Where on Earth ...? Test Your Skills

Where on Earth ...? Test Your Skills

Where on Earth ...? Become a geographical detective! Use your brains, brawn or hidden talents to get
to the bottom of our mystery image from space, taken by NASA's MISR (Multi-angle Imaging
SpectroRadiometer) instrument onboard the Terra satellite. Take the quiz at http://misr.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/latestImagery/ .

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Countdown to Comet Flyby Down to Nine Days

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

DC Agle 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Lee Tune 301-405-4679
University of Maryland, College Park
ltune@umd.edu

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-349 October 26, 2010

COUNTDOWN TO COMET FLYBY DOWN TO NINE DAYS

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-349&cid=release_2010-349

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's EPOXI mission continues to close in on its target, comet Hartley 2, at
a rate of 12.5 kilometers (7.8 miles) per second. On Nov. 4 at about 10:01 a.m. EDT (7:01 a.m. PDT)
the spacecraft will make its closest approach to the comet at a distance of about 700 kilometers (434
miles). It will be the fifth time that a comet has been imaged close-up and the first time in history that
two comets have been imaged with the same instruments and same spatial resolution.

"Hartley 2 has already put on a great show with more than a few surprises for the mission's science
team," said EPOXI principal investigator Mike A'Hearn from the University of Maryland, College
Park. "We expect more of the unexpected during encounter."

Science observations of comet Hartley 2 began on Sept. 5. The imaging campaign is more than a
tantalizing tease of things to come. It is providing EPOXI's science team the best extended view of a
comet in history during its pass through the inner solar system. The observations will continue through
the encounter phase of the mission.

The hours surrounding comet encounter will be especially challenging for the mission team as they are
commanding a recycled spacecraft that was not designed for this comet flyby. The spacecraft was
designed and employed successfully for NASA's Deep Impact encounter of comet Tempel 1 back on
July 4, 2005. By recycling Deep Impact's already built, tested and in-flight spacecraft, the EPOXI
mission provided savings on the order of 90% that of a hypothetical mission with similar goals,
starting from the ground up.

"If we were starting from scratch we'd probably move some of the spacecraft's components to different locations," said Tim Larson, project manager for the EPOXI mission from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "But we've developed a creative way to work with what we have. This spacecraft, and mission team, have logged 3.2 billion miles over the past five years, and we are confident that we have a successful plan in place to give Hartley 2 a thorough look-see."

The mission's encounter phase begins the evening of Nov. 3, when the spacecraft is about 18 hours
from the time of closest approach to the comet's nucleus. At that time the spacecraft will stop
transmitting through its large high-gain antenna and reorient itself so its two visible-light and one
infrared imager maintain lock on the comet for the next 24 hours-plus.

"When the encounter phase begins all images the spacecraft takes will be stored aboard its two
computers," said Larson. "Soon after we fly past the comet at about 7 a.m. local time, we will be able
to re-orient the spacecraft so that we maintain imaging lock on the comet nucleus while pointing our
big high gain antenna at Earth."

At that point, the spacecraft will begin beaming down its cache of cometary close-ups while
continuing to take new images. It is expected to take several hours for all the images held aboard
spacecraft memory to be downliked.

"We will be waiting," said A'Hearn. "The images at closest approach won't get to Earth until many
hours after the actual encounter due to the way we use memory on the spacecraft. We will get some
early hints at how this nucleus differs from that of comet Tempel 1 based on five images that will get
to Earth only about one hour after closest approach."

EPOXI is an extended mission that utilizes the already "in-flight" Deep Impact spacecraft to explore
distinct celestial targets of opportunity. The name EPOXI itself is a combination of the names for the
two extended mission components: the extrasolar planet observations, called Extrasolar Planet
Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the flyby of comet Hartley 2, called the Deep
Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI). The spacecraft will continue to be referred to as "Deep
Impact."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the EPOXI mission for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of Maryland, College Park, is home to the
mission's principal investigator, Michael A'Hearn. Drake Deming of NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, Md., is the science lead for the mission's extrasolar planet observations. The
spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.

For more information about EPOXI visit http://www.nasa.gov/epoxi or http://epoxi.umd.edu/.

