Register by May 3 for Upcoming NASA/JPL Educator Workshop!

Educator Workshop April 30, 2013

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

How to Think Like a NASA Scientist: Analyzing Data, Drawing Conclusions

Date: Saturday, May 11, 2013, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Target audience: Middle and high school science and mathematics educators (but all are welcome)

Location: Theodore von Kármán Auditorium, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Overview: Learn to think like a NASA scientist - and get your students thinking like one, too! This one-day workshop will show you how to teach students to read scientific graphs and draw conclusions based on real NASA data. Experts will discuss current Earth science missions and show how the scientists, themselves, draw conclusions from these data. Participants will also receive science and math application problems to take back and use in the classroom tomorrow.

A registration fee of $25 covers continental breakfast, lunch and snacks. The deadline to register is May 3, 2013.

For more information and to register, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=373

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Herschel Completes Its 'Cool' Journey in Space

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

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

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

News release: 2013-150 April 29, 2013

Herschel Completes Its 'Cool' Journey in Space

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-150&cid=release_2013-150

PASADENA, Calif. -- The Herschel observatory, a European space telescope for which NASA helped build instruments and process data, has stopped making observations after running out of liquid coolant as expected.

The European Space Agency mission, launched almost four years ago, revealed the universe's "coolest" secrets by observing the frigid side of planet, star and galaxy formation.

"Herschel gave us the opportunity to peer into the dark and cold regions of the universe that are invisible to other telescopes," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington. "This successful mission demonstrates how NASA and ESA can work together to tackle unsolved mysteries in astronomy."

Confirmation the helium is exhausted came today, at the beginning of the spacecraft's daily communication session with its ground station in Western Australia. A clear rise in temperatures was measured in all of Herschel's instruments.

Herschel launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in May 2009. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., built components for two of Herschel's three science instruments. NASA also supports the U.S. astronomical community through the agency's Herschel Science Center, located at the California Institute of Technology's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center in Pasadena.

Herschel's detectors were designed to pick up the glow from celestial objects with infrared wavelengths as long as 625 micrometers, which is 1,000 times longer than what we can see with our eyes. Because heat interferes with these devices, they were chilled to temperatures as low as 2 kelvins (minus 271 degrees Celsius, or 456 Fahrenheit) using liquid helium. The detectors also were kept cold by the spacecraft's orbit, which is around a stable point called the second Lagrange point about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth. This location gave Herschel a better view of the universe.

"Herschel has improved our understanding of how new stars and planets form, but has also raised many new questions," said Paul Goldsmith, NASA Herschel project scientist at JPL. "Astronomers will be following up on Herschel's discoveries with ground-based and future space-based observatories for years to come."

The mission will not be making any more observations, but discoveries will continue. Astronomers still are looking over the data, much of which already is public and available through NASA's Herschel Science Center. The final batch of data will be public in about six months.

"Our goal is to help the U.S. community exploit the nuggets of gold that lie in that data archive," said Phil Appleton, project scientist at the science center.

Highlights of the mission include:

-- Discovering long, filamentary structures in space, dotted with dense star-making knots of material.
-- Detecting definitively, for the first time, oxygen molecules in space, in addition to other never-before-seen molecules. By mapping the molecules in different regions, researchers are learning more about the life cycles of stars and planets and the origins of life.
-- Discovering high-speed outflows around central black holes in active galaxies, which may be clearing out surrounding regions and suppressing future star formation.
-- Opening new views on extremely distant galaxies that could be seen only with Herschel, and providing new information about their high rates of star formation.
-- Following the trail of water molecules from distant galaxies to the clouds of gas between stars to planet-forming solar systems.
-- Examining a comet in our own solar system and finding evidence comets could have brought a substantial fraction of water to Earth.
-- Together with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, discovering a large asteroid belt around the bright star Vega.

Other findings from the mission include the discovery of some of the youngest stars ever seen in the nearby Orion "cradle," and a peculiar planet-forming disk of material surrounding the star TW Hydra, indicating planet formation may happen over longer periods of time than expected. Herschel also has shown stars interact with their environment in many surprising ways, including leaving trails as they move through clouds of gas and dust.
More information is online at http://www.herschel.caltech.edu , http://www.nasa.gov/herschel and http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel .

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NASA Probe Gets Close-Up Views of Large Hurricane on Saturn

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: 2013-149 April 29, 2013

NASA Probe Gets Close-Up Views of Large Hurricane on Saturn

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-149&cid=release_2013-149

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole.

In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane's eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph(150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon.

"We did a double take when we saw this vortex because it looks so much like a hurricane on Earth," said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "But there it is at Saturn, on a much larger scale, and it is somehow getting by on the small amounts of water vapor in Saturn's hydrogen atmosphere."

Scientists will be studying the hurricane to gain insight into hurricanes on Earth, which feed off warm ocean water. Although there is no body of water close to these clouds high in Saturn's atmosphere, learning how these Saturnian storms use water vapor could tell scientists more about how terrestrial hurricanes are generated and sustained.

Both a terrestrial hurricane and Saturn's north polar vortex have a central eye with no clouds or very low clouds. Other similar features include high clouds forming an eye wall, other high clouds spiraling around the eye, and a counter-clockwise spin in the northern hemisphere.

A major difference between the hurricanes is that the one on Saturn is much bigger than its counterparts on Earth and spins surprisingly fast. At Saturn, the wind in the eye wall blows more than four times faster than hurricane-force winds on Earth. Unlike terrestrial hurricanes, which tend to move, the Saturnian hurricane is locked onto the planet's north pole. On Earth, hurricanes tend to drift northward because of the forces acting on the fast swirls of wind as the planet rotates. The one on Saturn does not drift and is already as far north as it can be.

"The polar hurricane has nowhere else to go, and that's likely why it's stuck at the pole," said Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University in Hampton, Va.

Scientists believe the massive storm has been churning for years. When Cassini arrived in the Saturn system in 2004, Saturn's north pole was dark because the planet was in the middle of its north polar winter. During that time, the Cassini spacecraft's composite infrared spectrometer and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer detected a great vortex, but a visible-light view had to wait for the passing of the equinox in August 2009. Only then did sunlight begin flooding Saturn's northern hemisphere. The view required a change in the angle of Cassini's orbits around Saturn so the spacecraft could see the poles.

"Such a stunning and mesmerizing view of the hurricane-like storm at the north pole is only possible because Cassini is on a sportier course, with orbits tilted to loop the spacecraft above and below Saturn's equatorial plane," said Scott Edgington, Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "You cannot see the polar regions very well from an equatorial orbit. Observing the planet from different vantage points reveals more about the cloud layers that cover the entirety of the planet."

