NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Begins New Vesta Mapping Orbit

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

Priscilla Vega 818-354-1357
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
priscilla.r.vega@jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2011-307 Sept. 30 2011

NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Begins New Vesta Mapping Orbit

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-307&cid=release_2011-307

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Dawn spacecraft has completed a gentle spiral into its
new science orbit for an even closer view of the giant asteroid Vesta. Dawn began
sending science data on Sept. 29 from this new orbit, known as the high altitude mapping
orbit (HAMO).

In this orbit, the average distance from the spacecraft to the Vesta surface is 420 miles
(680 kilometers), which is four times closer than the previous survey orbit. The
spacecraft will operate in the same basic manner as it did in the survey orbit. When Dawn
is over Vesta's dayside, it will point its science instruments to the giant asteroid and
acquire data, and when the spacecraft flies over the nightside, it will beam that data back
to Earth.

Perhaps the most notable difference in the new orbit is the frequency with which Dawn
circles Vesta. In survey orbit, it took Dawn three days to make its way around the
asteroid. Now in HAMO, the spacecraft completes the same task in a little over 12 hours.
HAMO is scheduled to last about 30 Earth days, during which Dawn will circle Vesta
more than 60 times. For about 10 of those 30 days, Dawn will peer straight down at the
exotic landscape below it during the dayside passages. For about 20 days, the spacecraft
will view the surface at multiple angles.

Scientists will combine the pictures to create topographic maps, revealing the heights of
mountains, the depths of craters and the slopes of plains. This will help scientists
understand the geological processes that shaped Vesta.

HAMO, the most complex and intensive science campaign at Vesta, has three primary
goals: to map Vesta's illuminated surface in color, provide stereo data, and acquire
visible and infrared mapping spectrometer data. In addition, it will allow improved
measurements of Vesta's gravity.

Dawn launched in September 2007 and arrived at Vesta in July 2011. Since beginning its
first survey orbit in August, Dawn has been extensively imaging this intriguing world,
sending back a bounty of images and other data. NASA-funded scientists and European
scientists on the Dawn mission team will present a wealth of new findings at the joint
meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences and the
European Planetary Science Congress next week at La Cite Internationale des Congres
Nantes Metropole, Nantes, France.

These findings about the giant asteroid Vesta will include information about the new
coordinate system and official names of Vesta's prominent features.

A Dawn mission news conference will be held Monday, Oct. 3, 2011 at 12:15 p.m. CEST
(3:15 a.m. PDT/6:15 a.m. EDT). The Division for Planetary Sciences will provide live
Web streaming of this news conference, at:
http://meetings.copernicus.org/epsc-dps2011/webstreaming/monday.html

"The team has been in awe of what they have seen on the surface of Vesta," said
Christopher Russell, Dawn principal investigator, at UCLA. "We are sharing those
discoveries with the greater scientific community and with the public."

Following a year at Vesta, the spacecraft will depart in July 2012 for Ceres, where it will
arrive in 2015. Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Dawn is a project
of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital
Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace
Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency
and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission
team.

The image and more information about the Dawn mission are online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/dawn . To follow the mission on Twitter, visit:
http://www.twitter.com/NASA_Dawn

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NASA Selects Science Investigations For Concept Studies

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/Jane Platt 818-354-0880
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.platt@jpl.nasa.gov

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

News release: 2011-305 Sept. 29, 2011

NASA Selects Science Investigations For Concept Studies

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-305&cid=release_2011-305

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has selected 11 science proposals, including one from the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, for evaluation as potential future science missions. The proposals outline
prospective missions to study the Earth's atmosphere, the sun, the Milky Way galaxy, and Earth-like
planets around nearby stars.

The selections were made from responses to Announcements of Opportunity for Explorer Missions
and Explorer Missions of Opportunity released by the agency last November. The proposals were
judged to have the best science value and feasible development plans.

"NASA continues to seek opportunities to push the cutting edge of science," said Paul Hertz, chief
scientist for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. "Innovative proposals like these will
help us better understand our solar system and the universe."

Five Explorer Mission proposals were selected from 22 submitted in February. Each team will
receive $1 million to conduct an 11-month mission concept study. Mission costs are capped at $200
million each, excluding the launch vehicle. In addition, one Explorer Mission proposal was selected
for technology development and will receive $600,000. Five Mission of Opportunity proposals were
selected from 20 submissions. Each will receive $250,000 to conduct an 11-month implementation
concept study. Mission costs are capped at $55 million each.

