Sentinels of Climate Change

Ice currently covers more than 10 percent of our watery planet, yet its volume is continuing to decline at a staggering pace in response to our warming world. A new NASA interactive tool lets you take a close-up tour of some of the places around our planet where climate change is taking a toll on Earth’s ice cover, including:

• Greenland, where the massive Ilulissat Glacier is depositing 35 to 50 cubic kilometers of icebergs into the ocean each year, raising sea level (a cubic kilometer is about 264.2 billion gallons, enough to fill 400,000 Olympic-size pools)
• The Arctic, where sea ice continues to decline in both area and volume
• Antarctica, where massive ice shelves the size of some small U.S. states have collapsed in recent years

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Cassini Gazes at Veiled Titan

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will swing high over Saturn's moon Titan on Friday, Sept. 24, taking a long, sustained look at the hazy moon. At closest approach, Cassini will fly within 8,175 kilometers (5,080 miles) above the hazy moon's surface. This flyby is the first in a series of high-altitude Titan flybys for Cassini over the next year and a half.

Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer instrument will be probing Titan's stratosphere to learn more about its vertical structure as the seasons change. Equinox, when the sun shone directly over the equator, occurred in August 2009, and the northern hemisphere is now in spring.

Another instrument, the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, will be mapping an equatorial region known as Belet at a resolution of 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel. This mosaic will complement the mosaics that were obtained in earlier Titan flybys in January and April. This spectrometer will also look for clouds at northern mid-latitudes and near the poles.

Cassin's visible-light imaging cameras will also be taking images of Titan's trailing hemisphere, or the side that faces backward as Titan orbits around Saturn. If Titan cooperates and has a cloudy day, scientists plan to analyze the images for cloud patterns.

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, Washington, D.C.

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Cassini Gazes at Veiled Titan

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will swing high over Saturn's moon Titan on Friday, Sept. 24, taking a long, sustained look at the hazy moon. At closest approach, Cassini will fly within 8,175 kilometers (5,080 miles) above the hazy moon's surface. This flyby is the first in a series of high-altitude Titan flybys for Cassini over the next year and a half.

Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer instrument will be probing Titan's stratosphere to learn more about its vertical structure as the seasons change. Equinox, when the sun shone directly over the equator, occurred in August 2009, and the northern hemisphere is now in spring.

Another instrument, the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, will be mapping an equatorial region known as Belet at a resolution of 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel. This mosaic will complement the mosaics that were obtained in earlier Titan flybys in January and April. This spectrometer will also look for clouds at northern mid-latitudes and near the poles.

Cassin's visible-light imaging cameras will also be taking images of Titan's trailing hemisphere, or the side that faces backward as Titan orbits around Saturn. If Titan cooperates and has a cloudy day, scientists plan to analyze the images for cloud patterns.

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, Washington, D.C.

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Laser Tool for Studying Mars Rocks Delivered to JPL

The NASA Mars Science Laboratory Project's rover, Curiosity, will carry a newly delivered laser instrument named ChemCam to reveal what elements are present in rocks and soils on Mars up to 7 meters (23 feet) away from the rover.

The laser zaps a pinhead-sized area on the target, vaporizing it. A spectral analyzer then examines the flash of light produced to identify what elements are present.

The completed and tested instrument has been shipped to JPL from Los Alamos for installation onto the Curiosity rover at JPL.

ChemCam was conceived, designed and built by a U.S.-French team led by Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M.; NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (the French national space agency); and the Centre d'Étude Spatiale des Rayonnements at the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France.

For more information, see the Los Alamos National Laboratory news release at http://www.lanl.gov/news/releases/mars_mission_laser_tool_heads_to_jpl_newsrelease.html .

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Cassini Gazes at Veiled Titan

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will swing high over Saturn's moon Titan on Friday, Sept. 24, taking a long, sustained look at the hazy moon. At closest approach, Cassini will fly within 8,175 kilometers (5,080 miles) above the hazy moon's surface. This flyby is the first in a series of high-altitude Titan flybys for Cassini over the next year and a half.

Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer instrument will be probing Titan's stratosphere to learn more about its vertical structure as the seasons change. Equinox, when the sun shone directly over the equator, occurred in August 2009, and the northern hemisphere is now in spring.

