NASA Spacecraft Provides Travel Tips for Mars Rover

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

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

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

Rachel Hoover 650-604-0643
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov

News release: 2010-420 Dec. 16, 2010

NASA Spacecraft Provides Travel Tips for Mars Rover

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-420&cid=release_2010-420

SAN FRANCISCO -- NASA's Mars Opportunity rover is getting important tips from an orbiting
spacecraft as it explores areas that might hold clues about past Martian environments.

Researchers are using a mineral-mapping instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to
help the rover investigate a large ancient crater called Endeavour. The orbiter's Compact
Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) is providing maps of minerals at
Endeavour's rim that are helping the team choose which area to explore first and where to go from
there. As Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter orbits more than 241 kilometers high (150 miles), the CRISM
instrument provides mapping information for mineral exposures on the surface as small as a tennis
court.

"This is the first time mineral detections from orbit are being used in tactical decisions about where
to drive on Mars," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis. Arvidson is the deputy
principal investigator for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers and a co-investigator for CRISM.

Opportunity's science team chose to begin driving the rover toward the 22.5-kilometer-wide (14-
mile-wide) crater in 2008, after four years studying other sites in what initially was planned as a
three-month mission. The rover has traveled approximately nine miles since setting out for
Endeavour crater. It will take several months to reach it.

The team plans for Opportunity's exploration of Endeavour to begin at a rim fragment called Cape
York. That feature is too low to be visible by the rover, but appears from orbit to be nearly
surrounded by water-bearing minerals. The planned route then turns southward toward a higher rim
fragment called Cape Tribulation, where CRISM has detected a class of clay minerals not
investigated yet by a ground mission. Spacecraft orbiting Mars found these minerals to be
widespread on the planet. The presence of clay minerals at Endeavour suggests an earlier and milder
wet environment than the very acidic, wet one indicated by previous evidence found by
Opportunity.

"We used to have a disconnect between the scale of identifying minerals from orbit and what
missions on the surface could examine," said CRISM team member Janice Bishop of NASA's Ames
Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and the SETI Institute of Mountain View, Calif. "Now,
rovers are driving farther and orbital footprints are getting smaller."

Ten years ago, an imaging spectrometer on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter found an
Oklahoma-sized area with a type of the mineral hematite exposed. This discovery motivated
selection of the area as Opportunity's 2004 landing site. Each pixel footprint for that spectrometer
was 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) across. CRISM resolves areas about 18 meters (60 feet) across. Last fall,
the instrument began using a pixel-overlap technique that provided even better resolution.

Opportunity has just reached a 90-meter-diameter crater (300-foot) called Santa Maria, where
CRISM detected a patch of ground with indications of water bound into the mineral. Opportunity
will conduct a science campaign at the crater for the next several weeks to compare the ground
results to the orbital indications.

"Opportunity has driven farther in the past Martian year than in any previous one," said John Callas,
Mars Exploration Rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

A Martian year lasts approximately 23 months. During the past Martian year, Opportunity covered
more than 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) of the mission's 26 total kilometers (16 miles) traveled since it
landed in January 2004. The rover has returned more than 141,000 images.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reached the Red Planet in 2006 to begin a two-year primary science
mission. Its data show Mars had diverse wet environments at many locations for differing durations
during the planet's history, and climate-change cycles persist into the present era. The mission has
returned more planetary data than all other Mars missions combined.

JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rovers and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.,
manages CRISM.

For more information about Mars missions, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars .

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NASA's Odyssey Spacecraft Sets Exploration Record on Mars

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

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

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

News release: 2010-418 December 15, 2010

NASA's Odyssey Spacecraft Sets Exploration Record on Mars

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-418&cid=release_2010-418

PASADENA, Calif., -- NASA's Mars Odyssey, which launched in 2001, will break the record
Wednesday for longest-serving spacecraft at the Red Planet. The probe begins its 3,340th day in
Martian orbit at 5:55 p.m. PST (8:55 p.m. PST) on Wednesday to break the record set by
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which orbited Mars from 1997 to 2006.