Following the detailed mission concept studies, NASA plans to select up to two of the Explorer
Mission proposals and one or more of the five Mission of Opportunity proposals in February 2013.
The missions would then proceed toward flight and some could launch by 2016.

The selected Explorer Mission proposals are:

-Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) Thomas Immel, Principal Investigator (PI), University of
California, Berkeley -- The mission would fly instruments to understand the extreme variability in
our Earth's ionosphere, which can interfere with communications and geopositioning signals.

-Fast INfrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer (FINESSE) Mark Swain, PI, Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. -- This proposal would use a space telescope to survey more than 200
planets around other stars. This would be the first mission dedicated to finding out what comprises
exoplanet atmospheres, what conditions or processes are responsible for their composition, and how
our solar system fits into the larger family of planets.

-Observatory for Heteroscale Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling (OHMIC) James Burch, PI,
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio -- The mission would use a pair of spacecraft flying in
formation to study the processes that provide energy to power space weather storms. These storms
create auroras and other electromagnetic activity that can impact orbiting spacecraft operations.

-Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) George Ricker, PI, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass. -- Using an array of telescopes, TESS would perform an all-sky
survey to discover transiting exoplanets, ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, in orbit around the
nearest and brightest stars in the sky. The mission's primary goal would be to identify terrestrial
planets in the habitable zones of nearby stars.

-Atmosphere-Space Transition Region Explorer (ASTRE) Robert Pfaff Jr., PI, NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. -- The mission would study the interaction between the Earth's
atmosphere and the ionized gases of space. By flying excursions deep into the Earth's upper
atmosphere, its measurements would improve satellite drag models and show how space-induced
currents in electric power grids originate and evolve with time.

The selected Explorer Mission of Opportunity proposals are:

-Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) Richard Eastes, PI, University of Central
Florida, Orlando -- This would involve an imaging instrument that would fly on a commercial
communications satellite in geostationary orbit to image the Earth's thermosphere and ionosphere.

-Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) Keith Gendreau, PI, Goddard -- This mission
would place an X-ray timing instrument on the International Space Station (ISS) to explore the exotic
states of matter within neutron stars and reveal their interior and surface compositions.

-Coronal Physics Investigator (CPI) John Kohl, PI, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory,
Cambridge -- A solar telescope would be mounted on the ISS to investigate the processes that
produce the sun's fast and slow solar wind.

-Gal/Xgal U/LDB Spectroscopic/Stratospheric THz Observatory (GUSSTO) Christopher Walker, PI,
University of Arizona, Tucson -- This mission would launch a high altitude balloon with a one-meter
telescope to provide a comprehensive understanding of the inner workings of our Milky Way galaxy
and one of our galaxy's companion galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

-Ion Mass Spectrum Analyzer for SCOPE (IMSA), Lynn Kistler PI, University of New Hampshire,
Durham -- This partner mission of opportunity would provide a composition instrument to the
Japanese cross-Scale Coupling in the Plasma universE (SCOPE) mission. SCOPE will study
fundamental space plasma processes including particle acceleration, magnetic reconnection, and
plasma turbulence.

The proposal selected for technology development funding is:

-The Exoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE), Glenn Schneider, PI,
University of Arizona, Tucson – The technology development effort will enable studies of the
formation, evolution, and architectures of exoplanetary systems through direct imaging.

The Explorer program is the oldest continuous program at NASA. It is designed to provide frequent,
low-cost access to space using PI-led space science investigations relevant to the agency's
astrophysics and heliophysics programs. Initiated with the Explorer 1 launch in 1958 that discovered
the Earth's radiation belts and including the Cosmic Background Explorer mission that led to Nobel
prizes for their investigators, the Explorer program has launched more than 90 missions. It is
managed by Goddard for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Explorer program, visit: http://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov .

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena.

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NASA Space Telescope Finds Fewer Asteroids Near Earth

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

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

News release: 2011-304 Sept. 29, 2011

NASA Space Telescope Finds Fewer Asteroids Near Earth

PASADENA, Calif. -- New observations by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE,
show there are significantly fewer near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought.
The findings also indicate NASA has found more than 90 percent of the largest near-Earth asteroids,
meeting a goal agreed to with Congress in 1998.

