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Thursday, April 4, 2013

Gravity-Bending Find Leads to Kepler Meeting Einstein

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Used Parachute on Mars Flaps in the Wind

NASA Flies Radar South on Wide-Ranging Expedition

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

News release: 2013-123 April 3, 2013

NASA Flies Radar South on Wide-Ranging Expedition

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-123&cid=release_2013-123

PASADENA, Calif. – A versatile NASA airborne imaging radar system is showcasing its broad scientific prowess for studying our home planet during a month-long expedition over the Americas.

A NASA C-20A piloted aircraft carrying the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) is wrapping up studies over the U.S. Gulf Coast, Arizona, and Central and South America. The plane left NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., on March 7. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., built and manages UAVSAR.

The campaign is addressing a broad range of science questions, from the dynamics of Earth's crust and glaciers to the carbon cycle and the lives of ancient Peruvian civilizations. Flights are being conducted over Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.

UAVSAR uses a technique called interferometry that sends microwave energy pulses from the sensor on the aircraft to the ground. This technique can detect and measure subtle changes in Earth's surface, such as those caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and glacier movements. The radar's L-band microwaves can penetrate clouds and the tops of forests, making it valuable for studying cloud-covered tropical environments and mapping flooded ecosystems.

"This campaign highlights UAVSAR's versatility for Earth studies," said Naiara Pinto, UAVSAR science coordinator at JPL. "In many cases, study sites are being used by multiple investigators. For example, some volcanic sites also have glaciers. The studies also help U.S. researchers establish and broaden scientific collaborations with Latin America."

Volcano scientists will compare UAVSAR's images taken during this campaign with new imagery collected in 2014 to measure very subtle sub-centimeter changes in Earth's surface associated with the movement of magma deep beneath active volcanoes. These results are expected to improve models used to understand and potentially mitigate volcanic hazards. The volcanoes being studied are in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru.

UAVSAR glacier data from South America's Andes Mountains will be combined with ground measurements and airborne lidar data to determine how much these glaciers move during summer and from year to year. The U.S. Geological Survey is leading the collaborative project with the Chilean government to understand glacier processes within the context of climate change impacts from human activities. The glaciers being imaged by UAVSAR provide freshwater for the residents of Santiago and water for regional agriculture.

This year's study sites include coastal mangroves in Central and South America. "Much of Earth's population lives along coasts, and its livelihood and well-being depend on services provided by marine ecosystems," said JPL's Marc Simard, one of the campaign's many principal investigators. "These regions are among the most fragile on Earth. It is critical to understand how the interactions of human activities and climate change may impact the sustainability of these ecosystems."

Another principal investigator, Kyle McDonald, jointly of JPL and the City University of New York Cooperative Remote Sensing Science and Technology Center (CREST) Institute, is leading four data collections that will support the mapping of wetlands across the greater Amazon River basin, including Pacaya-Samiria National Park in Peru. "Pacaya-Samiria contains large expanses of flooded palm swamps," McDonald said. "These ecosystems are potential major sources of atmospheric methane, an important greenhouse gas. UAVSAR will help us better understand processes involved with the exchange of methane between Earth's land and atmosphere, and with the contribution of these unique ecosystems to Earth's climate."

UAVSAR also is supporting agricultural studies of vineyards in Chile's La Serena region. The efforts will help scientists at the Universidad de La Serena's Terra Pacific Group better understand the value of soil moisture data in grape and wine production. Another study site in Argentina will be overflown by both UAVSAR and the Argentine sensor SARAT as part of a collaboration between research scientist Thomas Jackson of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Argentina's Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales. These studies assist scientists preparing for the launch of NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite in 2014.

The radar also is imaging the northern coastal Peruvian desert, where the Moche culture lived almost 2,000 years ago. Researchers are using UAVSAR's vegetation and cloud penetrating capabilities to search for unrecorded archaeological features in an attempt to preserve sensitive sites from encroaching civilization.

JPL researcher Sassan Saatchi is using UAVSAR to study the structure, biomass and diversity of tropical cloud forests in the Peruvian Andes and Manu National Park, continuing his work there during the past decade. The data will be used to evaluate how much carbon the forests contain and assess their vulnerability to human and natural disturbances.