Odyssey's longevity enables continued science, including the monitoring of seasonal changes on
Mars from year to year and the most detailed maps ever made of most of the planet. In 2002, the
spacecraft detected hydrogen just below the surface throughout Mars' high-latitude regions. The
deduction that the hydrogen is in frozen water prompted NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission,
which confirmed the theory in 2008. Odyssey also carried the first experiment sent to Mars
specifically to prepare for human missions, and found radiation levels around the planet from
solar flares and cosmic rays are two to three times higher than around Earth.

Odyssey also has served as a communication relay, handling most of the data sent home by
Phoenix and NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Odyssey became the
middle link for continuous observation of Martian weather by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor
and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

"Odyssey has proved itself to be a great spacecraft, but what really enables a spacecraft to reach
this sort of accomplishment is the people behind it," said Gaylon McSmith, Odyssey project
manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This is a tribute to the whole
Odyssey team."

Odyssey will support the 2012 landing of the Mars Science Laboratory and surface operations of
that mission. Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity rover, will assess whether its
landing area has had environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and preserving
evidence about whether life has existed there. The rover will carry the largest, most advanced set
of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the Martian surface.

"The Mars program clearly demonstrates that world-class science coupled with sound and
creative engineering equals success and longevity," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars
Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Other recent NASA spacecraft at Mars include the Mars Global Surveyor that began orbiting the
Red Planet in 1997. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars in January 2004. They
have been exploring for six years, far surpassing their original 90-day mission. Phoenix landed
May 25, 2008, farther north than any previous spacecraft to the planet's surface. The mission's
biggest surprise was the discovery of perchlorate, an oxidizing chemical on Earth that is food for
some microbes, but potentially toxic for others. The solar-powered lander completed its three-
month mission and kept working until sunlight waned two months later. MRO arrived at Mars in
2006 on a search for evidence that water persisted on the planet's surface for a long period of
time.

Odyssey is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed
Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. JPL and Lockheed Martin collaborate on
operating the spacecraft. For more about the Mars Odyssey mission, visit:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey . JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena.

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Join JPL for a Total Eclipse of the Moon

Join JPL for a Total Eclipse of the Moon

The first total lunar eclipse in two years will grace the sky the night of Monday, Dec. 20, and we want you to be there. Sure, it's a school night, but with winter solstice and a new year upon us, what better time to gather your family and friends to see the moon in a new light.

At JPL, we're pretty excited for this year's lunar eclipse, so we're offering a number of features and activities for astronomy buffs and moon-gazers alike.

Starting now, you can subscribe to the "I'm There: Lunar Eclipse" text campaign to connect with others in your area by texting us your viewing location and comments on the night of the eclipse. To sign up, text IMTHERE to 67463 and we'll send you a reminder to go out and watch on Dec. 20 (message and data rates may apply). View an interactive map with resources including weather forecasts, moon phases and your comments at http://bit.ly/fLj9wl.

Want to share or flip through photos of the eclipsed moon? Join our lunar eclipse Flickr group at http://bit.ly/h0SVbO and connect with other professional and amateur photographers as they capture the moon's path through the Earth's shadow. We'll choose one lucky photographer to have his or her work featured as official JPL wallpaper at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wallpaper.

Learn about lunar science and eclipses on the JPL blog at http://bit.ly/eRVmHR. On Dec. 15, Sami Asmar of NASA's GRAIL mission discusses how current and future observations are helping improve our understanding of the moon. Then, on Dec. 20, join JPL scientist Dave Diner as he discusses how volcanoes and dust can impact the apparent color of the moon during a lunar eclipse.

On Dec. 20-21, join the conversation on Twitter by including #eclipse and @NASAJPL in your lunar eclipse tweets, and you may even see them show up among our live comment stream at http://bit.ly/gm2Dbn.