Astronomers now estimate there are roughly 19,500 -- not 35,000 -- mid-size near-Earth asteroids.
Scientists say this improved understanding of the population may indicate the hazard to Earth could
be somewhat less than previously thought. However, the majority of these mid-size asteroids remain
to be discovered. More research also is needed to determine if fewer mid-size objects (between 330
and 3,300-feet wide) also mean fewer potentially hazardous asteroids, those that come closest to
Earth.

The results come from the most accurate census to date of near-Earth asteroids, the space rocks that
orbit within 120 million miles (195 million kilometers) of the sun into Earth's orbital vicinity. WISE
observed infrared light from those in the middle to large-size category. The survey project, called
NEOWISE, is the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission. Study results appear in the
Astrophysical Journal.

"NEOWISE allowed us to take a look at a more representative slice of the near-Earth asteroid
numbers and make better estimates about the whole population," said Amy Mainzer, lead author of
the new study and principal investigator for the NEOWISE project at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It's like a population census, where you poll a small group of people
to draw conclusions about the entire country."

WISE scanned the entire celestial sky twice in infrared light between January 2010 and February
2011, continuously snapping pictures of everything from distant galaxies to near-Earth asteroids and
comets. NEOWISE observed more than 100 thousand asteroids in the main belt between Mars and
Jupiter, in addition to at least 585 near Earth.

WISE captured a more accurate sample of the asteroid population than previous visible-light surveys
because its infrared detectors could see both dark and light objects. It is difficult for visible-light
telescopes to see the dim amounts of visible-light reflected by dark asteroids. Infrared-sensing
telescopes detect an object's heat, which is dependent on size and not reflective properties.

Though the WISE data reveal only a small decline in the estimated numbers for the largest near-Earth
asteroids, which are 3,300 feet (1 kilometer) and larger, they show 93 percent of the estimated
population have been found. This fulfills the initial "Spaceguard" goal agreed to with Congress.
These large asteroids are about the size of a small mountain and would have global consequences if
they were to strike Earth. The new data revise their total numbers from about 1,000 down to 981, of
which 911 already have been found. None of them represents a threat to Earth in the next few
centuries. It is believed that all near-Earth asteroids approximately 6 miles (10 kilometers) across, as
big as the one thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs, have been found.

"The risk of a really large asteroid impacting the Earth before we could find and warn of it has been
substantially reduced," said Tim Spahr, the director of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.

The situation is different for the mid-size asteroids, which could destroy a metropolitan area if they
were to impact in the wrong place. The NEOWISE results find a larger decline in the estimated
population for these bodies than what was observed for the largest asteroids. So far, the Spaceguard
effort has found and is tracking more than 5,200 near-Earth asteroids 330 feet or larger, leaving more
than an estimated 15,000 still to discover. In addition, scientists estimate there are more than a
million unknown smaller near-Earth asteroids that could cause damage if they were to impact Earth.

"NEOWISE was just the latest asset NASA has used to find Earth's nearest neighbors," said Lindley
Johnson, program executive for the Near Earth Object Observation Program at NASA Headquarters
in Washington. "The results complement ground-based observer efforts over the past 12 years. These
observers continue to track these objects and find even more."

WISE is managed and operated by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The
principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at the University of California, Los Angeles. The WISE
science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft
was built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data
processing occur at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of
Technology.

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

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150 of NASA's Twitter Followers Will Be Invited to Mars Rover Launch

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

Veronica McGregor 818-354-9452
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
veronica.c.mcgregor@jpl.nasa.gov

Stephanie L. Schierholz 202-358-4997
Headquarters, Washington
stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-302 Sept. 28, 2011

150 of NASA's Twitter Followers Will Be Invited to Mars Rover Launch

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-302&cid=release_2011-302

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA will host a two-day launch Tweetup for 150 of its Twitter followers on
Nov. 23 and 25 at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Tweetup is expected to culminate
in the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V
541 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch window is scheduled to open at 7:21 a.m. PST
(10:21 a.m. EST) on Nov. 25.

The Tweetup will provide NASA's social media followers with the opportunity to tour Kennedy Space
Center; speak with scientists and engineers; and, if all goes as scheduled, view the spacecraft launch.
The event also will provide participants the opportunity to meet fellow tweeps and members of NASA's
social media team.

Curiosity's arrival at the Red Planet is anticipated in August 2012 at Gale crater. During the two-year
prime mission, the rover will investigate whether a selected area of Mars offered environmental
conditions favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about life if it existed.

