NASA Rover Finds Clue to Mars' Past and Environment for Life

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

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

William Jeffs 281-483-5111
Johnson Space Center, Houston
william.p.jeffs@nasa.gov

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

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-189 June 3, 2010

NASA ROVER FINDS CLUE TO MARS' PAST AND ENVIRONMENT FOR LIFE

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-189&cid=release_2010-189

PASADENA, Calif. -- Rocks examined by NASA's Spirit Mars Rover hold evidence of a
wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have been favorable for life. Confirming this
mineral clue took four years of analysis by several scientists.

An outcrop that Spirit examined in late 2005 revealed high concentrations of carbonate,
which originates in wet, near-neutral conditions, but dissolves in acid. The ancient water
indicated by this find was not acidic.

NASA's rovers have found other evidence of formerly wet Martian environments. However,
the data for those environments indicate conditions that may have been acidic. In other cases,
the conditions were definitely acidic, and therefore less favorable as habitats for life.

Laboratory tests helped confirm the carbonate identification. The findings were published
online Thursday, June 3 by the journal Science.

"This is one of the most significant findings by the rovers," said Steve Squyres of Cornell
University in Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is principal investigator for the Mars twin rovers, Spirit
and Opportunity, and a co-author of the new report. "A substantial carbonate deposit in a
Mars outcrop tells us that conditions that could have been quite favorable for life were
present at one time in that place."

Spirit inspected rock outcrops, including one scientists called Comanche, along the rover's
route from the top of Husband Hill to the vicinity of the Home Plate plateau that Spirit has
studied since 2006. Magnesium iron carbonate makes up about one-fourth of the measured
volume in Comanche. That is a tenfold higher concentration than any previously identified
for carbonate in a Martian rock.

"We used detective work combining results from three spectrometers to lock this down," said
Dick Morris, lead author of the report and a member of a rover science team at NASA's
Johnson Space Center in Houston."The instruments gave us multiple, interlocking ways of
confirming the magnesium iron carbonate, with a good handle on how much there is."

Massive carbonate deposits on Mars have been sought for years without much success.
Numerous channels apparently carved by flows of liquid water on ancient Mars suggest the
planet was formerly warmer, thanks to greenhouse warming from a thicker atmosphere than
exists now. The ancient, dense Martian atmosphere was probably rich in carbon dioxide,
because that gas makes up nearly all the modern, very thin atmosphere.

It is important to determine where most of the carbon dioxide went. Some theorize it
departed to space. Others hypothesize that it left the atmosphere by the mixing of carbon
dioxide with water under conditions that led to forming carbonate minerals. That possibility,
plus finding small amounts of carbonate in meteorites that originated from Mars, led to
expectations in the 1990s that carbonate would be abundant on Mars. However, mineral-
mapping spectrometers on orbiters since then have found evidence of localized carbonate
deposits in only one area, plus small amounts distributed globally in Martian dust.

Morris suspected iron-bearing carbonate at Comanche years ago from inspection of the rock
with Spirit's Moessbauer Spectrometer, which provides information about iron-containing
minerals. Confirming evidence from other instruments emerged slowly. The instrument with
the best capability for detecting carbonates, the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer,
had its mirror contaminated with dust earlier in 2005, during a wind event that also cleaned
Spirit's solar panels.

"It was like looking through dirty glasses," said Steve Ruff of Arizona State University in
Tempe, Ariz., another co-author of the report. "We could tell there was something very
different about Comanche compared with other outcrops we had seen, but we couldn't tell
what it was until we developed a correction method to account for the dust on the mirror."

Spirit's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer instrument detected a high concentration of light
elements, a group including carbon and oxygen, that helped quantify the carbonate content.

The rovers landed on Mars in January 2004 for missions originally planned to last three
months. Spirit has been out of communication since March 22 and is in a low-power
hibernation status during Martian winter. Opportunity is making steady progress toward a
large crater, Endeavour, which is about 11 kilometers (7 miles) away.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rovers for the
agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the rovers,
visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers.