Cassini changes its orbital inclination for such an observing campaign only once every few years. Because the spacecraft uses flybys of Saturn's moon Titan to change the angle of its orbit, the inclined trajectories require attentive oversight from navigators. The path requires careful planning years in advance and sticking very precisely to the planned itinerary to ensure enough propellant is available for the spacecraft to reach future planned orbits and encounters.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Images and two versions of a movie of the hurricane can be viewed online at:
http://go.usa.gov/TQSB .

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

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NASA Probe Observes Meteors Colliding with Saturn's Rings

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: 2013-147 April 25, 2013

NASA Probe Observes Meteors Colliding with Saturn's Rings

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-147&cid=release_2013-147

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of small meteoroids breaking into streams of rubble and crashing into Saturn's rings.

These observations make Saturn's rings the only location besides Earth, the moon and Jupiter where scientists and amateur astronomers have been able to observe impacts as they occur. Studying the impact rate of meteoroids from outside the Saturnian system helps scientists understand how different planet systems in our solar system formed.

The solar system is full of small, speeding objects. These objects frequently pummel planetary bodies. The meteoroids at Saturn are estimated to range from about one-half inch to several yards (1 centimeter to several meters) in size. It took scientists years to distinguish tracks left by nine meteoroids in 2005, 2009 and 2012.

Details of the observations appear in a paper in the Thursday, April 25 edition of Science.

Results from Cassini have already shown Saturn's rings act as very effective detectors of many kinds of surrounding phenomena, including the interior structure of the planet and the orbits of its moons. For example, a subtle but extensive corrugation that ripples 12,000 miles (19,000 kilometers) across the innermost rings tells of a very large meteoroid impact in 1983.

"These new results imply the current-day impact rates for small particles at Saturn are about the same as those at Earth -- two very different neighborhoods in our solar system -- and this is exciting to see," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It took Saturn's rings acting like a giant meteoroid detector -- 100 times the surface area of the Earth -- and Cassini's long-term tour of the Saturn system to address this question."

The Saturnian equinox in summer 2009 was an especially good time to see the debris left by meteoroid impacts. The very shallow sun angle on the rings caused the clouds of debris to look bright against the darkened rings in pictures from Cassini's imaging science subsystem.

"We knew these little impacts were constantly occurring, but we didn't know how big or how frequent they might be, and we didn't necessarily expect them to take the form of spectacular shearing clouds," said Matt Tiscareno, lead author of the paper and a Cassini participating scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "The sunlight shining edge-on to the rings at the Saturnian equinox acted like an anti-cloaking device, so these usually invisible features became plain to see."

Tiscareno and his colleagues now think meteoroids of this size probably break up on a first encounter with the rings, creating smaller, slower pieces that then enter into orbit around Saturn. The impact into the rings of these secondary meteoroid bits kicks up the clouds. The tiny particles forming these clouds have a range of orbital speeds around Saturn. The clouds they form soon are pulled into diagonal, extended bright streaks.

"Saturn's rings are unusually bright and clean, leading some to suggest that the rings are actually much younger than Saturn," said Jeff Cuzzi, a co-author of the paper and a Cassini interdisciplinary scientist specializing in planetary rings and dust at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "To assess this dramatic claim, we must know more about the rate at which outside material is bombarding the rings. This latest analysis helps fill in that story with detection of impactors of a size that we weren't previously able to detect directly."

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., a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras. The imaging team consists of scientists from the United States, England, France and Germany. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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

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NASA Invites the Public to Fly Along with Voyager

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 feature: 2013-146 April 24, 2013

NASA Invites the Public to Fly Along with Voyager

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-146&cid=release_2013-146

A gauge on the Voyager home page, http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov, tracks levels of two of the three key signs scientists believe will appear when the spacecraft leave our solar neighborhood and enter interstellar space.

When the three signs are verified, scientists will know that one of the Voyagers has hurtled beyond the magnetic bubble the sun blows around itself, which is known as the heliosphere.

The gauge indicates the level of fast-moving charged particles, mainly protons, originating from far outside the heliosphere, and the level of slower-moving charged particles, also mainly protons, from inside the heliosphere. If the level of outside particles jumps dramatically and the level of inside particles drops precipitously, and these two levels hold steady, that means one of the spacecraft is closing in on the edge of interstellar space. These data are updated every six hours.

Scientists then need only see a change in the direction of the magnetic field to confirm that the spacecraft has sailed beyond the breath of the solar wind and finally arrived into the vast cosmic ocean between stars. The direction of the magnetic field, however, requires periodic instrument calibrations and complicated analyses. These analyses typically take a few months to return after the charged particle data are received on Earth.

Voyager 1, the most distant human-made spacecraft, appears to have reached this last region before interstellar space, which scientists have called "the magnetic highway." Inside particles are zooming out and outside particles are zooming in. However, Voyager 1 has not yet seen a change in the direction of the magnetic field, so the consensus among the Voyager team is that it has not yet left the heliosphere.

Voyager 2, the longest-operating spacecraft, but not as distant as Voyager 1, does not yet appear to have reached the magnetic highway, though it has recently seen some modest drops of the inside particle level.

NASA's Eyes on the Solar System program, a Web-based, video-game-like tool to journey with NASA's spacecraft through the solar system, has added a Voyager module that takes viewers along for a ride with Voyager 1 as it explores the outer limits of the heliosphere. Time has been sped up to show one day per second. Rolls and other maneuvers are incorporated into the program, based on actual spacecraft navigation data. The charged particle data are also shown. Visit that module at:
http://1.usa.gov/13uYqGP .

The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Voyager missions are a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager and http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Upcoming Educator Workshop: Engineering Careers

Educator Workshop April 23, 2013

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


Engineering Careers

Date: Saturday, May 11, 2013, 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Target audience: Suggested for educators for grades 5 and above, but all K-12 formal and informal educators are welcome

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

Overview: Open students' eyes to a world of exciting careers in engineering and technology that they probably never even knew existed! This workshop gives educators the tools and tips to engage students about careers in engineering as well as a host of other possibilities. Group work turns into a whole class conversation!

The workshop will be held at the JPL Educator Resource Center in Pomona, Calif. To sign up, please call the Resource Center at 909-397-4420.

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

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NASA's HyspIRI Sees the Forest for the Trees and More

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 Kathryn Hansen
NASA Earth Science News Team

Media contact:

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

News feature: 2013-143 April 22, 2013

NASA's HyspIRI Sees the Forest for the Trees and More

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-143&cid=release_2013-143

To Robert Green, light contains more than meets the eye: it contains fingerprints of materials that can be detected by sensors that capture the unique set of reflected wavelengths. Scientists have used the technique, called imaging spectroscopy, to learn about water on the moon, minerals on Mars and the composition of exoplanets. Green's favorite place to apply the technique, however, is right here on the chemically rich Earth, which is just what he and colleagues achieved this spring during NASA's Hyperspectral Infrared Imager (HyspIRI) airborne campaign.