Learn more about JPL's mobile and social media programs at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/onthego/index.cfm and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/social/

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Hot Plasma Explosions Inflate Saturn’s Magnetic Field

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

Feature: 2010-417 Dec. 14, 2010

Hot Plasma Explosions Inflate Saturn's Magnetic Field

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-417&cid=release_2010-417

A new analysis based on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft finds a causal link
between mysterious, periodic signals from Saturn's magnetic field and explosions of hot
ionized gas, known as plasma, around the planet.

Scientists have found that enormous clouds of plasma periodically bloom around Saturn
and move around the planet like an unbalanced load of laundry on spin cycle. The
movement of this hot plasma produces a repeating signature "thump" in measurements of
Saturn's rotating magnetic environment and helps to illustrate why scientists have had
such a difficult time measuring the length of a day on Saturn.

"This is a breakthrough that may point us to the origin of the mysteriously changing
periodicities that cloud the true rotation period of Saturn," said Pontus Brandt, the lead
author on the paper and a Cassini team scientist based at the Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "The big question now is why these
explosions occur periodically."

The data show how plasma injections, electrical currents and Saturn's magnetic field --
phenomena that are invisible to the human eye -- are partners in an intricate choreography.
Periodic plasma explosions form islands of pressure that rotate around Saturn. The islands
of pressure "inflate" the magnetic field.

A new animation showing the linked behavior is available at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini
and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

The visualization shows how invisible hot plasma in Saturn's magnetosphere – the
magnetic bubble around the planet -- explodes and distorts magnetic field lines in
response to the pressure. Saturn's magnetosphere is not a perfect bubble because it is
blown back by the force of the solar wind, which contains charged particles streaming off
the sun.

The force of the solar wind stretches the magnetic field of the side of Saturn facing away
from the sun into a so-called magnetotail. The collapse of the magnetotail appears to kick
off a process that causes the hot plasma bursts, which in turn inflate the magnetic field in
the inner magnetosphere.

Scientists are still investigating what causes Saturn's magnetotail to collapse, but there are
strong indications that cold, dense plasma originally from Saturn's moon Enceladus
rotates with Saturn. Centrifugal forces stretch the magnetic field until part of the tail
snaps back.

The snapping back heats plasma around Saturn and the heated plasma becomes trapped in
the magnetic field. It rotates around the planet in islands at the speed of about 100
kilometers per second (200,000 mph). In the same way that high and low pressure
systems on Earth cause winds, the high pressures of space cause electrical currents.
Currents cause magnetic field distortions.

A radio signal known as Saturn Kilometric Radiation, which scientists have used to
estimate the length of a day on Saturn, is intimately linked to the behavior of Saturn's
magnetic field. Because Saturn has no surface or fixed point to clock its rotation rate,
scientists inferred the rotation rate from timing the peaks in this type of radio emission,
which is assumed to surge with each rotation of a planet. This method has worked for
Jupiter, but the Saturn signals have varied. Measurements from the early 1980s taken by
NASA's Voyager spacecraft, data obtained in 2000 by the ESA/NASA Ulysses mission,
and Cassini data from about 2003 to the present differ by a small, but significant degree.
As a result, scientists are not sure how long a Saturn day is.

"What's important about this new work is that scientists are beginning to describe the
global, causal relationships between some of the complex, invisible forces that shape the
Saturn environment," said Marcia Burton, the Cassini fields and particles investigation
scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The new results still
don't give us the length of a Saturn day, but they do give us important clues to begin
figuring it out. The Saturn day length, or Saturn's rotation rate, is important for
determining fundamental properties of Saturn, like the structure of its interior and the
speed of its winds."

Plasma is invisible to the human eye. But the ion and neutral camera on Cassini's
magnetospheric imaging instrument provides a three-dimensional view by detecting
energetic neutral atoms emitted from the plasma clouds around Saturn. Energetic neutral
atoms form when cold, neutral gas collides with electrically-charged particles in a cloud
of plasma. The resulting particles are neutrally charged, so they are able to escape
magnetic fields and zoom off into space. The emission of these particles often occurs in
the magnetic fields surrounding planets.