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Backwards Black Holes Might Make Bigger Jets

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
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NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

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

Lynn Chandler (301) 286-2806
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
lynn.chandler-1@nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-186 June 1, 2010

BACKWARDS BLACK HOLES MIGHT MAKE BIGGER JETS

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-186&cid=release_2010-186

PASADENA, Calif. – Going against the grain may turn out to be a powerful move for black
holes. New research suggests supermassive black holes that spin backwards might produce more
ferocious jets of gas. The results have broad implications for how galaxies change over time.

"A lot of what happens in an entire galaxy depends on what's going on in the miniscule central
region where the black hole lies," said theoretical astrophysicist David Garofalo of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Garofalo is lead author of a new paper that appeared
online May 27 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Other authors are
Daniel A. Evans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., and Rita M.
Sambruna of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Black holes are immense distortions of space and time with gravity that is so great, even light
itself cannot escape. Astronomers have known for more than a decade that all galaxies, including
our own Milky Way, are anchored by tremendous, so-called supermassive black holes, containing
billions of suns' worth of mass. The black holes are surrounded and nourished by disks of gas
and dust, called accretion disks. Powerful jets stream out from below and above the disks like
lasers, and fierce winds blow off from the disks themselves.

The black holes can spin either in the same direction as the disks, called prograde black holes, or
against the flow – the retrograde black holes. For decades, astronomers thought that the faster
the spin of the black hole, the more powerful the jet. But there were problems with this "spin
paradigm" model. For example, some prograde black holes had been found with no jets.

Garofalo and his colleagues have been busy flipping the model on its head. In previous papers,
they proposed that the backward, or retrograde, black holes spew the most powerful jets, while
the prograde black holes have weaker or no jets.

The new study links the researchers' theory with observations of galaxies across time, or at
varying distances from Earth. They looked at both "radio-loud" galaxies with jets, and "radio-
quiet" ones with weak or no jets. The term "radio" comes from the fact that these particular jets
shoot out beams of light mostly in the form of radio waves.

The results showed that more distant radio-loud galaxies are powered by retrograde black holes,
while relatively closer radio-quiet objects have prograde black holes. According to the team, the
supermassive black holes evolve over time from a retrograde to a prograde state.

"This new model also solves a paradox in the old spin paradigm," said David Meier, a theoretical
astrophysicist at JPL not involved in the study. "Everything now fits nicely into place."

The scientists say that the backward black holes shoot more powerful jets because there's more
space between the black hole and the inner edge of the orbiting disk. This gap provides more
room for the build-up of magnetic fields, which fuel the jets, an idea known as the Reynold's
conjecture after the theoretical astrophysicist Chris Reynolds of the University of Maryland,
College Park.

"If you picture yourself trying to get closer to a fan, you can imagine that moving in the same
rotational direction as the fan would make things easier," said Garofalo. "The same principle
applies to these black holes. The material orbiting around them in a disk will get closer to the ones
that are spinning in the same direction versus the ones spinning the opposite way."

Jets and winds play key roles in shaping the fate of galaxies. Some research shows that jets can
slow and even prevent the formation of stars not just in a host galaxy itself, but also in other
nearby galaxies.

"Jets transport huge amounts of energy to the outskirts of galaxies, displace large volumes of the
intergalactic gas, and act as feedback agents between the galaxy's very center and the large-scale
environment," said Sambruna. "Understanding their origin is of paramount interest in modern
astrophysics."

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

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NASA Takes to the Air with New 'Earth Venture' Research Projects

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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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: 2010-182 May 27, 2010

NASA TAKES TO THE AIR WITH NEW 'EARTH VENTURE' RESEARCH PROJECTS

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-182&cid=release_2010-182

PASADENA, Calif. – Hurricanes, air quality and Arctic ecosystems are among the research areas to
be investigated during the next five years by new NASA airborne science missions announced today.

The five competitively-selected proposals, including one from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., are the first investigations in the new Venture-class series of low-to-moderate-cost
projects established last year.