Another instrument, the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, will be mapping an equatorial region known as Belet at a resolution of 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel. This mosaic will complement the mosaics that were obtained in earlier Titan flybys in January and April. This spectrometer will also look for clouds at northern mid-latitudes and near the poles.

Cassin's visible-light imaging cameras will also be taking images of Titan's trailing hemisphere, or the side that faces backward as Titan orbits around Saturn. If Titan cooperates and has a cloudy day, scientists plan to analyze the images for cloud patterns.

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, Washington, D.C.

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Spring on Titan brings sunshine and patchy clouds

The northern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Titan is set for mainly fine spring weather, with polar skies clearing since the equinox in August last year. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been monitoring clouds on Titan regularly since the spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn in 2004. Now, a group led by Sébastien Rodriguez, a Cassini VIMS team collaborator based at Université Paris Diderot, France, has analyzed more than 2,000 VIMS images to create the first long-term study of Titan's weather using observational data that also includes the equinox. Equinox, when the sun shone directly over the equator, occurred in August 2009.

Rodriguez is presenting the results and new images at the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome on Sept. 22.

Though Titan's surface is far colder and lacks liquid water, this moon is a kind of "sister world" to Earth because it has a surface covered with organic material and an atmosphere whose chemical composition harkens back to an early Earth. Titan has a hydrological cycle similar to Earth's, though Titan's cycle depends on methane and ethane rather than water.

A season on Titan lasts about seven Earth years. Rodriguez and colleagues observed significant atmospheric changes between July 2004 (early summer in Titan's southern hemisphere) and April 2010 (the very start of northern spring). The images showed that cloud activity has recently decreased near both of Titan's poles. These regions had been heavily overcast during the late southern summer until 2008, a few months before the equinox.

Over the past six years, the scientists found that clouds clustered in three distinct latitude regions of Titan: large clouds at the north pole, patchy clouds at the south pole and a narrow belt around 40 degrees south. "However, we are now seeing evidence of a seasonal circulation turnover on Titan – the clouds at the south pole completely disappeared just before the equinox and the clouds in the north are thinning out," Rodriguez said. "This agrees with predictions from models and we are expecting to see cloud activity reverse from one hemisphere to another in the coming decade as southern winter approaches."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

For a full version of this release, go to: http://www.europlanet-eu.org/outreach/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=288&Itemid=41

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Spring on Titan brings sunshine and patchy clouds

The northern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Titan is set for mainly fine spring weather, with polar skies clearing since the equinox in August last year. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been monitoring clouds on Titan regularly since the spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn in 2004.

Now, a group led by Sébastien Rodriguez, a Cassini VIMS team collaborator based at Université Paris Diderot, France, has analyzed more than 2,000 VIMS images to create the first long-term study of Titan's weather using observational data that also includes the equinox. Equinox, when the sun shone directly over the equator, occurred in August 2009.

Rodriguez is presenting the results and new images at the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome on Sept. 22.

Though Titan's surface is far colder and lacks liquid water, this moon is a kind of "sister world" to Earth because it has a surface covered with organic material and an atmosphere whose chemical composition harkens back to an early Earth. Titan has a hydrological cycle similar to Earth's, though Titan's cycle depends on methane and ethane rather than water.

A season on Titan lasts about seven Earth years. Rodriguez and colleagues observed significant atmospheric changes between July 2004 (early summer in Titan's southern hemisphere) and April 2010 (the very start of northern spring). The images showed that cloud activity has recently decreased near both of Titan's poles. These regions had been heavily overcast during the late southern summer until 2008, a few months before the equinox.

Over the past six years, the scientists found that clouds clustered in three distinct latitude regions of Titan: large clouds at the north pole, patchy clouds at the south pole and a narrow belt around 40 degrees south. "However, we are now seeing evidence of a seasonal circulation turnover on Titan – the clouds at the south pole completely disappeared just before the equinox and the clouds in the north are thinning out," Rodriguez said. "This agrees with predictions from models and we are expecting to see cloud activity reverse from one hemisphere to another in the coming decade as southern winter approaches."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

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Orbiter Resumes Science Observations

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter resumed observing Mars with its science instruments on Sept. 18, recovering from an unplanned reboot of its computer three days earlier.