"We have ideas about what makes up Earth's ecosystems and how they function," said Green, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who is principal investigator of the campaign's Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) instrument. "But a comprehensive understanding requires us to directly measure these things and how they change over landscapes and from season to season."

Toward that goal, scientists and engineers ultimately plan to launch the HyspIRI satellite -- a mission recommended by the 2007 National Academy of Sciences Decadal Survey. HyspIRI will determine the spectral and thermal characteristics of the world's ecosystems, which are sensitive to changes in the health of vegetation, as well as detecting and understanding changes in other surface phenomena including volcanoes, wildfires and droughts.

Prior to flying the sensors in space, however, preparatory science investigations are underway using similar sensor technology installed on NASA's ER-2, a high-altitude aircraft based at NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. The first season of the HyspIRI airborne campaign concludes on April 25 after about a month of flights that spanned the state. Additional sets of California flights are planned for this summer and fall.

"We are collecting data over six zones across very diverse regions of California, from the coast to high-elevation terrain, from alpine areas to deserts to coastal ecosystems, and from agricultural to urban landscapes," Green said.

For example, the campaign's first test flight on March 29 collected data along a series of parallel flight lines. The resulting image covers about six miles (9.7 kilometers) in width and almost 100 miles (161 kilometers) in length. One flight happened to pass over the San Andreas Fault. Inclusion of the fault in the flight plan was incidental, but it was a "spectacular" flight nonetheless, Green said.

Spectacular, Green notes, because each pixel holds a wealth of information invisible to the naked eye. Most light-collecting instruments on existing spacecraft observe light reflected from Earth, then filter the wavelengths and transmit only the snippets of the spectrum that are relevant to the mission's science. The point of HyspIRI, however, is to collect and transmit all of the wavelengths, from the visible to the short wavelength infrared as well as selected wavelengths in thermal-infrared, revealing the unique spectral signature of the light in each pixel. The signature is akin to a fingerprint, from which scientists can make more quantitative assessments of ecosystems.

"With imaging spectroscopy we can unambiguously understand what things are from aircraft at an altitude of 65,000 feet [19,812 meters], as revealed by the molecular and light-scattering characteristics, which determine the material's spectral fingerprint," Green said.

"Imaging spectroscopy is a mature and proven technology that provides a unique way to characterize what's happening on the surface of Earth," said Stephen Ungar of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., previous mission scientist of the Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) mission. EO-1 is a technology pathfinder satellite that has validated technology and science applications for spaceborne imaging spectroscopy.

The horizontal resolution from the AVIRIS imaging spectrometer on the ER-2 equates to about 60 feet (20 meters) per pixel. From space, the resolution is expected to be closer to 180 feet (60 meters) per pixel -- with the added benefit of consistent global coverage roughly every season of the year.

A second instrument flying on the ER-2 during the campaign is the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER), led by JPL's Simon Hook. The instrument extends the measurements into the thermal-infrared part of the spectrum, which becomes useful for detecting land types as well as understanding processes such as fire and drought.

"To assess ecosystems' diversity and how they function, we need to understand both ecosystem spectral and thermal properties," said Petya Campbell of NASA Goddard and a scientist with the EO-1 mission. "Using the information together will enable a revolution in ecology."

Now 14 research groups from across the country will take the data collected during the campaign and delve into a wide range of investigations. These include exploring the sources of natural- and human-produced methane emissions in California, teasing out the dynamics of algal blooms and observing how seasonal and environmental changes affect plant species.

This airborne science mission continues with the collection of additional imagery later this year and in 2014.
For more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/hyspiri.html . For more on HyspIRI, visit: http://hyspiri.jpl.nasa.gov/ . For more on NASA's Airborne Science Program, visit: http://airbornescience.nasa.gov/ .

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


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Kepler Discovers its Smallest Habitable Zone Planets

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

Michele Johnson 650-604-4789
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
michele.johnson@nasa.gov

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

News release: 2013-142 April 18, 2013

Kepler Discovers its Smallest Habitable Zone Planets

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-142&cid=release_2013-142

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.

The Kepler-62 system has five planets: 62b, 62c, 62d, 62e and 62f. The Kepler-69 system has two planets: 69b and 69c. Kepler-62e, 62f and 69c are the super-Earth-sized planets.

Two of the newly discovered planets orbit a star smaller and cooler than the sun. Kepler-62f is only 40 percent larger than Earth, making it the exoplanet closest to the size of our planet known in the habitable zone of another star. Kepler-62f is likely to have a rocky composition. Kepler-62e orbits on the inner edge of the habitable zone and is roughly 60 percent larger than Earth.

The third planet, Kepler-69c, is 70 percent larger than the size of Earth, and orbits in the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. Astronomers are uncertain about the composition of Kepler-69c, but its orbit of 242 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our neighboring planet Venus.

Scientists do not know whether life could exist on the newfound planets, but their discovery signals we are another step closer to finding a world similar to Earth around a star like our sun.

"The Kepler spacecraft has certainly turned out to be a rock star of science," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The discovery of these rocky planets in the habitable zone brings us a bit closer to finding a place like home. It is only a matter of time before we know if the galaxy is home to a multitude of planets like Earth, or if we are a rarity."

The Kepler space telescope, which simultaneously and continuously measures the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, is NASA's first mission capable of detecting Earth-size planets around stars like our sun.

Orbiting its star every 122 days, Kepler-62e was the first of these habitable zone planets identified. Kepler-62f, with an orbital period of 267 days, was later found by Eric Agol, associate professor of astronomy at the University of Washington and co-author of a paper on the discoveries published in the journal Science.

The size of Kepler-62f is now measured, but its mass and composition are not. However, based on previous studies of rocky exoplanets similar in size, scientists are able to estimate its mass by association.

"The detection and confirmation of planets is an enormously collaborative effort of talent and resources, and requires expertise from across the scientific community to produce these tremendous results," said William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of the Kepler-62 system paper in Science. "Kepler has brought a resurgence of astronomical discoveries and we are making excellent progress toward determining if planets like ours are the exception or the rule."

The two habitable zone worlds orbiting Kepler-62 have three companions in orbits closer to their star, two larger than the size of Earth and one about the size of Mars. Kepler-62b, Kepler-62c and Kepler-62d orbit every five, 12 and 18 days, respectively, making them very hot and inhospitable for life as we know it.