The Earth Venture missions are part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program. The small,
targeted science investigations complement NASA's larger research missions. In 2007, the National
Research Council recommended that NASA undertake these types of regularly solicited, quick-
turnaround projects.

This year's selections are all airborne investigations. Future Venture proposals may include small,
dedicated spacecraft and instruments flown on other spacecraft.

"I'm thrilled to be able to welcome these new principal investigators into NASA's Earth Venture
series," said Edward Weiler, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. "These missions are considered a 'tier 1' priority in the National Research Council's Earth
Science decadal survey. With this selection, NASA moves ahead into this exciting type of scientific
endeavor."

The missions will be funded during the next five years at a total cost of not more than $30 million
each. The cost includes initial development and deployment through analysis of data. Approximately
$10 million was provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act toward the
maximum $150 million funding ceiling for the missions.

Six NASA centers, 22 educational institutions, nine U.S. or international government agencies and
three industrial partners are involved in these missions. The five missions were selected from 35
proposals.

The selected missions are:

1. Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment. Principal Investigator Charles Miller,
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The release and absorption of carbon from Arctic ecosystems and its response to climate change are
not well known because of a lack of detailed measurements. This investigation will collect an
integrated set of data that will provide unprecedented experimental insights into Arctic carbon
cycling, especially the release of important greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.
Instruments will be flown on a Twin Otter aircraft to produce the first simultaneous measurements of
surface characteristics that control carbon emissions and key atmospheric gases.

2. Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface. Principal Investigator Mahta
Moghaddam, University of Michigan

North American ecosystems are critical components of the global exchange of the greenhouse gas
carbon dioxide and other gases within the atmosphere. To better understand the size of this exchange
on a continental scale, this investigation addresses the uncertainties in existing estimates by measuring
soil moisture in the root zone of representative regions of major North American ecosystems.
Investigators will use NASA's Gulfstream-III aircraft to fly synthetic aperture radar that can
penetrate vegetation and soil to depths of several feet.

3. Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment. Principal Investigator Eric Jensen, NASA's Ames
Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

Water vapor in the stratosphere has a large impact on Earth's climate, the ozone layer and how much
solar energy Earth retains. To improve our understanding of the processes that control the flow of
atmospheric gases into this region, investigators will launch four airborne campaigns with NASA's
Global Hawk remotely piloted aerial systems. The flights will study chemical and physical processes
at different times of year from bases in California, Guam, Hawaii and Australia.

4. Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations
Relevant to Air Quality. Principal Investigator James Crawford, NASA's Langley Research Center in
Hampton, Va.

Satellites can measure air quality factors like aerosols and ozone-producing gases in an entire column
of atmosphere below the spacecraft, but distinguishing the concentrations at the level where people
live is a challenge. This investigation will provide integrated data of airborne, surface and satellite
observations, taken at the same time, to study air quality as it evolves throughout the day. NASA's B-
200 and P-3B research aircraft will fly together to sample a column of the atmosphere over
instrumented ground stations.

5. Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel. Principal Investigator Scott Braun, NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The prediction of the intensity of hurricanes is not as reliable as predictions of the location of
hurricane landfall, in large part because of our poor understanding of the processes involved in
intensity change. This investigation focuses on studying hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean basin using
two NASA Global Hawks flying high above the storms for up to 30 hours. The Hawks will deploy
from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia during the 2012 to 2014 Atlantic hurricane seasons.

"These new investigations, in concert with NASA's Earth-observing satellite capabilities, will provide
unique new data sets that identify and characterize important phenomena, detect changes in the Earth
system and lead to improvements in computer modeling of the Earth system," said Jack Kaye,
associate director for research of NASA's Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate.

Langley manages the Earth System Pathfinder program for the Science Mission Directorate. The
missions in this program provide an innovative approach to address Earth science research with
periodic windows of opportunity to accommodate new scientific priorities.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov .

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

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NASA Spacecraft Penetrates Mysteries of Martian Ice Cap

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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Jia-Rui Cook/D.C. Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0850/393-9011
jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

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

Marc Airhart 512-471-2241
University of Texas, Austin
mairhart@jsg.utexas.edu

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-180 May 26, 2010

NASA SPACECRAFT PENETRATES MYSTERIES OF MARTIAN ICE CAP

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-180&cid=release_2010-180

PASADENA, Calif. -- Data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have helped scientists solve
a pair of mysteries dating back four decades and provided new information about climate change on
the Red Planet.

The Shallow Radar, or SHARAD, instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed
subsurface geology allowing scientists to reconstruct the formation of a large chasm and a series of
spiral troughs on the northern ice cap of Mars. The findings appear in two papers in the May 27 issue
of the journal Nature.

"SHARAD is giving us a beautifully detailed view of ice deposits, whether at the poles or buried in
mid-latitudes, as they changed on Mars over the last few million years," said Rich Zurek, Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

On Earth, large ice sheets are shaped mainly by ice flow. According to this latest research, other
forces have shaped, and continue to shape, polar ice caps on Mars. The northern ice cap is a stack of
ice and dust layers up to two miles deep, covering an area slightly larger than Texas. Analyzing radar
data on a computer, scientists can peel back the layers like an onion to reveal how the ice cap evolved
over time.

One of the most distinctive features of the northern ice cap is Chasma Boreale, a canyon about as
long as Earth's Grand Canyon but deeper and wider. Some scientists believe Chasma Boreale was
created when volcanic heat melted the bottom of the ice sheet and triggered a catastrophic flood.
Others suggest strong polar winds carved the canyon out of a dome of ice.

Other enigmatic features of the ice cap are troughs that spiral outward from the center like a gigantic
pinwheel. Since the troughs were discovered in 1972, scientists have proposed several hypotheses
about how they formed. Perhaps as Mars spins, ice closer to the poles moves slower than ice farther
away, causing the semi-fluid ice to crack. Perhaps, as one mathematical model suggests, increased
solar heating in certain areas and lateral heat conduction could cause the troughs to assemble.

Data from Mars now points to both the canyon and spiral troughs being created and shaped primarily
by wind. Rather than being cut into existing ice very recently, the features formed over millions of
years as the ice sheet grew. By influencing wind patterns, the shape of underlying, older ice
controlled where and how the features grew.

"Nobody realized that there would be such complex structures in the layers," said Jack Holt, of the
University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics. Holt is the lead author of the paper focusing
on Chasma Boreale. "The layers record a history of ice accumulation, erosion and wind transport.
From that, we can recover a history of climate that's much more detailed than anybody expected."

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched on Aug. 12, 2005. SHARAD and the spacecraft's
five other instruments began science operations in November 2006.

"These anomalous features have gone unexplained for 40 years because we have not been able to see
what lies beneath the surface," said Roberto Seu, Shallow Radar team leader at the University of
Rome. "It is gratifying to me that with this new instrument we can finally explain them."

The MRO mission is managed by JPL for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Headquarters in
Washington. The Shallow Radar instrument was provided by the Italian Space Agency, and its
operations are led by the InfoCom Department, University of Rome. JPL is managed for NASA by
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

To view images and learn more about MRO, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

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Video Chat: New Journey to Jupiter

Video Chat: New Journey to Jupiter
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

05.26.10 -- Get ready to go to the solar system's biggest planet! NASA is launching a new robotic mission to Jupiter in 2011.
Classrooms are invited to join NASA/JPL engineer Tracy Drain as she discusses why NASA is sending the Juno spacecraft to
Jupiter, how it will get there and what it will study. The conversation will be geared to students in grades 6 through 8.

The watch the live web chat on June 3, 2010 at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific, go to http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/webcast/dlnstreaming.jsp .