UAVSAR also is monitoring seasonal land subsidence and uplift in groundwater basins in Arizona's Cochise County for the Arizona Department of Water Resources. Other subsidence studies in New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta are aimed at better understanding what causes Gulf Coast subsidence and predicting future subsidence rates. The data can help agencies better manage the protection of infrastructure, including levees in the New Orleans area.

For more information on UAVSAR, visit: http://uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov . For more on NASA's Airborne Science program, visit: http://airbornescience.nasa.gov .

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

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NASA Team Investigates Complex Chemistry at Titan

Monday, April 1, 2013

NASA Sends Unmanned Aircraft to Study Volcanic Plume

Thursday, March 28, 2013

REMINDER: Upcoming Educator Workshop - The Challenge of Discovery

Educator Workshop March 28, 2013

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

Educator Workshop: The Challenge of Discovery

Date: Saturday, April 6, 2013

Target audience: K-12 educators

Location/Time:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.: 8:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. PT
University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.: 8:30 - 2:30 p.m. MT
Johnson Space Center, Houston: 10:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. CT
Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.: 11:30 a.m - 5:30 p.m ET

Overview: What does it take to make a NASA mission happen, and who are the people who drive these tremendous projects?

In the Discovery Program's third annual multi-site professional development workshop, we delve into the stories behind some amazing NASA missions, from conception to science results. Learn how scientists, engineers and mission operators collaborate to meet the challenges of complex missions to assure the science goals are met. Investigate what it takes to move a fantastic idea from dream to reality.

The Challenge of Discovery workshop will take place in four locations (listed above). All sites will offer special speakers, hands-on activities for K-12 and out-of-school-time educators, and resource packets.

The cost of the workshop is $25. Lunch and snacks will be provided.

Learn more and register by April 1 at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/discovery/challenge_of_discovery.asp

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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Saturn is Like an Antiques Shop, Cassini Suggests

Monday, March 25, 2013

NASA Scientists Find Moon and Asteroids Share Cosmic History

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

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

Karen Jenvey 650-604-4789
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
karen.jenvey@nasa.gov

News release: 2013-114 March 25, 2013

NASA Scientists Find Moon and Asteroids Share Cosmic History

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-114&cid=release_2013-114

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA and international researchers have discovered that Earth's moon has more in common than previously thought with large asteroids roaming our solar system.

Scientists from NASA's Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) in Moffett Field, Calif., discovered that the same population of high-speed projectiles that impacted our lunar neighbor four billion years ago, also hit the giant asteroid Vesta and perhaps other large asteroids.

The research unveils an unexpected link between Vesta and the moon, and provides new means for studying the early bombardment history of terrestrial planets. The findings are published in the March issue of Nature Geoscience.

"It's always intriguing when interdisciplinary research changes the way we understand the history of our solar system," said Yvonne Pendleton, NLSI director. "Although the moon is located far from Vesta, which is in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, they seem to share some of the same bombardment history."

The findings support the theory that the repositioning of gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn from their original orbits to their current location destabilized portions of the asteroid belt and triggered a solar system-wide bombardment of asteroids billions of years ago, called the lunar cataclysm.

The research provides new constraints on the start and duration of the lunar cataclysm, and demonstrates that the cataclysm was an event that affected not only the inner solar system planets, but the asteroid belt as well.

The moon rocks brought back by NASA Apollo astronauts have long been used to study the bombardment history of the moon. Now the ages derived from meteorite samples have been used to study the collisional history of main belt asteroids. In particular, howardite and eucrite meteorites, which are common species found on Earth, have been used to study asteroid Vesta, their parent body. With the aid of computer simulations, researchers determined that meteorites from Vesta recorded high-speed impacts which are now long gone.

Researchers have linked these two datasets and found that the same population of projectiles responsible for making craters and basins on the moon were also hitting Vesta at very high velocities, enough to leave behind a number of telltale, impact-related ages.

The team's interpretation of the howardites and eucrites was augmented by recent close-in observations of Vesta's surface by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. In addition, the team used the latest dynamical models of early main belt evolution to discover the likely source of these high velocity impactors. The team determined that the population of projectiles that hit Vesta had orbits that also enabled some objects to strike the moon at high speeds.