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Astronomers Find Weird, Warm Spot on an Exoplanet

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

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

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-340 Oct. 19, 2010

Astronomers Find Weird, Warm Spot on an Exoplanet

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-340&cid=release_2010-340

PASADENA, Calif. -- Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveal a
distant planet with a warm spot in the wrong place.

The gas-giant planet, named upsilon Andromedae b, orbits tightly around its star, with
one face perpetually boiling under the star's heat. It belongs to a class of planets termed
hot Jupiters, so called for their scorching temperatures and large, gaseous constitutions.

One might think the hottest part of these planets would be directly under the sun-facing
side, but previous observations have shown that their hot spots may be shifted slightly
away from this point. Astronomers thought that fierce winds might be pushing hot,
gaseous material around.

But the new finding may throw this theory into question. Using Spitzer, an infrared
observatory, astronomers found that upsilon Andromedae b's hot spot is offset by a
whopping 80 degrees. Basically, the hot spot is over to the side of the planet instead of
directly under the glare of the sun.

"We really didn't expect to find a hot spot with such a large offset," said Ian Crossfield,
lead author of a new paper about the discovery appearing in an upcoming issue of
Astrophysical Journal. "It's clear that we understand even less about the atmospheric
energetics of hot Jupiters than we thought we did."

The results are part of a growing field of exoplanet atmospheric science, pioneered by
Spitzer in 2005, when it became the first telescope to directly detect photons from an
exoplanet, or a planet orbiting a star other than our sun. Since then, Spitzer, along with
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, has studied the atmospheres of several hot Jupiters,
finding water, methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

In the new study, astronomers report observations of upsilon Andromedae b taken across
five days in February of 2009. This planet whips around its star every 4.6 days, as
measured using the "wobble," or radial velocity technique, with telescopes on the ground.
It does not transit, or cross in front of, its star as many other hot Jupiters studied by
Spitzer do.

Spitzer measured the total combined light from the star and planet, as the planet orbited
around. The telescope can't see the planet directly, but it can detect variations in the total
infrared light from the system that arise as the hot side of the planet comes into Earth's
field of view. The hottest part of the planet will give off the most infrared light.

One might think the system would appear brightest when the planet was directly behind
the star, thus showing its full sun-facing side. Likewise, one might think the system
would appear darkest when the planet swings around toward Earth, showing its backside.
But the system was the brightest when the planet was to the side of the star, with its side
facing Earth. This means that the hottest part of the planet is not under its star. It's sort of
like going to the beach at sunset to feel the most heat. The researchers aren't sure how this
could be.

They've guessed at some possibilities, including supersonic winds triggering shock waves
that heat material up, and star-planet magnetic interactions. But these are just speculation.
As more hot Jupiters are examined, astronomers will test new theories.

"This is a very unexpected result," said Michael Werner, the Spitzer project scientist at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who was not a part of the study.
"Spitzer is showing us that we are a long way from understanding these alien worlds."

The Spitzer observations were made before it ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009,
officially beginning its warm mission.

Other authors of the study are Brad Hansen of UCLA; Joseph Harrington at the
University of Central Florida, Orlando; James Y-K. Cho of Queen Mary, University of
London, United Kingdom; Drake Deming of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.; Kristen Menou of Columbia University, New York, N.Y.; and Sara
Seager of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston.

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

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Saturday Event: Public Invited to Climate Change Science Symposium at JPL

Saturday Event: Public Invited to Climate Change Science Symposium at JPL
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

10.14.10 -- JPL's Green Club is sponsoring a free public science symposium about climate change on Saturday,
Oct. 16, from 2 to 4 p.m. at JPL. The talk will also be streamed live over the web.

Climate scientists with expertise in Earth's atmosphere, ocean and ice will present a series of brief talks on the
scientific evidence for global warming. Attendees will learn what they as individuals and as part of society can do to
address global warming.

Brief question-and-answer periods will follow each presentation. All ages are welcome to the talk but the presentations will
be geared to adults.

To watch the live webcast, go to http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

At JPL, the event is open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis, with a seating capacity of 200. The symposium
will be held in JPL's von Karman Auditorium. Directions to the Lab can be found here:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/about_JPL/maps.cfm .