The five planets of the Kepler-62 system orbit a star classified as a K2 dwarf, measuring just two-thirds the size of the sun and only one-fifth as bright. At seven billion years old, the star is somewhat older than the sun. It is about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.

A companion to Kepler-69c, known as Kepler-69b, is more than twice the size of Earth and whizzes around its star every 13 days. The Kepler-69 planets' host star belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type. It is 93 percent the size of the sun and 80 percent as luminous and is located approximately 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

"We only know of one star that hosts a planet with life, the sun. Finding a planet in the habitable zone around a star like our sun is a significant milestone toward finding truly Earth-like planets," said Thomas Barclay, Kepler scientist at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute in Sonoma, Calif., and lead author of the Kepler-69 system discovery published in the Astrophysical Journal.

When a planet candidate transits, or passes in front of the star from the spacecraft's vantage point, a percentage of light from the star is blocked. The resulting dip in the brightness of the starlight reveals the transiting planet's size relative to its star. Using the transit method, Kepler has detected 2,740 candidates. Using various analysis techniques, ground telescopes and other space assets, 122 planets have been confirmed.

Early in the mission, the Kepler telescope primarily found large, gaseous giants in very close orbits of their stars. Known as "hot Jupiters," these are easier to detect due to their size and very short orbital periods. Earth would take three years to accomplish the three transits required to be accepted as a planet candidate. As Kepler continues to observe, transit signals of habitable zone planets the size of Earth that are orbiting stars like the sun will begin to emerge.

Ames is responsible for 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 & 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 was funded by the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

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

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

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Three From JPL on Time Magazine 'Most Influential' List

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2013-141 April 18, 2013

Three From JPL on Time Magazine 'Most Influential' List

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-141&cid=release_2013-141

PASADENA, Calif. -- On a new list of the 100 most influential people on Earth, three work at
the same California address, where they've led projects to study things that are not on Earth. The
list announced today by TIME Magazine includes Don Yeomans, Pete Theisinger and Richard
Cook, all at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Yeomans manages NASA's Near-Earth Objects Program Office at JPL, which coordinates the
search for and tracking of asteroids and comets passing into Earth's neighborhood to identify
possible hazards to Earth.

Since 2004, Theisinger and Cook have alternated managing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory
project, which landed the highly successful car-sized Curiosity rover on Mars last summer. Both
previously managed NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project with its twin rovers, Spirit and
Opportunity.

The TIME 100, as the magazine's Managing Editor Richard Stengel has explained, is "a list of
the most influential people in the world. They're scientists, they're thinkers, they're philosophers,
they're leaders, they're icons, they're artists, they're visionaries. People who are using their ideas,
their visions, their actions to transform the world and have an effect on a multitude of people."

"We are honored to have three distinguished individuals from JPL on the TIME list of most
influential people," said JPL Director Charles Elachi. "Their contributions in the fields of asteroid
research and Mars exploration is representative of all the exciting and important work being done
at NASA and JPL on behalf of the American people."

Yeomans grew up in Rochester, N.Y., and now lives in Glendale, Calif. He graduated from
Middlebury College, Vt., with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and earned a doctorate in
astronomy from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has worked at JPL since 1976. In
addition to managing NASA's Near-Earth Objects Program Office, Yeomans is supervisor for
JPL's Solar System Dynamics Group. He was a science team member for the Deep
Impact/EPOXI mission, which deployed an impactor that was "run over" by comet Tempel 1 in
2005 and flew close to comet Hartley 2 in 2010. He was also the U.S. project scientist for the
Japanese-led Hayabusa mission that returned a sample from near-Earth object Itokawa in 2010,
and a team chief for the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission that orbited, then landed on
the asteroid Eros in 2001. The first images of the return of comet Halley in 1982 were also
obtained based on Yeoman's predictions.

Theisinger is a native of Fresno, Calif., and lives now in La Crescenta, Calif. He graduated from
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, with a degree in physics. His career at JPL
began in 1967 with the Mariner 5 mission to Venus and now includes contributions to missions
including the Voyager mission to the outer planets (launched in 1977 and still going) and the
Galileo mission to Jupiter (launched in 1989 and concluded in 2003). His Mars experience dates
back to the 1971 Mariner 9 orbiter mission to Mars.

Cook is originally from Bismarck, N.D., and now lives in Santa Clarita, Calif. He earned a
bachelor's degree in engineering physics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a
master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. Cook joined JPL
in 1989, working first on the Magellan mission to Venus. He was the Mars Pathfinder mission
manager responsible for operating the first rover – Sojourner – on the surface of Mars in 1997.
He held several roles on the Mars Exploration Rover project, which landed the Spirit and
Opportunity rovers in 2004, including flight system manager and project manager.

The NASA Near Earth Objects (NEO) program at the agency's headquarters in Washington
manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of NEOs, or asteroids and comets, whose
orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. NASA's study of NEOs provides important clues to
understanding the origin of our solar system. The objects also are a repository of natural
resources and could become waystations for future exploration. In collaboration with other
external organizations, one of the program's key goals is to search for and try to mitigate
potential NEO impacts on Earth. JPL conducts the NEO program's technical and scientific
activities.

For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch .

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity to investigate the environmental
history within Gale Crater, a location where the project has found that conditions were long ago
favorable for microbial life. Curiosity, carrying 10 science instruments, landed in August 2012 to
begin its two-year prime mission. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the project for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .
The TIME profile of Yeomans can be seen at: http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-
100/slide/don-yeomans/ . The profile of Theisinger and Cook can be seen at:
http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/peter-theisinger-and-richard-cook/
. More information on the TIME 100 can be found at: http://www.time.com/time100 .

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NASA Mars Orbiters Have New Project Managers

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

Jia-Rui Cook/Guy Webster 818-354-0850/354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov / guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

News Release: 2013-140 April 17, 2013

NASA Mars Orbiters Have New Project Managers

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-140&cid=release_2013-140

PASADENA, Calif. -- Two NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars, both working long past their original prime missions, have new project managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Dan Johnston is the new project manager for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and David Lehman is now project manager for NASA's Mars Odyssey.

Johnston has worked on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission from its inception in 2000, through launch in 2005 and during operations in Mars orbit since 2006. He was the mission's design manager during development. Later roles have included mission manager and, since 2010, deputy project manager.

Johnston, a Louisiana native, earned a master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas, Austin, worked in private-industry support of NASA space shuttle mission operations, and joined JPL in 1989. He lives in La Crescenta, Calif.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned more data than all other Mars missions combined, observing Mars' surface, subsurface and atmosphere in unprecedented detail and radically expanding our knowledge of the Red Planet.