Tracy will be speaking live via video with a classroom in southern California. All classrooms may participate by emailing questions
before or during the live chat for Tracy to answer. Possible topics to consider for questions are the sizes and distances of planets,
planet formation and space travel. Teachers can email questions to jplspaceeducation@gmail.com . Questions sent in advance should be
emailed by Tuesday, June 1 at 6 p.m. Eastern/3 p.m. Pacific. Due to volume, we cannot guarantee that every question will be answered.

For more information about the Juno Mission, go to http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html .


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JPL Seeks Students With Science Projects

JPL Seeks Students With Science Projects
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

05.25.10 -- NASA would like to honor students' interest and enthusiasm for science, technology, engineering and mathematics
by inviting selected students to display their projects at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's "Student Showcase" on Saturday,
June 12 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. This event will be an opportunity to show students' work, let students share their work with peers
and interact with NASA/JPL scientists and engineers.

We are asking teachers to spread the word to students who may quality for this event. A full list of qualifications and registration
information can be found at http://education.jpl.nasa.gov/studentshowcase .

Other activities for the students and their mentor or parents include learning about NASA/JPL missions and hearing about NASA careers
and internship opportunities. Tours will be offered of JPL facilities like the Space Flight Operations Facility and Spacecraft Assembly
Facility (where the next Mars rover is being assembled).

Advanced registration is required for each student. Each student may be accompanied by up to two additional people. The event is free
but space is limited to a maximum of 200 students. Small team projects are welcome. The displays must meet science fair safety standards
and all dynamic or kinetic, electrical, chemical and biological aspects must be disclosed as part of the registration process. Please keep you
project intact between now and then!


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WISE Makes Progress on its Space Rock Catalog

Feature May 24, 2010

WISE Makes Progress on its Space Rock Catalog

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-176&cid=release_2010-176

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, is busy surveying the landscape
of the infrared sky, building up a catalog of cosmic specimens -- everything from distant
galaxies to "failed" stars, called brown dwarfs.

Closer to home, the mission is picking out an impressive collection of asteroids and
comets, some known and some never seen before. Most of these hang out in the Main
Belt between Mars and Jupiter, but a small number are near-Earth objects -- asteroids and
comets with orbits that pass within about 48 million kilometers (30 million miles) of
Earth's orbit. By studying a small sample of near-Earth objects, WISE will learn more
about the population as a whole. How do their sizes differ, and how many objects are
dark versus light?

"We are taking a census of a small sample of near-Earth objects to get a better idea of
how they vary," said Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NEOWISE, a program to
catalog asteroids seen with WISE.

So far, the mission has observed more than 60,000 asteroids, both Main Belt and near-
Earth objects. Most were known before, but more than 11,000 are new.

"Our data pipeline is bursting with asteroids," said WISE Principal Investigator Ned
Wright of UCLA. "We are discovering about a hundred a day, mostly in the Main Belt."

About 190 near-Earth asteroids have been observed to date, of which more than 50 are
new discoveries. All asteroid observations are reported to the NASA-funded
International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, a clearinghouse for data on all
solar system bodies at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.

"It's a really exciting time for asteroid science," said Tim Spahr, who directs the Minor
Planet Center. "WISE is another tool to add to our tool belt of instruments to discover
and study the asteroid population."

A network of ground-based telescopes follows up and confirms the WISE finds,
including the NASA-funded University of Arizona Spacewatch and Catalina Sky Survey
projects, both near Tucson, Ariz., and the NASA-funded Magdalena Ridge Observatory
near Socorro, N.M.

Some of the near-Earth asteroids detected so far are visibly dark, but it's too early to say
what percentage. The team needs time to properly analyze and calibrate the data. When
results are ready, they will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. WISE has not found
an asteroid yet that would be too dark for detection by visible-light telescopes on the
ground.

"We're beginning the process of sorting through all the objects we're finding so we can
learn more about their properties," said Mainzer. "How many are big or small, or light
versus dark?"

WISE will also study Trojans, asteroids that run along with Jupiter in its orbit around the
sun and travel in two packs -- one in front of and one behind the gas giant. It has seen
more than 800, and by the end of the mission, should have observed about half of all
4,500 known Trojans. The results will address dueling theories about how the outer
planets evolved.