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Classrooms, Museums Invited to Ride Along With Comet Encounter

Classrooms, Museums Invited to Ride Along With Comet Encounter
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

10.13.10 -- NASA's EPOXI mission is three weeks away from its flyby of comet Hartley 2. Students and educators
can watch live web coverage of the encounter on Thurs., Nov. 4 from 6:30 to approximately 8 a.m. Pacific Time (9:30 to 11 a.m. Eastern time).
They can also send questions in advance about the comet encounter to jplspaceeducation@gmail.com . Due to program constraints,
not all questions will be answered.

This flyby will be only the fifth time in history that a comet has been imaged close-up. At point of closest approach, the spacecraft will be
about 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the comet. EPOXI is an extended mission that uses the already "in-flight" Deep Impact spacecraft,
which made its own cosmic fame when it released a small impactor into the path of comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005.

The program will offer live coverage from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's mission control, where viewers will hear from scientists and engineers
as they receive real-time data and images about the comet encounter. The program will also feature a roughly 20-minute education portion,
featuring videotaped demonstrations of comet activities for the classroom and time to answer questions sent in by classrooms and other educational
organizations. Details are provided below on the program content and suggested preparatory materials.

The program will air on JPL's UStream page at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 . NASA TV may be carrying space shuttle Discovery coverage. Check the NASA TV
program schedule for updates at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html . If the program is not on NASA TV, it should air on NASA's Education Channel, which can be clicked on from the right side of the NASA TV program schedule web page.

To learn more about the EPOXI mission, go to http://epoxi.umd.edu/ . To learn more about the Deep Impact mission, go to http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/deepimpact/index.cfm .

Program Schedule *All times and content are approximate

6:30 a.m. - Welcome and spacecraft tracking

~ 7 a.m. - Closest approach to comet (** images will not be received at this time)

7:15 -- 7:45 a.m. - Mission status and comet activities for the classroom; student questions answered

~ 8 a.m. - Closest approach images viewed

End of program

Suggested Classroom Preparation

Educators can review information about the mission and comets on the websites above. During the program we plan on showing a
demonstration of how to make a comet with dry ice. We also plan to show a demonstration of a Comet on a Stick activity using craft materials.
Teachers may wish to have their students make comets as a follow-up activity to the encounter. A full description of the Comet on a Stick activity can be found at http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/educ/CometStick01.html .

Suggested materials for Comet on a Stick are:

- Styrofoam balls (1 per student)
- Popsicle sticks or plastic straws (1 per student)
- Assortment of pompoms, cotton balls, packing "popcorn" or any other small material that can be glued to Styrofoam balls
- Pipe cleaners (at least 2 per student)
- Tin foil
- Pillow filling or big pieces of cotton that can be pulled apart
- Clear plastic wrap or cellophane
- Ribbon or any material that can be used as a tail
- Craft glue
- Clear tape

Directions:

1. Insert straw or popsicle stick into Styrofoam ball. The ball is the comet, the stick is merely to hold the comet.

2. Nucleus: Comets have uneven shapes so glue pompons or other materials to the ball so it has an uneven look.

3. Comets are icy so glue or tape pieces of tin foil to the ball.

4. To make the coma, or comet cloud, glue or tape pillow filling, cellophane or plastic wrap around the decorated ball.

5. To create the dust tail and ion tail, push pipe cleaners into ball and/or tape ribbon onto outside of decorated ball.

Comets come in all shapes and sizes so whatever your students create are good comet models. A video demonstration of this activity
and How to Make a Comet with Dry Ice will be posted on http://education.jpl.nasa.gov close to November 4.


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NASA Mission to Asteroid Gets Help From Hubble

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

Jia-Rui C. Cook/D.C. Agle 818-354-0850/393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov/agle@jpl.nasa.gov

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

Ray Villard 410-338-4514
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore
villard@stsci.edu

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-330 Oct. 8, 2010

NASA Mission to Asteroid Gets Help From Hubble

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-330&cid=release_2010-330

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of the large asteroid Vesta
that will help refine plans for the Dawn spacecraft's rendezvous with Vesta in July 2011.

Scientists have constructed a video from the images that will help improve pointing instructions for Dawn as it
is placed in a polar orbit around Vesta. Analyses of Hubble images revealed a pole orientation, or tilt, of
approximately four degrees more to the asteroid's east than scientists previously thought.

