Top Stories

Friday, February 15, 2013

NASA Experts Discuss Russia Meteor in Media Teleconference Today

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

NASA to Chronicle Close Earth Flyby of Asteroid

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

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

Advisory: 2013-059b Feb. 13, 2013

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-059&cid=release_2013-059

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA Television will provide commentary starting at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) on Friday, Feb. 15, during the close, but safe, flyby of a small near-Earth asteroid named 2012 DA14. NASA places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home planet from them. This flyby will provide a unique opportunity for researchers to study a near-Earth object up close.

The half-hour broadcast from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will incorporate real-time animation to show the location of the asteroid in relation to Earth, along with live or near real-time views of the asteroid from observatories in Australia, weather permitting.

At the time of its closest approach to Earth at approximately 11:25 a.m. PST (2:25 p.m. EST / 19:25 UTC), the asteroid will be about 17,150 miles (27,600 kilometers) above Earth's surface.

The commentary will be available via NASA TV and streamed live online at: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv and http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2

In addition to the commentary, near real-time imagery of the asteroid's flyby before and after closest approach, made available to NASA by astronomers in Australia and Europe, weather permitting, will be streamed beginning at about 9 a.m. PST (noon EST) and continuing through the afternoon at the following website: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2

A Ustream feed of the flyby from a telescope at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will be streamed for three hours starting at 6 p.m. PST (8 p.m. CST / 9 p.m. EST). To view the feed and ask researchers questions about the flyby via Twitter, visit: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc

The NASA Near Earth Objects (NEO) Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of NEOs, or asteroids and comets, whose orbits periodically bring them close to the Earth. NASA's study of NEOs provides important clues to understanding the origin of our solar system. The objects also are a repository of natural resources and could become waystations for future exploration. In collaboration with other external organizations, one of the program's key goals is to search and hopefully mitigate potential NEO impacts on Earth. JPL conducts the NEO program's technical and scientific activities.

For more information, including graphics and animations showing the flyby of 2012 DA14, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidflyby

For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch

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Study Sheds New Light on Arctic Sea Ice Volume Losses

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 George Hale
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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

News feature: 2013-057 Feb. 13, 2013

Study Sheds New Light on Arctic Sea Ice Volume Losses

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-057&cid=release_2013-057

New research using combined records of ice measurements from NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite, airborne surveys and ocean-based sensors shows Arctic sea ice volume declined 36 percent in the autumn and nine percent in the winter over the last decade.

The work builds on previous studies using submarine and NASA satellite data, confirms computer model estimates that showed ice volume decreases over the last decade, and builds a foundation for a multi-decadal record of sea ice volume changes.

In a report published online recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a large international collaboration of scientists outlined their work to calculate Arctic sea ice volume. The satellite measurements were verified using data from NASA's Operation IceBridge, ocean-based sensors and a European airborne science expedition. This was compared with the earlier sea ice volume data record from NASA's ICESat, which reached the end of its lifespan in 2009.

The researchers found that from 2003 to 2008, autumn volumes of ice averaged 2,855 cubic miles (11,900 cubic kilometers). But from 2010 to 2012, the average volume dropped to 1,823 cubic miles (7,600 cubic kilometers) -- a decline of 1,032 cubic miles (4,300 cubic kilometers). The average ice volume in the winter from 2003 to 2008 was 3,911 cubic miles (16,300 cubic kilometers), dropping to 3,551 cubic miles (14,800 cubic kilometers) between 2010 and 2012 -- a difference of 360 cubic miles (1,500 cubic kilometers).

The study, funded by the United Kingdom's National Environmental Research Council, the European Space Agency, the German Aerospace Center, Alberta Ingenuity, NASA, the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation and led by Professor Seymour Laxon of University College London, marks the first ice volume estimates from CryoSat 2, which was launched in 2010. "It's an important achievement and milestone for CryoSat-2," said co-author Ron Kwok at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Combining the Ingredients

Although CryoSat-2 data show a decrease in ice volume from 2010 to 2012, two years is not a long enough time span to determine a trend. This is where NASA's data and scientists come in. Data from ICESat and IceBridge are freely available, but combining measurements from different sources can be challenging. Kwok said researchers spent months working out how to compare the datasets and making sure they were compatible enough to compare trends. "We participated as collaborators to help interpret results from the datasets we're familiar with," said scientist Sinead Farrell at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

CryoSat-2 and ICESat both measure sea ice freeboard, which is the amount of ice floating above the ocean's surface. Researchers use freeboard to calculate ice thickness. This thickness measurement is then combined with ice area to come up with a figure for volume. The two satellites used different methods for measuring freeboard, however. ICESat used a laser altimeter, which bounces a laser off the snow covering the sea ice, while CryoSat-2 uses a radar instrument that measures surface elevation closer to the ice surface. These instruments have a different view of the surface, but researchers found they gave comparable measurements.

