JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW NuSTAR Helps Find Universe's Brightest Pulsars There's a new record holder for brightest pulsar ever found -- and astronomers are still trying to figure out how it can shine so brightly. › Read the full story NASA Data Show California's San Joaquin Valley Still Sinking Areas of California's San Joaquin Valley continue to sink in response to the state's drought, finds a new update to a 2015 JPL report commissioned by the state of California. › Read the full story

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Martian Winds Carve Mountains, Move Dust, Raise Dust Fast Facts: › Wind is a dominant force shaping landscapes on Mars, despite the thin air. › A recent study supports the idea that a mountain that is oddly in the middle of a Martian crater was formed by wind subtracting other material after the crater had been filled to the brim with sediments. › Modern winds in the crater show effects such as dusty whirlwinds, shifting sand and active dunes. › NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has begun investigating linear-shaped dunes during the crater's windy summer season. On Mars, wind rules. Wind has been shaping the Red Planet's landscapes for billions of years and continues to do so today. Studies using both a NASA orbiter and a rover reveal its effects on scales grand to tiny on the strangely structured landscapes within Gale Crater. NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, on the lower slope of Mount Sharp -- a layered mountain inside the crater -- has begun a second campaign of investigating active sand dunes on the mountain's northwestern flank. The rover also has been observing whirlwinds carrying dust and checking how far the wind moves grains of sand in a single day's time. Gale Crater observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have confirmed long-term patterns and rates of wind erosion that help explain the oddity of having a layered mountain in the middle of an impact crater. "The orbiter perspective gives us the bigger picture -- on all sides of Mount Sharp and the regional context for Gale Crater. We combine that with the local detail and ground-truth we get from the rover," said Mackenzie Day of the University of Texas, Austin, lead author of a research report in the journal Icarus about wind's dominant role at Gale. The combined observations show that wind patterns in the crater today differ from when winds from the north removed the material that once filled the space between Mount Sharp and the crater rim. Now, Mount Sharp itself has become a major factor in determining local wind directions. Wind shaped the mountain; now the mountain shapes the wind. The Martian atmosphere is about a hundred times thinner than Earth's, so winds on Mars exert much less force than winds on Earth. Time is the factor that makes Martian winds so dominant in shaping the landscape. Most forces that shape Earth's landscapes -- water that erodes and moves sediments, tectonic activity that builds mountains and recycles the planet's crust, active volcanism -- haven't influenced Mars much for billions of years. Sand transported by wind, even if infrequent, can whittle away Martian landscapes over that much time. How to Make a Layered Mountain Gale Crater was born when the impact of an asteroid or comet more than 3.6 billion years ago excavated a basin nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) wide. Sediments including rocks, sand and silt later filled the basin, some delivered by rivers that flowed in from higher ground surrounding Gale. Curiosity has found evidence of that wet era from more than 3 billion years ago. A turning point in Gale's history -- when net accumulation of sediments flipped to net removal by wind erosion -- may have coincided with a key turning point in the planet's climate as Mars became drier, Day noted. Scientists first proposed in 2000 that the mound at the center of Gale Crater is a remnant from wind eroding what had been a totally filled basin. The new work calculates that the vast volume of