Mars Science Laboratory is the fourth space mission launching this year managed by NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The first three are Aquarius, launched June 10 to study ocean
salinity; Juno, launched Aug. 5 to study the origins and interior of Jupiter; and the twin GRAIL orbiters,
which departed for the moon on Sept. 10.

Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at
Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Tweetup registration opens at 9 a.m. PDT (noon EDT) on Wed, Oct. 5, and closes at 9 a.m. PDT (noon
EST) on Fri., Oct. 7. NASA will randomly select 150 participants from online registrations.

For more information and rules about the Tweetup and registration, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup

For information about connecting and collaborating with NASA, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/connect

For information about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

You can follow the Mars Curiosity mission on social media via Twitter at
http://www.twitter.com/MarsCuriosity and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity .

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JPL Participates in Space-Themed Corn Maze

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

Courtney O'Connor 818-354-2274
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Courtney.M.O'Connor@jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2011-303 Sept. 28, 2011

JPL Participates in Space-Themed Corn Maze

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-303&cid=release_2011-303

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is joining forces with Utah's
original corn maze, Cornbelly's Corn Maze and Pumpkin Fest, for a kickoff celebration
on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.

John Callas, project manger for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers at JPL, will appear at
the grand opening festivities of an autumn corn maze celebrating the U.S. space program.
The weekend will be filled with interactive displays and activities brought in by JPL,
including an exhibit featuring a replica of a Mars rover, as well as a NASA-designed text
message and QR code game inside the maze.

This event is part of Space Farm 7, an outreach project celebrating NASA's achievements
through agri-tourism events taking place throughout the nation. The goal of the project is
to educate and inspire children about U.S. space exploration efforts and achievements.

The seven participating farms around the country planted and designed NASA-themed
corn mazes. Cornbelly's maze design depicts a Mars rover alongside an image of the
solar system, a nod to the fact that JPL has built spacecraft that have visited each of the
planets.

In addition to Cornbelly's, the Space Farm 7 includes: Belvedere Plantation,
Fredericksburg, Va.; The Rock Ranch, The Rock, Ga.; Dell'Osso Family Farm, Lathrop,
Calif.; Dewberry Farm, Brookshire, Texas; Liberty Ridge Farm, Schaghticoke, N.Y.; and
Vala's Pumpkin Patch, Gretna, Neb.

For more information on Space Farm 7, visit: http://www.spacefarm7.com/

For more information on the Mars rovers, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . More information on JPL is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov .

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars
Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

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NASA to Host News Conference on Asteroid Search Findings

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

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

Advisory: 2011-301a Sept. 26, 2011

NASA to Host News Conference on Asteroid Search Findings

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-301a&cid=release_2011-301a

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT) on Thurs., Sept.
29, to reveal near-Earth asteroid findings and implications for future research. The briefing will take
place at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, launched in December 2009, captured
millions of images of galaxies and objects in space. During the news conference, panelists will
discuss results from an enhancement of WISE called Near-Earth Object WISE (NEOWISE) that
hunted for asteroids.

The panelists are:
--Lindley Johnson, Near-Earth Object program executive, NASA Headquarters, Washington
--Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
--Tim Spahr, director, Minor Planet Center, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass.
--Lucy McFadden, scientist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website. For NASA TV streaming
video, downlink and scheduling information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv . It will also will be
streamed live, with a moderated chat available, at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

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

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Aquarius Yields NASA's First Global Map of Ocean Salinity

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
Headquarters, Washington
Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-300 Sept. 22, 2011

Aquarius Yields NASA's First Global Map of Ocean Salinity

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-300&cid=release_2011-300

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's new Aquarius instrument has produced its first global map of the
salinity of the ocean surface, providing an early glimpse of the mission's anticipated discoveries.

Aquarius, which is aboard the Aquarius/SAC-D (Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas) observatory, is
making NASA's first space observations of ocean surface salinity variations -- a key component of
Earth's climate. Salinity changes are linked to the cycling of freshwater around the planet and
influence ocean circulation.

"Aquarius' salinity data are showing much higher quality than we expected to see this early in the
mission," said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef of Earth & Space Research in Seattle.
"Aquarius soon will allow scientists to explore the connections between global rainfall, ocean
currents and climate variations."