By stringing together images obtained every half hour, scientists produced movies of
plasma as it drifted around the planet. Scientists used these images to reconstruct the 3-D
pressure produced by the plasma clouds, and supplemented those results with plasma
pressures derived from the Cassini plasma spectrometer. Once scientists understood the
pressure and its evolution, they could calculate the associated magnetic field
perturbations along the Cassini flight path. The calculated field perturbation matched the
observed magnetic field "thumps" perfectly, confirming the source of the field
oscillations.

"We all know that changing rotation periods have been observed at pulsars, millions of
light years from our solar system, and now we find that a similar phenomenon is observed
right here at Saturn," said Tom Krimigis, principal investigator of the magnetospheric
imaging instrument, also based at the Applied Physics Laboratory and the Academy of
Athens, Greece. "With instruments right at the spot where it's happening, we can tell that
plasma flows and complex current systems can mask the real rotation period of the central
body. That's how observations in our solar system help us understand what is seen in
distant astrophysical objects."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. manages the mission for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The magnetic imaging
instrument team is based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory,
Laurel, Md.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .

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Cassini Spots Potential Ice Volcano on Saturn Moon

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

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

Paul Laustsen 650-329-4046
U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
plaustsen@usgs.gov

News Release: 2010-416 Dec. 14, 2010

Cassini Spots Potential Ice Volcano on Saturn Moon

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-416&cid=release_2010-416

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found possible ice volcanoes on Saturn's moon
Titan that are similar in shape to those on Earth that spew molten rock.

Topography and surface composition data have enabled scientists to make the best case yet in the
outer solar system for an Earth-like volcano landform that erupts in ice. The results were presented
today at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

"When we look at our new 3-D map of Sotra Facula on Titan, we are struck by its resemblance to
volcanoes like Mt. Etna in Italy, Laki in Iceland and even some small volcanic cones and flows near
my hometown of Flagstaff," said Randolph Kirk, who led the 3-D mapping work, and is a Cassini
radar team member and geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Science
Center in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Scientists have been debating for years whether ice volcanoes, also called cryovolcanoes, exist on ice-
rich moons, and if they do, what their characteristics are. The working definition assumes some kind
of subterranean geological activity warms the cold environment enough to melt part of the satellite's
interior and sends slushy ice or other materials through an opening in the surface. Volcanoes on
Jupiter's moon Io and Earth spew silicate lava.

Some cryovolcanoes bear little resemblance to terrestrial volcanoes, such as the tiger stripes at Saturn's
moon Enceladus, where long fissures spray jets of water and icy particles that leave little trace on the
surface. At other sites, eruption of denser materials might build up volcanic peaks or finger-like flows.
But when such flows were spotted on Titan in the past, theories explained them as non-volcanic
processes, such as rivers depositing sediment. At Sotra, however, cryovolcanism is the best
explanation for two peaks more than 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) high with deep volcanic craters and
finger-like flows.
"This is the very best evidence, by far, for volcanic topography anywhere documented on an icy
satellite," said Jeffrey Kargel, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, Tucson. "It's possible
the mountains are tectonic in origin, but the interpretation of cryovolcano is a much simpler, more
consistent explanation."

Kirk and colleagues analyzed new Cassini radar images. His USGS group created the topographic
map and 3-D flyover images of Sotra Facula. Data from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer revealed the lobed flows had a composition different from the surrounding surface.
Scientists have no evidence of current activity at Sotra, but they plan to monitor the area.

"Cryovolcanoes help explain the geological forces sculpting some of these exotic places in our solar
system," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif. "At Titan, for instance, they explain how methane can be continually replenished in
the atmosphere when the sun is constantly breaking that molecule down."

Cassini launched Oct. 15, 1997, and began orbiting Saturn in 2004. Saturn has more than 60 known
moons, with Titan being the largest. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA,
the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). JPL manages the mission for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington.