material removed -- about 15,000 cubic miles (64,000 cubic kilometers) -- is consistent with orbital observations of winds' effects in and around the crater, when multiplied by a billion or more years. Other new research, using Curiosity, focuses on modern wind activity in Gale. The rover this month is investigating a type of sand dune that differs in shape from dunes the mission investigated in late 2015 and early 2016. Crescent-shaped dunes were the feature of the earlier campaign -- the first ever up-close study of active sand dunes anywhere other than Earth. The mission's second dune campaign is at a group of ribbon-shaped linear dunes. "In these linear dunes, the sand is transported along the ribbon pathway, while the ribbon can oscillate back and forth, side to side," said Nathan Bridges, a Curiosity science team member at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The season at Gale Crater is now summer, the windiest time of year. That's the other chief difference from the first dune campaign, conducted during less-windy Martian winter. "We're keeping Curiosity busy in an area with lots of sand at a season when there's plenty of wind blowing it around," said Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "One aspect we want to learn more about is the wind's effect on sorting sand grains with different composition. That helps us interpret modern dunes as well as ancient sandstones." Before Curiosity heads farther up Mount Sharp, the mission will assess movement of sand particles at the linear dunes, examine ripple shapes on the surface of the dunes, and determine the composition mixture of the dune material. Shifting Sand and 'Dust Devils' Images taken one day apart of the same piece of ground, including some recent pairs from the downward-looking camera that recorded the rover's landing-day descent, show small ripples of sand moving about an inch (2.5 centimeters) downwind. Meanwhile, whirlwinds called "dust devils" have been recorded moving across terrain in the crater, in sequences of afternoon images taken several seconds apart. After completing the planned dune observations and measurements, Curiosity will proceed southward and uphill toward a ridge where the mineral hematite has been identified from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observations. The Curiosity science team has decided to call this noteworthy feature the "Vera Rubin Ridge," commemorating Vera Cooper Rubin (1928-2016), whose astronomical observations provided evidence for the existence of the universe's dark matter. As Curiosity focuses on the sand dunes, rover engineers are analyzing results of diagnostic tests on the drill feed mechanism, which drives the drill bit in and out during the process of collecting sample material from a rock. One possible cause of an intermittent issue with the mechanism is that a plate for braking the movement may be obstructed, perhaps due to a small piece of debris, resisting release of the brake. The diagnostic tests are designed to be useful in planning the best way to resume use of the drill. The rover team is also investigating why the lens cover on Curiosity's arm-mounted Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) did not fully open in response to commands on Feb. 24. The arm has been raised to minimize risk of windborne sand reaching the lens while the cover is partially open. Diagnostic tests of the lens cover are planned this week. During the first year after Curiosity's 2012 landing in Gale Crater, the mission fulfilled its main goal by finding that the region once offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. The conditions in long-lived ancient freshwater Martian lake environments included all of the key chemical elements needed for life as we know it, plus a chemical source of energy that is used by many microbes on Earth. The extended mission is investigating how and when the habitable ancient conditions evolved into conditions drier and less favorable for life. For more information about Curiosity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/curiosity

