomy &
Astrophysics at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan.

"We have found a crucial missing piece to connect and solve the puzzle of this phase of galaxy
evolution," Hota added.

The supermassive black holes that reside in the centers of galaxies can flare up when engorged
by gas during galactic mergers. As a giant black hole feeds, colossal jets of matter shoot out from
it, giving rise to what is known as an active galactic nucleus. According to theory, shock waves
from these jets heat up and disperse the reservoirs of cold gas in elliptical galaxies, thus
preventing new stars from taking shape.

The galaxy Hota and his team looked at, called NGC 3801, shows signs of such a process. NGC
3801 is unique in that evidence of a past merger is clearly seen, and the shock waves from the
central black hole's jets have started to spread out very recently. The researchers used the Galaxy
Evolution Explorer to determine the age of the galaxy's stars and decipher its evolutionary
history. The ultraviolet observations show that NGC 3801's star formation has petered out over
the last 100 to 500 million years, demonstrating that the galaxy has indeed begun to leave behind
its youthful years. The lack of many big, new, blue stars makes NGC 3801 look yellowish and
reddish in visible light, and thus middle-aged.

What's causing the galaxy to age and make fewer stars? The short-lived blue stars that formed
right after it merged with another galaxy have already blown up as supernovae. Data from
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope revealed that those stellar explosions have triggered a fast
outflow of heated gas from NGC 3801's central regions. That outflow has begun to banish the
reserves of cold gas, and thus cut into NGC 3801's overall star making.

Some star formation is still happening in NGC 3801, as shown in ultraviolet wavelengths
observed by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, and in infrared wavelengths detected by NASA's
Spitzer Space Telescope. But that last flicker of youth will soon be extinguished by colossal
shock waves from the black hole's jets, seen in X-ray light by NASA's Chandra X-ray
Observatory. These blast waves are rushing outward from the galactic center at a velocity of
nearly two million miles per hour (nearly 900 kilometers per second). The waves will reach the
outer portions of NGC 3801 in about 10 million years, scattering any remaining cool hydrogen
gas and rendering the galaxy truly red and dead.

Astronomers think the transition captured early-on in the case of NGC 3801 -- from the merger
of gas-rich galaxies to the rise of an old-looking elliptical -- happens very quickly on cosmic
time scales.

"The quenching of star formation by feedback from the active galactic nucleus probably occurs
in just a billion years. That's not very long compared to the 10-billion-year age of a typical big
galaxy," said Hota. "The explosive shock wave event caused by the central black hole is so
powerful that it can dramatically change the future course of the evolution of an entire galaxy."

Additional observations for the study in optical light come from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
and in radio using the Very Large Array in New Mexico.

Other authors of the paper include Soo-Chang Rey, Suk Kim and Jiwon Chung of Chungnam
National University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea; Yongbeom Kang, also of Chungnam National
University and Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; and Satoki Matsushita, also of the
Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taipei, Taiwan.

Caltech leads the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science operations
and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, manages the mission and
built the science instrument. The mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program
managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Researchers sponsored by Yonsei
University in South Korea and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France
collaborated on this mission. Graphics and additional information about the Galaxy Evolution
Explorer are online at http://www.nasa.gov/galex and http://www.galex.caltech.edu .

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information
about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

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NASA Announces 2012 Carl Sagan Fellows

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

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

News feature: 2012-093 April 2, 2012

NASA Announces 2012 Carl Sagan Fellows

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-093&cid=release_2012-093

NASA has selected six planet hunters as the recipients of the 2012 Carl Sagan Exoplanet
Postdoctoral Fellowships, named after the late astronomer. The fellowship was created to
inspire the next generation of explorers seeking to learn more about planets, and possibly
life, around other stars.

The Sagan Fellowship's primary goal is to support outstanding recent postdoctoral
scientists in conducting independent research related to the science goals of NASA's
Exoplanet Exploration Program. These fellows will discover and characterize planetary
systems and Earth-like planets around other stars, known as exoplanets.

Previous Sagan Fellows have already contributed significant discoveries in exoplanet
exploration. One recent discovery found visual evidence for two exoplanets from
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope archives that went undetected from images taken in
1998. Read more: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-315

"The Sagan Fellowship program carries on the legacy of Carl Sagan by identifying the
most highly qualified young researchers in the field of exoplanets," said Charles
Beichman, executive director of the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Carl was passionately committed to the search for
life beyond the Earth and would be thrilled by recent results that show there must be
hundreds of millions of Earth-like planets in our galaxy. The six new Sagan fellows
selected this year will be pushing the boundaries of exoplanet research in ways that
would have made Carl incredibly excited."

The program, created in 2008, awards selected postdoctoral scientists with annual
stipends of $65,500 for up to three years, plus an annual research budget of up to $16,000.

The 2012 Sagan Fellows are:

-- Sarah Ballard, who will work at the University of Washington, Seattle, to investigate
exoplanetary habitability by characterizing parent stars with the smallest potential planet
candidates from NASA's Kepler mission.

-- Jean-Michel Desert, who will work at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
to explore the atmospheres of planets in multiple planet systems and low-mass planets in
the habitable zones of their parent stars.

-- Catherine Espaillat, who will work at the Harvard Smithsonian Center, Cambridge,
Mass., to find the youngest extrasolar systems by looking for gaps in dusty disks around
the parent stars.

-- Nikole Lewis, who will work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
to study the chemistry of exoplanet atmospheres by linking 3-D chemical, dynamical and
radiative processes.

-- Rebecca Martin, who will work at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to improve our
understanding of the formation and survival of exoplanetary systems.

-- Christian Schwab, who will work at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., to design a
new high-precision instrument to detect and characterize Earth-like planets.

NASA has two other astrophysics theme-based fellowship programs: the Einstein
Fellowship Program, which supports research into the physics of the cosmos, and the
Hubble Fellowship Program, which supports research into cosmic origins. The Sagan
Fellowship Program is administered by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute as part of
NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

A full description of the 2012 fellows and their projects, and other information about
these programs is available at:
http://nexsci.caltech.edu/sagan/2012postdocRecipients.shtml .

More information about the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute is available at:
http://nexsci.caltech.edu .

More information about NASA's Astrophysics Division is at:
http://nasascience.nasa.gov/astrophysics .

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