The reboot put the orbiter into a precautionary standby called "safe mode" on Sept. 15. The event appears to have been similar to one the orbiter last experienced on Aug. 26, 2009. For 10 months prior to this latest reboot, the spacecraft operated normally, making science observations and returning data.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at Mars since 2006, has met the mission's science goals and returned more data than all other Mars missions combined. It completed its primary science phase of operations in November 2008, but continues to observe Mars both for science and for support of future missions that will land on Mars.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

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Team Restoring Mars Orbiter After Reboot

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into a precautionary standby mode after experiencing a spontaneous computer reboot on Sept. 15. The mission's ground team has begun restoring the spacecraft to full operations.

Initial analysis of telemetry from the orbiter indicates the "safe mode" status was triggered by a reboot similar to one experienced Aug. 26, 2009. That was the most recent time that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into safe mode. For 10 months prior to this latest reboot, the spacecraft operated normally, making science observations and returning data. During 2009, unplanned reboots put the spacecraft into safe mode four times.

The orbiter has normal power, fully charged batteries and safe temperatures. The team has increased the data-rate of communications and is taking additional steps to resume science observations soon.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at Mars since 2006, has met the mission's science goals and returned more data than all other Mars missions combined. It completed its primary science phase of operations in November 2008, but continues to observe Mars both for science and for support of future landed missions.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

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NASA's Next Mars Rover Rolls Over Ramps

The rover Curiosity, which NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will place on Mars in August 2012, has been rolling over ramps in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to test its mobility system.

Curiosity uses the same type of six-wheel, rocker-bogie suspension system as previous Mars rovers, for handling uneven terrain during drives. Its wheels are half a meter (20 inches) in diameter, twice the height of the wheels on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers currently on Mars.

Launch of the Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled for 2011 during the period from Nov. 25 to Dec. 18. The mission is designed to operate Curiosity on Mars for a full Martian year, which equals about two Earth years.

A public lecture by Mars Science Laboratory Chief Scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, will take place at JPL on Thursday, Sept. 16, beginning at 7 p.m. PDT Time (10 p.m. EDT). Live video streaming, supplemented by a real-time web chat to take public questions, will air on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasajpl .

JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about the mission is online at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

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Caught in the Act: Fireballs Light up Jupiter

Amateur astronomers working with professional astronomers have spotted two fireballs lighting up Jupiter's atmosphere this summer, marking the first time Earth-based telescopes have captured relatively small objects burning up in the atmosphere of the giant planet. The two fireballs - which produced bright freckles on Jupiter that were visible through backyard telescopes - occurred on June 3, 2010, and August 20, 2010, respectively.

A new paper that includes both pros and amateurs, led by Ricardo Hueso of the Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao, Spain, appears today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. In the paper, astronomers estimate the object that caused the June 3 fireball was 8 to 13 meters (30 to 40 feet) in diameter. The object is comparable in size to the asteroid 2010 RF12 that flew by Earth on Wednesday, Sept. 8, and slightly larger than the asteroid 2008 TC3, which burned up above Sudan two years ago.

An impact of this kind on Earth would not be expected to cause damage on the ground. The energy released by the June 3 fireball as it collided with Jupiter's atmosphere was five to 10 times less than the 1908 Tunguska event on Earth, which knocked over tens of millions of trees in a remote part of Russia. Analysis is continuing on the Aug. 20 fireball, but scientists said it was comparable to the June 3 object.

"Jupiter is a big gravitational vacuum cleaner," said Glenn Orton, a co-author on the paper and an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "It is clear now that relatively small objects, remnants of the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, still hit Jupiter frequently. Scientists are trying to figure out just how frequently."

Orton and colleagues said this kind of discovery couldn't have been made without amateur astronomers around the world, whose observations of Jupiter provide a near round-the-clock surveillance that would be impossible to do with the long lines of scientists waiting to use the large telescopes. Amateur astronomers, for example, were the first to see the dark spot that appeared on Jupiter in July 2009 as the result of an impact. Professional astronomers are still analyzing that impact.

Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer from Murrumbateman, Australia, who was also the first to take a picture of that dark spot on Jupiter in July 2009, was the first to see the tiny flash on June 3. Amateur astronomers had their telescopes trained on Jupiter that day because they were in the middle of "Jupiter season," when the planet is high in the sky and at its largest size, as seen by backyard telescopes.

