GPM Launch Coverage on NASA TV

The launch pads at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island, Japan are seen on Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, a week ahead of the planned launch of an H-IIA rocket carrying the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory. GPM is an international mission led by NASA and JAXA to measure rain and snowfall over most of the globe multiple times a day. To get that worldwide view of precipitation, multiple satellites will be contributing observations for a global data set, all unified by the advanced measurements of GPM's Core Observatory, built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Launch of the GPM Core Observatory from Tanegashima Space Center is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 27 during a window beginning at 1:07 p.m. EST (3:07 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 28 Japan time).

The launch pads at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island, Japan are seen on Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, a week ahead of the planned launch of an H-IIA rocket carrying the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory. GPM is an international mission led by NASA and JAXA to measure rain and snowfall over most of the globe multiple times a day. To get that worldwide view of precipitation, multiple satellites will be contributing observations for a global data set, all unified by the advanced measurements of GPM's Core Observatory, built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Launch of the GPM Core Observatory from Tanegashima Space Center is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 27 during a window beginning at 1:07 p.m. EST (3:07 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 28 Japan time).

Astronaut Candidates Promote STEM Education at Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum

Astronaut Candidates Promote STEM Education at Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum

NASA associate administrator for education and former astronaut Leland Melvin gives a thumbs up to International Space Station (ISS) crew members, Rick Mastracchio, screen left, and Michael Hopkins, during a live downlink at an event where they and eight astronaut candidates talked with Washington-area students and the public about the value of education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014 at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington. 

NASA's 2013 astronaut candidates are: Josh A. Cassada and Victor J. Glover, lieutenant commanders in the U.S. Navy; Tyler N. "Nick" Hague, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force; Christina M. Hammock; Nicole Aunapu Mann, a major in the U.S. Marine Corps; Anne C. McClain and Andrew R. Morgan, majors in the U.S. Army; and Jessica U. Meir, who holds a Ph.D. in marine biology. 

NASA Posts Final Asteroid Workshop Report

In 2013, NASA kicked off the Asteroid Redirect Mission and the Asteroid Grand Challenge, collectively known as the Asteroid Initiative. On June 18, we issued a Request for Information to seek innovative ideas that could help NASA refine the objectives of the Asteroid Initiative and initial ARM concepts, to explore alternative mission concepts, and to broaden participation in the mission and planetary defense. Those ides were discussed at a fall 2013 workshop. Today, NASA posted the final report summarizing the workshop discussion and recommendations.

This pie chart shows the RFI responses by organization type. Individuals were the clear majority of respondents.

An unprecedented response followed the release of the RFI: the agency received 402 responses, 40 percent of which were from individuals and members of the general public. 

All the ideas were evaluated and rated. 96 of the ideas were chosen to explore in greater depth at the Asteroid Initiative Workshop, held in two parts at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. The first part took place on September 30 before the government shutdown, with 150 people attended in person. The workshop resumed on November 20-22, and approximately 120 people returned. Over 2,000 people were able to participate virtually. 

The purpose of the workshop was to further examine and foster a broad discussion of the most promising ideas gathered via the RFI, and to identify and synthesize ideas that could help refine the concept to find, capture and redirect, and explore an asteroid and generate new ideas for planetary defense. The workshop participants also made recommendations for further studies and next steps.  

This image of a patch of sky in the constellation Pisces is among the first taken by the revived NEOWISE spacecraft's infrared cameras, and shows the ultimate target: asteroids. Appearing as a string of red dots, an asteroid can be seen in a series of exposures captured by the spacecraft.

Learn More and view larger image

We are already acting on the ideas submitted through the RFI process. The NEOWISE spacecraft was reactivated in September 2013 to search for near-Earth asteroids that could be potential targets for the ARM.

Other recommendations from the workshop include holding additional forums to engage citizens in the asteroid initiative, and creating incentive prizes for milestones in both the mission and grand challenge.

NASA’s Asteroid Initiative consists of two separate but related activities: the Asteroid Redirect Mission and the Asteroid Grand Challenge.  NASA is developing concepts for the mission, which would use a robotic spacecraft to capture a small near-Earth asteroid (7 to 10 meters), or remove a boulder (1 to 10 meters) from the surface of a larger asteroid, and redirect it into a stable orbit around the moon. Astronauts launched aboard the Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System rocket would rendezvous with the captured asteroid material in lunar orbit, and collect samples for return to Earth. 