"It appears that the asteroidal meteorites show signs of the asteroid belt losing a lot of mass four billion years ago, with the escaped mass beating up on both the surviving main belt asteroids and the moon at high speeds" says lead author Simone Marchi, who has a joint appointment between two of NASA's Lunar Science Institutes, one at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and another at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. "Our research not only supports the current theory, but it takes it to the next level of understanding."

The NLSI is headquartered at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

To learn more about NLSI, visit: http://lunarscience.nasa.gov .

For more information about the Dawn mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/dawn .

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Friday, March 22, 2013

JPL Scientists Reflect on World Water Day

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

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

News feature: 2013-113 March 22, 2013

JPL Scientists Reflect on World Water Day

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-113&cid=release_2013-113

"We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one."
-- Jacques Cousteau

Water. Beautiful. Ever-changing. Life-giving. It envelops us, creates us, nurtures us, defines us, and yet can destroy us in an instant. This chemical compound -- two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen -- that we take for granted as plentiful, is actually remarkably scarce in its freshwater form. Less than three percent of Earth's water is freshwater, and more than two-thirds of that is locked up in glaciers and icecaps and therefore unavailable for drinking or agriculture. Within our solar system, water is even more scarce. And while NASA continues its quest to "follow the water" on Mars, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth scientists and many of its Earth missions are busy studying our Water World and the complex interactions between Earth's water and its atmosphere, land and living organisms that make up our dynamic Earth system.

Each year on March 22, the member states of the United Nations observe World Water Day to focus attention on the importance of freshwater and to advocate for the sustainable management of Earth's precious freshwater resources. In December 2010, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2013 as the United Nations International Year of Water Cooperation. The objective of the year is to raise awareness of the potential for, and value of increased cooperation in relation to water.

We asked several JPL scientists to reflect on World Water Day and the importance of studying Earth's water.

"When it comes to humans and climate change, it is all about the water. It's too dry where you want it wet, too wet where you want it dry, salty where you want it fresh, liquid where you want it solid, and ultimately....you can't grow food without water."
-- Erika Podest, JPL research scientist

"We are now able to see from space all parts of the water cycle on land -- rain and snow, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and deep groundwater, and NASA has another satellite mission on its way to detect river runoff: Surface Water and Ocean Topography, or SWOT. We're combining all these 'eyes on Earth' to make better predictions of water resources, droughts and floods."
-- Josh Fisher, JPL research scientist

"Probing aquifers with NASA airborne radar can help scientists better understand Earth's fossil aquifer systems. The approximate number, occurrence and distribution of those systems remain largely unknown. Much of the evidence for climate change in Earth's deserts lies beneath the surface and is reflected in its groundwater. By mapping desert aquifers with this technology, we can detect layers deposited by ancient geological processes and trace back paleoclimatic conditions that existed thousands of years ago, when many of today's deserts were wet.

"Most recent observations, scientific interest and data analyses of global warming have concentrated on Earth's polar regions and forests, which provide direct measurable evidence of large-scale environmental changes. Arid and semi-arid environments, which represent a substantial portion of Earth's surface, have remained poorly studied. Yet water scarcity and salt content, changes in rainfall, flash floods, high rates of aquifer exploitation and growth of desert regions are all signs that suggest climate change and human activities are also affecting these arid and semi-arid zones."
-- Essam Heggy, JPL research scientist

"Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink."
-- "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

"Since 2002, NASA's twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites have been monitoring large-scale groundwater depletion all over the globe. In northwest India, the Middle East, and also close to home in California's Central Valley aquifer, a significant fraction of the water needed to farm comes from groundwater. With GRACE, we have a tool that allows us to very accurately detect where and how much water is pumped from deep below -- unfortunately, often at unsustainable rates. For example, during the 2006 to 2010 California drought, the equivalent volume of an entire Lake Mead was extracted from the Central Valley Aquifer!"
-- Felix Landerer, JPL research scientist

"In Colombia, the country where I was born, it rained constantly for more than a year. At the same time, the United States, where I now live, was experiencing extreme droughts. The movement of water is global, giving to some what it takes from others. As Earth's climate changes, changes in precipitation and water storage will change the way we live. We need to understand how, and how we can adapt."
-- Ernesto Rodriguez, QuikScat project scientist; ISS-RapidScat principal investigator; mission design lead, Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission

"More than 90 percent of the water vapor traveling from the tropical oceans to Earth's mid-latitudes is contained in narrow channels in the lower atmosphere called 'atmospheric rivers,' where the amount of water transported is comparable to the largest rivers on Earth. In our studies of California's Sierra Nevada Mountains, we found that snowfall produced by atmospheric rivers accounts for, on average, nearly 50 percent of the total water storage in the seasonal snowpack. However, we also found the amount of snow deposited during atmospheric river events is sensitive to air temperature changes on the order of a few degrees -- that is, similar to future projections of regional climate warming. This is one example of how vulnerable our natural water system could be, and of the importance of water cooperation."
-- Bin Guan, JPL research scientist

"Water sustains all."
-- Thales of Miletus, 600 B.C.

"Water, water everywhere, but ... almost none of it is for drinking. Why? On Earth, more than 97 percent of our precious water is in the ocean and is salty. Even though we can't drink our oceans, they have provided the unique crucible where life developed and thrived, and our oceans are the great buffer that provides our 'near-perfect' climate. But in the past century, the oceans are warming, rising and becoming more acidic. Without consideration for the consequences, humankind is upsetting the climate that has sustained our civilizations for millennia. We are behaving thoughtlessly, foolishly and dangerously. If we abuse the oceans, we put all life on Earth in peril. On this World Water Day, it's imperative that each of us pledges to handle the oceans with care."
-- Bill Patzert, JPL climatologist

"As exemplified by NASA and JPL's remarkable achievements in the search for water on Mars, we are using this world-class science and engineering expertise to measure Earth's freshwater reservoirs and fluxes. During this decade, we will see come to fruition the capabilities to monitor nearly every component of Earth's freshwater -- from the snow and ice at the poles and in our mountains to the groundwater deep beneath our feet, and all that lies between, such as water vapor, clouds and precipitation in the atmosphere and stream flow and soil moisture on the ground. As the demand for this precious resource increase with population growth and societal and ecosystem vulnerabilities change and/or grow in conjunction with climate change, these capabilities will become vital to maintaining our thriving society."
-- Duane Waliser, JPL chief Earth scientist

"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"On a warming planet, the shifting water resources will cast a significant impact on our society. The steady source of freshwater from the mountaintops that has fostered human civilization for thousands of years has begun changing rapidly. We do not even have an adequate inventory of Earth's lakes. Only 15 percent of the lakes are measurable from space. Millions of small lakes have not yet been mapped and monitored. In addition, existing stream gauges cover only very large river basins, yet we do not have adequate knowledge of the river flow (or its discharge) in most of the river basins that sustain human needs.

"The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission planned for launch in 2020 -- jointly developed and managed by NASA, the French Space Agency (CNES) and the Canadian Space Agency -- will make measurements of the inventory of lakes and the discharge of rivers that are key to understanding the global water cycle on land; studying the dynamics of floodplains and wetlands, which have important impact on flood control and the balance of ecosystems; and providing a global assessment of water resources, including transboundary rivers, lake and reservoir storage and river dynamics."
-- Lee-Lueng Fu, JPL senior research scientist/Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission project scientist

Several of the new NASA JPL Earth satellite missions launching in 2014 and early 2015 will "follow the water" on Earth, among them:
- ISS-RapidScat, which will measure ocean surface wind speed and direction and help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring.
- Jason-3, which will extend the timeline of ocean surface topography measurements begun by the Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites, making highly detailed measurements of sea level on Earth to gain insight into ocean circulation and climate change.
- Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), which will measure how much water is in the top layer of Earth's soil. Among the mission's many benefits, it will help us better understand and manage water resources; better understand Earth's terrestrial water, carbon and energy cycles; and improve flood predictions and drought monitoring.

Related links:

World Water Day: http://www.worldwaterday.org
GRACE: http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/science/
SWOT: http://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/
SMAP: http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov/
ISS-RapidScat: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/ISSRapidScat.html
Jason-3: http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/jason3/
JPL Western Water Resource Solutions website: http://water.jpl.nasa.gov/
JPL Earth science: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/earth/
NASA Global Climate Change: http://climate.nasa.gov/
NASA Earth science: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/index.html

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

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Thursday, March 21, 2013

Supercomputer Helps Planck Mission Expose Ancient Light