Wesley was visiting an amateur astronomer friend about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away in Broken Hill, and he set a digital video camera to record images from his telescope at about 60 frames per second. He was watching the live video on a computer screen at his friend's house when he saw a two-and-a-half-second-long flash of light near the limb of the planet.

"It was clear to me straight away it had to be an event on Jupiter," he said. "I'm used to seeing other momentary flashes in the camera from cosmic ray impacts, but this was different. Cosmic ray strikes last only for one frame of video, whereas this flash gradually brightened and then faded over 133 frames."

Wesley sent a message out on his e-mail list of amateur and professional astronomers, which included Orton. After receiving Wesley's e-mail, Christopher Go of Cebu, Philippines -- who like Wesley, is an amateur astronomer -- checked his own recordings and confirmed that he had seen a flash, too.

Before Wesley's work, scientists didn't know these small-size impacts could be observed, Hueso explained. "The discovery of optical flashes produced by objects of this size helps scientists understand how many of these objects are out there and the role they played in the formation of our solar system," Hueso said.

For three days afterward, Hueso and colleagues looked for signs of the impact in high-resolution images from larger telescopes: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Gemini Observatory telescopes in Hawaii and Chile, the Keck telescope in Hawaii, the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. Scientists analyzed the images for thermal disruptions and chemical signatures seen in previous images of Jupiter impacts. In this case, they saw no signs of debris, which allowed them to limit the size of the impactor.

Based on all these images, and particularly those obtained by Wesley and Go, the astronomers were able to confirm the flash came from some kind of object – probably a small comet or asteroid – that burned up in Jupiter's atmosphere. The impactor likely had a mass of about 500 to 2,000 metric tons (1 million to 4 million pounds), probably about 100,000 times less massive than the object in July 2009.

Calculations also estimated this June 3 impact released about 1 to 4 quadrillion joules (300 million to 1 billion kilowatt-hours) of energy. The second fireball, on Aug. 20, was detected by the amateur Japanese astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa and later confirmed by Aoki Kazuo and Masayuki Ishimaru. It flashed for about 1.5 seconds. The Keck telescope, observing less than a day later, also found no subsequent debris remnants. Scientists are still analyzing this second flash.

Although collisions of this size had never before been detected on Jupiter, some previous models predicted around one collision of this kind a year. Another predicted up to 100 such collisions. Scientists now believe the frequency must be closer to the high end of the scale.

"It is interesting to note that whereas Earth gets smacked by a 10-meter-sized object about every 10 years on average, it looks as though Jupiter gets hit with the same-sized object a few times each month," said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL, who was not involved in the paper. "The Jupiter impact rate is still being refined and studies like this one help to do just that."

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New Report Seeks to Improve Climate Forecasts

From farmers to government officials in charge of efficiently managing Earth's precious water and energy resources, people all over the world rely on accurate short-term climate forecasts on timescales ranging from a few weeks to a few years to make more informed decisions.

But today's climate forecast systems have limited ability to operate on such timescales. That's because it's difficult to realistically represent the complex interactions between Earth's ocean, atmosphere and land surface in the climate models from which forecasts are developed.

A new report by the National Academy of Sciences looks at the current state of these climate predictions and recommends strategies and best practices for improving them. Duane Waliser, chief Earth scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., was on the 12-member panel that conducted the NOAA-requested study.

Among the report's key recommendations:

  • Continue research to better understand and use information from key sources of climate predictability, and interactions between the ocean and atmosphere, atmosphere and land, as well as volcanic eruptions, greenhouse gases and land use changes.

  • Improve the basic building blocks of climate forecasts through better physical climate models, making more sustained physical observations, better incorporating observations into forecast systems, and increasing collaboration between forecast agencies and stakeholders in developing and implementing forecast strategies.

  • Adopt best practices such as working more closely with research communities, particularly universities; making data that feed into and come out of forecasts publicly available; minimizing subjective forecast components; and using forecast metrics that better convey to the public the probability aspects of forecasts.


Waliser contributed his expertise in a phenomenon called the Madden-Julian Oscillation that exerts a powerful influence on short-term climate predictions. During this type of climate pattern, unusual variations of clouds, rainfall and large-scale atmospheric circulation move slowly eastward from the tropical Indian Ocean into the Pacific Ocean over the course of weeks, ebbing and flowing like waves in cycles lasting about 40 to 50 days. This climate pattern typically spans more than half the distance around Earth's equator. In the disturbed portion of the "wave," air rises, triggering showers and thunderstorms; in the sinking portion, air subsides, inhibiting clouds and rainfall.