The grand challenge is seeking the best ideas to find all asteroid threats to human populations, and to accelerate the work that NASA is already doing for planetary defense. The Asteroid Initiative will leverage and integrate NASA’s activities in human exploration, space technology, and space science to advance the technologies and capabilities needed for future human and robotic exploration, to enable the first human mission to interact with asteroid material, and to accelerate efforts to detect, track, characterize, and mitig

NASA Mars Rover's View of Possible Westward Route

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover reached the edge of a dune on Jan. 30 and photographed the valley on the other side, to aid assessment of whether to cross the dune.

Curiosity is on a southwestward traverse of many months from an area where it found evidence of ancient conditions favorable for microbial life to its long-term science destination on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp. Based on analysis of images taken from orbit by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a location dubbed "Dingo Gap" was assessed as a possible gateway to a favorable route for the next portion of the traverse.

A dune across Dingo Gap is about 3 feet (1 meter) high, tapered off at both sides of the gap between two low scarps. Curiosity reached the eastern side of the dune on Jan. 30 and returned images that the rover team is using to guide decisions about upcoming drives.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. 

New Technique Could Be Used to Search Space Dust for Life's Ingredients

While the origin of life remains mysterious, scientists are finding more and more evidence that material created in space and delivered to Earth by comet and meteor impacts could have given a boost to the start of life. Some meteorites supply molecules that can be used as building blocks to make certain kinds of larger molecules that are critical for life.

Researchers have analyzed carbon-rich meteorites (carbonaceous chondrites) and found amino acids, which are used to make proteins. Proteins are among the most important molecules in life, used to make structures like hair and skin, and to speed up or regulate chemical reactions. They have also found components used to make DNA, the molecule that carries the instructions for how to build and regulate a living organism, as well as other biologically important molecules like nitrogen heterocycles, sugar-related organic compounds, and compounds found in modern metabolism.

However, these carbon-rich meteorites are relatively rare, comprising less than five percent of recovered meteorites, and meteorites make up just a portion of the extraterrestrial material that comes to Earth. Also, the building-block molecules found in them usually have been at low concentrations, typically parts-per-million or parts-per-billion. This raises the question of how significant their supply of raw material was. However, Earth constantly receives other extraterrestrial material – mostly in the form of dust from comets and asteroids.

"Despite their small size, these interplanetary dust particles may have provided higher quantities and a steadier supply of extraterrestrial organic material to early Earth," said Michael Callahan of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Unfortunately, there have been limited studies examining their organic composition, especially with regards to biologically relevant molecules that may have been important for the origin of life, due to the miniscule size of these samples."

Callahan and his team at Goddard's Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory have recently applied advanced technology to inspect extremely small meteorite samples for the components of life. "We found amino acids in a 360 microgram sample of the Murchison meteorite," said Callahan. "This sample size is 1,000 times smaller than the typical sample size used." A microgram is one-millionth of a gram; 360 micrograms is about the weight of a few eyebrow hairs. 28.35 grams equal an ounce.

Station Crew Conducts Science While Awaiting Next Cargo Launch

While awaiting the launch of the next shipment of supplies to the International Space Station, the six-person Expedition 38 crew participated in a wide range of experiments studying the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body Tuesday.

Flight Engineer Mike Hopkins spent much of his morning participating in the Body Measures experiment, which collects anthropometric data to help researchers understand the magnitude and variability of the changes to body measurements during spaceflight. Predicting these changes will maximize crew performance, prevent injury and reduce time spent altering or adjusting spacesuits and workstations. The investigation also could help scientists understand the effects of prolonged bed rest, which produces physiological changes similar to those experienced in microgravity. Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata assisted Hopkins throughout the experiment session, setting up the calibration tape, collecting data and taking photographs.

› Read more about Body Measures

Wakata also conducted an ultrasound scan on Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio for the ongoing Spinal Ultrasound investigation. Medical researchers have observed that astronauts grow up to three percent taller during their long duration missions aboard the station and return to their normal height when back on Earth. The Spinal Ultrasound investigation seeks to understand the mechanism and impact of this change while advancing medical imaging technology by testing a smaller and more portable ultrasound device aboard the station.

Sun Emits Mid-Level Solar Flare

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

To see how this event may impact Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.

This flare is classified as an M5.2 flare. Updates will be provided as needed.

