NASA Telescopes Spy Ultra-Distant Galaxy

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

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

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

News release: 2012-294 Sept. 19, 2012

NASA Telescopes Spy Ultra-Distant Galaxy

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-294&cid=release_2012-294

PASADENA, Calif. -- With the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space
telescopes, as well as a cosmic magnification effect, astronomers have spotted what could be the
most distant galaxy ever seen. Light from the young galaxy captured by the orbiting
observatories first shone when our 13.7-billion-year-old universe was just 500 million years old.

The far-off galaxy existed within an important era when the universe began to transit from the
so-called cosmic dark ages. During this period, the universe went from a dark, starless expanse to
a recognizable cosmos full of galaxies. The discovery of the faint, small galaxy opens a window
onto the deepest, most remote epochs of cosmic history.

"This galaxy is the most distant object we have ever observed with high confidence," said Wei
Zheng, a principal research scientist in the department of physics and astronomy at Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore who is lead author of a new paper appearing in Nature. "Future
work involving this galaxy, as well as others like it that we hope to find, will allow us to study
the universe's earliest objects and how the dark ages ended."

Light from the primordial galaxy traveled approximately 13.2 billion light-years before reaching
NASA's telescopes. In other words, the starlight snagged by Hubble and Spitzer left the galaxy
when the universe was just 3.6 percent of its present age. Technically speaking, the galaxy has a
redshift, or "z," of 9.6. The term redshift refers to how much an object's light has shifted into
longer wavelengths as a result of the expansion of the universe. Astronomers use redshift to
describe cosmic distances.

Unlike previous detections of galaxy candidates in this age range, which were only glimpsed in a
single color, or waveband, this newfound galaxy has been seen in five different wavebands. As
part of the Cluster Lensing And Supernova Survey with Hubble Program, the Hubble Space
Telescope registered the newly described, far-flung galaxy in four visible and infrared
wavelength bands. Spitzer measured it in a fifth, longer-wavelength infrared band, placing the
discovery on firmer ground.

Objects at these extreme distances are mostly beyond the detection sensitivity of today's largest
telescopes. To catch sight of these early, distant galaxies, astronomers rely on gravitational
lensing. In this phenomenon, predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago, the gravity of
foreground objects warps and magnifies the light from background objects. A massive galaxy
cluster situated between our galaxy and the newfound galaxy magnified the newfound galaxy's
light, brightening the remote object some 15 times and bringing it into view.

Based on the Hubble and Spitzer observations, astronomers think the distant galaxy was less than
200 million years old when it was viewed. It also is small and compact, containing only about 1
percent of the Milky Way's mass. According to leading cosmological theories, the first galaxies
indeed should have started out tiny. They then progressively merged, eventually accumulating
into the sizable galaxies of the more modern universe.

These first galaxies likely played the dominant role in the epoch of reionization, the event that
signaled the demise of the universe's dark ages. This epoch began about 400,000 years after the
Big Bang when neutral hydrogen gas formed from cooling particles. The first luminous stars and
their host galaxies emerged a few hundred million years later. The energy released by these
earliest galaxies is thought to have caused the neutral hydrogen strewn throughout the universe to
ionize, or lose an electron, a state that the gas has remained in since that time.

"In essence, during the epoch of reionization, the lights came on in the universe," said paper co-
author Leonidas Moustakas, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division
of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

Astronomers plan to study the rise of the first stars and galaxies and the epoch of reionization
with the successor to both Hubble and Spitzer, NASA's James Webb Telescope, which is
scheduled for launch in 2018. The newly described distant galaxy will likely be a prime target.

For more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer . For more information
about Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble .

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JPL to Stream Mars Curiosity Telecon

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

DC Agle / Guy Webster 818-393-9011/818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov / guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

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

Advisory: 2012-292b September 18, 2012

JPL to Stream Mars Curiosity Telecon

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-292b&cid=release_2012-292b

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT)
tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept. 19), to provide a status update on the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars'
Gale Crater.

Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory, is 43 days into a two-year mission to investigate whether
conditions may have been favorable for microbial life.

Audio and visuals from the telecon will be streamed live to one of JPL's Ustream.tv channels, at
www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .

Visuals only will be available at the start of the telecon at: http://go.nasa.gov/curiositytelecon .