With its infrared vision, WISE is good at many aspects of asteroid watching. First,
infrared light gives a better estimate of an asteroid's size. Imagine a light, shiny rock lying
next to a bigger, dark one in the sunshine. From far away, the rocks might look about the
same size. That's because they reflect about the same amount of visible sunlight. But, if
you pointed an infrared camera at them, you could tell the dark one is bigger. Infrared
light is related to the heat radiated from the rock itself, which, in turn, is related to its
size.

A second benefit of infrared is the ability to see darker asteroids. Some asteroids are
blacker than coal and barely reflect any visible light. WISE can see their infrared glow.
The mission isn't necessarily hunting down dark asteroids in hiding, but collecting a
sample of all different types. Like a geologist collecting everything from pumice to
quartz, WISE is capturing the diversity of cosmic rocks in our solar neighborhood.

In the end, WISE will provide rough size and composition profiles for hundreds of near-
Earth objects, about 100 to 200 of which will be new.

WISE has also bagged about a dozen new comets to date. The icy cousins to asteroids are
easy for the telescope to spot because, as the comets are warmed by the sun, gas and dust
particles blow off and glow with infrared light. Many of the comets found by WISE so
far are so-called long-period comets, meaning they spend billions of years circling the sun
in the frigid hinterlands of our solar system, before they are shuttled into the inner,
warmer parts. Others are termed short-period comets -- they spend most of their lives
hanging around the space near Jupiter, occasionally veering into the space closer to the
terrestrial planets. WISE's measurements of these snowy dirtballs will allow scientists to
study their size, composition and density. Measurements of the comets' orbits will help
explain what kicks these objects out of their original, more distant orbits and in toward
the sun.

WISE will complete one-and-a-half scans of the sky in October of this year. Visit http://wise.astro.ucla.edu to see selected WISE images released so far.

JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal
investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under
NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah,
and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., 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

#2010-176

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Whitney Clavin (818) 354-4672
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

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Phoenix Mars Lander Does Not Phone Home, New Image Shows Damage

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

D.C. Agle / Jia-Rui Cook
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011/354-0850
agle@jpl.nasa.gov / jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov

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

News release: 2010-175 May 24, 2010

Phoenix Mars Lander Does Not Phone Home, New Image Shows Damage

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-175&cid=release_2010-175

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has ended operations after repeated attempts to contact the spacecraft were unsuccessful. A new image transmitted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows signs of severe ice damage to the lander's solar panels.

"The Phoenix spacecraft succeeded in its investigations and exceeded its planned lifetime," said Fuk Li, manager of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Although its work is finished, analysis of information from Phoenix's science activities will continue for some time to come."

Last week, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter flew over the Phoenix landing site 61 times during a final attempt to communicate with the lander. No transmission from the lander was detected. Phoenix also did not communicate during 150 flights in three earlier listening campaigns this year.

Earth-based research continues on discoveries Phoenix made during summer conditions at the far-northern site where it landed May 25, 2008. The solar-powered lander completed its three-month mission and kept working until sunlight waned two months later.

Phoenix was not designed to survive the dark, cold, icy winter. However, the slim possibility Phoenix survived could not be eliminated without listening for the lander after abundant sunshine returned.

An image of Phoenix taken this month by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suggests the lander no longer casts shadows the way it did during its working lifetime.

"Before and after images are dramatically different," said Michael Mellon of the University of Colorado in Boulder, a science team member for both Phoenix and HiRISE. "The lander looks smaller, and only a portion of the difference can be explained by accumulation of dust on the lander, which makes its surfaces less distinguishable from surrounding ground."

Apparent changes in the shadows cast by the lander are consistent with predictions of how Phoenix could be damaged by harsh winter conditions. It was anticipated that the weight of a carbon-dioxide ice buildup could bend or break the lander's solar panels. Mellon calculated hundreds of pounds of ice probably coated the lander in mid-winter.