NASA-funded Science Balloons Launch in Antarctica

 Each day the team must decide whether to launch a balloon based on the current ground conditions, such as how strong the wind is. On days when the wind is too high, Robyn Millan, the BARREL principal investigator at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., says to her team: "Start doing the low wind dance for us!"
 

Once launched, each balloon travels in a wide circle around the South Pole for up to three weeks, so that a handful of balloons can be up at any one time. Circling the pole, the balloons fly through the foot point of where Earth's magnetic fields descend down to the ground. Instruments on the balloons observe electrons traveling down from space along these fields. By coordinating with NASA's Van Allen Probes – two spacecraft orbiting high above -- the team hopes to determine what occurrence in the belts correlates to occasional bursts of electrons that can precipitate down toward Earth. Such information will ultimately help scientists understand -- and predict changes -- in the Van Allen radiation belts.
 

Kepler Finds a Very Wobbly Planet

Imagine living on a planet with seasons so erratic you would hardly know whether to wear Bermuda shorts or a heavy overcoat. That is the situation on a weird, wobbly world found by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope.

The planet, designated Kepler-413b, precesses, or wobbles, wildly on its spin axis, much like a child's top. The tilt of the planet's spin axis can vary by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years, leading to rapid and erratic changes in seasons. In contrast, Earth's rotational precession is 23.5 degrees over 26,000 years. Researchers are amazed that this far-off planet is precessing on a human timescale.

Kepler 413-b is located 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It circles a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars every 66 days. The planet's orbit around the binary stars appears to wobble, too, because the plane of its orbit is tilted 2.5 degrees with respect to the plane of the star pair's orbit. As seen from Earth, the wobbling orbit moves up and down continuously.

Kepler finds planets by noticing the dimming of a star or stars when a planet transits, or travels in front of them. Normally, planets transit like clockwork. Astronomers using Kepler discovered the wobbling when they found an unusual pattern of transiting for Kepler-413b.

"Looking at the Kepler data over the course of 1,500 days, we saw three transits in the first 180 days -- one transit every 66 days -- then we had 800 days with no transits at all. After that, we saw five more transits in a row," said Veselin Kostov, the principal investigator on the observation. Kostov is affiliated with the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. The next transit visible from Earth's point of view is not predicted to occur until 2020. This is because the orbit moves up and down, a result of the wobbling, in such a great degree that it sometimes does not transit the stars as viewed from Earth.

Astronomers are still trying to explain why this planet is out of alignment with its stars. There could be other planetary bodies in the system that tilted the orbit. Or, it could be that a third star nearby that is a visual companion may actually be gravitationally bound to the system and exerting an influence.

"Presumably there are planets out there like this one that we're not seeing because we're in the unfavorable period," said Peter McCullough, a team member with the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University. "And that's one of the things that Veselin is researching: Is there a silent majority of things that we're not seeing?"

Even with its changing seasons, Kepler-413b is too warm for life as we know it. Because it orbits so close to the stars, its temperatures are too high for liquid water to exist, making it uninhabitable. It also is a super Neptune -- a giant gas planet with a mass about 65 times that of Earth -- so there is no surface on which to stand.

NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., is responsible for the Kepler mission concept, ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery mission and was funded by the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

NASA Boards the 3-D-Manufacturing Train

Given NASA's unique needs for highly custom­ized spacecraft and instrument components, additive manufacturing, or "3-D printing," offers a compelling alternative to more traditional manufacturing approaches.

"We're not driving the additive manufacturing train, industry is," said Ted Swanson, the assistant chief for technology for the Mechanical Systems Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Swanson is the center's point-of-contact for additive manufacturing. "But NASA has the ability to get on-board to leverage it for our unique needs."

Led by NASA's Space Technology Mission Direc­torate, the agency has launched a number of formal programs to prototype new tools for current and future missions using this emerging manufacturing technique. Additive manufacturing involves computer-aided device, or CAD, models and sophisticated printers that literally deposit successive layers of metal, plastic or some other material until they are complete.

New Russian Resupply Spacecraft Docks With Station

Progress 54 atop its Soyuz rocket launched from Baikonur at 11:23 a.m. (10:23 p.m. Baikonur time) to begin the expedited, 4-orbit trek to the station. Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio reported to Mission Control in Houston that he and his crewmates had “a pretty good view” of the ascent of Progress up until its separation from the first stage of its Soyuz booster.  Once the Progress reached its preliminary orbit about nine minutes after launch, it was less than 1,750 miles behind the complex. 

