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Monday, August 12, 2013

JPL, Masten Testing New Precision Landing Software

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

Leslie Williams / Alan Brown 661-276-3893 / 276-2665
Dryden Flight Research Center
leslie.a.williams@nasa.gov / alan.brown-1@nasa.gov

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

News feature: 2013-247 Aug. 12, 2013

JPL, Masten Testing New Precision Landing Software

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-247&cid=release_2013-247

A year after NASA's Mars rover Curiosity's landed on Mars, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., are testing a sophisticated flight-control algorithm that could
allow for even more precise, pinpoint landings of future Martian spacecraft.

Flight testing of the new Fuel Optimal Large Divert Guidance algorithm – G-FOLD for short –
for planetary pinpoint landing is being conducted jointly by JPL engineers in cooperation with
Masten Space Systems in Mojave, Calif., using Masten's XA-0.1B "Xombie" vertical-launch,
vertical-landing experimental rocket.

NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate is facilitating the tests via its Game-Changing
Development and Flight Opportunities Programs; the latter managed at NASA's Dryden Flight
Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The two space technology programs work
together to test game-changing technologies by taking advantage of Flight Opportunities'
commercially provided suborbital platforms and flights.

"The Flight Opportunities Program supports both the development of innovative space
technology and the emerging suborbital industry by using commercial suborbital vehicles to test
concepts that could further mankind's exploration and understanding of the universe," said
Christopher Baker, a campaign manager for the program. "The collaboration between JPL and
Masten to test G-FOLD is a great example of how we hope to further the exploration of the solar
system while building up the industrial base needed to advance future space endeavors."

Current powered-descent guidance algorithms used for spacecraft landings are inherited from the
Apollo era. These algorithms do not optimize fuel usage and significantly limit how far the
landing craft can be diverted during descent. The new G-FOLD algorithm invented by JPL
autonomously generates fuel-optimal landing trajectories in real time and provides a key new
technology required for planetary pinpoint landing. Pinpoint landing capability will allow robotic
missions to access currently inaccessible science targets. For crewed missions, it will allow
increased precision with minimal fuel requirements to enable landing larger payloads in close
proximity to predetermined targets.

Masten Space Systems launched the Xombie July 30 from the company's test pad at the Mojave
Air and Space Port. JPL and Masten are planning to conduct a second flight test with a more
complicated divert profile in August, pending data analysis.

To simulate a course correction during a Martian entry in the July test, Masten's Xombie was
given a vertical descent profile to an incorrect landing point. About 90 feet into the profile, the
G-FOLD flight control software was automatically triggered to calculate a new flight profile in
real-time, and the rocket was successfully diverted to the "correct" landing point some 2,460 feet
away.

"This flight was an unprecedented free-flying demonstration of the on-board calculation of a
fuel-optimal trajectory in real time," said Martin Regehr, acting task lead for the Autonomous
Descent Ascent Powered-Flight Testbed at JPL.

Masten Space Systems is one of seven suborbital reusable launch companies contracted by
NASA's Flight Opportunities Program to fly experiments in sub-orbital space to verify new
technologies work as expected in this harsh environment.

NASA Dryden also aided development of Curiosity's "sky crane" landing system by conducting
two series of pre-launch flight tests of its landing radar, the first under a helicopter in 2010 and a
follow-on series with the radar housed in a Quick Test Experimental Pod mounted under the
wing of a Dryden F/A-18 in June 2011. The 2011 tests focused on the on-chute acquisition
portion of the Mars Science Laboratory's entry into the Martian atmosphere, when the spacecraft
was suspended from its parachute. Data collected from the flights were used to finesse the
mission's landing radar software to ensure that it was calibrated as accurately as possible prior to
Curiosity's landing.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Curiosity
project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For information about Curiosity's
accomplishments over the past year, visit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

For more on flight tests of Curiosity's landing radar, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/F-18_flying_msl_radar.html .

For more on NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/home/ .
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Wednesday, August 7, 2013

If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?