Madden-Julian Oscillation events can strongly influence long-term weather patterns and have widespread impacts around the globe. They can help trigger the beginning and end of the Asian and Indian monsoons and influence the development and evolution of El Niño, hurricanes and weather in Earth's mid-latitudes. Scientists want to incorporate information about the oscillation more accurately into the climate models that agencies around the world use to predict weather and climate.

"Ten years ago, our ability to forecast Madden-Julian Oscillation events was very limited," said Waliser. "Today, numerous operational forecast centers around the world are recognizing the importance of forecasting the MJO and are beginning to provide useful forecast information about it. This information, in turn, can be used to make better forecasts of other weather and climate phenomena.

"This new report highlights the key shortcomings and strategies needed to make more accurate climate forecasts-- not just of the Madden-Julian Oscillation, but of intraseasonal to interannual climate forecasts in general," he added. The full report, called "Assessment of Intraseasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction and Predictability," can be read and downloaded at: http://nationalacademies.org/morenews/20100908.html .

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A Snapshot of Sea Ice

The Arctic Ocean is covered by a dynamic layer of sea ice that grows each winter and shrinks each summer, reaching its yearly minimum size each fall. While the 2010 minimum remains to be seen, NASA's Aqua satellite captured this snapshot on Sept. 3.

How does the Aqua satellite "see" sea ice? Microwaves. Everything on Earth’s surface -- including people -- emits microwave radiation, the properties of which vary with the emitter, thereby allowing the AMSR-E microwave sensor on Aqua to map the planet.

Ice emits more microwave radiation than water, making regions of the ocean with floating ice appear much brighter than the open ocean to the AMSR-E sensor. This difference allows the satellite to capture a sea ice record year-round, through cloud cover and the months of polar night. Continuous records are important because sea ice is dynamic. Besides melting and freezing, the ice moves with wind and currents which can cause it to split or pile up.

"The data from AMSR-E and other NASA satellites are critical for understanding the coupling between sea ice and the ocean and atmosphere," said Tom Wagner, Cryosphere program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It’s important for us to understand these connections to improve our predictive models of how the planet will change."

The Arctic sea ice is a major factor in the global climate system. The ice cools the planet by reflecting sunlight back into space. It also helps drive ocean circulation by converting the warm Pacific water that flows into the Arctic into the cold, saltier water that empties into the Atlantic. The sea ice also fundamentally shapes the Arctic; defining the organisms that make up its ecosystem and keeping heat from the ocean from melting the frozen tundra.

In fall 2009, Arctic sea ice reached its minimum extent on about Sept. 12, and was the third lowest since satellite microwave measurements were first made in 1979. Researchers are interested in year-to-year changes, which can be highly variable, so that scientists need many years, even decades, of data to examine long-term trends. Notably, all of the major minimums have occurred in the last decade, consistent with other NASA research, which shows January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record.

As the sea ice nears the 2010 minimum later this month, look for images and analysis from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, in Boulder, Colo.

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Two Asteroids to Pass by Earth Wednesday

Two asteroids, several meters in diameter and in unrelated orbits, will pass within the moon's distance of Earth on Wednesday, Sept. 8.

Both asteroids should be observable near closest approach to Earth with moderate-sized amateur telescopes. Neither of these objects has a chance of hitting Earth. A 10-meter-sized near-Earth asteroid from the undiscovered population of about 50 million would be expected to pass almost daily within a lunar distance, and one might strike Earth's atmosphere about every 10 years on average.

The Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Ariz., discovered both objects on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 5, during a routine monitoring of the skies. The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., first received the observations Sunday morning, determined preliminary orbits and concluded that both objects would pass within the distance of the moon about three days after their discovery.

Near-Earth asteroid 2010 RX30 is estimated to be 32 to 65 feet (10 to 20 meters) in size and will pass within 0.6 lunar distances of Earth (about 154,000 miles, or 248,000 kilometers) at 2:51 a.m. PDT (5:51 a.m. EDT) Wednesday. The second object, 2010 RF12, estimated to be 20 to 46 feet (6 to 14 meters) in size, will pass within 0.2 lunar distances (about 49,088 miles or 79,000 kilometers) a few hours later at 2:12 p.m. PDT (5:12 pm EDT).