› View video of launch

The new Progress is loaded with 1,764 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water and 2,897 pounds of spare parts, experiment hardware and other supplies  for the Expedition 38 crew. Thursday morning the crew will open the hatch to Progress to begin unloading the cargo. Progress 54 is slated to spend about two months docked to the complex before departing to make way for ISS Progress 55.

The ISS Progress 52 cargo craft, which undocked from Pirs on Monday, is in the midst of several days of tests to study the thermal effects of space on its attitude control system before it is ultimately de-orbited Feb. 11 for a fiery demise over the Pacific.

In addition to monitoring the arrival of Progress 54, the astronauts and cosmonauts of the Expedition 38 crew focused on a variety of science and maintenance tasks Wednesday.

Flight Engineer Mike Hopkins spent much of his day participating in the BP Reg experiment. This is a Canadian medical study that seeks to understand the causes of fainting and dizziness seen in some astronauts when they return to Earth following a long-duration mission. Results from this experiment will not only help researchers understand dizziness in astronauts, but it also will have direct benefits for people on Earth – particularly those predisposed to falls and resulting injuries, as seen in the elderly.

› Read more about BP Reg

Mastracchio began his day with the Microbiome study, which takes a look at the impact of space travel on the human immune system and an individual’s microbiome -- the collective community of microorganisms that are normally present in and on the human body. For this session, Mastracchio completed a survey and collected test samples from his own body.  In addition to providing data that will keep future crews healthy, findings from this study could benefit people on Earth who work in extreme environments and further research in the detection of diseases, alterations in metabolic function and deficiencies in the immune system.

› Read more about Microbiome

Later Mastracchio exchanged sample cartridges inside the Materials Science Laboratory’s Solidification and Quench Furnace. This metallurgical research furnace provides three heater zones to ensure accurate temperature profiles and maintain a sample's required temperature variations throughout the solidification process. This type of research in space allows scientists to isolate chemical and thermal properties of materials from the effects of gravity.

NASA Mars Orbiter Examines Dramatic New Crater

Space rocks hitting Mars excavate fresh craters at a pace of more than 200 per year, but few new Mars scars pack as much visual punch as one seen in a NASA image released today.

The image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a crater about 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter at the center of a radial burst painting the surface with a pattern of bright and dark tones.

It is available online at http://uahirise.org/ESP_034285_1835 and http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/mro/martian-impact-crater-pia17932.

The scar appeared at some time between imaging of this location by the orbiter's Context Camera in July 2010 and again in May 2012.  Based on apparent changes between those before-and-after images at lower resolution, researchers used HiRISE to acquire this new image on Nov. 19, 2013. The impact that excavated this crater threw some material as far as 9.3 miles (15 kilometers).

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.  Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the Context Camera.

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been studying Mars from orbit since 2006, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/mro .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Olympic Torch Completes Longest Relay in History

As the XXII Winter Olympic Games begin in Sochi, Russia, the athletes who compete must turn their eyes to the sky to see how far the torch that is lighting the Olympic flame has traveled.

This torch, which has journeyed farther than any torch in Olympic relay history, arrives at Fisht Stadium in Sochi on the shores of the Black Sea. The traditional relay began in late September in Olympia, Greece. The torch, which in fact has been a succession of torches, traveled more than 40,000 miles through 2,900 towns and villages in 83 regions of Russia, to the top of Europe’s highest mountain, Mount Elbrus, in the western Caucasus mountain range, to the depths of Siberia’s Lake Baikal.

The symbol of peace, friendship, hope and understanding among the nations participating in the Olympic Games traveled by car, plane, reindeer and train, and by what arguably was its most unusual mode of transportation, a Russian Soyuz rocket that ferried it into space to the International Space Station, itself a symbol of peaceful international cooperation.

More than 14,000 people served as torchbearers during the relay, including Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko, who next year will launch with NASA astronaut Scott Kelly to spend one year on the station; Sergey Krikalev, head of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center; and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to fly in space, who last year marked the 50th anniversary of her ground-breaking mission.

But it was Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency who made the longest – and fastest -- leg of the relay, carrying the torch 260 miles into space at speeds up to 17,500 mph, launching Nov. 7 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

› Read more about the launch

Six hours after launch, the Soyuz docked to the Rassvet module on the Earth-facing port of the Russian segment of the complex. Two hours later, hatches opened between the Soyuz and the station, enabling Tyurin and his Soyuz crewmates to float inside and present the torch to the six Expedition 37 crew members residing on the orbiting laboratory.