Check and Double Check

Comparing the two datasets and ensuring their quality called for additional data. The two satellites do not cover overlapping time spans, so researchers used measurements from upward-looking sonar (ULS) moorings under the ocean's surface, located north of Alaska. These instruments, operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project, provide a continuous record of ice draft -- thickness of ice below the ocean's surface -- in parts of the Beaufort Sea from 2003 to the present day. Thickness measurements from these ULS moorings were comparable to ICESat and CryoSat-2 data throughout both missions' time spans. "ULS ice draft since 2003 served as the common data set for cross comparison of the ICESat and CryoSat-2 measurements," said Kwok.

Researchers took extra care to verify CryoSat-2's data, as it is a new satellite with a new instrument. In addition to the ULS data, CryoSat-2 measurements were also verified by two airborne science campaigns: flights by an aircraft operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany; and Operation IceBridge, a NASA mission tasked with monitoring changes in polar ice to bridge the gap in measurements between ICESat and its replacement, ICESat-2, scheduled to launch in 2016. During the 2011 and 2012 Arctic campaigns, the IceBridge team coordinated closely with ESA's CryoVEx program to verify CryoSat-2 data. "IceBridge was used as a validation tool to understand thickness measurements from CryoSat-2," said scientist Nathan Kurtz at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

The Road Ahead

After months of work, researchers had assembled a multi-year dataset, which they could compare to sea ice volume predictions from the Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS). Because of the short time span of previous satellite studies, researchers have used models like PIOMAS to simulate changes in sea ice volume. The study's observations show a larger autumn ice volume decrease than predicted, while changes in the winter are smaller than in the model simulation. "It's important to know because changes in volume indicate changes in heat exchange between the ice, ocean and atmosphere," said Kurtz.

This study, and the knowledge that the datasets are compatible, also serves to lay groundwork for ICESat-2. CryoSat-2 gathers data over more of the Arctic than ICESat did by reaching 88 degrees north (ICESat reached 86 degrees). ICESat-2 will orbit Earth at the same angle as CryoSat-2 and will therefore survey the same amount of the Arctic.

CryoSat-2 is funded through 2017 but will likely operate until the end of the decade, giving overlapping coverage with ICESat-2. This potential overlap greatly improves the prospects for better knowledge of Arctic sea ice volume. "The hope is that we'll be able to create a multi-decadal record using ICESat, CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2," said Kwok.

For more about ICESat, visit: http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/ . For more about Operation IceBridge, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/index.html . For more about CryoSat-2, visit: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/CryoSat . For more about the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project, visit: http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=66296 .

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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

JPL to Lead U.S. Science Team for Dark Energy Mission

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: 2013-055 Feb. 12, 2013

JPL to Lead U.S. Science Team for Dark Energy Mission

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-055&cid=release_2013-055

PASADENA, Calif. -- The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected three NASA-nominated science teams to participate in their planned Euclid mission, including one team led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

NASA is a partner in the Euclid mission, a space telescope designed to probe the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter. Euclid is currently scheduled to launch in 2020.

JPL will provide 16 advanced infrared detectors and four spare detectors for one of two instruments planned for the mission. In addition, JPL will contribute to science planning and data analysis with the help of its 43-member science team, the largest of the three U.S. teams. This team, led by JPL scientist Jason Rhodes, is composed of 29 scientists recently nominated by NASA, and 14 U.S. scientists who are already part of Euclid.

The other two U.S. science teams are led by Ranga-Ram Chary of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; and Alexander Kashlinsky of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; with three and seven members, respectively.

Rhodes also was appointed by NASA to be a member of ESA's principal 12-member Euclid Science Team and the U.S. representative for the Euclid Consortium's governing body. The Euclid Consortium is an international body of 1,000 members, including the U.S. science team members, and will build the instruments and analyze the science data jointly.

"Understanding the hidden contents of the universe and the nature of the dark energy will require the collaboration of astronomers and engineers around the world," said Rhodes.