The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by
JPL and ASI, working with team members from the U.S. and several European countries. The visual
and infrared mapping spectrometer was built by JPL, with a major contribution by ASI. The visual
and infrared mapping spectrometer science team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson. JPL is
a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
For more information about the Cassini mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

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NASA Probe Sees Solar Wind Decline

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 Cook 818-359-3241
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

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

News release: 2010-415 Dec. 13, 2010

NASA Probe Sees Solar Wind Decline

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-415&cid=release_2010-415

PASADENA, Calif. – The 33-year odyssey of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached
a distant point at the edge of our solar system where there is no outward motion of solar
wind.

Now hurtling toward interstellar space some 17.4 billion kilometers (10.8 billion miles)
from the sun, Voyager 1 has crossed into an area where the velocity of the hot ionized
gas, or plasma, emanating directly outward from the sun has slowed to zero. Scientists
suspect the solar wind has been turned sideways by the pressure from the interstellar
wind in the region between stars.

The event is a major milestone in Voyager 1's passage through the heliosheath, the
turbulent outer shell of the sun's sphere of influence, and the spacecraft's upcoming
departure from our solar system.

"The solar wind has turned the corner," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Voyager 1 is getting close to
interstellar space."

Our sun gives off a stream of charged particles that form a bubble known as the
heliosphere around our solar system. The solar wind travels at supersonic speed until it
crosses a shockwave called the termination shock. At this point, the solar wind
dramatically slows down and heats up in the heliosheath.

Launched on Sept. 5, 1977, Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock in December 2004
into the heliosheath. Scientists have used data from Voyager 1's Low-Energy Charged
Particle Instrument to deduce the solar wind's velocity. When the speed of the charged
particles hitting the outward face of Voyager 1 matched the spacecraft's speed,
researchers knew that the net outward speed of the solar wind was zero. This occurred in
June, when Voyager 1 was about 17 billion kilometers (10.6 billion miles) from the sun.

Because the velocities can fluctuate, scientists watched four more monthly readings
before they were convinced the solar wind's outward speed actually had slowed to zero.
Analysis of the data shows the velocity of the solar wind has steadily slowed at a rate of
about 20 kilometers per second each year (45,000 mph each year) since August 2007,
when the solar wind was speeding outward at about 60 kilometers per second (130,000
mph). The outward speed has remained at zero since June.

The results were presented today at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San
Francisco.

"When I realized that we were getting solid zeroes, I was amazed," said Rob Decker, a
Voyager Low-Energy Charged Particle Instrument co-investigator and senior staff
scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
"Here was Voyager, a spacecraft that has been a workhorse for 33 years, showing us
something completely new again."

Scientists believe Voyager 1 has not crossed the heliosheath into interstellar space.
Crossing into interstellar space would mean a sudden drop in the density of hot particles
and an increase in the density of cold particles. Scientists are putting the data into their
models of the heliosphere's structure and should be able to better estimate when Voyager
1 will reach interstellar space. Researchers currently estimate Voyager 1 will cross that
frontier in about four years.

"In science, there is nothing like a reality check to shake things up, and Voyager 1
provided that with hard facts," said Tom Krimigis, principal investigator on the Low-
Energy Charged Particle Instrument, who is based at the Applied Physics Laboratory and
the Academy of Athens, Greece. "Once again, we face the predicament of redoing our
models."

A sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, was launched in Aug. 20, 1977 and has reached a position
14.2 billion kilometers (8.8 billion miles) from the sun. Both spacecraft have been
traveling along different trajectories and at different speeds. Voyager 1 is traveling faster,
at a speed of about 17 kilometers per second (38,000 mph), compared to Voyager 2's
velocity of 15 kilometers per second (35,000 mph). In the next few years, scientists
expect Voyager 2 to encounter the same kind of phenomenon as Voyager 1.

The Voyagers were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which
continues to operate both spacecraft. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft,
visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager . JPL is a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.