The new map, which shows a tapestry of salinity patterns, demonstrates Aquarius' ability to detect
large-scale salinity distribution features clearly and with sharp contrast. The map is a composite of
the data since Aquarius became operational on Aug. 25. The mission was launched June 10 from
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Aquarius/SAC-D is a collaboration between NASA and
Argentina's space agency, Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE).

"Aquarius/SAC-D already is advancing our understanding of ocean surface salinity and Earth's water
cycle," said Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division at agency headquarters in
Washington. "Aquarius is making continuous, consistent, global measurements of ocean salinity,
including measurements from places we have never sampled before."

To produce the map, Aquarius scientists compared the early data with ocean surface salinity
reference data. Although the early data contain some uncertainties, and months of additional
calibration and validation work remain, scientists are impressed by the data's quality.

"Aquarius has exposed a pattern of ocean surface salinity that is rich in variability across a wide
range of scales," said Aquarius science team member Arnold Gordon, professor of oceanography at
Columbia University in Palisades, N.Y., and at the university's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
"This is a great moment in the history of oceanography. The first image raises many questions that
oceanographers will be challenged to explain."

The map shows several well-known ocean salinity features such as higher salinity in the subtropics;
higher average salinity in the Atlantic Ocean compared to the Pacific and Indian oceans; and lower
salinity in rainy belts near the equator, in the northernmost Pacific Ocean and elsewhere. These
features are related to large-scale patterns of rainfall and evaporation over the ocean, river outflow
and ocean circulation. Aquarius will monitor how these features change and study their link to
climate and weather variations.

Other important regional features are evident, including a sharp contrast between the arid, high-
salinity Arabian Sea west of the Indian subcontinent, and the low-salinity Bay of Bengal to the east,
which is dominated by the Ganges River and south Asia monsoon rains. The data also show
important smaller details, such as a larger-than-expected extent of low-salinity water associated with
outflow from the Amazon River.

Aquarius was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., for NASA's Earth Systems Science Pathfinder Program. JPL is
managing Aquarius through its commissioning phase and will archive mission data. Goddard will
manage Aquarius mission operations and process science data. CONAE provided the SAC-D
spacecraft and the mission operations center.

The new map is available at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14786 .

For more information about Aquarius/SAC-D, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/aquarius and
http://www.conae.gov.ar/eng/principal.html .

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

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Saturn's Moon Enceladus Spreads Its Influence

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

Feature: 2011-299 Sept. 21, 2011

Rosemary Sullivant 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Rosemary.sullivant@jpl.nasa.gov

Saturn's Moon Enceladus Spreads Its Influence

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-299&cid=release_2011-299

Chalk up one more feat for Saturn's intriguing moon Enceladus. The small, dynamic
moon spews out dramatic plumes of water vapor and ice -- first seen by NASA's Cassini
spacecraft in 2005. It possesses simple organic particles and may house liquid water
beneath its surface. Its geyser-like jets create a gigantic halo of ice, dust and gas around
Enceladus that helps feed Saturn's E ring. Now, thanks again to those icy jets, Enceladus
is the only moon in our solar system known to influence substantially the chemical
composition of its parent planet.

In June, the European Space Agency announced that its Herschel Space Observatory,
which has important NASA contributions, had found a huge donut-shaped cloud, or
torus, of water vapor created by Enceladus encircling Saturn. The torus is more than
373,000 miles (600,000 kilometers) across and about 37,000 miles (60,000 kilometers)
thick. It appears to be the source of water in Saturn's upper atmosphere.

Though it is enormous, the cloud had not been seen before because water vapor is
transparent at most visible wavelengths of light. But Herschel could see the cloud with its
infrared detectors. "Herschel is providing dramatic new information about everything
from planets in our own solar system to galaxies billions of light-years away," said Paul
Goldsmith, the NASA Herschel project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif.

The discovery of the torus around Saturn did not come as a complete surprise. NASA's
Voyager and Hubble missions had given scientists hints of the existence of water-bearing
clouds around Saturn. Then in 1997, the European Space Agency's Infrared Space
Observatory confirmed the presence of water in Saturn's upper atmosphere. NASA's
Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite also observed water emission from Saturn at
far-infrared wavelengths in 1999.

While a small amount of gaseous water is locked in the warm, lower layers of Saturn's
atmosphere, it can't rise to the colder, higher levels. To get to the upper atmosphere,
water molecules must be entering Saturn's atmosphere from somewhere in space. But
from where and how? Those were mysteries until now.