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

Free NASA Exoplanet Poster - Download Now

 

 

FREE TRAPPIST-1 Exoplanet Poster NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water. Learn more about this exoplanet Download poster

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water. The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water -- key to life as we know it -- under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone. "This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Answering the question 'are we alone' is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal." At about 40 light-years (235 trillion miles) from Earth, the system of planets is relatively close to us, in the constellation Aquarius. Because they are located outside of our solar system, these planets are scientifically known as exoplanets. This exoplanet system is called TRAPPIST-1, named for The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile. In May 2016, researchers using TRAPPIST announced they had discovered three planets in the system. Assisted by several ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, Spitzer confirmed the existence of two of these planets and discovered five additional ones, increasing the number of known planets in the system to seven. The new results were published Wednesday in the journal Nature, and announced at a news briefing at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Using Spitzer data, the team precisely measured the sizes of the seven planets and developed first estimates of the masses of six of them, allowing their density to be estimated. Based on their densities, all of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely to be rocky. Further observations will not only help determine whether they are rich in water, but also possibly reveal whether any could have liquid water on their surfaces. The mass of the seventh and farthest exoplanet has not yet been estimated -- scientists believe it could be an icy, "snowball-like" world, but further observations are needed. "The seven wonders of TRAPPIST-1 are the first Earth-size planets that have been found orbiting this kind of star," said Michael Gillon, lead author of the paper and the principal investigator of the TRAPPIST exoplanet survey at the University of Liege, Belgium. "It is also the best target yet for studying the atmospheres of potentially habitable, Earth-size worlds." In contrast to our sun, the TRAPPIST-1 star -- classified as an ultra-cool dwarf -- is so cool that liquid water could survive on planets orbiting very close to it, closer than is possible on planets in our solar system. All seven of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary orbits are closer to their host star than Mercury is to our sun. The planets also are very close to each other. If a person were standing on one of the planet's surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth's sky. The planets may also be tidally locked to their star, which means the same side of the planet is always facing the star, therefore each side is either perpetual day or night. This could mean they have weather patterns totally unlike those on Earth, such as strong winds blowing from the day side to the night side, and extreme temperature changes. Spitzer, an infrared telescope that trails Earth as it orbits the sun, was well-suited for studying TRAPPIST-1 because the star glows brightest in infrared light, whose wavelengths are longer than the eye can see. In the fall of 2016, Spitzer observed TRAPPIST-1 nearly continuously for 500 hours. Spitzer is uniquely positioned in its orbit to observe enough crossing -- transits -- of the planets in front of the host star to reveal the complex architecture of the system. Engineers optimized Spitzer's ability to observe transiting planets during Spitzer's "warm mission," which began after the spacecraft's coolant ran out as planned after the first five years of operations. "This is the most exciting result I have seen in the 14 years of Spitzer operations," said Sean Carey, manager of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California. "Spitzer will follow up in the fall to further refine our understanding of these planets so that the James Webb Space Telescope can follow up. More observations of the system are sure to reveal more secrets." Following up on the Spitzer discovery, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has initiated the screening of four of the planets, including the three inside the habitable zone. These observations aim at assessing the presence of puffy, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres, typical for gaseous worlds like Neptune, around these planets. In May 2016, the Hubble team observed the two innermost planets, and found no evidence for such puffy atmospheres. This strengthened the case that the planets closest to the star are rocky in nature. "The TRAPPIST-1 system provides one of the best opportunities in the next decade to study the atmospheres around Earth-size planets," said Nikole Lewis, co-leader of the Hubble study and astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope also is studying the TRAPPIST-1 system, making measurements of the star's minuscule changes in brightness due to transiting planets. Operating as the K2 mission, the spacecraft's observations will allow astronomers to refine the properties of the known planets, as well as search for additional planets in the system. The K2 observations conclude in early March and will be made available on the public archive. Spitzer, Hubble, and Kepler will help astronomers plan for follow-up studies using NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2018. With much greater sensitivity, Webb will be able to detect the chemical fingerprints of water, methane, oxygen, ozone, and other components of a planet's atmosphere. Webb also will analyze planets' temperatures and surface pressures -- key factors in assessing their habitability. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center, at Caltech, Pasadena, California. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at Caltech/IPAC. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer For more information on the TRAPPIST-1 system, visit: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/trappist1 For more information on exoplanets, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/exoplanets

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW In Atmospheric River Storms, Wind Is a Risk, Too While rain and snow in atmospheric river storms can be drought busters, they bring a well-known flood risk. A new NASA study shows they also bring high wind damage worldwide. › Read the full story NASA's Europa Flyby Mission Moves into Design Phase A mission to examine the habitability of Jupiter's ocean-bearing moon Europa is taking one step closer to the launchpad, with the recent completion of a major NASA review. › Read the full story

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW NASA to Host News Conference on Discovery Beyond Our Solar System NASA will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website. Details of these findings are embargoed by the journal Nature until 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST). Media and the public also may ask questions during the briefing on Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA. The briefing participants are: • Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington • Michael Gillon, astronomer at the University of Liege in Belgium • Sean Carey, manager of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC, Pasadena, California • Nikole Lewis, astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore • Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge A Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) about exoplanets will be held following the briefing at noon PST (3 p.m. EST) with scientists available to answer questions in English and Spanish. For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and updated scheduling information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv The briefing will also be carried live on: www.ustream.tv/NASAJPL2 For more information on exoplanets, visit: http://exoplanets.nasa.gov

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

Hi look at my honey pussy please!

Hi look at my honey pussy please Click here! 

Hi look at my honey pussy please!

Hi look at my honey pussy please Click here! 

JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW NASA's Juno to Remain in Current Orbit at Jupiter NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter, which has been in orbit around the gas giant since July 4, 2016, will remain in its current 53-day orbit for the remainder of the mission. This will allow Juno to accomplish its science goals, while avoiding the risk of a previously-planned engine firing that would have reduced the spacecraft's orbital period to 14 days. "Juno is healthy, its science instruments are fully operational, and the data and images we've received are nothing short of amazing," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "The decision to forego the burn is the right thing to do -- preserving a valuable asset so that Juno can continue its exciting journey of discovery." Juno has successfully orbited Jupiter four times since arriving at the giant planet, with the most recent orbit completed on Feb. 2. Its next close flyby of Jupiter will be March 27. The orbital period does not affect the quality of the science collected by Juno on each flyby, since the altitude over Jupiter will be the same at the time of closest approach. In fact, the longer orbit provides new opportunities that allow further exploration of the far reaches of space dominated by Jupiter's magnetic field, increasing the value of Juno's research. During each orbit, Juno soars low over Jupiter's cloud tops -- as close as about 2,600 miles (4,100 kilometers). During these flybys, Juno probes beneath the obscuring cloud cover and studies Jupiter's auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. The original Juno flight plan envisioned the spacecraft looping around Jupiter twice in 53-day orbits, then reducing its orbital period to 14 days for the remainder of the mission. However, two helium check valves that are part of the plumbing for the spacecraft's main engine did not operate as expected when the propulsion system was pressurized in October. Telemetry from the spacecraft indicated that it took several minutes for the valves to open, while it took only a few seconds during past main engine firings. "During a thorough review, we looked at multiple scenarios that would place Juno in a shorter-period orbit, but there was concern that another main engine burn could result in a less-than-desirable orbit," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The bottom line is a burn represented a risk to completion of Juno's science objectives." Juno's larger 53-day orbit allows for "bonus science" that wasn't part of the original mission design. Juno will further explore the far reaches of the Jovian magnetosphere -- the region of space dominated by Jupiter's magnetic field -- including the far magnetotail, the southern magnetosphere, and the magnetospheric boundary region called the magnetopause. Understanding magnetospheres and how they interact with the solar wind are key science goals of NASA's Heliophysics Science Division. "Another key advantage of the longer orbit is that Juno will spend less time within the strong radiation belts on each orbit," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "This is significant because radiation has been the main life-limiting factor for Juno." Juno will continue to operate within the current budget plan through July 2018, for a total of 12 science orbits. The team can then propose to extend the mission during the next science review cycle. The review process evaluates proposed mission extensions on the merit and value of previous and anticipated science returns. The Juno science team continues to analyze returns from previous flybys. Revelations include that Jupiter's magnetic fields and aurora are bigger and more powerful than originally thought and that the belts and zones that give the gas giant's cloud top its distinctive look extend deep into the planet's interior. Peer-reviewed papers with more in-depth science results from Juno's first three flybys are expected to be published within the next few months. In addition, the mission's JunoCam -- the first interplanetary outreach camera -- is now being guided with assistance from the public. People can participate by voting on which features on Jupiter should be imaged during each flyby. "Juno is providing spectacular results, and we are rewriting our ideas of how giant planets work," said Bolton. "The science will be just as spectacular as with our original plan." JPL manages the Juno mission for NASA. The mission's principal investigator is Scott Bolton at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California. More information on the Juno mission is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/juno http://missionjuno.org Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

Making the Most of Your Lego Mindstorms EV3 Kit – NASA/JPL Educator Workshop

 

Making the Most of Your Lego Mindstorms EV3 Kit – Educator Workshop When: Saturday, March 11, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Where: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California Target Audience: Formal and informal educators for grades K-12 (some experience with EV3s required) Overview: Let's get those EV3 kits off the shelf! This workshop is for educators who have experience using Lego Mindstorms EV3 kits in their classrooms or clubs but are hoping to implement new NASA-themed challenges and lessons. Together, we will complete several space-themed challenges for students using programmable robots, as well as share ideas for getting the most from our Lego kits. Participants MUST have prior experience with EV3s and bring the following: A laptop with the latest EV3 software installed. An EV3 kit in the configuration shown here. Please be sure that, prior to attending, you have tested your kit with the laptop you plan to bring to the workshop. This workshop is not available online; you must be physically present to participate. This workshop is limited to educators at U.S.-based institutions and organizations. › Submit a registration request Questions? Call the Educator Resource Center at 818-393-5917. Can't attend the workshop? Explore these lessons online: Robotic Arm Challenge – In this lesson, students use a model robotic arm to move items from one location to another, engaging in the engineering design process to design, build and operate the arm. Lessons: The Design Process – Explore our collection of lessons that use the design process to teach students about science, technology, engineering and math. NGSS Engineering the Classroom – This tool for educators explains the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for engineering, shows how they connect to NASA missions and science, and provides links to related standards-aligned activities. This free workshop is offered through the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, which provides formal and informal educators with NASA resources and materials that support STEM learning. Discover More From NASA Space Place NASA Space Place is a premier destination for science, technology, engineering and mathematics content for children between the ages of 8 and 13. Subscribe to The Space Place Newsletter to discover new educational games, videos and hands-on activities.