This means the change of seasons between the southern and northern hemispheres of Vesta may take place
about a month later than previously expected while Dawn is orbiting the asteroid. The result is a change in the
pattern of sunlight expected to illuminate the asteroid. Dawn needs solar illumination for imaging and some
mapping activities.

"While Vesta is the brightest asteroid in the sky, its small size makes it difficult to image from Earth," said
Jian-Yang Li, a scientist participating in the Dawn mission from the University of Maryland in College Park.
"The new Hubble images give Dawn scientists a better sense of how Vesta is spinning, because our new
views are 90 degrees different from our previous images. It's like having a street-level view and adding a
view from an airplane overhead."

The recent images were obtained by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 in February. The images complemented
previous ones of Vesta taken from ground-based telescopes and Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary
Camera 2 between 1983 and 2007. Li and his colleagues looked at 216 new images -- and a total of 446
Hubble images overall -- to clarify how Vesta was spinning. The journal Icarus recently published the report
online.

"The new results give us food for thought as we make our way toward Vesta," said
Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Because our
goal is to take pictures of the entire surface and measure the elevation of features over most of the surface to
an accuracy of about 33 feet, or the height of a three-story building, we need to pay close attention to the
solar illumination. It looks as if Vesta is going to have a late northern spring next year, or at least later than
we planned."

Launched in September 2007, Dawn will leave Vesta to encounter the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. Vesta
and Ceres are the most massive objects in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists study
these celestial bodies as examples of the building blocks of terrestrial planets like Earth. Dawn is
approximately 216 million kilometers (134 million miles) away from Vesta. Next summer, the spacecraft will
make its own measurements of Vesta's rotating surface and allow mission managers to pin down its axis of
spin.

"Vesta was discovered just over 200 years ago, and we are excited now to be on the threshold of exploring
it from orbit," said Bob Mase, Dawn's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif. "We planned this mission to accommodate our imprecise knowledge of Vesta. Ours is a journey of
discovery and, with our ability to adapt, we are looking forward to collecting excellent science data at our
target."

The Dawn mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. Orbital Sciences
Corporation of Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. Several international space organizations are
part of the mission team.

To see the Vesta images and video, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/vestavid20101008.html .

To learn more about Dawn and its mission to the asteroid belt, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn or
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Cassini Catches Saturn Moons in Paintball Fight

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

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

News release: 2010-328 Oct. 7, 2010

Cassini Catches Saturn Moons in Paintball Fight

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-328&cid=release_2010-328

PASADENA, Calif. – Scientists using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have learned that
distinctive, colorful bands and splotches embellish the surfaces of Saturn's inner, mid-size moons. The
reddish and bluish hues on the icy surfaces of Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione and Rhea appear to
be the aftermath of bombardments large and small.

A paper based on the findings was recently published online in the journal Icarus. In it, scientists
describe prominent global patterns that trace the trade routes for material exchange between the
moons themselves, an outer ring of Saturn known as the E ring and the planet's magnetic
environment. The finding may explain the mysterious Pac-Man thermal pattern on Mimas, found
earlier this year by Cassini scientists, said lead author Paul Schenk, who was funded by a Cassini data
analysis program grant and is based at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

"The beauty of it all is how the satellites behave as a family, recording similar processes and events on
their surfaces, each in its own unique way," Schenk said. "I don't think anyone expected that
electrons would leave such obvious fingerprints on planetary surfaces, but we see it on several moons,
including Mimas, which was once thought to be rather bland."

Schenk and colleagues processed raw images obtained by Cassini's imaging cameras from 2004 to
2009 to produce new, high-resolution global color maps of these five moons. The new maps used
camera frames shot through visible-light, ultraviolet and infrared filters which were processed to
enhance our views of these moons beyond what could be seen by the human eye.

The new images are available at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

"The richness of the Cassini data set – visible images, infrared images, ultraviolet images,
measurements of the radiation belts – is such that we can finally 'paint a picture' as to how the
satellites themselves are 'painted,'" said William B. McKinnon, one of six co-authors on the paper.
McKinnon is based at Washington University in St. Louis and was also funded by the Cassini data
analysis program.

