Tag Archives: Deep Space Climate Observatory

NASA News Digest: Space Science For 25 November – 15 December 2015

Posted on December 18, 2015 4:52 pm - - Leave a Comment

Greetings fellow astrophiles,

The NASA News Service provides up-to-date announcements of NASA policy, news events, and space science. A recent selection of space science articles are provided below, including direct links to the full announcements. Those interested in receiving these announcements from NASA can subscribe to their service by sending an email to: hqnews-request@newsletters.nasa.gov?subject=subscribe

NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Receives First Mirror Installation

RELEASE 15-226 (Click here for the full article) – 25 November 2015

2015dec19_15_226_itarappres2NASA has successfully installed the first of 18 flight mirrors onto the James Webb Space Telescope, beginning a critical piece of the observatory’s construction.

In the clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland this week, the engineering team used a robot arm to lift and lower the hexagonal-shaped segment that measures just over 4.2 feet (1.3 meters) across and weighs approximately 88 pounds (40 kilograms). After being pieced together, the 18 primary mirror segments will work together as one large 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) mirror. The full installation is expected to be complete early next year.

“The James Webb Space Telescope will be the premier astronomical observatory of the next decade,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This first-mirror installation milestone symbolizes all the new and specialized technology that was developed to enable the observatory to study the first stars and galaxies, examine the formation stellar systems and planetary formation, provide answers to the evolution of our own solar system, and make the next big steps in the search for life beyond Earth on exoplanets.”

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You can follow the mirror installation on a live webcam by visiting: www.jwst.nasa.gov/webcam.html

To learn more about the James Webb Space Telescope, visit: www.nasa.gov/webb

Be An Astronaut: NASA Accepting Applications For Future Explorers

RELEASE 15-234 (Click here for the full article) – 14 December 2015

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Recently named the best place to work in the federal government for the fourth year in a row, NASA is looking for the best candidates to work in the best job on or off the planet. The astronaut candidate application website now is live and accepting submissions through Feb. 18.

Qualifying U.S. citizens may apply at: www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/423817000

NASA astronaut Shannon Walker and astronaut selection manager Anne Roemer will answer questions about the job, and the application and selection processes, on Reddit.com beginning at 4 pm EST today. At that time, anyone may submit questions at: www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/

The agency expects to announce final candidate selections in mid-2017. Those chosen may fly on any of four different U.S. spacecraft during their careers: the International Space Station, two commercial crew spacecraft currently in development by U.S. companies, and NASA’s Orion deep-space exploration vehicle.

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For more information about a career as an astronaut, and application requirements, visit: www.nasa.gov/astronauts

Follow NASA on LinkedIn, and find more NASA jobs, at: www.linkedin.com/company/nasa

NASA Studies High Clouds, Saharan Dust From EPIC View

RELEASE 15-220 (Click here for the full article) – 14 December 2015

From a dusty atmosphere stretching across the Atlantic Ocean to daily views of clouds at sunrise, a new NASA camera keeping a steady eye on the sunlit side of Earth is yielding new insights about our changing planet.

With NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), affixed to NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) about one million miles from Earth, scientists are getting a new view of our planet’s clouds, land surfaces, aerosols and more. Science results from the first EPIC images were discussed Monday at a media briefing at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

EPIC captures a color image of the sunlit side of Earth at least once every two hours, allowing researchers to track features as the planet rotates in the instrument’s field of view.

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For more information on EPIC, and to view images captured by the instrument, visit: epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/

NASA Examines Global Impacts Of The 2015 El Niño

RELEASE 15-235 (Click here for the full article) – 15 December 2015

People the world over are feeling, or soon will feel, the effects of the strongest El Niño event since 1997-98, currently unfolding in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. New satellite observations are beginning to show scientists its impact on the distribution of rain, tropospheric ozone and wildfires around the globe.

New results presented Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco show that atmospheric rivers, significant sources of rainfall, tend to intensify during El Niño events, and this year’s strong El Niño likely will bring more precipitation to California and some relief for the drought.

Due to this El Niño, tropospheric ozone, a pollutant and greenhouse gas, is seen decreasing over mid-latitude locations such as the United States, and the risk of fires across the tropics is showing signs of increasing.

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For more information on El Niño and NASA’s Earth-observing missions, visit: climatesciences.jpl.nasa.gov/enso

New NASA Satellite Maps Show Human Fingerprint On Global Air Quality

RELEASE 15-233 (Click here for the full article) – 14 December 2015

Using new, high-resolution global satellite maps of air quality indicators, NASA scientists tracked air pollution trends over the last decade in various regions and 195 cities around the globe. The findings were presented Monday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco and published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

“These changes in air quality patterns aren’t random,” said Bryan Duncan, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led the research. “When governments step in and say we’re going to build something here or we’re going to regulate this pollutant, you see the impact in the data.”