For more information about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

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Researchers Brew Up Organics on Ice

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

News feature: 2012-293 Sept. 18, 2012

Researchers Brew Up Organics on Ice

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-293&cid=release_2012-293

Would you like icy organics with that? Maybe not in your coffee, but researchers at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., are creating concoctions of
organics, or carbon-bearing molecules, on ice in the lab, then zapping them with lasers.
Their goal: to better understand how life arose on Earth.

In a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the research team provides
the first direct look at the organic chemistry that takes place on icy particles in the frigid
reaches of our solar system, and in the even chillier places between stars. Scientists think
that the basic ingredients of life, including water and organics, began their journey to
Earth on these lonesome ice particles. The ice and organics would have found their way
into comets and asteroids, which then fell to Earth, delivering "prebiotic" ingredients that
could have jump-started life.

The various steps needed to go from icy organics to slime molds are not clear, but the
new findings help explain how the process works. The lab experiments show that organic
material can begin the processing it needs to become prebiotic -- while still frozen in ice.

"The very basic steps needed for the evolution of life may have started in the coldest
regions of our universe," said Murthy Gudipati, lead author of the new study at JPL. "We
were surprised to see organic chemistry brewing up on ice, at these very cold
temperatures in our lab."

The organics looked at in the study are called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs
for short. These carbon-rich molecules can be found on Earth as combustion products: for
example, in barbecue pits, candle soot and even streaming out of the tail pipe of your car. They have also been spotted throughout space in comets, asteroids and more distant objects. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected PAHs in the swirling planet-forming disks around stars, in the spaces between stars and in remote galaxies.

Murthy and his colleague Rui Yang of JPL used their lab setup to mimic the environment
of icy PAH molecules in the quiet cold of space, at temperatures as low as 5 Kelvin
(minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 268 degrees Celsius). First, they bombarded the
particles with ultraviolet radiation similar to that from stars. Then, to determine the
products of the chemical reaction, they used a type of laser system known as MALDI (for
Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption and Ionization), which involves zapping the ice with
both infrared and ultraviolet lasers.

The results revealed that the PAHs had transformed: they had incorporated hydrogen
atoms into their structure and lost their circular, aromatic bonds, becoming more complex
organics. According to Gudipati, this is the type of change that would need to occur if the
material were to eventually become amino acids and nucleotides -- bits and pieces of
protein and DNA, respectively.

"PAHs are strong, stubborn molecules, so we were surprised to see them undergoing
these chemical changes at such freezing-cold temperatures," said Gudipati.

Another bonus for the research is that it might explain the mystery of why PAHs have not
yet been identified on ice grains in space. While the hardy organics are pervasive in the
cosmos as gases and hot dust, researchers have remained puzzled that their signatures do
not show up on ice. The new findings show that PAHs, once they stick to the ice surface,
are chemically transformed into other complex organics, explaining why they might not
be seen.

While the new results teach us that life's journey could have already begun in the very
cold regions of the universe, another question remains: Did it arise elsewhere beyond our
sun, too? Researchers don't know, but studies like this one help the ongoing search for
life beyond Earth.

The journal article is online at http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/756/1/L24 .

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

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NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Reveals Geological Mystery

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

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

News release: 2012-290 September 14, 2012

NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Reveals Geological Mystery

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's long-lived rover Opportunity has returned an image of the Martian
surface that is puzzling researchers.

Spherical objects concentrated at an outcrop Opportunity reached last week differ in several ways
from iron-rich spherules nicknamed "blueberries" the rover found at its landing site in early 2004 and
at many other locations to date.

Opportunity is investigating an outcrop called Kirkwood in the Cape York segment of the western
rim of Endeavour Crater. The spheres measure as much as one-eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) in
diameter. The analysis is still preliminary, but it indicates that these spheres do not have the high iron
content of Martian blueberries.

"This is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission," said Opportunity's principal
investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "Kirkwood is chock full of a dense
accumulation of these small spherical objects. Of course, we immediately thought of the blueberries,
but this is something different. We never have seen such a dense accumulation of spherules in a rock
outcrop on Mars."

The Martian blueberries found elsewhere by Opportunity are concretions formed by action of
mineral-laden water inside rocks, evidence of a wet environment on early Mars. Concretions result
when minerals precipitate out of water to become hard masses inside sedimentary rocks. Many of the
Kirkwood spheres are broken and eroded by the wind. Where wind has partially etched them away, a
concentric structure is evident.