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Odyssey Orbiter Nears Martian Longevity Record

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

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

Gary Napier 303-971-4012
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver
gary.p.napier@lmco.com

Robert Burnham 480-458-8207
Arizona State University, Tempe
robert.burnham@asu.edu

News Release: 2010-411 Dec. 9, 2010

Odyssey Orbiter Nears Martian Longevity Record

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-411&cid=release_2010-411

PASADENA, Calif. -- By the middle of next week, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter will have
worked longer at Mars than any other spacecraft in history.

Odyssey entered orbit around Mars on Oct. 24, 2001. On Dec. 15, the 3,340th day since that
arrival, it will pass the Martian career longevity record set by its predecessor, Mars Global
Surveyor, which operated in orbit from Sept. 11, 1997, to Nov. 2, 2006.

Odyssey made its most famous discovery -- evidence for copious water ice just below the dry
surface of Mars -- during its first few months, and it finished its radiation-safety check for
future astronauts before the end of its prime mission in 2004. The bonus years of extended
missions since then have enabled many accomplishments that would not have been possible
otherwise.

"The extra years have allowed us to build up the highest-resolution maps covering virtually the
entire planet," said Odyssey Project Scientist Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The maps are assemblages of images from the orbiter's Thermal Emission Imaging System
(THEMIS) camera, provided and operated by Arizona State University, Tempe. To mark the
approach to the Mars longevity record, the camera team and NASA prepared a slide show of
remarkable images, posted today at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/odyssey/images/all-stars.html .

The orbiter's longevity has given Odyssey scientists the opportunity to monitor seasonal
changes on Mars year-to-year, such as the cycle of carbon-dioxide freezing out of the
atmosphere in polar regions during each hemisphere's winter. "It is remarkable how consistent
the patterns have been from year to year, and that's a comparison that wouldn't have been
possible without our mission extensions," Plaut said.

Odyssey's performance has boosted benefits from other missions, too. When NASA's Mars
Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, far exceeded their own expected lifetimes,
Odyssey remained available as the rover's primary communication relay. Nearly all the science
data from the rovers and NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has reached Earth via Odyssey relay.
Odyssey also became the middle segment of continuous observation of Martian weather by a
series of NASA orbiters: Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey, and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter, which began its science mission in late 2006.

A continuing partnership between JPL and Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, operates
Odyssey.

"Hundreds of people who built the Odyssey spacecraft here, in addition to the much smaller
crew operating it today, have great pride in seeing the spacecraft achieve this milestone," said
Bob Berry, Odyssey program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company.

Odyssey's science triumphs began in early 2002 with detection of hydrogen just below the
surface throughout the planet's high-latitude regions. Deduction that the hydrogen is in
frozen water prompted the Phoenix mission, which confirmed that fact in 2008.

Investigators at the University of Arizona, Tucson, have headed the operation of Odyssey's
Gamma Ray Spectrometer suite of instruments, which detected the hydrogen and
subsequently mapped the distribution of several other elements on Mars. Additional science
partners are located at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, which provided the suite's
high-energy neutron detector, and at Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico, which
provided the neutron spectrometer.

The mission's science goal of checking radiation levels around Mars to aid planning of future
human missions was completed by the Mars Radiation Environment Experiment, developed at
NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston.

NASA has planned future work for Odyssey, in addition to having the orbiter continue its
own science and its relay service for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. If required,
controllers will adjust Odyssey's orbit so the spacecraft is in a favorable position for a
communication relay role during the August 2012 landing of NASA's next Mars rover,
Curiosity.

Mars Odyssey, launched April 7, 2001, is managed by JPL, a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
For more about the Mars Odyssey mission, visit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey .
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New JPL Workers Shed Training Wheels for Rocket Launch

Feature: 2010-408 Dec. 6, 2010

New JPL Workers Shed Training Wheels for Rocket Launch

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-408&cid=release_2010-408

Less than three years after obtaining college degrees, a group of early-career
employees at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., can now add
"rocket launch" to their resumes.

Recent graduates who work for JPL launched a sounding rocket 120 kilometers
(75 miles) above Earth's surface on Monday, Dec. 6. The rocket flew from the U.S.
Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, with four cameras on board.