Build the model and the data will come.

The answer came by combining Herschel's observations of the giant cloud of water vapor
created by Enceladus' plumes with computer models that researchers had already been
developing to describe the behavior of water molecules in clouds around Saturn.

One of these researchers is Tim Cassidy, a recent post-doctoral researcher at JPL who is
now at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics,
Boulder. "What's amazing is that the model," said Cassidy, "which is one iteration in a
long line of cloud models, was built without knowledge of the observation. Those of us in
this small modeling community were using data from Cassini, Voyager and the Hubble
telescope, along with established physics. We weren't expecting such detailed 'images'
of the torus, and the match between model and data was a wonderful surprise."

The results show that, though most of the water in the torus is lost to space, some of the
water molecules fall and freeze on Saturn's rings, while a small amount -- about 3 to 5
percent -- gets through the rings to Saturn's atmosphere. This is just enough to account
for the water that has been observed there.

Herschel's measurements combined with the cloud models also provided new
information about the rate at which water vapor is erupting out of the dark fractures,
known as "tiger stripes," on Enceladus' southern polar region. Previous measurements by
the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) instrument aboard the Cassini spacecraft
showed that every second the moon is ejecting about 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of
water vapor.

"With the Herschel measurements of the torus from 2009 and 2010 and our cloud model,
we were able to calculate a source rate for water vapor coming from Enceladus," said
Cassidy. "It agrees very closely with the UVIS finding, which used a completely different
method."

"We can see the water leaving Enceladus and we can detect the end product -- atomic
oxygen -- in the Saturn system," said Cassini UVIS science team member Candy Hansen,
of the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Ariz. "It's very nice with Herschel to track
where it goes in the meantime."

While a small fraction of the water molecules inside the torus end up in Saturn's
atmosphere, most are broken down into separate atoms of hydrogen and oxygen.
"When water hangs out in the torus, it is subject to the processes that dissociate water
molecules," said Hansen, "first to hydrogen and hydroxide, and then the hydroxide
dissociates into hydrogen and atomic oxygen." This oxygen is dispersed through the
Saturn system. "Cassini discovered atomic oxygen on its approach to Saturn, before it
went into orbit insertion. At the time, no one knew where it was coming from. Now we
do."

"The profound effect this little moon Enceladus has on Saturn and its environment is
astonishing," said Hansen.

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 in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate
in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and several of its instruments were designed,
developed and assembled at JPL.

Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science instruments
provided by consortia of European institutes and with important participation by NASA.
NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling
technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science
Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech, supports the
United States astronomical community.

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NASA's WISE Mission Captures Black Hole's Wildly Flaring Jet

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

Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-298 Sept. 20, 2011

NASA's WISE Mission Captures Black Hole's Wildly Flaring Jet

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-298&cid=release_2011-298

PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)
have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful
objects and their blazing jets.

Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes. Much has
been learned about the material feeding black holes, called accretion disks, and the jets
themselves, through studies using X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. But key measurements
of the brightest part of the jets, located at their bases, have been difficult despite decades of
work. WISE is offering a new window into this missing link through its infrared observations.

"Imagine what it would be like if our sun were to undergo sudden, random bursts, becoming
three times brighter in a matter of hours and then fading back again. That's the kind of fury we
observed in this jet," said Poshak Gandhi, a scientist with the Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency (JAXA). He is the lead author of a new study on the results appearing in the
Astrophysical Journal Letters. "With WISE's infrared vision, we were able to zoom in on the
inner regions near the base of the stellar-mass black hole's jet for the first time and the physics of
jets in action."

The black hole, called GX 339-4, had been observed previously. It lies more than 20,000 light-
years away from Earth near the center of our galaxy. It has a mass at least six times greater than
the sun. Like other black holes, it is an ultra-dense collection of matter, with gravity that is so
great even light cannot escape. In this case, the black hole is orbited by a companion star that
feeds it. Most of the material from the companion star is pulled into the black hole, but some of it
is blasted away as a jet flowing at nearly the speed of light.

"To see bright flaring activity from a black hole, you need to be looking at the right place at the
right time," said Peter Eisenhardt, the project scientist for WISE at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "WISE snapped sensitive infrared pictures every 11 seconds for a
year, covering the whole sky, allowing it to catch this rare event."