"The project's major challenge is to balance the science that the mission is continuing with the needs for serving as a communication relay for rovers," Johnston said. "Keeping the orbiter in service is our number-one priority."

Lehman managed NASA's twin-spacecraft Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Project from its inception in 2006 through the 2012 completion of its work orbiting Earth's moon.

Lehman's career has taken him from undersea to deep space. Before joining JPL in 1980, he was a U.S. Navy submarine officer. At JPL, his accomplishments have included managing NASA's Deep Space 1 Project, which tested 12 innovative technologies, such as ion propulsion and autonomous navigation, on its way to an asteroid flyby. Lehman holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from Colorado State University, Fort Collins. The New Mexico native now lives in Pasadena, Calif.

Mars Odyssey has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2001, began systematic science observations there in early 2002, and broke the previous record for longest-working Mars spacecraft in December 2010. The mission's longevity enables continued science, including the monitoring of seasonal changes on Mars from year to year, in addition to communication-relay service for Mars rovers.

Lehman said, "Odyssey is a major asset for NASA's Mars Program both for its science and as a relay. There is a lot of work being done by a lean team to keep it running smoothly."

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built both orbiters and partners with JPL in spacecraft operations for both missions.

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro . For more about Mars Odyssey, visit http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey .

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How to Target an Asteroid

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

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

News release: 2013-138 April 16, 2013

How to Target an Asteroid

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-138&cid=release_2013-138

Like many of his colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., Shyam Bhaskaran is working a lot with asteroids these days. And also like many of his colleagues, the deep space navigator devotes a great deal of time to crafting, and contemplating, computer-generated 3D models of these intriguing nomads of the solar system.

But while many of his coworkers are calculating asteroids' past, present and future locations in the cosmos, zapping them with the world's most massive radar dishes, or considering how to rendezvous and perhaps even gently nudge an asteroid into lunar orbit, Bhaskaran thinks about how to collide with one.

"If you want to see below the surface of an asteroid, there's no better way than smacking it hard," said Bhaskaran. "But it's not that easy. Hitting an asteroid with a spacecraft traveling at hypervelocity is like shooting an arrow at a target on a speeding race car."

The term hypervelocity usually refers to something traveling at very high speed -- two miles per second (6,700 mph / 11,000 kilometers per hour) or above. Bhaskaran's hypothetical impacts tend to be well above.

"Most of the hypervelocity impact scenarios that I simulate have spacecraft/asteroid closure rates of around eight miles a second, 30,000 miles per hour [about 48,000 kilometers per hour]," said Bhaskaran.

In the majority of our solar system, where yield signs and "right of way" statutes have yet to find widespread support, hypervelocity impacts between objects happen all the time. But all that primordial violence usually goes unnoticed here on Earth, and almost never receives scientific scrutiny.

"High-speed impacts on asteroids can tell you so many things that we want to know about asteroids," said Steve Chesley, a near-Earth object scientist at JPL. "They can tell you about their composition and their structural integrity -- which is how they hold themselves together. These are things that are not only vital for scientific research on the origins of the solar system, but also for mission designers working on ways to potentially move asteroids, either for exploitation purposes or because they may be hazardous to Earth."

Hypervelocity impacts by spacecraft are not just a hypothetical exercise. Scientists have taken the opportunity to analyze data from used spacecraft and rocket stages that have impacted the moon and other celestial bodies since the Apollo program. On July 4, 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft successfully collided its dynamic impactor with comet 9P/Tempel 1 -- it was the first hypervelocity impact of a primitive solar system body.

Bhaskaran, who was a navigator on Deep Impact, would be the first to tell you that not all hypervelocity impacts are created equal. "Impacting an asteroid presents slightly different challenges than impacting a comet," said Bhaskaran. "Comets can have jets firing material into space, which can upset your imaging and guidance systems, while potential asteroid targets can be as small as 50 meters [164 feeet] and have their own mini-moons orbiting them. Since they're small and dim, they can be harder to spot."

Along with the size of the celestial body being targeted, Bhaskaran also has to take into account its orbit, targeting errors, how hard an impact the scientists want, and even the shape.

"Asteroids hardly ever resemble perfect spheroids," said Bhaskaran. "What you've got floating around out there are a bunch of massive objects that look like peanuts, potatoes, diamonds, boomerangs and even dog bones -- and if the spacecraft's guidance system can't figure out where it needs to go, you can hit the wrong part of the asteroid, or much worse, miss it entirely."

The guidance system Bhaskaran is referring to is called "AutoNav," which stands for Autonomous Navigation. To reach out and touch something that could be halfway across the solar system and traveling at hypervelocity requires a fast-thinking and fast-maneuvering spacecraft. It is a problem that even the speed of light cannot cure. "When it comes to these high-speed impact scenarios, the best info you get on where you are and where you need to be comes very late in the game," said Bhaskaran. "That's why the last few hours before impact are so critical. We need to execute some final rocket burns, called Impactor Targeting Maneuvers (ITMs), quickly. With Earth so far away, there is no chance to send new commands in time.

"So, instead, we have AutoNav do the job for us. It is essentially a cyber-astronaut that takes in all the pertinent information, makes its own decisions and performs the actions necessary to make sure we go splat where we want to go splat."

Currently, Bhaskaran is running simulations that make his virtual impactor go splat against the furrowed, organic-rich regolith of asteroid 1999 RQ36. The 1,600-foot-wide (500-meter-wide) space rock is the target of a proposed JPL mission called the Impactor for Surface and Interior Science (ISIS). The impactor spacecraft, which looks a little like a rocket-powered wedding ring, would hitch a free ride into space aboard the rocket carrying NASA's InSight mission to Mars. The impactor's trajectory would then loop around Mars and bear down on RQ36.

"One of the things that helps me sleep at night is that we know a lot about RQ36 because it is the target of another NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx," said Bhaskaran. "But it also provides some challenges because the scientists want us to hit the asteroid at a certain moment in time and at a certain location, so that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft can be sure to monitor the results from a safe vantage point. It is a challenge but it's also really exciting."

The part of the ISIS mission Bhaskaran is most interested in is what happens after our rocket-festooned, cyber-hero rounds Mars and begins to close the distance with the asteroid at a speed of 8.4 miles per second (49,000 kilometers per hour). Over the next several months, the mission navigators would plan and execute several deep space maneuvers that refine the spacecraft's approach. Then, with only two hours to go, AutoNav would take over to make the final orbital changes.