Icy material sprayed by Enceladus, which makes up the misty E ring, appears to leave a brighter, blue
signature. The pattern of bluish material on Enceladus, for example, indicates that the moon is
covered by the fallback of its own "breath."

Enceladean spray also appears to splatter the parts of Tethys, Dione and Rhea that run into the spray
head-on in their orbits around Saturn. But scientists are still puzzling over why the Enceladean frost
on the leading hemisphere of these moons bears a coral-colored, rather than bluish, tint.

On Tethys, Dione and Rhea, darker, rust-colored, reddish hues paint the entire trailing hemisphere, or
the side that faces backward in the orbit around Saturn. The reddish hues are thought to be caused by
tiny particle strikes from circulating plasma, a gas-like state of matter so hot that atoms split into an
ion and an electron, in Saturn's magnetic environment. Tiny, iron-rich "nanoparticles" may also be
involved, based on earlier analyses by the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team.

Mimas is also touched by the tint of Enceladean spray, but it appears on the trailing side of Mimas.
This probably occurs because it orbits inside the path of Enceladus, or closer to Saturn, than Tethys,
Dione and Rhea.

In addition, Mimas and Tethys sport a dark, bluish band. The bands match patterns one might expect
if the surface were being irradiated by high-energy electrons that drift in a direction opposite to the
flow of plasma in the magnetic bubble around Saturn. Scientists are still figuring out exactly what is
happening, but the electrons appear to be zapping the Mimas surface in a way that matches the Pac-
Man thermal pattern detected by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer, Schenk said.

Schenk and colleagues also found a unique chain of bluish splotches along the equator of Rhea that
re-open the question of whether Rhea ever had a ring around it. The splotches do not seem related to
Enceladus, but rather appear where fresh, bluish ice has been exposed on older crater rims. Though
Cassini imaging scientists recently reported that they did not see evidence in Cassini images of a ring
around Rhea, the authors of this paper suggest the crash of orbiting material, perhaps a ring, to the
surface of Rhea in the not-too-distant past could explain the bluish splotches.

"Analyzing the image color ratios is a great way to really enhance the otherwise subtle color variations
and make apparent some of the processes at play in the Saturn system," said Amanda Hendrix,
Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The Cassini
images highlight the importance and potential effects of so-called 'space weathering' that occurs
throughout the solar system – on any surface that isn't protected by a thick atmosphere or magnetic
field."

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 in Pasadena, manages
the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its
two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center
is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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NASA Partnership Sends Earth Science Data to Africa

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

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

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

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-325 Oct. 6, 2010

NASA Partnership Sends Earth Science Data to Africa

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-325&cid=release_2010-325

PASADENA, Calif. – A unique partnership between NASA and agencies in Africa and Europe has
sent more than 30 terabytes of free Earth science satellite data to South African researchers to support
sustainable development and environmental applications in Africa.

The data from one of the instruments on NASA's Terra satellite provide observations of Africa's
surface and atmosphere, including vegetation structure, airborne pollution particles, cloud heights and
winds. Transfer of these data to a distribution center in Africa will make it broadly accessible to
African users who have not been able to remotely download the large data files because of limitations
in the continent's Internet infrastructure.

The data are from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) on Terra. NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., built and manages the instrument, and NASA's Langley
Research Center in Hampton, Va., processes, archives and distributes the data.

MISR has been making continuous measurements of Earth's surface and atmosphere for more than a
decade. MISR observes the sunlit portion of Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82
degrees north and 82 degrees south latitude every nine days. Instead of viewing Earth from a single
perspective, the instrument collects images from nine widely spaced view angles.

"NASA is committed to helping governments, organizations and researchers around the world make
effective use of Earth observation data to aid in environmental decision making," said Hal Maring, a
program manager in the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "These efforts support the goals of the Group on Earth Observations, a
partnership of international agencies that promotes collaborative use of Earth science data."

South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria will distribute the
data at no charge to the research community in the region. CSIR will facilitate access to the large
volume of MISR data as part of its broad strategy of educating, training and transferring knowledge
to the southern African research community.

"The data transfer can be seen as a birthday present from NASA to the newly-formed South African
National Space Agency," said Bob Scholes, CSIR research group leader for ecosystem processes and
dynamics. "It will kick-start a new generation of high-quality land surface products, with applications
in climate change and avoiding desertification." Desertification is the gradual transformation of
habitable land into desert due to climate change or destructive land use practices.