During its mission, Phoenix confirmed and examined patches of the widespread deposits of underground water ice detected by Odyssey and identified a mineral called calcium carbonate that suggested occasional presence of thawed water. The lander also found soil chemistry with significant implications for life and observed falling snow. The mission's biggest surprise was the discovery of perchlorate, an oxidizing chemical on Earth that is food for some microbes and potentially toxic for others.

"We found that the soil above the ice can act like a sponge, with perchlorate scavenging water from the atmosphere and holding on to it," said Peter Smith, Phoenix principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "You can have a thin film layer of water capable of being a habitable environment. A micro-world at the scale of grains of soil -- that's where the action is."

The perchlorate results are shaping subsequent astrobiology research, as scientists investigate the implications of its antifreeze properties and potential use as an energy source by microbes. Discovery of the ice in the uppermost soil by Odyssey pointed the way for Phoenix. More recently, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected numerous ice deposits in middle latitudes at greater depth using radar and exposed on the surface by fresh impact craters.

"Ice-rich environments are an even bigger part of the planet than we thought," Smith said. "Somewhere in that vast region there are going to be places that are more habitable than others."

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

Odyssey has been orbiting Mars since 2001. The mission also has played important roles by supporting the twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. The Phoenix mission was led by Smith at the University of Arizona, with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin in Denver. The University of Arizona operates the HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., in Boulder. Mars missions are managed by JPL for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For Phoenix information and images, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix .

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WISE Telescope has Heart and Soul

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

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

IMAGE ADVISORY: 2010-174 May 24, 2010

WISE Telescope has Heart and Soul

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-174&cid=release_2010-174

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has captured a
huge mosaic of two bubbling clouds in space, known as the Heart and Soul nebulae. The space
telescope, which has completed about three-fourths of its infrared survey of the entire sky, has
already captured nearly one million frames like the ones making up this newly released mosaic.

"This new image demonstrates the power of WISE to capture vast regions," said Ned Wright,
the mission's principal investigator at UCLA, who presented the new picture today at the
American Astronomical Society meeting in Miami. "We're looking north, south, east and west to
map the whole sky."

The picture is online at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20100524.html .

The Heart nebula is named after its resemblance to a human heart; the nearby Soul nebula
happens to resemble a heart too, but only the symbolic kind with two lobes. The nebulae, which
lie about 6,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia, are both massive star-making
factories, marked by giant bubbles blown into surrounding dust by radiation and winds from the
stars. The infrared vision of WISE allows it to see into the cooler and dustier crevices of clouds
like these, where gas and dust are just beginning to collect into new stars.

The new image was captured as WISE circled over Earth's poles, scanning strips of the sky. It
is stitched together from 1,147 frames, taken with a total exposure time of three-and-a-half
hours.

The mission will complete its first map of the sky in July 2010. It will then spend the next three
months surveying much of the sky a second time, before the solid-hydrogen coolant needed to
chill its infrared detectors runs dry. The first installment of the public WISE catalog will be
released in summer 2011.

About 960,000 WISE images have been beamed down from space to date. Some show
ethereal star-forming clouds, while others reveal the ancient light of very remote, powerful
galaxies. And many are speckled with little dots that are asteroids in our solar system. So far,
the mission has observed more than 60,000 asteroids, most of which lie in the main belt, orbiting
between Mars and Jupiter. About 11,000 of these objects are newly discovered, and about 50
of them belong to a class of near-Earth objects, which have paths that take them within about
48 million kilometers (30 million miles) of Earth's orbit.

One goal of the WISE mission is to study asteroids throughout our solar system and to find out
more about how they vary in size and composition. Infrared helps with this task because it can
get better size measurements of the space rocks than visible light.

"Infrared will help us understand more about the sizes, properties and origins of asteroids near
and far," said Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NEOWISE, a program to study and
catalog asteroids seen by WISE (the acronym comes from combining near-Earth object, or
NEO, with WISE).