"AutoNav's imaging system and its orbit determination algorithms will detect the asteroid and compute its location in space relative to the impactor," said Bhaskaran. "Without waiting to hear from us, it will plan for and execute three ITMs at 90 minutes, 30 minutes and then three minutes out. That last rocket firing will occur when the asteroid is only 1,500 miles [2,400 kilometers] away. Three minutes later, if all goes according to plan, the spacecraft hits like a ton of bricks."

While Bhaskaran loves ISIS for the navigation challenge it provides, the proposed mission's principal investigator likes what the out-of-this-world equivalent of the release of nine tons of TNT does to the surface -- and interior -- of an asteroid.

"We expect the crater excavated by the impact of ISIS could be around 100 feet across," said Chesley. "From its catbird seat in orbit around the asteroid, OSIRIS-REx, at its leisure, would not only be able to determine how big a hole there is, but also analyze the material thrown out during the impact."

The data would not only provide information on what makes up the asteroid, but how its orbit reacts to being hit by a NASA spacecraft.

"While the effect of ISIS on the orbit of asteroid 1999 RQ36 will be miniscule, it will be measurable," said Chesley. "Once we know how its orbit changes, no matter how small, we can make better assessments and plans to change some future asteroid's orbit if we ever need to do so. Of course, to get all these great leaps forward in understanding, we have to hit it in the first place."

Which leads us back to Bhaskaran and his hard drive laden full of hypervelocity impact simulations.

"We have confidence that whenever called upon, AutoNav will do its job," said Bhaskaran. "The trick is, we just don't tell AutoNav it's a one-way trip."

Bhaskaran will present his latest findings on guidance for hypervelocity impacts on Tuesday, April 16, at the International Academy of Astronautics' Planetary Defense Conference in Flagstaff, Ariz.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing relatively close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and predicts their paths to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.
JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Steve Chesley of JPL is leading the Impactor for Surface and Interior Science (ISIS) mission proposal. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages the OSIRIS-Rex project.

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch , and on Twitter: @asteroidwatch .

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NASA Hosts Media Briefing on Kepler Planetary Discovery

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

Michele Johnson 650-604-4789
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
michele.johnson@nasa.gov

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

Advisory: 2013-137b April 16, 2013

NASA Hosts Media Briefing On Kepler Planetary Discovery

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-137&cid=release_2013-137

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a news briefing at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT), Thursday, April 18, to announce new discoveries from the agency's Kepler mission.

The briefing will be held at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and will be broadcast live on NASA Television and on the agency's website.

The briefing will also be streamed live at: http://www.ustream.tv/NASAJPL2, with a moderated Web chat featuring Kepler Deputy Project Scientist Nick Gautier of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The briefing will also be broadcast live at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-arc .

Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water. Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope is detecting planets and planet candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances to help us better understand our place in the galaxy.

The briefing participants are:

-- Paul Hertz, astrophysics director, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Roger Hunter, Kepler project manager, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
-- William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator, Ames Research Center
-- Thomas Barclay, Kepler scientist, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, Sonoma, Calif.
-- Lisa Kaltenegger, research group leader, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany, and research associate, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.

News media representatives and the public may submit questions for the news conference participants via Twitter to #AskNASA.

For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .

For more information about the Kepler mission and to view the digital press kit, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler .

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Upcoming Educator Workshop on Solar Energy

Educator Workshop April 16, 2013

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


Energy from the Sun - Solar Science Educator Workshop

Date: June 25-27, 2013

Target audience: Educators for grades K-12

Location: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Overview: Power up your classroom with lessons on solar energy and the science of the sun! A free UC Berkeley educator workshop featuring discussions of NASA's solar science missions, solar energy technology and the classroom activities that bring it all to life is coming to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Past workshop participants will share their creative ideas for incorporating solar science concepts into the classroom and attendees will receive ready-to-go lessons and materials published by NASA and the National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project, plus a free classroom solar kit and curriculum. The workshop takes place over two days, from June 25-26, and culminates with a tour of JPL on June 27. Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided.

The deadline to register is May 3, 2013. To learn more and register, visit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/EnergyPasadena2013

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NASA-Funded Asteroid Tracking Sensor Passes Key Test

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/ D.C. Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov/David.C.Agle@jpl.nasa.gov

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

News release: 2013-135 April 15, 2013

NASA-Funded Asteroid Tracking Sensor Passes Key Test

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-135&cid=release_2013-135

PASADENA, Calif. -- An infrared sensor that could improve NASA's future detecting and tracking of asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test.

The test assessed performance of the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) in an environment that mimicked the temperatures and pressures of deep space. NEOCam is the cornerstone instrument for a proposed new space-based asteroid-hunting telescope. Details of the sensor's design and capabilities are published in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Optical Engineering.

The sensor could be a vital component to inform plans for the agency's recently announced initiative to develop the first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid closer to Earth for future exploration by astronauts.

"This sensor represents one of many investments made by NASA's Discovery Program and its Astrophysics Research and Analysis Program in innovative technologies to significantly improve future missions designed to protect Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office in Washington.

Near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets with orbits that come within 28 million miles of Earth's path around the sun. Asteroids do not emit visible light; they reflect it. Depending on how reflective an object is, a small, light-colored space rock can look the same as a big, dark one. As a result, data collected with optical telescopes using visible light can be deceiving.

"Infrared sensors are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and understanding the asteroid population," said Amy Mainzer, a co-author of the paper and principal investigator for NASA's NEOWISE mission at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. NEOWISE stands for Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. "When you observe a space rock with infrared, you are seeing its thermal emissions, which can better define the asteroid's size, as well as tell you something about composition."

The NEOCam sensor is designed to be more reliable and significantly lighter in weight for launching aboard space-based telescopes. Once launched, the proposed telescope would be located about four times the distance between Earth and the moon, where NEOCam could observe the comings and goings of NEOs every day without the impediments of cloud cover and daylight.

The sensor is the culmination of almost 10 years of scientific collaboration between JPL; the University of Rochester, which facilitated the test; and Teledyne Imaging Sensors of Camarillo, Calif., which developed the sensor.

"We were delighted to see in this generation of detectors a vast improvement in sensitivity compared with previous generations," said the paper's lead author, Craig McMurtry of the University of Rochester.

NASA's NEOWISE is an enhancement of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, mission that launched in December 2009. WISE scanned the entire celestial sky in infrared light twice. It captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to asteroids and comets close to Earth.

NEOWISE completed its survey of small bodies, asteroids and comets, in our solar system. The mission's discoveries of previously unknown objects include 21 comets, more than 34,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and 134 near-Earth objects.