More information about asteroids is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/ . You can also follow the latest news about asteroids on Twitter at @asteroidwatch .

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Amateur Astronomers are First to Detect Objects Impacting Jupiter

Amateur astronomers working with professional astronomers have spotted two fireballs lighting up Jupiter's atmosphere this summer, marking the first time Earth-based telescopes have captured relatively small objects burning up in the atmosphere of the giant planet. The two fireballs – which produced bright freckles on Jupiter that were visible through backyard telescopes – occurred on June 3, 2010, and August 20, 2010, respectively.

A new paper that includes both pros and amateurs, led by Ricardo Hueso of the Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao, Spain, appears today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. In the paper, astronomers estimate the object that caused the June 3 fireball was 8 to 13 meters (30 to 40 feet) in diameter. The object is comparable in size to the asteroid 2010 RF12 that flew by Earth on Wednesday, Sept. 8, and slightly larger than the asteroid 2008 TC3, which burned up above Sudan two years ago.

An impact of this kind on Earth would not be expected to cause damage on the ground. The energy released by the June 3 fireball as it collided with Jupiter's atmosphere was five to 10 times less than the 1908 Tunguska event on Earth, which knocked over tens of millions of trees in a remote part of Russia. Analysis is continuing on the Aug. 20 fireball, but scientists said it was comparable to the June 3 object.

"Jupiter is a big gravitational vacuum cleaner," said Glenn Orton, a co-author on the paper and an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "It is clear now that relatively small objects, remnants of the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, still hit Jupiter frequently. Scientists are trying to figure out just how frequently."

Orton and colleagues said this kind of discovery couldn't have been made without amateur astronomers around the world, whose observations of Jupiter provide a near round-the-clock surveillance that would be impossible to do with the long lines of scientists waiting to use the large telescopes. Amateur astronomers, for example, were the first to see the dark spot that appeared on Jupiter in July 2009 as the result of an impact. Professional astronomers are still analyzing that impact.

Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer from Murrumbateman, Australia, who was also the first to take a picture of that dark spot on Jupiter in July 2009, was the first to see the tiny flash on June 3. Amateur astronomers had their telescopes trained on Jupiter that day because they were in the middle of "Jupiter season," when the planet is high in the sky and at its largest size, as seen by backyard telescopes.

Wesley was visiting an amateur astronomer friend about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away in Broken Hill, and he set a digital video camera to record images from his telescope at about 60 frames per second. He was watching the live video on a computer screen at his friend's house when he saw a two-and-a-half-second-long flash of light near the limb of the planet.

"It was clear to me straight away it had to be an event on Jupiter," he said. "I'm used to seeing other momentary flashes in the camera from cosmic ray impacts, but this was different. Cosmic ray strikes last only for one frame of video, whereas this flash gradually brightened and then faded over 133 frames."

Wesley sent a message out on his e-mail list of amateur and professional astronomers, which included Orton. After receiving Wesley's e-mail, Christopher Go of Cebu, Philippines -- who like Wesley, is an amateur astronomer -- checked his own recordings and confirmed that he had seen a flash, too.

Before Wesley's work, scientists didn't know these small-size impacts could be observed, Hueso explained. "The discovery of optical flashes produced by objects of this size helps scientists understand how many of these objects are out there and the role they played in the formation of our solar system," Hueso said.

For three days afterward, Hueso and colleagues looked for signs of the impact in high-resolution images from larger telescopes: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Gemini Observatory telescopes in Hawaii and Chile, the Keck telescope in Hawaii, the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. Scientists analyzed the images for thermal disruptions and chemical signatures seen in previous images of Jupiter impacts. In this case, they saw no signs of debris, which allowed them to limit the size of the impactor.

Based on all these images, and particularly those obtained by Wesley and Go, the astronomers were able to confirm the flash came from some kind of object – probably a small comet or asteroid – that burned up in Jupiter's atmosphere. The impactor likely had a mass of about 500 to 2,000 metric tons (1 million to 4 million pounds), probably about 100,000 times less massive than the object in July 2009.