Euclid will observe up to two billion galaxies occupying more than one-third of the sky with the goal of better understanding the contents of our universe. Everyday matter that we see around us, for example in tables and chairs, people and even stars, makes up only a few percent of everything in our cosmos. If you could fill a bucket with the mass and energy contents of our universe, this everyday matter would fill only a small fraction. A larger amount, about 24 percent, would consist of dark matter, an invisible substance that does not reflect or emit any light, but exerts a gravitational tug on other matter.

The majority of our universal bucket, about 73 percent, is thought to be filled with dark energy, something even more mysterious than dark matter. Whereas dark matter pulls through its gravity, dark energy is thought to be a repulsive force pushing matter apart. Scientists think dark energy may be responsible for stretching our universe apart at ever-increasing speeds, an observation that earned the Nobel Prize in 2011.

Euclid scientists will use two methods to make the most precise measurements yet of our "dark" universe. The first method, called weak lensing, involves analyzing the shapes of billions of galaxies across more than half the age of the universe. When dark matter lies in front of galaxies, it can't be seen, but its gravity distorts the light from the galaxies behind it. More dark matter will lead to slightly larger distortions. By measuring these minute distortions, scientists can understand the amount and distribution of the dark matter between these galaxies and us.

Changes in these dark matter structures over time are governed by interplay between the attractive force of gravity and the repulsive dark energy. Thus, studying galaxy shapes reveals information about both dark matter and dark energy.

The second method, called galaxy clustering or baryon acoustic oscillations, will serve as an independent measurement of dark energy. Early in the universe, galaxies were imprinted with a standard distance between them. This distance -- referred to as a standard ruler -- expands as the universe itself expands. By making precise measurements of the distances between tens of millions of galaxies, the scientists will be able to chart this expansion and learn more about the dark energy driving it. Observations of how the galaxies are clustered will also further probe dark matter.

The JPL-led U.S. science team will employ both of these methods and work together with the rest of the Euclid scientists to shine light on the darkest riddles of our cosmos. Of the 43 team members, six are based at JPL. They are: Olivier Doré, Peter Eisenhardt, Alina Kiessling, Leonidas Moustakas, Jason Rhodes and Daniel Stern. Two additional team members, Peter Capak and Harry Teplitz, are based at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center.

Mike Seiffert is the U.S. project scientist for Euclid at JPL, and Ulf Israelsson is the U.S. project manager at JPL.

Euclid is a European Space Agency mission with science instruments and data analysis provided by the Euclid consortium with important participation from NASA. NASA's Euclid Project Office is based at JPL. JPL will contribute the infrared flight detectors for one of Euclid's two science instruments. NASA Goddard will assist with infrared detector characterization and will perform detailed testing on flight detectors prior to delivery. Three U.S. science teams, led by JPL, Goddard and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech, will contribute to science planning and data analysis. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/euclid and http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=102 .

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Saturn, Afterschool Education Highlighted in Upcoming Workshop

Informal Educator Workshop Feb. 12, 2013

This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

Jewel of the Solar System Workshop

Date: Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013, 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Target audience: Informal educators for 4th and 5th grade students (all educators welcome)

Location: NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, Pomona, Calif.

Overview: Kids love space and the excitement of solar system exploration! Come to this workshop for informal educators and learn about the newest NASA afterschool program guide! Aimed at youth in grades 4 and 5, "Jewel of the Solar System" gives youth and leaders a fun way to learn science and engineering through language and creative arts -- in the context of exploring the planet Saturn. Using materials from your supply closet, follow an active, live robotic planetary exploration mission, NASA's Cassini-Huygens, and help young learners make a personal connection to the excitement of scientific discovery and engineering design.

The workshop will be held at the JPL Educator Resource Center in Pomona, Calif. To sign up, please call the Resource Center at 909-397-4420.

For more information and directions, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115

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NASA Satellites Find Freshwater Losses in Middle East

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

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

Janet Wilson 949-824-3969
University of California, Irvine
janethw@uci.edu

News release: 2013-054 Feb. 12, 2013

NASA Satellites Find Freshwater Losses in Middle East

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-054&cid=release_2013-054

PASADENA, Calif. – A new study using data from a pair of gravity-measuring NASA satellites finds that large parts of the arid Middle East region lost freshwater reserves rapidly during the past decade.

Scientists at the University of California, Irvine; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., found during a seven-year period beginning in 2003 that parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran along the Tigris and Euphrates river basins lost 117 million acre feet (144 cubic kilometers) of total stored freshwater. That is almost the amount of water in the Dead Sea. The researchers attribute about 60 percent of the loss to pumping of groundwater from underground reservoirs.