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW NASA: Snow Science Supporting the US Water Supply Researchers have completed the first flights of a NASA-led field campaign that is targeting one of the biggest gaps in scientists' understanding of Earth's water resources: snow. › Read the full story Earth Science on the Space Station Continues to Grow The number of instruments on the International Space Station dedicated to observing Earth to increase our understanding of our home planet continues to grow. › Read the full story An Ice World...With an Ocean? How a puzzling sensor reading transformed NASA's Cassini Saturn mission and created a new target in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth. › Read the full story Dawn Discovers Evidence for Organic Material on Ceres NASA's Dawn mission has found evidence for organic material on Ceres, a dwarf planet and the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. › Read the full story

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW NASA-funded Website Lets the Public Search for New Nearby Worlds NASA is inviting the public to help search for possible undiscovered worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in neighboring interstellar space. A new website, called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, lets everyone participate in the search by viewing brief movies made from images captured by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. The movies highlight objects that have gradually moved across the sky. "There are just over four light-years between Neptune and Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, and much of this vast territory is unexplored," said lead researcher Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Because there's so little sunlight, even large objects in that region barely shine in visible light. But by looking in the infrared, WISE may have imaged objects we otherwise would have missed." WISE scanned the entire sky between 2010 and 2011, producing the most comprehensive survey at mid-infrared wavelengths currently available. With the completion of its primary mission, WISE was shut down in 2011. It was then reactivated in 2013 and given a new mission assisting NASA's efforts to identify potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs), which are asteroids and comets on orbits that bring them into the vicinity of Earth's orbit. The mission was renamed the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE). The new website uses the data to search for unknown objects in and beyond our own solar system. In 2016, astronomers at Caltech, in Pasadena, California, showed that several distant solar system objects possessed orbital features indicating they were affected by the gravity of an as-yet-undetected planet, which the researchers nicknamed "Planet Nine." If Planet Nine -- also known as Planet X -- exists and is as bright as some predictions, it could show up in WISE data. The search also may discover more-distant objects like brown dwarfs, sometimes called failed stars, in nearby interstellar space. "Brown dwarfs form like stars but evolve like planets, and the coldest ones are much like Jupiter," said team member Jackie Faherty, an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. "By using Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, the public can help us discover more of these strange rogue worlds." Unlike more distant objects, those in or closer to the solar system appear to move across the sky at different rates. The best way to discover them is through a systematic search of moving objects in WISE images. While parts of this search can be done by computers, machines are often overwhelmed by image artifacts, especially in crowded parts of the sky. These include brightness spikes associated with star images and blurry blobs caused by light scattered inside WISE's instruments. Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 relies on human eyes because we easily recognize the important moving objects while ignoring the artifacts. It's a 21st-century version of the technique astronomer Clyde Tombaugh used to find Pluto in 1930, a discovery made 87 years ago this week. On the website, people around the world can work their way through millions of "flipbooks," which are brief animations showing how small patches of the sky changed over several years. Moving objects flagged by participants will be prioritized by the science team for follow-up observations by professional astronomers. Participants will share credit for their discoveries in any scientific publications that result from the project. "Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 has the potential to unlock once-in-a-century discoveries, and it's exciting to think they could be spotted first by a citizen scientist," said team member Aaron Meisner, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in analyzing WISE images. Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 is a collaboration among NASA, UC Berkeley, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Arizona State University in Tempe, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and Zooniverse, a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators who collectively develop and manage citizen science projects on the internet. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages and operates WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The WISE mission was selected competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado. Science operations and data processing take place at IPAC at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, visit: http://backyardworlds.org For more information about NASA's WISE mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/wise

 

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

Manage Your Subscription

JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Spitzer Hears Stellar 'Heartbeat' from Planetary Companion A planet and a star are having a tumultuous romance that can be detected from 370 light-years away. › Read the full story Lasers Could Give Space Research its 'Broadband' Moment New laser technology could yield more science data and high-definition video from spacecraft. › Read the full story

 

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

Manage Your Subscription