Duncan and his team examined observations made from 2005 to 2014 by the Dutch-Finnish Ozone Monitoring Instrument aboard NASA’s Aura satellite. One of the atmospheric gases the instrument detects is nitrogen dioxide, a yellow-brown gas that is a common emission from cars, power plants and industrial activity. Nitrogen dioxide can quickly transform into ground-level ozone, a major respiratory pollutant in urban smog. Nitrogen dioxide hotspots, used as an indicator of general air quality, occur over most major cities in developed and developing nations.

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To view and download high-resolution air quality maps, go to: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12094

For more on NASA’s research into nitrogen dioxide, and air quality data for 195 cities, visit: airquality.gsfc.nasa.gov/

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NASA News Digest: Space Science For 15 September – 26 October 2015

Posted on November 5, 2015 2:40 pm - - Leave a Comment

Greetings fellow astrophiles,

The NASA News Service provides up-to-date announcements of NASA policy, news events, and space science. A recent selection of space science articles are provided below, including direct links to the full announcements. Those interested in receiving these announcements from NASA can subscribe to their service by sending an email to: hqnews-request@newsletters.nasa.gov?subject=subscribe

Space Station Crew Celebrates 15 Years Of Human Space Exploration In Low-Earth Orbit

RELEASE 15-157 (Click here for the full article) – 26 October 2015

All six members of the Expedition 45 crew aboard the International Space Station will participate in a news conference at 10 a.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 2 to mark the start of continuous work by humans aboard the space-based laboratory 15 years ago. The 30-minute news conference will air live on NASA Television and agency’s website.

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Station Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Flight Engineers Mikhail Kornienko, Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will take questions from U.S., Russian and Japanese media during the news conference.

Due to time limitations, questions will be taken only from media participating in person at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston or the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. International media accreditation for this event is closed.

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For more information about the International Space Station and its crew, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Daily Views Of Earth Available On New NASA Website

RELEASE 15-199 (Click here for the full article) – 19 October 2015

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NASA launched a new website Monday so the world can see images of the full, sunlit side of the Earth every day. The images are taken by a NASA camera one million miles away on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force.

Once a day NASA will post at least a dozen new color images of Earth acquired from 12 to 36 hours earlier by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). Each daily sequence of images will show the Earth as it rotates, thus revealing the whole globe over the course of a day. The new website also features an archive of EPIC images searchable by date and continent.

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For daily images from EPIC, visit: http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For more information about the DSCOVR mission, visit: http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/

NASA Releases Plan Outlining Next Steps In The Journey To Mars

RELEASE 15-206 (Click here for the full article) – 8 October 2015

2015nov5_nasas-journey-to-mars-verticalNASA is leading our nation and the world on a journey to Mars, and Thursday the agency released a detailed outline of that plan in its report, “NASA’s Journey to Mars: Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration.”

“NASA is closer to sending American astronauts to Mars than at any point in our history,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Today, we are publishing additional details about our journey to Mars plan and how we are aligning all of our work in support of this goal. In the coming weeks, I look forward to continuing to discuss the details of our plan with members of Congress, as well as our commercial and our international and partners, many of whom will be attending the International Astronautical Congress next week.”

The plan can be read online at: http://go.nasa.gov/1VHDXxg

The journey to Mars crosses three thresholds, each with increasing challenges as humans move farther from Earth. NASA is managing these challenges by developing and demonstrating capabilities in incremental steps:

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To learn more about NASA’s journey to Mars, including the agency’s latest scientific exploration of the Red Planet, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/journeytomars/index.html

NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows On Today’s Mars

RELEASE 15-195 (Click here for the full article) – 28 September 2015

New findings from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.

Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder times.

“Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water,’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water — albeit briny — is flowing today on the surface of Mars.”

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More information about NASA’s journey to Mars is available online at: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/journeytomars

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro

Cassini Finds Global Ocean In Saturn’s Moon Enceladus

RELEASE 15-188 (Click here for the full article) – 15 September 2015

2015nov5_pia19656_labeledA global ocean lies beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s geologically active moon Enceladus, according to new research using data from NASA’s Cassini mission.

Researchers found the magnitude of the moon’s very slight wobble, as it orbits Saturn, can only be accounted for if its outer ice shell is not frozen solid to its interior, meaning a global ocean must be present.

The finding implies the fine spray of water vapor, icy particles and simple organic molecules Cassini has observed coming from fractures near the moon’s south pole is being fed by this vast liquid water reservoir. The research is presented in a paper published online this week in the journal Icarus.