Two days later, on Nov. 9, Expedition 37 Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos suited up in Russian Orlan spacesuits and floated out of the Pirs airlock, carrying the torch with them for a high-flying photo opportunity at the beginning of a 5-hour, 50-minute spacewalk to prepare the Russian segment components for future assembly work.

› View video of spacewalk with Olympic torch
› Read more about the spacewalk

Back inside after the spacewalk, the torch was used by Kotov as he ran with it on a treadmill exercise device to simulate a marathon. It also was used to document a mock relay by the nine Russian, U.S., Japanese and European crew members on board as each three-person crew took turns floating with the torch down the length of the massive outpost.

Finally, it was time to pack up the torch for its trip home. Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano climbed into their Soyuz spacecraft with the torch safely stowed away on Nov. 11 and undocked from the station. Just hours later, they made a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan southwest of the city of Karaganda, bringing home the symbol of the Olympics and handing it off to Russian space officials to enable it to resume its land-based journey toward its final destination --Sochi.

› Read more about the landing

As the torch is used to light the Olympic flame in Sochi, and symbolizes harmony and goodwill throughout the games, the space station will remain one of the brightest objects in the night sky, a beacon of international cooperation and research providing tangible benefits for all humanity.

A New Look at an Old Friend

Just weeks after NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory began operations in 1999, the telescope pointed at Centaurus A (Cen A, for short). This galaxy, at a distance of about 12 million light years from Earth, contains a gargantuan jet blasting away from a central supermassive black hole.

Since then, Chandra has returned its attention to this galaxy, each time gathering more data. And, like an old family photo that has been digitally restored, new processing techniques are providing astronomers with a new look at this old galactic friend.

This new image of Cen A contains data from observations, equivalent to over nine and a half days worth of time, taken between 1999 and 2012. In this image, the lowest-energy X-rays Chandra detects are in red, while the medium-energy X-rays are green, and the highest-energy ones are blue.

As in all of Chandra’s images of Cen A, this one shows the spectacular jet of outflowing material – seen pointing from the middle to the upper left – that is generated by the giant black hole at the galaxy’s center. This new high-energy snapshot of Cen A also highlights a dust lane that wraps around the waist of the galaxy. Astronomers think this feature is a remnant of a collision that Cen A experienced with a smaller galaxy millions of years ago.

The data housed in Chandra’s extensive archive on Cen A provide a rich resource for a wide range of scientific investigations. For example, researchers published findings in 2013 on the point-like X-ray sources in Cen A. Most of these sources are systems where a compact object – either a black hole or a neutron star – is pulling gas from an orbiting companion star. These compact objects form by the collapse of massive stars, with black holes resulting from heavier stars than neutron stars.

The results suggested that nearly all of the compact objects had masses that fell into two categories: either less than twice that of the sun, or more than five times as massive as the sun. These two groups correspond to neutron stars and black holes.

This mass gap may tell us about the way massive stars explode. Scientists expect an upper limit on the most massive neutron stars, up to twice the mass of the sun. What is puzzling is that the smallest black holes appear to weigh in at about five times the mass of the sun. Stars are observed to have a continual range of masses, and so in terms of their progeny’s weight we would expect black holes to carry on where neutron stars left off.

Although this mass gap between neutron stars and black holes has been seen in our galaxy, the Milky Way, this new Cen A result provides the first hints that the gap occurs in more distant galaxies. If it turns out to be ubiquitous, it may mean that a special, rapid type of stellar collapse is required in some supernova explosions.

The results described here were published in the April 1st, 2013 issue of The Astrophysical Journal and are available online. Mark Burke led the work when he was at the University of Birmingham in the UK and he is now at L'Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie in Toulouse, France. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U. Birmingham/M. Burke et al.

NASA Study Points to Infrared-Herring in Apparent Amazon Green-Up

Correcting for this artifact in the data, Doug Morton, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and colleagues show that Amazon forests, at least on the large scale, maintain a fairly constant greenness and canopy structure throughout the dry season. The findings have implications for how scientists seek to understand seasonal and interannual changes in Amazon forests and other ecosystems.

"Scientists who use satellite observations to study changes in Earth's vegetation need to account for seasonal differences in the angles of solar illumination and satellite observation," Morton said.