Friday, August 2, 2013

NASA's Curiosity Nearing First Anniversary 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 818-354-6278
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: 2013-240 Aug. 2, 2013

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Nears Turning Point

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-240&cid=release_2013-240

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Curiosity rover will mark one year on Mars next week and has already
achieved its main science goal of revealing ancient Mars could have supported life. The mobile
laboratory also is guiding designs for future planetary missions.

"Successes of our Curiosity -- that dramatic touchdown a year ago and the science findings since then --
advance us toward further exploration, including sending humans to an asteroid and Mars," said NASA
Administrator Charles Bolden. "Wheel tracks now, will lead to boot prints later."

After inspiring millions of people worldwide with its successful landing in a crater on the Red Planet on
Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (Aug. 6, 2012, EDT), Curiosity has provided more than 190 gigabits of data;
returned more than 36,700 full images and 35,000 thumbnail images; fired more than 75,000 laser shots
to investigate the composition of targets; collected and analyzed sample material from two rocks; and
driven more than one mile (1.6 kilometers).

Curiosity team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,will share
remembrances about the dramatic landing night and the overall mission in an event that will air on
NASA Television and the agency's website from 7:45 to 9 a.m. PDT (10:45 a.m. to noon EDT) on
Tuesday, Aug. 6. Immediately following that program, from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. (noon to 1:30 p.m.),
NASA TV will carry a live public event from NASA Headquarters in Washington. That event will
feature NASA officials and crew members aboard the International Space Station as they observe the
rover anniversary and discuss how its activities and other robotic projects are helping prepare for a
human mission to Mars and an asteroid. Social media followers may submit questions on Twitter and
Google+ in advance and during the event using the hashtag #askNASA.

Curiosity, which is the size of a car, traveled 764 yards (699 meters) in the past four weeks since leaving
a group of science targets where it worked for more than six months. The rover is making its way to the
base of Mount Sharp, where it will investigate lower layers of a mountain that rises three miles from the
floor of the crater.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft and its unprecedented sky crane landing system placed
Curiosity on Mars near the base of Mount Sharp. The mountain has exposed geological layers, including
ones identified by Mars orbiters as originating in a wet environment. The rover landed about one mile
(1.6 kilometers) from the center of that carefully chosen, 12-mile-long (20-kilometer-long) target area.

Scientists decided first to investigate closer outcrops where the mission quickly found signs of vigorous
ancient stream flow. These were the first streambed pebble deposits ever examined up close on Mars.

Evidence of a past environment well suited to support microbial life came within the first eight months
of the 23-month primary mission from analysis of the first sample material ever collected by drilling into
a rock on Mars.

"We now know Mars offered favorable conditions for microbial life billions of years ago," said the
mission's project scientist, John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It has
been gratifying to succeed, but that has also whetted our appetites to learn more. We hope those enticing
layers at Mount Sharp will preserve a broad diversity of other environmental conditions that could have
affected habitability."

The mission measured natural radiation levels on the trip to Mars and is monitoring radiation and
weather on the surface of Mars, which will be helpful for designing future human missions to the planet.
The Curiosity mission also found evidence Mars lost most of its original atmosphere through processes
that occurred at the top of the atmosphere. NASA's next mission to Mars, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile
Evolution (MAVEN), is being prepared for launch in November to study those processes in the upper
atmosphere.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Curiosity mission and
built the rover for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

To follow the conversation online about Curiosity's first year on Mars, use hashtag #1YearOnMars or
follow @NASA and @MarsCuriosity on Twitter.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .
The events airing on Tuesday also will be carried on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .

A movie made with Hazard-Avoidance Camera images from Curiosity's first year, titled "Twelve
Months in Two Minutes," is available at http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/1yearin2mins .