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

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NASA News Digest: Space Science For 17 July – 24 July 2015

Posted on July 28, 2015 4:36 pm - - Leave a Comment

Greetings fellow astrophiles,

The NASA News service provides up-to-date announcements of NASA policy, news events, and space science. A recent selection of space science articles are provided below, including direct links to the full announcements. Those interested in receiving these news announcements directly from NASA can subscribe to their service by sending an email to:

hqnews-request@newsletters.nasa.gov?subject=subscribe

NASA’s New Horizons Discovers Frozen Plains In The Heart Of Pluto’s ‘Heart’

RELEASE 15-154 (Click here for the full article) – 17 July 2015

2015july27_pluto_heart_of_the_heart_03In the latest data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, a new close-up image of Pluto reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100 million years old, and is possibly still being shaped by geologic processes. This frozen region is north of Pluto’s icy mountains, in the center-left of the heart feature, informally named “Tombaugh Regio” (Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

“This terrain is not easy to explain,” said Jeff Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “The discovery of vast, craterless, very young plains on Pluto exceeds all pre-flyby expectations.”

This fascinating icy plains region — resembling frozen mud cracks on Earth — has been informally named “Sputnik Planum” (Sputnik Plain) after the Earth’s first artificial satellite. It has a broken surface of irregularly-shaped segments, roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) across, bordered by what appear to be shallow troughs. Some of these troughs have darker material within them, while others are traced by clumps of hills that appear to rise above the surrounding terrain. Elsewhere, the surface appears to be etched by fields of small pits that may have formed by a process called sublimation, in which ice turns directly from solid to gas, just as dry ice does on Earth.

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Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtag #PlutoFlyby to join the conversation. Live updates are also available on the mission Facebook page.

For more information on the New Horizons mission, including fact sheets, schedules, video and new images, visit: www.nasa.gov/newhorizons and solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/plutotoolkit.cfm

NASA Satellite Camera Provides “EPIC” View Of Earth

RELEASE 15-151 (Click here for the full article) – 20 July 2015

2015july27_187_1003705_americas_dxmA NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite has returned its first view of the entire sunlit side of Earth from one million miles away.

The color images of Earth from NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) are generated by combining three separate images to create a photographic-quality image. The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters — from ultraviolet to near infrared — to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used in these Earth images.

“This first DSCOVR image of our planet demonstrates the unique and important benefits of Earth observation from space,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. “As a former astronaut who’s been privileged to view the Earth from orbit, I want everyone to be able to see and appreciate our planet as an integrated, interacting system. DSCOVR’s observations of Earth, as well as its measurements and early warnings of space weather events caused by the sun, will help every person to monitor the ever-changing Earth, and to understand how our planet fits into its neighborhood in the solar system.”

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For more information about NASA’s Earth science activities, visit: www.nasa.gov/earth

For more information about DSCOVR, visit: www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin To Earth

RELEASE 15-156 (Click here for the full article) – 23 July 2015

2015july27_452b_system_comparisonNASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another “Earth.”

The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone — the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet — of a G2-type star, like our sun. The confirmation of Kepler-452b brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030.

“On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0.”Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth and is considered a super-Earth-size planet. While its mass and composition are not yet determined, previous research suggests that planets the size of Kepler-452b have a good chance of being rocky.

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For more information about the Kepler mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/kepler

A related feature story about other potentially habitable planets is online at: www.nasa.gov/jpl/finding-another-earth

NASA’s New Horizons Team Finds Haze, Flowing Ice On Pluto

RELEASE 15-158 (Click here for the full article) – 24 July 2015

2015july27_nh_01_stern_05_pluto_hazenewFlowing ice and a surprising extended haze are among the newest discoveries from NASA’s New Horizons mission, which reveal distant Pluto to be an icy world of wonders.

“We knew that a mission to Pluto would bring some surprises, and now — 10 days after closest approach — we can say that our expectation has been more than surpassed,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. “With flowing ices, exotic surface chemistry, mountain ranges, and vast haze, Pluto is showing a diversity of planetary geology that is truly thrilling.”

Just seven hours after closest approach, New Horizons aimed its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) back at Pluto, capturing sunlight streaming through the atmosphere and revealing hazes as high as 80 miles (130 kilometers) above Pluto’s surface. A preliminary analysis of the image shows two distinct layers of haze — one about 50 miles (80 kilometers) above the surface and the other at an altitude of about 30 miles (50 kilometers).

“My jaw was on the ground when I saw this first image of an alien atmosphere in the Kuiper Belt,” said Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. “It reminds us that exploration brings us more than just incredible discoveries — it brings incredible beauty.”

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View a simulated flyover using New Horizons’ close-approach images of Sputnik Planum and Pluto’s newly-discovered mountain range, informally named Hillary Montes, in the video below: go.nasa.gov/1MMEdTb

For more information on the New Horizons mission, including fact sheets, schedules, video and images, visit: www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

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