Isolating the apparent green-up mechanism

The MODIS, or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, sensors that fly aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites make daily observations over the huge expanse of Amazon forests. An area is likely covered in green vegetation if sensors detect a relatively small amount of red light – absorbed in abundance by plants for photosynthesis – but see a large amount of near-infrared light, which plants primarily reflect. Scientists use the ratio of red and near-infrared light as a measure of vegetation "greenness."

Numerous hypotheses have been put forward to explain why Amazon forests appear greener in MODIS data as the dry season progresses. Perhaps young leaves, known to reflect more near-infrared light, replace old leaves? Or, possibly trees add more leaves to capture sunlight in the dry season when the skies are less cloudy. 

Unsettled by the lack of definitive evidence explaining the magnitude of the green-up, Morton and colleagues set out to better characterize the phenomenon. They culled satellite observations from MODIS and NASA's Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) Geosciences Laser Altimeter System (GLAS), which can provide an independent check on the seasonal differences in Amazon forest structure.  

The team next used a theoretical model to demonstrate how changes in forest structure or reflectance properties have distinct fingerprints in MODIS and GLAS data. Only one of the hypothesized mechanisms for the green-up, changes in sun-sensor geometry, was consistent with the satellite observations.

"We think we have uncovered the mechanism for the appearance of seasonal greening of Amazon forests – shadowing within the canopy that changes the amount of near-infrared light observed by MODIS," Morton said.

Seeing the Amazon in a new light

In June, when the sun is as low and far north as it will get, shadows are abundant. By September, around the time of the equinox, Amazon forests at the equator are illuminated from directly overhead. At this point the forest canopy is shadow-free, highly reflective in the infrared, and therefore very green according to some satellite vegetation indices.

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Sees 'Evening Star' Earth

New images from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover show Earth shining brighter than any star in the Martian night sky.

The rover's view of its original home planet even includes our moon, just below Earth.

The images, taken about 80 minutes after sunset during the rover's 529th Martian day (Jan. 31, 2014) are available athttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17936 for a broad scene of the evening sky, and athttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17935 for a zoomed-in view of Earth and the moon.

The distance between Earth and Mars when Curiosity took the photo was about 99 million miles (160 million kilometers).

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. 

For more information about Curiosity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Orion Stage Adapter Aces Structural Loads Testing

A test article of the stage adapter that will connect the Orion spacecraft to a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket for its first mission, Exploration Flight Test-1, aced structural loads testing Jan. 30. Now, the stage adapter that will fly on the Delta IV is officially ready for the journey to its final exam -- a flight more than 15 times farther into deep space than the International Space Station.

For the structural loads test, the hardware was attached with lines running in different directions on the hardware. Hydraulic pressure was added to those lines in increments, which pushed on the adapter to evaluate its integrity. The test was similar to the recent "can-crush" tests on a rocket fuel tank, but the adapter wasn't purposefully buckled for the structural test as it was on the fuel tank. Twenty-five test cases were completed on the adapter.

"The loads put on the adapter are similar to the conditions it will experience in flight," said Brent Gaddes, Spacecraft & Payload Integration Adapter Subsystem manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., where the test was conducted. "This test showed us the adapter can handle loads even higher than it will see in flight, without any compromise to the hardware -- like bending or cracking."

"It takes a lot of hard work from many different teams to pull a large-scale test like this together," said Dee VanCleave, lead test engineer for the structural loads test at Marshall. "We were able to compare the test data with the stress-analysis predictions in real-time for immediate results."

The flight adapter will be shipped in mid-March to ULA's facility in Decatur, Ala., where the Delta IV is being constructed. From there, it will travel by ship to Cape Canaveral, Fla., ahead of Orion's inaugural flight in September.

During the mission, Orion will travel approximately 3,600 miles above Earth’s surface before re-entering the atmosphere at almost 20,000 mph, generating temperatures near 4,000 degree Fahrenheit. The uncrewed flight will provide engineers with important data about Orion's heat shield and other elements, including the adapter’s performance, before it is flown in 2017 as part of the first mission to include the Space Launch System, or SLS.

SLS will be capable of powering humans and potential science payloads to deep space. It has the greatest capacity of any launch system ever built, minimizing the cost and risk of deep space journeys.

"It will be so gratifying to see the adapter fly on Orion's flight test this fall and know that I helped in a small way," VanCleave said.

Marshall manages the SLS Program for the agency.