For more information about the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl and
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .
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Thursday, August 1, 2013

Monster Galaxies Lose Their Appetite With Age

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

News feature: 2013-239 Aug. 1, 2013

Monster Galaxies Lose Their Appetite With Age

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-239&cid=release_2013-239

Our universe is filled with gobs of galaxies, bound together by gravity into larger families
called clusters. Lying at the heart of most clusters is a monster galaxy thought to grow in
size by merging with neighboring galaxies, a process astronomers call galactic
cannibalism.

New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey
Explorer (WISE) is showing that, contrary to previous theories, these gargantuan galaxies
appear to slow their growth over time, feeding less and less off neighboring galaxies.

"We've found that these massive galaxies may have started a diet in the last 5 billion
years, and therefore have not gained much weight lately," said Yen-Ting Lin of the
Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, lead author of a study published in the Astrophysical
Journal.

Peter Eisenhardt, a co-author from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,
said, "WISE and Spitzer are letting us see that there is a lot we do understand -- but also a
lot we don't understand -- about the mass of the most massive galaxies." Eisenhardt
identified the sample of galaxy clusters studied by Spitzer, and is the project scientist for
WISE.

The new findings will help researchers understand how galaxy clusters -- among the most
massive structures in our universe -- form and evolve.

Galaxy clusters are made up of thousands of galaxies, gathered around their biggest
member, what astronomers call the brightest cluster galaxy, or BCG. BCGs can be up to
dozens of times the mass of galaxies like our own Milky Way. They plump up in size by
cannibalizing other galaxies, as well as assimilating stars that are funneled into the
middle of a growing cluster.

To monitor how this process works, the astronomers surveyed nearly 300 galaxy clusters
spanning 9 billion years of cosmic time. The farthest cluster dates back to a time when
the universe was 4.3 billion years old, and the closest, when the universe was much older,
13 billion years old (our universe is presently 13.8 billion years old).

"You can't watch a galaxy grow, so we took a population census," said Lin. "Our new
approach allows us to connect the average properties of clusters we observe in the
relatively recent past with ones we observe further back in the history of the universe."

Spitzer and WISE are both infrared telescopes, but they have unique characteristics that
complement each other in studies like these. For instance, Spitzer can see more detail
than WISE, which enables it to capture the farthest clusters best. On the other hand,
WISE, an infrared all-sky survey, is better at capturing images of nearby clusters, thanks
to its larger field of view. Spitzer is still up and observing; WISE went into hibernation in
2011 after successfully scanning the sky twice.

The findings showed that BCG growth proceeded along rates predicted by theories until 5
billion years ago, or a time when the universe was about 8 billion years old. After that
time, it appears the galaxies, for the most part, stopped munching on other galaxies
around them.

The scientists are uncertain about the cause of BCGs' diminished appetites, but the results
suggest current models need tinkering.

"BCGs are a bit like blue whales -- both are gigantic and very rare in number. Our census
of the population of BCGs is in a way similar to measuring how the whales gain their
weight as they age. In our case, the whales aren't gaining as much weight as we thought.
Our theories aren't matching what we observed, leading us to new questions," said Lin.

Another possible explanation is that the surveys are missing large numbers of stars in the
more mature clusters. Clusters can be violent environments, where stars are stripped from
colliding galaxies and flung into space. If the recent observations are not detecting those
stars, it's possible that the enormous galaxies are, in fact, continuing to bulk up.

Future studies from Lin and others should reveal more about the feeding habits of one of
nature's largest galactic species.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center
at the California Institute of Technology 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 .

JPL managed and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Edward
Wright is the principal investigator and is at UCLA. The mission was selected
competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space
Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place
at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information is online at
http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .

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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Reveals Forces Controlling Saturn Moon Jets

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

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

News release: 2013-237 July 31, 2013

NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Reveals Forces Controlling Saturn Moon Jets

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-237&cid=release_2013-237

PASADENA, Calif. -- The intensity of the jets of water ice and organic particles that shoot out from
Saturn's moon Enceladus depends on the moon's proximity to the ringed planet, according to data
obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

The finding adds to evidence that a liquid water reservoir or ocean lurks under the icy surface of the
moon. This is the first clear observation the bright plume emanating from Enceladus' south pole
varies predictably. The findings are detailed in a scientific paper in this week's edition of Nature.