WISE will also study the Trojans, asteroids that run along with Jupiter in its orbit around the sun
in two packs -- one in front of and one behind the gas giant. It has seen more than 800 of these
objects, and by the end of the mission, should have observed about half of all 4,500 known
Trojans. The results will address dueling theories about how the outer planets evolved.

"WISE is the first survey capable of observing the two clouds in a uniform way, and this will
provide valuable insight into the early solar system," said astronomer Tommy Grav of Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., who presented the information today at the astronomy
meeting.

Comets have also made their way into WISE images, with more than 72 observed so far, about
a dozen of them new. WISE is taking a census of the types of orbits comets ride in. The data
will help explain what kicks comets out of their original, more distant orbits and in toward the
sun.

JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal
investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under
NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the
spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., 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 .

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Geometry Drives Selection Date for 2011 Mars Launch

Feature May 20, 2010

GEOMETRY DRIVES SELECTION DATE FOR 2011 MARS LAUNCH

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-171&cid=release_2010-171

Planners of NASA's next Mars mission have selected a flight schedule that will use
favorable positions for two currently orbiting NASA Mars orbiters to obtain maximum
information during descent and landing.

Continuing analysis of the geometry and communications options for the arrival at Mars
have led planners for the Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, to choose an Earth-to-
Mars trajectory that schedules launch between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011. Landing will
take place between Aug. 6 and Aug. 20, 2012. Due to an Earth-Mars planetary alignment,
this launch period actually allows for a Mars arrival in the earlier portion of the landing
dates under consideration.

"The key factor was a choice between different strategies for sending communications
during the critical moments before and during touchdown," said Michael Watkins,
mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The shorter
trajectory is optimal for keeping both orbiters in view of Curiosity all the way to
touchdown on the surface of Mars. The longer trajectory allows direct communication to
Earth all the way to touchdown."

The simplicity of direct-to-Earth communication from Curiosity during landing has appeal
to mission planners, in comparison to relying on communications relayed via NASA's
Mars Odyssey, which has been orbiting Mars since 2001, and NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter, in operation since 2006. However, the direct-to-Earth option
allows a communication rate equivalent to only about 1 bit per second, while the relay
option allows about 8,000 bits or more per second.

Landing on Mars is always difficult, with success uncertain. After an unsuccessful
attempted Mars landing in 1999 without definitive information on the cause of the
mishap, NASA put a high priority on communication during subsequent Mars landings.

"It is important to capture high-quality telemetry to allow us to learn what happens during
the entry, descent and landing, which is arguably the most challenging part of the
mission," said Fuk Li, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Program at JPL. "The
trajectory we have selected maximizes the amount of information we will learn to
mitigate any problems."

Curiosity will use several innovations during entry into the Martian atmosphere, descent
and landing in order to hit a relatively small target area on the surface and set down a
rover too heavy for the cushioning air bags used in earlier Mars rover landings. In a "sky-
crane" maneuver during the final minute of arrival, a rocket-powered descent stage will
lower Curiosity on a tether for a wheels-down landing directly onto the surface.

Even though Curiosity won't be communicating directly with Earth at touchdown, data
about the landing will reach Earth promptly. Odyssey will be in view of both Earth and
Curiosity, in position to immediately forward to Earth the data stream it is receiving
during the touchdown. Odyssey performed this type of "bent-pipe" relay during the May
25, 2008, arrival of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander.

Curiosity will rove extensively on Mars, carrying an analytical laboratory and other
instruments to examine a carefully selected landing area. It will investigate whether
conditions there have favored development of microbial life and its preservation in the
rock record. Plans call for the mission to operate on Mars for a full Martian year, which is
equivalent to two Earth years.

Consideration of landing sites for the mission narrowed to four finalist candidates in
November 2008. The candidate sites are still being analyzed for safety and science
attributes.

Curiosity is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
JPL also manages the Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions, in
partnership with Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

More information about NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is at:
http://www.nasa.gov/msl .

#2010-171
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