Opportunity used the microscopic imager on its arm to look closely at Kirkwood. Researchers
checked the spheres' composition by using an instrument called the Alpha Particle X-Ray
Spectrometer on Opportunity's arm.

"They seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle," Squyres said. "They are different
in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different
in distribution. So, we have a wonderful geological puzzle in front of us. We have multiple working
hypotheses, and we have no favorite hypothesis at this time. It's going to take a while to work this
out, so the thing to do now is keep an open mind and let the rocks do the talking."

Just past Kirkwood lies another science target area for Opportunity. The location is an extensive pale-
toned outcrop in an area of Cape York where observations from orbit have detected signs of clay
minerals. That may be the rover's next study site after Kirkwood. Four years ago, Opportunity
departed Victoria Crater, which it had investigated for two years, to reach different types of
geological evidence at the rim of the much larger Endeavour Crater.

The rover's energy levels are favorable for the investigations. Spring equinox comes this month to
Mars' southern hemisphere, so the amount of sunshine for solar power will continue increasing for
months.

"The rover is in very good health considering its 8-1/2 years of hard work on the surface of Mars," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Energy production levels are comparable to what they were a full Martian year ago, and we are looking forward to productive spring and summer seasons of exploration."

NASA launched the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity in the summer of 2003, and both completed
their three-month prime missions in April 2004. They continued bonus, extended missions for years. Spirit finished communicating with Earth in March 2010. The rovers have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life.

JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington.

To view the image of the area, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/multimedia/pia16139.html

For more information about Opportunity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov .

You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and
http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .

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First Planets Found Around Sun-Like Stars in a Cluster

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

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

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

News release: 2012-289 Sept. 14, 2012

First Planets Found Around Sun-Like Stars in a Cluster

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-289&cid=release_2012-289

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA-funded astronomers have, for the first time, spotted planets
orbiting sun-like stars in a crowded cluster of stars. The findings offer the best evidence yet that
planets can sprout up in dense stellar environments. Although the newfound planets are not
habitable, their skies would be starrier than what we see from Earth.

The starry-skied planets are two so-called hot Jupiters, which are massive, gaseous orbs that are
boiling hot because they orbit tightly around their parent stars. Each hot Jupiter circles a different
sun-like star in the Beehive Cluster, also called the Praesepe, a collection of roughly 1,000 stars
that appear to be swarming around a common center.

The Beehive is an open cluster, or a grouping of stars born at about the same time and out of the
same giant cloud of material. The stars therefore share a similar chemical composition. Unlike
the majority of stars, which spread out shortly after birth, these young stars remain loosely bound
together by mutual gravitational attraction.

"We are detecting more and more planets that can thrive in diverse and extreme environments
like these nearby clusters," said Mario R. Perez, the NASA astrophysics program scientist in the
Origins of Solar Systems Program. "Our galaxy contains more than 1,000 of these open clusters,
which potentially can present the physical conditions for harboring many more of these giant
planets."

The two new Beehive planets are called Pr0201b and Pr0211b. The star's name followed by a "b" is the standard naming
convention for planets.

"These are the first 'b's' in the Beehive," said Sam Quinn, a graduate student in astronomy at
Georgia State University in Atlanta and the lead author of the paper describing the results, which
was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Quinn and his team, in collaboration with David Latham at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, discovered the planets by using the 1.5-meter Tillinghast telescope at the
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory near Amado,
Arizona to measure the slight gravitational wobble the orbiting planets induce upon their host
stars. Previous searches of clusters had turned up two planets around massive stars but none had
been found around stars like our sun until now.

"This has been a big puzzle for planet hunters," Quinn said. "We know that most stars form in
clustered environments like the Orion nebula, so unless this dense environment inhibits planet
formation, at least some sun-like stars in open clusters should have planets. Now, we finally
know they are indeed there."

The results also are of interest to theorists who are trying to understand how hot Jupiters wind up
so close to their stars. Most theories contend these blistering worlds start out much cooler and
farther from their stars before migrating inward.

"The relatively young age of the Beehive cluster makes these planets among the youngest
known," said Russel White, the principal investigator on the NASA Origins of Solar Systems
grant that funded this study. "And that's important because it sets a constraint on how quickly
giant planets migrate inward -- and knowing how quickly they migrate is the first step to figuring
out how they migrate."