"The jets of Enceladus apparently work like adjustable garden hose nozzles," said Matt Hedman, the
paper's lead author and a Cassini team scientist based at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "The
nozzles are almost closed when Enceladus is closer to Saturn and are most open when the moon is
farthest away. We think this has to do with how Saturn squeezes and releases the moon with its
gravity."

Cassini, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, discovered the jets that form the plume in 2005.
The water ice and organic particles spray out from several narrow fissures nicknamed "tiger stripes."

"The way the jets react so responsively to changing stresses on Enceladus suggests they have their
origins in a large body of liquid water," said Christophe Sotin, a co-author and Cassini team member
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Liquid water was key to the development
of life on Earth, so these discoveries whet the appetite to know whether life exists everywhere water
is present."

For years scientists hypothesized the intensity of the jets likely varied over time, but no one had been
able to show they changed in a recognizable pattern. Hedman and colleagues were able to see the
changes by examining infrared data of the plume as a whole, obtained by Cassini's visual and infrared
mapping spectrometer (VIMS), and looking at data gathered over a long period of time.

The VIMS instrument, which enables the analysis of a wide range of data including the hydrocarbon
composition of the surface of another Saturnian moon, Titan, and the seismological signs of Saturn's
vibrations in its rings, collected more than 200 images of the Enceladus plume from 2005 to 2012.

These data show the plume was dimmest when the moon was at the closest point in its orbit to Saturn.
The plume gradually brightened until Enceladus was at the most distant point, where it was three to
four times brighter than the dimmest detection. This is comparable to moving from a dim hallway
into a brightly lit office.

Adding the brightness data to previous models of how Saturn squeezes Enceladus, the scientists
deduced the stronger gravitational squeeze near the planet reduces the opening of the tiger stripes and
the amount of material spraying out. They think the relaxing of Saturn's gravity farther away from
planet allows the tiger stripes to be more open and for the spray to escape in larger quantities.

"Cassini's time at Saturn has shown us how active and kaleidoscopic this planet, its rings and its
moons are," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL. "We've come a long way from the
placid-looking Saturn that Galileo first spied through his telescope. We hope to learn more about the
forces at work here as a microcosm for how our solar system formed."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the
Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages
the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The VIMS team is based at the
University of Arizona in Tucson.

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

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Spitzer Discovers Young Stars with a 'Hula Hoop'

Thursday, July 25, 2013

NASA's WISE Finds Mysterious Centaurs May Be Comets

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: 2013-234 July 25, 2013

NASA's WISE Finds Mysterious Centaurs May Be Comets

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-234&cid=release_2013-234

PASADENA, Calf. -- The true identity of centaurs, the small celestial bodies orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Neptune, is one of the enduring mysteries of astrophysics. Are they asteroids or comets? A new study of observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) finds most centaurs are comets.

Until now, astronomers were not certain whether centaurs are asteroids flung out from the inner solar system or comets traveling in toward the sun from afar. Because of their dual nature, they take their name from the creature in Greek mythology whose head and torso are human and legs are those of a horse.

"Just like the mythical creatures, the centaur objects seem to have a double life," said James Bauer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Bauer is lead author of a paper published online July 22 in the Astrophysical Journal. "Our data point to a cometary origin for most of the objects, suggesting they are coming from deeper out in the solar system."

"Cometary origin" means an object likely is made from the same material as a comet, may have been an active comet in the past, and may be active again in the future.

The findings come from the largest infrared survey to date of centaurs and their more distant cousins, called scattered disk objects. NEOWISE, the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission, gathered infrared images of 52 centaurs and scattered disk objects. Fifteen of the 52 are new discoveries. Centaurs and scattered disk objects orbit in an unstable belt. Ultimately, gravity from the giant planets will fling them either closer to the sun or farther away from their current locations.