JPL manages the NEOCam sensor program for NASA's Discovery Program office at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington manages the Discovery Program office. The Astrophysics Research and Analysis Program at NASA Headquarters also provided funding for the sensor. Teledyne Imaging Sensors, Camarillo, Calif., developed the NEOCam sensor for JPL. The University of Rochester, New York, facilitated the sensor test.

To see and image of the sensor, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA16956 .

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch .

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Where are the Best Windows Into Europa's Interior?

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

News feature: 2013-134 April 12, 2013

Where are the Best Windows Into Europa's Interior?

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-134&cid=release_2013-134

The surface of Jupiter's moon Europa exposes material churned up from inside the moon and also material resulting from matter and energy coming from above. If you want to learn about the deep saltwater ocean beneath this unusual world's icy shell -- as many people do who are interested in possible extraterrestrial life -- you might target your investigation of the surface somewhere that has more of the up-from-below stuff and less of the down-from-above stuff.

New analysis of observations made more than a decade ago by NASA's Galileo mission to Jupiter helps identify those places.

"We have found the regions where charged electrons and ions striking the surface would have done the most, and the least, chemical processing of materials emplaced at the surface from the interior ocean," said J. Brad Dalton of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., lead author of the report published recently in the journal Planetary and Space Science. "That tells us where to look for materials representing the most pristine ocean composition, which would be the best places to target with a lander or study with an orbiter."

Europa is about the size of Earth's moon and, like our moon, keeps the same side toward the planet it orbits. Picture a car driving in circles around a mountain with its left-side windows always facing the mountain.

Europa's orbit around Jupiter is filled with charged, energetic particles tied to Jupiter's powerful magnetic field. Besides electrons, these particles include ions of sulfur and oxygen originating from volcanic eruptions on Io, a neighboring moon.

The magnetic field carrying these energetic particles sweeps around Jupiter faster than Europa orbits Jupiter, in the same direction: about 10 hours per circuit for the magnetic field versus about 3.6 days for Europa's orbit. So, instead of our mountain-circling car getting bugs on the front windshield, the bugs are plastered on the back of the car by a "wind" from behind going nearly nine times faster than the car. Europa has a "leading hemisphere" in front and a "trailing hemisphere" in back.

Earlier studies had found more sulfuric acid being produced toward the center of the trailing hemisphere than elsewhere on Europa's surface, interpreted as resulting from chemistry driven by sulfur ions bombarding the icy surface.

Dalton and his co-authors at JPL and at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., examined data from observations by Galileo's near infrared mapping spectrometer of five widely distributed areas of Europa's surface. The spectra of reflected light from frozen material on the surface enabled them to distinguish between relatively pristine water and sulfate hydrates. These included magnesium and sodium sulfate salt hydrates, and hydrated sulfuric acid. They compared the distributions of these substances with models of how the influxes of energetic electrons and of sulfur and oxygen ions are distributed around the surface of Europa.

The concentration of frozen sulfuric acid on the surface varies greatly, they found. It ranges from undetectable levels near the center of the leading hemisphere, to more than half of the surface materials near the center of the heavily bombarded trailing hemisphere. The concentration was closely related to the amount of electrons and sulfur ions striking the surface.

"The close correlation of electron and ion fluxes with the sulfuric acid hydrate concentrations indicates that the surface chemistry is affected by these charged particles," says Dalton. "If you are interested in the composition and habitability of the interior ocean, the best places to study would be the parts of the leading hemisphere we have identified as receiving the fewest electrons and having the lowest sulfuric acid concentrations."

Surface deposits in these areas are most likely to preserve the original chemical compounds that erupted from the interior. Dalton suggests that any future spacecraft missions to Europa should target these deposits for study from orbit, or even attempt to land there.

Dalton said, "The darkest material, on the trailing hemisphere, is probably the result of externally-driven chemical processing, with little of the original oceanic material intact. While investigating the products of surface chemistry driven by charged particles is still interesting from a scientific standpoint, there is a strong push within the community to characterize the contents of the ocean and determine whether it could support life. These kinds of places just might be the windows that allow us to do that."

The study was funded by NASA's Outer Planets Research Program. NASA's Galileo mission, launched in 1989, orbited Jupiter, investigating the planet and its diverse moons from 1995 to 2003. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, managed Galileo for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

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NASA/JPL Webby Nominees Want Your Vote

NASA/JPL Webby Nominees Want Your Vote

Chosen from more than 11,000 entries, two websites and a social media account managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are in the running for one of the internet's highest honors - and need your vote! NASA/JPL's Space Images, Solar System Exploration website and Curiosity Mars Rover social media accounts have been chosen as People's Voice nominees in the Webby Awards, an annual competition that honors, "the best of the web." From now until April 25, members of the public can submit their votes and pick their favorite nominees in dozens of categories, including the newest "Social" category.

NASA/JPL has five nominations in four categories including Government Website, Science Website, Overall Social Presence and Social Education & Discovery.

Read below for more information about NASA/JPL's nominations and submit your vote!

Space Images
Launched in 2011 and based on the popular app of the same name, Space Images offers a stunning collection of images of the planets and universe direct from NASA/JPL missions.
> Best Government Website:
http://pv.webbyawards.com/nominees/web/general-website/government/nasas-jet-propulsion-laboratory-space-images

Solar System Exploration
This educational NASA website is a premier resource for facts, news, activities and interactives about the planets and the missions - and scientists! -- that study them.
> Best Science Website:
http://pv.webbyawards.com/nominees/web/general-website/science/nasa-solar-system-exploration
> Best Government Website:
http://pv.webbyawards.com/nominees/web/general-website/government/nasa-solar-system-exploration

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Social Media
Landing international internet fame all while making a treacherous landing on Mars, NASA's most social Mars rover yet has spellbound audiences with her quirky persona.
> Best Overall Social Presence:
http://pv.webbyawards.com/nominees/social/general-excellence-categories/overall-social-presence/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-social-media
> Best Social Ed & Discovery:
http://pv.webbyawards.com/nominees/social/social-content-and-marketing/education-discovery/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-social-media

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Ice Cloud Heralds Fall at Titan's South Pole

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
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Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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Elizabeth Zubritsky 301-614-5438
Goddard Space Flight, Center, Greenbelt, Md.
elizabeth.a.zubritsky@nasa.gov

News feature: 2013-133 April 11, 2013

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-133&cid=release_2013-133

An ice cloud taking shape over Titan's south pole is the latest sign that the change of seasons is setting off a cascade of radical changes in the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon. Made from an unknown ice, this type of cloud has long hung over Titan's north pole, where it is now fading, according to observations made by the composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

"We associate this particular kind of ice cloud with winter weather on Titan, and this is the first time we have detected it anywhere but the north pole," said the study's lead author, Donald E. Jennings, a CIRS Co-Investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The southern ice cloud, which shows up in the far infrared part of the light spectrum, is evidence that an important pattern of global air circulation on Titan has reversed direction. When Cassini first observed the circulation pattern, warm air from the southern hemisphere was rising high in the atmosphere and was transported to the cold north pole. There, the air cooled and sank down to lower layers of the atmosphere and formed ice clouds. A similar pattern, called a Hadley cell, carries warm, moist air from Earth's tropics to the cooler middle latitudes.