The research team suspects planets were turned up in the Beehive cluster because it is rich in
metals. Stars in the Beehive have more heavy elements such as iron than the sun has.

According to White, "Searches for planets around nearby stars suggest that these metals act like
a 'planet fertilizer,' leading to an abundant crop of gas giant planets. Our results suggest this may
be true in clusters as well."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages NASA's Exoplanet Exploration
Program office. More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is
available at: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Mars Rover Curiosity Arm Tests Nearly Complete

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

Guy Webster / D.C. Agle 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov / agle@jpl.nasa.gov

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

News release: 2012-288 September 12, 2012

Mars Rover Curiosity Arm Tests Nearly Complete

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-288&cid=release_2012-288

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Curiosity team has almost finished robotic arm tests in
preparation for the rover to touch and examine its first Martian rock.

Tests with the 7-foot (2.1-meter) arm have allowed the mission team to gain confidence in the
arm's precise maneuvering in Martian temperature and gravity conditions. During these
activities, Curiosity has remained at a site it reached by its most recent drive on Sept. 5. The
team will resume driving the rover this week and use its cameras to seek the first rock to touch
with instruments on the arm.

"We're about to drive some more and try to find the right rock to begin doing contact science
with the arm," said Jennifer Trosper, Curiosity mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Two science instruments -- a camera called Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) that can take
close-up, color images and a tool called Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) that
determines the elemental composition of a target rock -- have passed preparatory tests at the
rover's current location. The instruments are mounted on a turret at the end of the arm and can be
placed in contact with target rocks.

Curiosity's Canadian-made APXS had taken atmospheric readings earlier, but its first use on a
solid target on Mars was this week on a calibration target brought from Earth. X-ray detectors
work best cold, but even the daytime APXS tests produced clean data for identifying elements in
the target.

"The spectrum peaks are so narrow, we're getting excellent resolution, just as good as we saw in
tests on Earth under ideal conditions," said APXS principal investigator Ralf Gellert of the
University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada. "The good news is that we can now make high-
resolution measurements even at high noon to support quick decisions about whether a sample is
worthwhile for further investigations."

The adjustable-focus MAHLI camera this week has produced sharp images of objects near and
far.

"Honestly, seeing those images with Curiosity's wheels in the foreground and Mount Sharp in
the background simply makes me cry," said MAHLI principal investigator Ken Edgett of Malin
Space Science Systems in San Diego. "I know we're just getting started, but it's already been an
incredible journey."

MAHLI is also aiding evaluation of the arm's ability to position its tools and instruments.
Curiosity moved the arm to predetermined "teach points" on Sept. 11, including points above
each of three inlet ports where it will later drop samples of soil and powdered rock into analytical
instruments inside the rover. Images from the MAHLI camera confirmed the placements. Photos
taken before and after opening the inlet cover for the chemistry and mineralogy (CheMin)
analytical instrument also confirmed good operation of the cover.

"Seeing that inlet cover open heightens our anticipation of getting the first solid sample into
CheMin in the coming weeks," said CheMin principal investigator David Blake of NASA's
Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

A test last week that checked X-rays passing through an empty sample cell in CheMin worked
well. It confirmed the instrument beneath the inlet opening is ready to start analyzing soil and
rock samples.

Curiosity is five weeks into a 2-year prime mission on Mars. It will use 10 science instruments to
assess whether the selected field site inside Gale Crater has ever offered environmental
conditions favorable for microbial life.

For more about Curiosity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl . You
can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and
http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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JPL to Stream Mars Curiosity Telecon and Lecture

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 / Guy Webster 818-393-9011/818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov / guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

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

Advisory: 2012-287b September 11, 2012

JPL to Stream Mars Curiosity Telecon and Lecture

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-287&cid=release_2012-287

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT)
tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept. 12), to provide a status update on the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater.

The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is more than one month into a two-year mission to
investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life and preserving clues in the
rocks about possible past life.

Audio and visuals from the telecon will be streamed live to one of JPL's Ustream.tv channels, at
www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .

Visuals only will be available at the start of the telecon at: http://go.nasa.gov/curiositytelecon .
Also this week, Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager Richard Cook will speak Thursday, Sept. 13 in JPL's von Karman Auditorium.
The lecture, which begins at 7 p.m. PDT (10 p.m. EDT), is open
to the public and will be broadcast live with moderated chat, on JPL's Ustream channel.

