NASA Hosts Earth Science Social Media Event

News release: 2013-315b                                                             Oct. 29, 2013 NASA Hosts Earth Science Social Media Event The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-315b&cid=release_2013-315b One-hundred people from 22 U.S. states and some foreign countries will attend a two-day NASA Social on Nov. 4 and 5 at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The attendees, who follow NASA and JPL on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social networks, will tour JPL, participate in interactive events and hear from scientists and engineers about current and upcoming space- and Earth-observing missions. Attendees will share their experiences with their followers through the various social media platforms. The Nov. 4 events will highlight NASA's role in studying Earth and its climate and will preview three Earth-observing missions JPL is preparing for launch in 2014: the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft, which will measure soil moisture from space; ISS-RapidScat, which will measure ocean winds from the International Space Station; and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), which will study atmospheric carbon dioxide from space. These presentations will air on NASA Television on Nov. 4 starting at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv and http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 . To join and track the conversation online during the NASA Social, follow the hashtag #NASASocial . NASA Social attendees were selected from more than 475 people who registered online. Participants represent Canada, Croatia, Indonesia, Norway, Peru, the United States and the United Kingdom. Attendees from the U.S. come from 22 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. More information about connecting and collaborating with NASA is at: http://www.nasa.gov/connect . More information about SMAP is online at: http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov/ . More information about ISS-RapidScat is at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/ISSRapidScat.html and http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/RapidScat/ . More information about OCO-2 is at: http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/ . The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA. Courtney O'Connor 818-354-2274 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. oconnor@jpl.nasa.gov John Yembrick / Jason Townsend 202-358-1584 / 202-358-0359 NASA Headquarters, Washington john.yembrick@nasa.gov / jason.c.townsend@nasa.gov - end -

 

This message was sent to chantybanty1.chanti@blogger.com from: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory | 4800 Oak Grove Dr | Pasadena, CA 91109

Unsubscribe

Upcoming Workshops, Giveaway Days at the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center

This is a feature of the NASA/JPL Education Office                                          Oct. 29, 2013 Educator Workshop: Lunar and Meteorite Sample Certification Program Date: Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Target Audience: This workshop is for credentialed teachers, teaching grades K-12 in a classroom setting Location: NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, Pomona, Calif. Overview: 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. 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 *Note: The NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center will be hosting a giveaway day featuring numerous items from its Pomona, Calif., location immediately following this workshop. See below for more information. Educator Workshop: Marsbound! Mission to the Red Planet Date: Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013, 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Target audience: Educators for grades 4 and above Location: NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, Pomona, Calif. Overview: Bring Marsbound! Mission to the Red Planet, an exciting hands-on lesson that addresses Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards, to your classroom! Build a mission to Mars using a mat and cards game, design and redesign, facing the same problems that real engineers and scientists face. Compare Earth and Mars geology and explore what it will take to create a Mars colony, socially, historically, physically and vocationally! This workshop is limited to 30 participants. 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 *Note: The NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center will be hosting a giveaway day featuring numerous items from its Pomona, Calif., location immediately following this workshop. See below for more information. Giveaway Days: After 15 years in its Pomona, Calif., location, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Educator Resource Center will be moving. (A new arrangement for the center has not been determined. Continue to check the ERC page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115 for future updates.) To facilitate our move, we need your help giving some of our excess material a new home. Up for grabs are items such as historical reference books, posters, historical JPL annual reports, bookmarks, postcards, and other JPL and educational materials. In the coming months, we will have two free yard-sale-type events during which you can visit the ERC at the Indian Hill Mall in Pomona and take whatever you can use: Saturday, Nov. 9 and Saturday, Dec. 7. The doors will open for each event at 12:30 p.m. and close at 2:30 p.m., no need to RSVP. We recommend arriving with boxes or bags to carry items home. No early birds please. - end -

 

This message was sent to chantybanty1.chanti@blogger.com from: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory | 4800 Oak Grove Dr | Pasadena, CA 91109

Unsubscribe

NASA's Great Observatories Begin Deepest-Ever Probe of the Universe

News Release: 2013-306                                                             Oct. 24, 2013 NASA's Great Observatories Begin Deepest-Ever Probe of the Universe The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-306 PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes are teaming up to look deeper into the universe than ever before. With a boost from natural "zoom lenses" found in space, they should be able to uncover galaxies that are as much as 100 times fainter than what these three great observatories typically can see. In an ambitious collaborative program called The Frontier Fields, astronomers will make observations during the next three years peering at six massive clusters of galaxies, exploiting a natural phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, to learn not only what is inside the clusters but also what is beyond them. The clusters are among the most massive assemblages of matter known, and their gravitational fields can be used to brighten and magnify more distant galaxies so they can be observed. "The Frontier Fields program is exactly what NASA's Great Observatories were designed to do; working together to unravel the mysteries of the universe" said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Each observatory collects images using different wavelengths of light with the result that we get a much deeper understanding of the underlying physics of these celestial objects." The first object they will view is Abell 2744, commonly known as Pandora's Cluster. The giant galaxy cluster appears to be the result of a simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate, smaller galaxy clusters that took place over a span of 350 million years. Astronomers anticipate these observations will reveal populations of galaxies that existed when the universe was only a few hundred million years old, but have not been seen before. "The idea is to use nature's natural telescopes in combination with the great observatories to look much deeper than before and find the most distant and faint galaxies we can possibly see," said Jennifer Lotz, a principal investigator with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. Data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes will be combined to measure the galaxies' distances and masses more accurately than either observatory could measure alone, demonstrating their synergy for such studies. "We want to understand when and how the first stars and galaxies formed in the universe, and each great observatory gives us a different piece of the puzzle," said Peter Capak, the Spitzer principal investigator for the Frontier Fields program at NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "Hubble tells you which galaxies to look at and how many stars are being born in those systems. Spitzer tells you how old the galaxy is and how many stars have formed." The Chandra X-ray Observatory also will peer deep into the star fields. It will image the clusters at X-ray wavelengths to help determine their mass and measure their gravitational lensing power, and identify background galaxies hosting supermassive black holes. High-resolution Hubble data from Frontier Fields will be used to trace the distribution of dark matter within the six massive foreground clusters. Accounting for the bulk of the universe's mass, dark matter is the underlying invisible scaffolding attached to galaxies. Hubble and Spitzer have studied other deep fields with great success. The Frontier Fields researchers anticipate a challenge because the distortion and magnification caused by the gravitational lensing phenomenon will make it difficult for them to understand the true properties of the background galaxies. For images and more information about The Frontier Fields, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2013/44 . NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. 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 . Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov Ray Villard 410-338-4514 Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md. villard@stsci.edu J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241 Headquarters, Washington j.d.harrington@nasa.gov - end -

 

This message was sent to chantybanty1.chanti@blogger.com from: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory | 4800 Oak Grove Dr | Pasadena, CA 91109

Unsubscribe