Based on modeling, scientists had long predicted a reversal of this circulation once Titan's north pole began to warm and its south pole began to cool. The official transition from winter to spring at Titan's north pole occurred in August 2009. But because each of the moon's seasons lasts about seven-and-a-half Earth years, researchers still did not know exactly when this reversal would happen or how long it would take.

The first signs of the reversal came in data acquired in early 2012, which came shortly after the start of southern fall on Titan, when Cassini images and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer data revealed the presence of a high-altitude "haze hood" and a swirling polar vortex at the south pole. Both features have long been associated with the cold north pole. Later, Cassini scientists reported that infrared observations of Titan's winds and temperatures made by CIRS had provided definitive evidence of air sinking, rather than upwelling, at the south pole. By looking back through the data, the team narrowed down the change in circulation to within six months of the 2009 equinox.

Despite the new activity at the south pole, the southern ice cloud had not appeared yet. CIRS didn't detect it until about July 2012, a few months after the haze and vortex were spotted in the south, according to the study published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in December 2012.

"This lag makes sense because first the new circulation pattern has to bring loads and loads of gases to the south pole. Then, the air has to sink. The ices have to condense. And the pole has to be under enough shadow to protect the vapors that condense to form those ices," said Carrie Anderson, a CIRS team member and Cassini participating scientist at Goddard.

At first blush, the southern ice cloud seems to be building rapidly. The northern ice cloud, on the other hand, was present when Cassini first arrived and has been slowly fading the entire time the spacecraft has been observing it.

So far, the identity of the ice in these clouds has eluded scientists, though they have ruled out simple chemicals, such as methane, ethane and hydrogen cyanide, which are typically associated with Titan. One possibility is that "species X," as some team members call the ice, could be a mixture of organic compounds.

"What's happening at Titan's poles has some analogy to Earth and to our ozone holes," said the CIRS Principal Investigator, Goddard's F. Michael Flasar. "And on Earth, the ices in the high polar clouds aren't just window dressing: They play a role in releasing the chlorine that destroys ozone. How this affects Titan chemistry is still unknown. So it's important to learn as much as we can about this phenomenon, wherever we find it."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. The mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The CIRS team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where the instrument was built. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.

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NASA Mars Orbiter Images May Show 1971 Soviet Lander

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

Image advisory: 2013-132 April 11, 2013

NASA Mars Orbiter Images May Show 1971 Soviet Lander

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-132&cid=release_2013-132

Hardware from a spacecraft that the Soviet Union landed on Mars in 1971 might appear in images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

While following news about Mars and NASA's Curiosity rover, Russian citizen enthusiasts found four features in a five-year-old image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that resemble four pieces of hardware from the Soviet Mars 3 mission: the parachute, heat shield, terminal retrorocket and lander. A follow-up image by the orbiter from last month shows the same features.

The Mars 3 lander transmitted for several seconds after landing on Dec. 2, 1971, the first spacecraft to survive a Mars landing long enough to transmit anything.

Images of the possible Mars 3 features, taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, are available at http://uahirise.org/ESP_031036_1345 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA16920 .

"Together, this set of features and their layout on the ground provide a remarkable match to what is expected from the Mars 3 landing, but alternative explanations for the features cannot be ruled out," said HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "Further analysis of the data and future images to better understand the three-dimensional shapes may help to confirm this interpretation."

In 1971, the former Soviet Union launched the Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions to Mars. Each consisted of an orbiter plus a lander. Both orbiter missions succeeded, although the surface of Mars was obscured by a planet-encircling dust storm. The Mars 2 lander crashed. Mars 3 became the first successful soft landing on the Red Planet, but stopped transmitting after just 14.5 seconds for unknown reasons.

The predicted landing site was at latitude 45 degrees south, longitude 202 degrees east, in Ptolemaeus Crater. HiRISE acquired a large image at this location in November 2007. This image contains 1.8 billion pixels of data, so about 2,500 typical computer screens would be needed to view the entire image at full resolution. Promising candidates for the hardware from Mars 3 were found on Dec. 31, 2012.

Vitali Egorov from St. Petersburg, Russia, heads the largest Russian Internet community about Curiosity, at http://vk.com/curiosity_live . His subscribers did the preliminary search for Mars 3 via crowdsourcing. Egorov modeled what Mars 3 hardware pieces should look like in a HiRISE image, and the group carefully searched the many small features in this large image, finding what appear to be viable candidates in the southern part of the scene. Each candidate has a size and shape consistent with the expected hardware, and they are arranged on the surface as expected from the entry, descent and landing sequence.

"I wanted to attract people's attention to the fact that Mars exploration today is available to practically anyone," Egorov said. "At the same time we were able to connect with the history of our country, which we were reminded of after many years through the images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter."

An advisor to the group, Alexander Basilevsky, of Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Moscow, contacted McEwen suggesting a follow-up image. HiRISE acquired the follow-up on March 10, 2013. This image was targeted to cover some of the hardware candidates in color and to get a second look with different illumination angles. Meanwhile, Basilevsky and Erogov contacted Russian engineers and scientists who worked on Mars 3 for more information.

The candidate parachute is the most distinctive feature in the images. It is an especially bright spot for this region, about 8.2 yards (7.5 meters) in diameter. The parachute would have a diameter of 12 yards (11 meters) if fully spread out over the surface, so this is consistent. In the second HiRISE image, the parachute appears to have brightened over much of its surface, probably due to its better illumination over the sloping surface, but it is also possible that the parachute brightened in the intervening years because dust was removed.

The descent module, or retrorocket, was attached to the lander container by a chain, and the candidate feature has the right size and even shows a linear extension that could be a chain. Near the candidate descent module is a feature with the right size and shape to be the actual lander, with four open petals. The image of the candidate heat shield matches a shield-shaped object with the right size if partly buried.

Philip J. Stooke from the University of West Ontario, Canada, suggested the direction of search and offered helpful advice. Arnold Selivanov (one of the creators of Mars 3) and Vladimir Molodtsov (an engineer at NPO Lavochkin, Moscow) helped with access to data archives.

HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and Curiosity are managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been studying Mars from orbit since 2006, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

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