The findings, to be published Friday, Feb. 15, in the journal Water Resources Research, are the result of one of the first comprehensive hydrological assessments of the entire Tigris-Euphrates-Western Iran region. Because obtaining ground-based data in the area is difficult, satellite data, such as those from NASA's twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, are essential. GRACE is providing a global picture of water storage trends and is invaluable when hydrologic observations are not routinely collected or shared beyond political boundaries.

"GRACE data show an alarming rate of decrease in total water storage in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, which currently have the second fastest rate of groundwater storage loss on Earth, after India," said Jay Famiglietti, principle investigator of the study and a hydrologist and professor at UC Irvine. "The rate was especially striking after the 2007 drought. Meanwhile, demand for freshwater continues to rise, and the region does not coordinate its water management because of different interpretations of international laws."

Famiglietti said GRACE is like having a giant scale in the sky. Within a given region, rising or falling water reserves alter Earth's mass, influencing how strong the local gravitational attraction is. By periodically measuring gravity regionally, GRACE tells us how much each region's water storage changes over time.

"GRACE really is the only way we can estimate groundwater storage changes from space right now," Famiglietti said.

The team calculated about one-fifth of the observed water losses resulted from soil drying up and snowpack shrinking, partly in response to the 2007 drought. Loss of surface water from lakes and reservoirs accounted for about another fifth of the losses. The majority of the water lost -- approximately 73 million acre feet (90 cubic kilometers) -- was due to reductions in groundwater.

"That's enough water to meet the needs of tens of millions to more than a hundred million people in the region each year, depending on regional water use standards and availability," said Famiglietti.

Famiglietti said when a drought reduces an available surface water supply, irrigators and other water users turn to groundwater supplies. For example, the Iraqi government drilled about 1,000 wells in response to the 2007 drought, a number that does not include the numerous private wells landowners also very likely drilled.

"Water management is a complex issue in the Middle East -- an area that already is dealing with limited water resources and competing stakeholders," said Kate Voss, lead author of the study and a water policy fellow with the University of California's Center for Hydrological Modeling in Irvine, which Famiglietti directs.

"The Middle East just does not have that much water to begin with, and it's a part of the world that will be experiencing less rainfall with climate change," said Famiglietti. "Those dry areas are getting dryer. The Middle East and the world's other arid regions need to manage available water resources as best they can."

Study co-author Matt Rodell of Goddard added it is important to remember groundwater is being extracted unsustainably in parts of the United States, as well.

"Groundwater is like your savings account," Rodell said. "It's okay to draw it down when you need it, but if it's not replenished, eventually it will be gone."

GRACE is a joint mission with the German Aerospace Center and the German Research Center for Geosciences, in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin. For more about GRACE, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/grace and http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace . The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA
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Saturday, February 9, 2013

NASA Curiosity Rover Collects First Martian Bedrock Sample

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 818-354-6278
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: 2013-052 Feb. 9, 2013

NASA Curiosity Rover Collects First Martian Bedrock Sample

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-052&cid=release_2013-052

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Curiosity rover has, for the first time, used a drill carried at the end of its robotic arm to bore into a flat, veiny rock on Mars and collect a sample from its interior. This is the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect a sample on Mars.

The fresh hole, about 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) deep in a patch of fine-grained sedimentary bedrock, can be seen in images and other data Curiosity beamed to Earth Saturday. The rock is believed to hold evidence about long-gone wet environments. In pursuit of that evidence, the rover will use its laboratory instruments to analyze rock powder collected by the drill.

"The most advanced planetary robot ever designed is now a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars," said John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. "This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August, another proud day for America."

For the next several days, ground controllers will command the rover's arm to carry out a series of steps to process the sample, ultimately delivering portions to the instruments inside.

"We commanded the first full-depth drilling, and we believe we have collected sufficient material from the rock to meet our objectives of hardware cleaning and sample drop-off," said Avi Okon, drill cognizant engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Rock powder generated during drilling travels up flutes on the bit. The bit assembly has chambers to hold the powder until it can be transferred to the sample-handling mechanisms of the rover's Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) device.

Before the rock powder is analyzed, some will be used to scour traces of material that may have been deposited onto the hardware while the rover was still on Earth, despite thorough cleaning before launch.

"We'll take the powder we acquired and swish it around to scrub the internal surfaces of the drill bit assembly," said JPL's Scott McCloskey, drill systems engineer. "Then we'll use the arm to transfer the powder out of the drill into the scoop, which will be our first chance to see the acquired sample."