The cameras recorded real-time ground imagery throughout the flight, both after
launch as the rocket climbed beyond the atmosphere, and during its descent back
to White Sands. Those data will be compared with existing maps to develop
terrain-modeling algorithms. This project will improve precision landing for future
missions to Mars and other locations.

Members of the Phaeton group, a rapid-training program for early career hires at
JPL, submitted a proposal to NASA's Hands-on-Project Experience. The program,
created by NASA in November 2008, aims to give rising engineers, scientists and
others the opportunity to move a small mission from concept to launch to post-
flight analysis. In May 2009, the Phaeton group was selected to move forward with
their proposed project, called Terrain Relative Navigation and Employee
Development, which they refer to as Trained.

"The best thing about the Phaeton program is taking a project from the idea to
launch and taking ownership of the decisions," said Elvis Merida, the Trained
mission assurance manager. "I'm always making a conscious effort to educate
myself, which is why I applied for the Phaeton program." Merida, who received a
bachelor's and master's degree from California State University, Northridge, is
currently working toward a second master's degree, in electrical engineering, from
California State University, Los Angeles.

The Phaeton program consists of about 40 early career hires at JPL working on
three small-payload projects with a life cycle of about two to three years. Each
team member is matched with an experienced JPL mentor to guide in technical and
leadership development skills.

"The program was designed for early-career hires, but I'm actually learning from
it," said Johnny Kwok, who oversees the grads as Phaeton program manager at JPL. "Through their eyes, I'm learning about what they're experiencing, and they have the opportunity to touch all the pieces of the life development process."

With the Dec. 6 launch, the Trained program participants have completed this
portion of the early-career hire experience and will move on to other career
opportunities at JPL. When asked if he feels a sense of relief from completing such
an important and demanding project, Merida said, "I don't feel relief. I feel as
though I'm just beginning."

More information about the Trained project is online at:
http://phaeton.jpl.nasa.gov/external/projects/terrain.cfm .

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

-end-

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

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Double Vision: New Instrument Casts Its Eyes to the Sky

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

Feature: 2010-406 Dec. 6, 2010

Double Vision: New Instrument Casts Its Eyes to the Sky

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-406&cid=release_2010-406

The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer has taken its first images of the star
Beta Peg in the constellation Pictor -- an encouraging start for an instrument
designed to probe the cosmic neighborhoods where Earth-like planets could exist.

Eight years in development, the NASA-funded instrument combines beams of light
from twin 8.4-meter (28-foot) mirrors mounted atop the Large Binocular
Telescope on Mount Graham, Ariz. "By combining the light of the telescopes, we're
able to realize its full potential," said Project Manager Tom McMahon of the
University of Arizona, Tucson. "Together, the two mirrors form the largest single-
mount telescope in the world."

"The quality of the first-light images is wonderful," said the principal investigator
for the project, Phil Hinz of the University of Arizona. "The telescope was stable
and the instrument was working properly."

With this high-resolution imaging capability, astronomers hope to probe nearby
solar systems -- specifically, the areas in these systems where Earth-like planets
with liquid water could exist. Though the Large Binocular Telescope
Interferometer won't be able to detect Earth-size planets, it will be able to see dust
disks that are indicative of planet formation, in addition to detecting large, Jupiter-
size planets farther out from the star. These findings will help future, space-based
exoplanet missions know where to search for Earth-like planets in our own galactic
neighborhood.

With its ability to probe this "habitable zone" of other solar systems, the Large
Binocular Telescope Interferometer will also complement the capabilities of other
NASA missions -- the Keck Interferometer, which can find dust very close to stars;
and the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is adept at observing planet-forming dust
that is much more distant.

"This instrument will help complete our picture of what planetary systems look like
and be a pathfinder for finding Earth-like planets that are close by," Hinz said.

With a major upgrade of the Large Binocular Telescope's adaptive optics system
scheduled for next year, the interferometer will undergo testing and
commissioning for the majority of 2011, and during that time, scientific
observations will begin.