For additional options to view live streaming video of Thursday's talk please visit:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures_archive.cfm?year=2012&month=9#NASA . For more
information about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .
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NASA Orbiter Observations Point to 'Dry Ice' Snowfall on Mars

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

Guy Webster 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

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

News release: 2012-286 September 11, 2012

NASA Orbiter Observations Point to 'Dry Ice' Snowfall on Mars

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-286&cid=release_2012-286

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter data have given scientists the clearest
evidence yet of carbon-dioxide snowfalls on Mars. This reveals the only known example of carbon-
dioxide snow falling anywhere in our solar system.

Frozen carbon dioxide, better known as "dry ice," requires temperatures of about minus 193 degrees
Fahrenheit (minus 125 Celsius), which is much colder than needed for freezing water. Carbon-
dioxide snow reminds scientists that although some parts of Mars may look quite Earth-like, the Red
Planet is very different. The report is being published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

"These are the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds," said the report's lead author,
Paul Hayne of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We firmly establish the clouds
are composed of carbon dioxide -- flakes of Martian air -- and they are thick enough to result in
snowfall accumulation at the surface."

The snowfalls occurred from clouds around the Red Planet's south pole in winter. The presence of
carbon-dioxide ice in Mars' seasonal and residual southern polar caps has been known for decades.
Also, NASA's Phoenix Lander mission in 2008 observed falling water-ice snow on northern Mars.

Hayne and six co-authors analyzed data gained by looking at clouds straight overhead and sideways
with the Mars Climate Sounder, one of six instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This
instrument records brightness in nine wavebands of visible and infrared light as a way to examine
particles and gases in the Martian atmosphere. The analysis was conducted while Hayne was a post-
doctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

The data provide information about temperatures, particle sizes and their concentrations. The new
analysis is based on data from observations in the south polar region during southern Mars winter in
2006-2007, identifying a tall carbon-dioxide cloud about 300 miles (500 kilometers) in diameter
persisting over the pole and smaller, shorter-lived, lower-altitude carbon dioxide ice clouds at
latitudes from 70 to 80 degrees south.

"One line of evidence for snow is that the carbon-dioxide ice particles in the clouds are large enough
to fall to the ground during the lifespan of the clouds," co-author David Kass of JPL said. "Another
comes from observations when the instrument is pointed toward the horizon, instead of down at the
surface. The infrared spectra signature of the clouds viewed from this angle is clearly carbon-dioxide
ice particles and they extend to the surface. By observing this way, the Mars Climate Sounder is able
to distinguish the particles in the atmosphere from the dry ice on the surface."

Mars' south polar residual ice cap is the only place on the Red Planet where frozen carbon dioxide
persists on the surface year-round. Just how the carbon dioxide from Mars' atmosphere gets deposited
has been in question. It is unclear whether it occurs as snow or by freezing out at ground level as
frost. These results show snowfall is especially vigorous on top of the residual cap.

"The finding of snowfall could mean that the type of deposition -- snow or frost -- is somehow linked
to the year-to-year preservation of the residual cap," Hayne said.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, provided the Mars Climate
Sounder instrument and manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate in Washington.

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

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Extreme Life Forms Might be Able to Survive on Eccentric Exoplanets

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

Written by Josh Rodriquez
Media contact:
Whitney Clavin (818) 354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

News feature: 2012-285 Sept. 11, 2012

Extreme Life Forms Might Be Able to Survive on Eccentric Exoplanets

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-285&cid=release_2012-285

Astronomers have discovered a veritable rogues' gallery of odd exoplanets -- from
scorching hot worlds with molten surfaces to frigid ice balls.

And while the hunt continues for the elusive "blue dot" -- a planet with roughly the same
characteristics as Earth -- new research reveals that life might actually be able to survive
on some of the many exoplanetary oddballs that exist.

"When we're talking about a habitable planet, we're talking about a world where liquid
water can exist," said Stephen Kane, a scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science
Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "A planet needs to be the
right distance from its star -- not too hot and not too cold." Determined by the size and
heat of the star, this temperature range is commonly referred to as the "habitable zone"
around a star.