"Building a tool to interact forcefully with unpredictable rocks on Mars required an ambitious development and testing program," said JPL's Louise Jandura, chief engineer for Curiosity's sample system. "To get to the point of making this hole in a rock on Mars, we made eight drills and bored more than 1,200 holes in 20 types of rock on Earth."

Inside the sample-handling device, the powder will be vibrated once or twice over a sieve that screens out any particles larger than six-thousandths of an inch (150 microns) across. Small portions of the sieved sample will fall through ports on the rover deck into the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument and the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. These instruments then will begin the much-anticipated detailed analysis.

The rock Curiosity drilled is called "John Klein" in memory of a Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011. Drilling for a sample is the last new activity for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project, which is using the car-size Curiosity rover to investigate whether an area within Mars' Gale Crater has ever offered an environment favorable for life.

JPL manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For images and more information about the mission, 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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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Telescopes Discover Strobe-Like Flashes in a Suspected Binary Protostar

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

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

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

News release: 2013-050 Feb. 7, 2013

NASA Telescopes Discover Strobe-Like Flashes in a Suspected Binary Protostar

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-050&cid=release_2013-050

PASADENA, Calif.-- Two of NASA's great observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, have teamed up to uncover a mysterious infant star that behaves like a strobe light.

Every 25.34 days, the object, designated LRLL 54361, unleashes a burst of light. Although a similar phenomenon has been observed in two other young stellar objects, this is the most powerful such beacon seen to date.

The heart of the fireworks is hidden behind a dense disk and an envelope of dust. Astronomers propose the light flashes are caused by periodic interactions between two newly formed stars that are binary, or gravitationally bound to each other. LRLL 54361 offers insights into the early stages of star formation when lots of gas and dust is being rapidly accreted, or pulled together, to form a new binary star.

Astronomers theorize the flashes are caused by material suddenly being dumped onto the growing stars, known as protostars. A blast of radiation is unleashed each time the stars get close to each other in their orbits. This phenomenon, called pulsed accretion, has been seen in later stages of star birth, but never in such a young system or with such intensity and regularity.

"This protostar has such large brightness variations with a precise period that it is very difficult to explain," said James Muzerolle of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. His paper recently was published in the science journal Nature.

Discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, LRLL 54361 is a variable object inside the star-forming region IC 348, located 950 light-years from Earth. Data from Spitzer revealed the presence of protostars. Based on statistical analysis, the two stars are estimated to be no more than a few hundred thousand years old.

The Spitzer infrared data, collected repeatedly during a period of seven years, showed unusual outbursts in the brightness of the suspected binary protostar. Surprisingly, the outbursts recurred every 25.34 days, which is a very rare phenomenon.

Astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to confirm the Spitzer observations and reveal the detailed stellar structure around LRLL 54361. Hubble observed two cavities above and below a dusty disk. The cavities are visible by tracing light scattered off their edges. They likely were blown out of the surrounding natal envelope of dust and gas by an outflow launched near the central stars. The disk and the envelope prevent the suspected binary star pair from being observed directly. By capturing multiple images over the course of one pulse event, the Hubble observations uncovered a spectacular movement of light away from the center of the system, an optical illusion known as a light echo.

Muzerolle and his team hypothesized the pair of stars in the center of the dust cloud move around one another in a very eccentric orbit. As the stars approach each other, dust and gas are dragged from the inner edge of a surrounding disk. The material ultimately crashes onto one or both stars, which triggers a flash of light that illuminates the circumstellar dust. The system is rare because close binaries account for only a few percent of our galaxy's stellar population. This is likely a brief, transitory phase in the birth of a star system.

Muzerolle's team next plans to continue monitoring LRLL 54361 using other facilities, including the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope. The team hopes to eventually obtain more direct measurements of the binary star and its orbit.

For related images and video, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2013/04 .

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit: http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.,
manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington. For more information on Hubble visit: www.nasa.gov/hubble and http://hubblesite.org/ .

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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

NASA's Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet ISON

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: 2013-047 Feb. 5, 2013

NASA's Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet ISON

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-047&cid=release_2013-047

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has acquired its first images of comet C/2012 S1 (ISON). The images were taken by the spacecraft's Medium-Resolution Imager over a 36-hour period on Jan. 17 and 18, 2013, from a distance of 493 million miles (793 million kilometers). Many scientists anticipate a bright future for comet ISON; the spaceborne conglomeration of dust and ice may put on quite a show as it passes through the inner solar system this fall.