Although astronomers previously observed some centaurs with dusty halos, a common feature of outgassing comets, and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope also found some evidence for comets in the group, they had not been able to estimate the numbers of comets and asteroids.

Infrared data from NEOWISE provided information on the objects' albedos, or reflectivity, to help astronomers sort the population. NEOWISE can tell whether a centaur has a matte and dark surface or a shiny one that reflects more light. The puzzle pieces fell into place when astronomers combined the albedo information with what was already known about the colors of the objects. Visible-light observations have shown centaurs generally to be either blue-gray or reddish in hue. A blue-gray object could be an asteroid or comet. NEOWISE showed that most of the blue-gray objects are dark, a telltale sign of comets. A reddish object is more likely to be an asteroid.

"Comets have a dark, soot-like coating on their icy surfaces, making them darker than most asteroids," said the study's co-author, Tommy Grav of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz. "Comet surfaces tend to be more like charcoal, while asteroids are usually shinier like the moon."

The results indicate that roughly two-thirds of the centaur population are comets, which come from the frigid outer reaches of our solar system. It is not clear whether the rest are asteroids. The centaur bodies have not lost their mystique entirely, but future research from NEOWISE may reveal their secrets further.

The paper is available online at: http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/773/1/22/ .

JPL, managed by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, managed and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The NEOWISE portion of the project was funded by NASA's Near Earth Object Observation Program. WISE completed its key mission objective, two scans of the entire sky, in 2011 and has been hibernating in space since then.

For more information about the WISE mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/wise .

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Tuesday, July 23, 2013

NASA's Spitzer Observes Gas Emission From Comet ISON

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

Geoffrey Brown 240-228-5618
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
geoffrey.brown@jhuapl.edu

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

News release: 2013-231 July 23, 2013

NASA's Spitzer Observes Gas Emission From Comet ISON

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-231&cid=release_2013-231

PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have observed what most likely are strong carbon dioxide emissions from Comet ISON ahead of its anticipated pass through the inner solar system later this year.

Images captured June 13 with Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera indicate carbon dioxide is slowly and steadily "fizzing" away from the so-called "soda-pop comet," along with dust, in a tail about 186,400 miles (300,000 kilometers) long.

"We estimate ISON is emitting about 2.2 million pounds (1 million kilograms) of what is most likely carbon dioxide gas and about 120 million pounds (54.4 million kilograms) of dust every day," said Carey Lisse, leader of NASA's Comet ISON Observation Campaign and a senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "Previous observations made by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission and Deep Impact spacecraft gave us only upper limits for any gas emission from ISON. Thanks to Spitzer, we now know for sure the comet's distant activity has been powered by gas."

Comet ISON was about 312 million miles (502 million kilometers) from the sun, 3.35 times farther than Earth, when the observations were made.

"These fabulous observations of ISON are unique and set the stage for more observations and discoveries to follow as part of a comprehensive NASA campaign to observe the comet," said James L. Green, NASA's director of planetary science in Washington. "ISON is very exciting. We believe that data collected from this comet can help explain how and when the solar system first formed."

Comet ISON (officially known as C/2012 S1) is less than 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) in diameter, about the size of a small mountain, and weighs between 7 billion and 7 trillion pounds (3.2 billion and 3.2 trillion kilograms). Because the comet is still very far away, its true size and density have not been determined accurately. Like all comets, ISON is a dirty snowball made up of dust and frozen gases such as water, ammonia, methane and carbon dioxide. These are some of the fundamental building blocks, which scientists believe led to the formation of the planets 4.5 billion years ago.

Comet ISON is believed to be inbound on its first passage from the distant Oort Cloud, a roughly spherical collection of comets and comet-like structures that exists in a space between one-tenth light-year and 1 light-year from the sun. The comet will pass within 724,000 miles (1.16 million kilometers) of the sun on Nov. 28.

It is warming up gradually as it gets closer to the sun. In the process, different gases are heating up to the point of evaporation, revealing themselves to instruments in space and on the ground. Carbon dioxide is thought to be the gas that powers emission for most comets between the orbits of Saturn and the asteroids.