The partnership began in spring 2008, when MISR science team member Michel Verstraete of the
European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability (JRC-IES)
in Ispra, Italy, participated in an intensive CSIR field campaign to study the environment around
Kruger National Park, a major wildlife reserve in South Africa. The researchers studied the area using
direct, airborne and space-based measurements. During the campaign, Verstraete learned of the
widespread interest by the South African research community in remote-sensing techniques and
applications.

In response, JRC-IES and CSIR signed an agreement in July 2008 to facilitate the interaction and
exchange of people, knowledge, data and software.

NASA became involved in the collaboration in 2009 after a training workshop for MISR users in
Cape Town, South Africa, organized by JPL and Langley Research Center. Although the workshop
sparked interest in the potential use of MISR data, it soon became apparent that accessing a large
volume of data was a major hurdle for research and applications in developing countries in general
and Africa in particular. While Internet connectivity in Africa has improved greatly in recent years,
access and bandwidth remain too limited to support downloading vast data files. This led CSIR to
host the data directly.

NASA shipped most of the data on high-density tapes this summer. The agencies will ensure the
database stays updated with current MISR observations by upgrading connectivity and facilitating
sharing of data among participating academic and research institutions.

"This multi-party collaboration will significantly strengthen academic and research institutions in
southern Africa and support sustainable development of the entire subcontinent," said Verstraete,
who will spend six months in southern Africa next year to help the regional remote-sensing
community use the data.

For more information on MISR, visit: http://misr.jpl.nasa.gov .

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

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WISE Captures Key Images of Comet Mission's Destination

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

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

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

News release: 2010-324 Oct. 5, 2010

WISE Captures Key Images of Comet Mission's Destination

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-324&cid=release_2010-324

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, caught a glimpse of
the comet that the agency's EPOXI mission will visit in November. The WISE observation will help
the EPOXI team put together a large-scale picture of the comet, known as Hartley 2.

"WISE's infrared vision provides data that complement what EPOXI will see with its visible-light
and near-infrared instruments," said James Bauer, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif. "It's as if WISE can see an entire country, and EPOXI will visit its capital."

WISE's infrared vision will allow the telescope to get a new estimate of the size of the comet's
nucleus, or core, as well as a more thorough look at the sizes of dust particles that surround it. This
information, when combined with what EPOXI finds as it gets closer to Hartley 2, will reveal how
the comet has changed over time.

The WISE image is available at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/pia13438.html .

On Nov. 4, the EPOXI mission, which uses the already "in flight" Deep Impact flyby spacecraft, will
reach its closet approach to Hartley 2. The spacecraft will examine the dusty, icy body in detail as it
flies by, providing the best, extended view of a comet in history. WISE and several other ground-
and space-based telescopes are participating in the viewing, working together to tackle mysteries
about our solar system's origins that are frozen inside comets.

For stargazers, opportunities to view the comet are possible throughout October. On Wednesday, Oct.
20, Hartley 2 will reach its closest approach to Earth since it was discovered in 1986. The comet will
be approximately 17.7 million kilometers away (11 million miles) and should be visible with the naked
eye near the constellation Perseus if viewed in dark skies. Observers will need binoculars or telescopes
from urban areas in the Northern Hemisphere. Southern Hemisphere stargazers will be able to see the
comet later in the month.

WISE captured its view of the comet during an ongoing scan of the sky in infrared light. The mission
has been busy cataloging hundreds of millions of objects, from comets to distant, powerful galaxies.
In late September, it used up its frozen cryogen coolant as expected and began a new phase of its
survey. Called the NEOWISE Post-Cryogenic Mission, it primarily focuses on finding additional
asteroids and comets. To date, the WISE mission has observed more than 150,000 asteroids and 110
comets, including Hartley 2.

"Astronomers can reference our catalogue to get detailed infrared data about their favorite asteroid or
comet," said Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NEOWISE at JPL. "Space missions can also
use our observations for more information on their targets, as EPOXI is doing."