"This is the fourth comet on which we have performed science observations and the farthest point from Earth from which we've tried to transmit data on a comet," said Tim Larson, project manager for the Deep Impact spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The distance limits our bandwidth, so it's a little like communicating through a modem after being used to DSL. But we're going to coordinate our science collection and playback so we maximize our return on this potentially spectacular comet."

Deep Impact has executed close flybys of two comets – Tempel 1 and Hartley 2 – and performed scientific observations on two more – comet Garradd and now ISON. The ISON imaging campaign is expected to yield infrared data, and light curves (which are used in defining the comet's rotation rate) in addition to visible-light images. A movie of comet ISON was generated from initial data acquired during this campaign. Preliminary results indicate that although the comet is still in the outer solar system, more than 474 million miles (763 million kilometers) from the sun, it is already active. As of Jan. 18, the tail extending from ISON's nucleus was already more than 40,000 miles (64,400 kilometers) long.

Long-period comets like ISON are thought to arrive from the solar system's Oort cloud, a giant spherical cloud of icy bodies surrounding our solar system so far away its outer edge is about a third of the way to the nearest star (other than our sun). Every once in a while, one of these loose conglomerations of ice, rock, dust and organic compounds is disturbed out of its established orbit in the Oort cloud by a passing star or the combined gravitational effects of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy. With these gravitational nudges, so begins a comet's eons-long, arching plunge toward the inner solar system.

ISON was discovered on Sept. 21, 2012, by two Russian astronomers using the International Scientific Optical Network's 16-inch (40-centimeter) telescope near Kislovodsk. NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office, based at JPL, has plotted its orbit and determined that the comet is more than likely making it first-ever sweep through the inner solar system. Having not come this way before means the comet's pristine surface has a higher probability of being laden with volatile material just spoiling for some of the sun's energy to heat it up and help it escape. With the exodus of these clean ices could come a boatload of dust, held in check since the beginnings of our solar system. This released gas and dust is what is seen on Earth as comprising a comet's atmosphere (coma) and tail.

ISON will not be a threat to Earth – getting no closer to Earth than about 40 million miles on Dec. 26, 2013. But stargazers will have an opportunity to view the comet's head and tail before and after its closest approach to the sun -- if the comet doesn't fade early or break up before reaching the sun.

Launched in January 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft traveled about 268 million miles (431 million kilometers) to the vicinity of comet Tempel 1. On July 3, 2005, the spacecraft deployed an impactor that was essentially "run over" by the nucleus of Tempel 1 on July 4. Sixteen days after comet encounter, the Deep Impact team placed the spacecraft on a trajectory to fly past Earth in late December 2007. This extended mission of the Deep Impact spacecraft culminated in the successful flyby of comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4, 2010. In January of 2012, the spacecraft performed, from a distance, an imaging campaign on comet C/2009 P1 (Garradd).

To date, Deep Impact has traveled about 4.39 billion miles (7.06 billion kilometers) in space.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Deep Impact mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.
For more information about Deep Impact, visit: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/deepimpact .

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Monday, February 4, 2013

NASA to Host Feb. 7 Media Telecon on Asteroid Flyby

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

Nancy Neal Jones 301-286-0039
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov

Advisory: 2012-043b Feb. 4, 2012

NASA to Host Feb. 7 Media Telecon on Asteroid Flyby

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-043&cid=release_2013-043

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will hold a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST), on Thursday, Feb. 7, to discuss an asteroid, 150 feet (45 meters) in diameter, that will pass close, but safely, by Earth on Feb. 15. The flyby creates a unique opportunity for researchers to observe and learn more about asteroids.

The teleconference participants are:
--Lindley Johnson, program executive, Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
--Timothy Spahr, director, Minor Planet Center, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
--Donald Yeomans, manager, NEO Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
--Amy Mainzer, principal investigator, NEOWISE observatory, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
--Edward Beshore, deputy principal investigator, Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer Asteroid Sample Return Mission, University of Arizona, Tucson

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio and http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .
Related images will be available at the start of the teleconference at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/telecon20130207.html .

For detailed information concerning the Earth flyby of 2012 DA14, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html .

A Ustream feed of the flyby from a telescope at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will be broadcast from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. PST (9 p.m. to midnight EST) on Feb. 15. To view the feed and ask researchers questions via Twitter about the flyby, visit: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc .

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