Kane and fellow Exoplanet Science Institute scientist Dawn Gelino have created a
resource called the "Habitable Zone Gallery." It calculates the size and distance of the
habitable zone for each exoplanetary system that has been discovered and shows which
exoplanets orbit in this so-called "goldilocks" zone. The Habitable Zone Gallery can be
found at www.hzgallery.org . The study describing the research appears in the
Astrobiology journal and is available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2429 .

But not all exoplanets have Earth-like orbits that remain at a fairly constant distance from
their stars. One of the unexpected revelations of planet hunting has been that many
planets travel in very oblong, eccentric orbits that vary greatly in distance from their
stars.

"Planets like these may spend some, but not all of their time in the habitable zone," Kane
said. "You might have a world that heats up for brief periods in between long, cold
winters, or you might have brief spikes of very hot conditions."

Though planets like these would be very different from Earth, this might not preclude
them from being able to support alien life. "Scientists have found microscopic life forms
on Earth that can survive all kinds of extreme conditions," Kane said. "Some organisms
can basically drop their metabolism to zero to survive very long-lasting, cold conditions.
We know that others can withstand very extreme heat conditions if they have a protective
layer of rock or water. There have even been studies performed on Earth-based spores,
bacteria and lichens, which show they can survive in both harsh environments on Earth
and the extreme conditions of space."

Kane and Gelino's research suggests that habitable zone around stars might be larger than
once thought, and that planets that might be hostile to human life might be the perfect
place for extremophiles, like lichens and bacteria, to survive. "Life evolved on Earth at a
very early stage in the planet's development, under conditions much harsher than they are
today," Kane said.

Kane explained that many life-harboring worlds might not be planets at all, but rather
moons of larger, gas-giant planets like Jupiter in our own solar system. "There are lots of
giant planets out there, and all of them may have moons, if they are like the giant planets
in the solar system," Kane says. "A moon of a planet that is in or spends time in a
habitable zone can be habitable itself."

As an example, Kane mentioned Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, which, despite its
thick atmosphere, is far too distant from the sun and too cold for life as we know it to
exist on its surface. "If you moved Titan closer in to the sun, it would have lots of water
vapor and very favorable conditions for life."

Kane is quick to point out that there are limits to what scientists can presently determine
about habitability on already-discovered exoplanets. "It's difficult to really know about a
planet when you don't have any knowledge about its atmosphere," he said. For example,
both Earth and Venus experience an atmospheric "greenhouse effect" -- but the runaway
effect on Venus makes it the hottest place in the solar system. "Without analogues in our
own solar system, it's difficult to know precisely what a habitable moon or eccentric
planet orbit would look like."

Still, the research suggests that habitability might exist in many forms in the galaxy -- not
just on planets that look like our own. Kane and Gelino are hard at work determining
which already-discovered exoplanets might be candidates for extremophile life or
habitable moons. "There are lots of eccentric and gas giant planet discoveries," Kane
says. "We may find some surprises out there as we start to determine exactly what we
consider habitable."

NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech manages time allocation on the Keck
Telescope for NASA. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages
NASA's Exoplanet Exploration program office. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More
information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Vesta in Dawn's Rear View Mirror

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

Image advisory: 2012-284 Sept. 11, 2012

Vesta in Dawn's Rear View Mirror

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-284&cid=release_2012-284

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Dawn mission is releasing two parting views of the giant
asteroid Vesta, using images that were among the last taken by the spacecraft as it
departed its companion for the last year.

The first set of images is a color-coded relief map of Vesta's northern hemisphere, from
the pole to the equator. It incorporates images taken just as Dawn began to creep over the
high northern latitudes, which were dark when Dawn arrived in July 2011. The other
image is a black-and-white mosaic that shows a full view of the giant asteroid, created by
synthesizing some of Dawn's best images.

"Dawn has peeled back the veil on some of the mysteries surrounding Vesta, but we're
still working hard on more analysis," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal
investigator at UCLA. "So while Vesta is now out of sight, it will not be out of mind."

These will be the last daily images during the cruise to Dawn's second destination, the
dwarf planet Ceres. Other images will be highlighted as findings are made. Other data
will be archived at http://pds.nasa.gov .

Dawn left Vesta on Sept. 4, 2012 PDT (Sept. 5, 2012 EDT). The spacecraft is using its
ion propulsion system to travel to Ceres. It is expected to arrive in early 2015.

JPL manages the Dawn mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The University of California at Los Angeles
(UCLA) is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in
Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max
Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian
National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. The
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .

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