Observing the jet's variability was possible because of images taken of the same patch of sky
over time, a feature of NEOWISE, the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission. WISE data
enabled the team to zoom in on the very compact region around the base of the jet streaming
from the black hole. The size of the region is equivalent to the width of a dime seen at the
distance of our sun.

The results surprised the team, showing huge and erratic fluctuations in the jet activity on
timescales ranging from 11 seconds to a few hours. The observations are like a dance of infrared
colors and show that the size of the jet's base varies. Its radius is approximately 15,000 miles
(24,140 kilometers), with dramatic changes by as large as a factor of 10 or more.

"If you think of the black hole's jet as a firehose, then it's as if we've discovered the flow is
intermittent and the hose itself is varying wildly in size," Poshak said.

The new data also allowed astronomers to make the best measurements yet of the black hole's
magnetic field, which is 30,000 times more powerful than the one generated by Earth at its
surface. Such a strong field is required for accelerating and channeling the flow of matter into a
narrow jet. The WISE data are bringing astronomers closer than ever to understanding how this
exotic phenomenon works.

A video showing variations of the black hole jet, as seen via WISE observations, is online at
http://www.astro.isas.jaxa.jp/~pgandhi/wise_gx339/wise_blackhole_anim.html .

Poshak Gandhi is supported by the JAXA International Top Young Fellowship program. Other
authors of the paper include: A.W. Blain of the University of Leicester, United Kingdom; D.M.
Russell and S. Markoff of the University of Amsterdam; P. Casella of the University of
Southampton, United Kingdom; J. Malzac of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and
Université de Toulouse, France; S. Corbel of Université Paris Diderot and Commissariat à
l'énergie atomique Saclay, France; P. D'Avanzo of Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy; F.W.
Lewis of Faulkes Telescope Project, Wales; M. Cadolle Bel of the European Space Astronomy
Centre, Spain; P. Goldoni of Laboratoire Astroparticule et Cosmologie, France and
Commissariat à l'énergie atomique Saclay, France; S. Wachter of the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, Calif.; D. Khangulyan of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; and
A. Mainzer of JPL.

JPL manages and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The
spacecraft was put into hibernation mode after it scanned the sky twice, completing its main
objectives. The mission was selected under NASA's Explorers Program, which is 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; and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace
and 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. 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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Journey to the Asteroid Belt with NASA Dawn Mission's Chief Engineer

Public Talks Sept. 20, 2011

Journey to the Asteroid Belt with NASA Dawn Mission's Chief Engineer

Is it an asteroid or a small planet? Dr. Marc Rayman from NASA's Dawn mission exploring the giant asteroid Vesta will answer that question and more during two upcoming speaking engagements.

To Boldly Go ... Well, You Know: NASA's Dawn Mission to the Asteroid Belt

When: October 3, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rancho California Water District Bldg., 42125 Winchester Road, Temecula, CA
Sponsored by: Temecula Valley Astronomers Club
Note: Seating is limited

When: October 20, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Donald E. Bianchi Planetarium at California State University, Northridge (Parking available on Zelzah Avenue)
Directions: http://www.csun.edu/aboutCSUN/directions.html
Sponsored by: CSUN Physics and Astronomy Department
Learn more at: http://www.csun.edu/phys/department_guide/colloquia_and_planetarium/planetarium.html

Overview: Join Dr. Marc Rayman, the chief engineer for NASA's Dawn mission, which is exploring the giant asteroid Vesta, for a public talk about Dawn, its use of ion propulsion and its two exotic asteroid belt destinations. And share in the excitement of controlling a spacecraft on a revolutionary journey through space.

The ambitious and exciting Dawn mission is one of NASA's most remarkable ventures into the solar system. Dawn arrived at its first target, the giant asteroid Vesta, in July and has already sent back stunning imagery and fascinating data. And in just a year, it'll begin its journey to a second body in the asteroid belt called Ceres, which is so large that it's included in the category of dwarf planets, along with Pluto. Both are the most massive residents of the asteroid belt and among the last uncharted worlds in the inner solar system.

Dawn, the only spacecraft ever to orbit an object in the asteroid belt and the first ever designed to orbit two solar system bodies, will study these alien landscapes to uncover clues about the evolution and history of the solar system. Such a mission would be impossible without the use of ion propulsion, a technology that has mostly existed in the domain of science fiction, but which was tested extensively on NASA's Deep Space 1 mission, paving the way for Dawn.

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