"This is the highest-resolution instrument of its kind in the world," McMahon said.
"We won't just be able to image exoplanets, but extragalactic objects, nebulae and
galaxies. It's taken time to make sure it works as envisioned, but now it's time to do
science."

The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer is funded by NASA and managed by
Ben Parvin at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., as part of NASA's
Exoplanet Exploration Program. The instrument and product development are
provided by the University of Arizona, Tucson.

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So You Think You Can Solve a Cosmology Puzzle?

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

Feature: 2010-407 Dec. 6, 2010

So You Think You Can Solve a Cosmology Puzzle?
Scientists challenge other scientists with a series of galaxy puzzles

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-407&cid=release_2010-407

Cosmologists have come up with a new way to solve their problems. They are inviting
scientists, including those from totally unrelated fields, to participate in a grand
competition. The idea is to spur outside interest in one of cosmology's trickiest problems -
- measuring the invisible dark matter and dark energy that permeate our universe.

The results will help in the development of new space missions, designed to answer
fundamental questions about the history and fate of our universe.

"We're hoping to get more computer scientists interested in our work," said cosmologist
Jason Rhodes of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who is helping to
organize the challenge, which begins on Dec. 3, 2010. "Some of the mathematical
problems in our field are the same as those in machine-learning applications -- for example
facial-recognition software."

JPL and several European Universities, including The University of Edinburgh and
University College London in the United Kingdom, are helping to support the event,
which is funded by a European Union group called Pattern Analysis, Statistical
Modelling and Computation Learning. The principal investigator is Thomas Kitching of
the University of Edinburgh.

This year, the competition, which has operated since 2008, is called GREAT 2010, after
GRavitational lEnsing Accuracy Testing. The challenge is to solve a series of puzzles
involving distorted images of galaxies. Occasionally in nature, a galaxy is situated behind
a clump of matter that is causing the light from the galaxy to bend. The result is a
magnified and skewed image of the galaxy. In the most extreme cases, the warping
results in multiple images and even a perfect ring, called an Einstein Ring after Albert
Einstein, who predicted the effect. But most of the time, the results are more subtle and a
galaxy image is distorted just a tiny bit -- not even enough to be perceived by eye. This is
called weak gravitational lensing, or just weak lensing for short.

Weak lensing is a powerful tool for unlocking the fabric of our universe. Only four
percent of our universe consists of the stuff that makes up people, stars and anything with
atoms. Twenty-four percent is dark matter -- a mysterious substance that we can't see but
which tugs on the regular matter we can see. Most of our universe, 72 percent, consists of
dark energy, which is even more baffling than dark matter. Dark energy is gravity's
nemesis -- where gravity pulls, dark energy pushes. By studying lensed, or distorted,
galaxies, scientists can create better maps of dark matter -- and by studying how dark
matter changes over time, they can better understand dark energy.

Weak lensing is a promising method for tackling these questions. The 2010 U.S. National
Research Council Decadal Survey on astronomy and astrophysics has ranked mission
proposals using this method as high priorities.

The GREAT 2010 challenge is designed to improve weak-lensing know-how. Participants
will start with fuzzy pictures of galaxies that have been distorted ever so slightly by
invisible dark matter parked in front of them. The effect is so small that you can't see it
with your eyes. The problem is even trickier because the telescopes are also distorting the
galaxy images to an even greater degree than the dark matter. It takes complex techniques
-- mathematical models and image-analysis algorithms -- to tease apart these various
influences and ultimately discover how dark matter is warping a galaxy's shape.

"This is an image-analysis challenge. You don't need to be an astronomer or cosmologist
to help measure the weak-lensing effect," said Kitching. "This challenge is meant to
encourage a multidisciplinary approach to the problem."

Participants will have nine months to solve a series of thousands of puzzles. The winners
will be announced at a closing ceremony and workshop held at JPL. Prize-winners can
expect some kind of cool gadget -- as well as the satisfaction of having brought the world
one step closer to understanding what makes our universe tick.

To participate in the venture, in-depth technical information is available online at:
http://www.greatchallenges.info .

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

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