WISE's view of Hartley 2 was taken on May 10, 2010. It gives astronomers a unique look at the
comet, complementing what other telescopes can see. Because WISE scanned the whole sky, it
captured the most extensive view of Hartley 2's trail, the dusty path left by the comet on its repeated
journey around the sun.

Bauer said, "We want to know how the comet behaves as it comes toward the sun and out of deep
freeze. The WISE image is one critical puzzle piece of many that will give a comprehensive view of
the behavior of the comet through the time of the encounter."

The comet started to show signs of activity in the spring, spitting out gas and dust. By July, there
were clear jets of gas. "Comparing the dust early on to what we see later with EPOXI helps us
understand how the activity started on Hartley 2," said Michael A'Hearn, the principal investigator of
EPOXI at the University of Maryland in College Park.

The term EPOXI is a combination of the names for the two extended mission components: the
Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the Hartley 2 flyby, called the
Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI). The name NEOWISE comes from combining WISE
and the acronym for near-Earth object, NEO.

More information about EPOXI is at: http://www.nasa.gov/epoxi and http://epoxi.umd.edu/ .

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

JPL, a division of the California Institute, manages WISE and EPOXI for NASA.

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NASA's WISE Mission Warms up but Keeps Chugging Along

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

News release: 2010-320 Oct. 4, 2010

NASA's WISE Mission Warms up but Keeps Chugging Along

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-320&cid=release_2010-320

PASADENA, Calif. -- After completing its primary mission to map the infrared sky, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has reached the expected end of its onboard supply of frozen coolant. Although WISE has 'warmed up,' NASA has decided the mission will still continue. WISE will now focus on our nearest neighbors -- the asteroids and comets traveling together with our solar system's planets around the sun.

"Two of our four infrared detectors still work even at warmer temperatures, so we can use those bands to continue our hunt for asteroids and comets," said Amy Mainzer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Mainzer is the principal investigator of the new phase of the mission, now known as the NEOWISE Post-Cryogenic Mission. It takes its name from the acronym for a near-Earth object, NEO, and WISE. A cryogen is a coolant used to make the detectors more sensitive. In the case of WISE, the cryogen was frozen hydrogen.

WISE launched Dec. 14, 2009, from Vandenberg Air Force Station in California aboard a Delta II launch vehicle. Its 40-centimeter (16-inch) infrared telescope scans the skies from an Earth-circling orbit crossing the poles. It has already snapped more than 1.8 million pictures at four infrared wavelengths. Currently, the survey has covered the sky about one-and-one-half times, producing a vast catalogue containing hundreds of millions of objects, from near-Earth asteroids to cool stars called "brown dwarfs," to distant, luminous galaxies.

To date, WISE has discovered 19 comets and more than 33,500 asteroids, including 120 near-Earth objects, which are those bodies with orbits that pass relatively close to Earth's path around the sun. More discoveries regarding objects outside our solar system, such as the brown dwarfs and luminous galaxies, are expected.

"The science data collected by WISE will be used by the scientific community for decades," said Jaya Bajpayee, the WISE program executive in the Astrophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "It will also provide a sky map for future observatories like NASA's James Webb Space Telescope."

The NEOWISE Post-Cryogenic Mission is designed to complete the survey of the solar system and finish the second survey of the rest of the sky at its new warmer temperature of about minus 203 degrees Celsius (minus 334 degrees Fahrenheit) using its two shortest-wavelength detectors. The survey extension will last one to four months, depending on early results.

NEOWISE will also keep observing other targets, such as the closest brown dwarfs to the sun. In addition, data from the second sky scan will help identify objects that have moved in the sky since they were first detected by WISE. This allows astronomers to pick out the brown dwarfs closest to our sun. The closer the object is, the more it will appear to move from our point of view.

The WISE science team now is analyzing millions of objects captured in the images, including many never seen before. A first batch of WISE data, covering more than half the sky, will be released to the astronomical community in spring 2011, with the rest to follow about one year later.

"WISE has provided a guidebook to the universe with thousands of targets worth viewing with a large telescope," said Edward (Ned) Wright, WISE principal investigator from UCLA. "We're working on figuring out just how far away the brown dwarfs are, and how luminous the galaxies are."

A gallery of WISE images is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/gallery-index.html .

JPL manages the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for the Science Mission Directorate. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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



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


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