The comet was discovered Sept. 21, roughly between Jupiter and Saturn, by Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok at the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) near Kislovodsk, Russia. This counts as an early detection of a comet, and the strong carbon dioxide emissions may have made the detection possible.

"This observation gives us a good picture of part of the composition of ISON, and, by extension, of the proto-planetary disk from which the planets were formed," said Lisse. "Much of the carbon in the comet appears to be locked up in carbon dioxide ice. We will know even more in late July and August, when the comet begins to warm up near the water-ice line outside of the orbit of Mars, and we can detect the most abundant frozen gas, which is water, as it boils away from the comet."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in 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://www.nasa.gov/spitzer . Learn more about NASA's Comet ISON Observing Campaign: http://www.isoncampaign.org . NASA's Comet ISON Toolkit is at: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ison .

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JPL Selects NASA Deep Space Network Subcontractor

Monday, July 22, 2013

NASA Releases Images of Earth Taken by Distant Spacecraft

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

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

News release: 2013-229 July 22, 2013

NASA Releases Images of Earth Taken by Distant Spacecraft

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-229&cid=release_2013-229

PASADENA, Calif. -- Color and black-and-white images of Earth taken by two NASA interplanetary spacecraft on July 19 show our planet and its moon as bright beacons from millions of miles away in space.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) away. MESSENGER, the first probe to orbit Mercury, took a black-and-white image from a distance of 61 million miles (98 million kilometers) as part of a campaign to search for natural satellites of the planet.

In the Cassini images Earth and the moon appear as mere dots -- Earth a pale blue and the moon a stark white, visible between Saturn's rings. It was the first time Cassini's highest-resolution camera captured Earth and its moon as two distinct objects.

It also marked the first time people on Earth had advance notice their planet's portrait was being taken from interplanetary distances. NASA invited the public to celebrate by finding Saturn in their part of the sky, waving at the ringed planet and sharing pictures over the Internet. More than 20,000 people around the world participated.

"We can't see individual continents or people in this portrait of Earth, but this pale blue dot is a succinct summary of who we were on July 19," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Cassini's picture reminds us how tiny our home planet is in the vastness of space, and also testifies to the ingenuity of the citizens of this tiny planet to send a robotic spacecraft so far away from home to study Saturn and take a look-back photo of Earth."

Pictures of Earth from the outer solar system are rare because from that distance, Earth appears very close to our sun. A camera's sensitive detectors can be damaged by looking directly at the sun, just as a human being can damage his or her retina by doing the same. Cassini was able to take this image because the sun had temporarily moved behind Saturn from the spacecraft's point of view and most of the light was blocked.

A wide-angle image of Earth will become part of a multi-image picture, or mosaic, of Saturn's rings, which scientists are assembling. This image is not expected to be available for several weeks because of the time-consuming challenges involved in blending images taken in changing geometry and at vastly different light levels, with faint and extraordinarily bright targets side by side.

"It thrills me to no end that people all over the world took a break from their normal activities to go outside and celebrate the interplanetary salute between robot and maker that these images represent," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. "The whole event underscores for me our 'coming of age' as planetary explorers."

In the MESSENGER image, Earth and the moon are less than a pixel, but appear very large because they are overexposed. Long exposures are required to capture as much light as possible from potentially dim objects. Consequently, bright objects in the field of view become saturated and appear artificially large.

"That images of our planet have been acquired on a single day from two distant solar system outposts reminds us of this nation's stunning technical accomplishments in planetary exploration," said MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. "And because Mercury and Saturn are such different outcomes of planetary formation and evolution, these two images also highlight what is special about Earth. There's no place like home."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., designed and built MESSENGER, a spacecraft developed under NASA's Discovery Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL and APL manage their respective missions for NASA. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

More information about the picture and the Wave at Saturn campaign is available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/waveatsaturn .

To view the MESSENGER images, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/16Vnt5G .

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