Calculations also estimated this June 3 impact released about 1 to 4 quadrillion joules (300 million to 1 billion watt-hours) of energy. The second fireball, on Aug. 20, was detected by the amateur Japanese astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa and later confirmed by Aoki Kazuo and Masayuki Ishimaru. It flashed for about 1.5 seconds. The Keck telescope, observing less than a day later, also found no subsequent debris remnants. Scientists are still analyzing this second flash.

Although collisions of this size had never before been detected on Jupiter, some previous models predicted around one collision of this kind a year. Another predicted up to 100 such collisions. Scientists now believe the frequency must be closer to the high end of the scale.

"It is interesting to note that whereas Earth gets smacked by a 10-meter-sized object about every 10 years on average, it looks as though Jupiter gets hit with the same-sized object a few times each month," said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL, who was not involved in the paper. "The Jupiter impact rate is still being refined and studies like this one help to do just that."

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Cassini Captures a Divine Dione

Cruising past Saturn's moon Dione this past weekend, NASA's Cassini spacecraft got its best look yet at the north polar region of this small, icy moon and returned stark raw images of the fractured, cratered surface.

The new images also show new views of the long, bright canyon ice walls, which scientists working with NASA's Voyager spacecraft called "wispy terrain" in the early 1980s. These ice walls thread along the surface of the moon's trailing hemisphere and cut across craters.

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, Washington, D.C.

The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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Missing Piece Inspires New Look at Mars Puzzle

Experiments prompted by a 2008 surprise from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest that soil examined by NASA's Viking Mars landers in 1976 may have contained carbon-based chemical building blocks of life.

"This doesn't say anything about the question of whether or not life has existed on Mars, but it could make a big difference in how we look for evidence to answer that question," said Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. McKay coauthored a study published online by the Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets, reanalyzing results of Viking's tests for organic chemicals in Martian soil.

The only organic chemicals identified when the Viking landers heated samples of Martian soil were chloromethane and dichloromethane -- chlorine compounds interpreted at the time as likely contaminants from cleaning fluids. But those chemicals are exactly what the new study found when a little perchlorate -- the surprise finding from Phoenix -- was added to desert soil from Chile containing organics and analyzed in the manner of the Viking tests.

"Our results suggest that not only organics, but also perchlorate, may have been present in the soil at both Viking landing sites," said the study's lead author, Rafael Navarro-González of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City.

Organics can come from non-biological or biological sources. Many meteorites raining onto Mars and Earth for the past 5 billion years contain organics. Even if Mars has never had life, scientists before Viking anticipated that Martian soil would contain organics from meteorites.

"The lack of organics was a big surprise from the Vikings," McKay said. "But for 30 years we were looking at a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing. Phoenix has provided the missing piece: perchlorate. The perchlorate discovery by Phoenix was one of the most important results from Mars since Viking." Perchlorate, an ion of chlorine and oxygen, becomes a strong oxidant when heated. "It could sit there in the Martian soil with organics around it for billions of years and not break them down, but when you heat the soil to check for organics, the perchlorate destroys them rapidly," McKay said.

This interpretation proposed by Navarro-González and his four co-authors challenges the interpretation by Viking scientists that Martian organic compounds were not present in their samples at the detection limit of the Viking experiment. Instead, the Viking scientists interpreted the chlorine compounds as contaminants. Upcoming missions to Mars and further work on meteorites from Mars are expected to help resolve this question.

The Curiosity rover that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will deliver to Mars in 2012 will carry the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument provided by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. In contrast to Viking and Phoenix, Curiosity can rove and thus analyze a wider variety of rocks and samples. SAM can check for organics in Martian soil and powdered rocks by baking samples to even higher temperatures than Viking did, and also by using an alternative liquid-extraction method at much lower heat. Combining these methods on a range of samples may enable further testing of the new report's hypothesis that oxidation by heated perchlorates that might have been present in the Viking samples was destroying organics.

One reason the chlorinated organics found by Viking were interpreted as contaminants from Earth was that the ratio of two isotopes of chlorine in them matched the three-to-one ratio for those isotopes on Earth. The ratio for them on Mars has not been clearly determined yet. If it is found to be much different than Earth's, that would support the 1970s interpretation.

If organic compounds can indeed persist in the surface soil of Mars, contrary to the predominant thinking for three decades, one way to search for evidence of life on Mars could be to check for types of large, complex organic molecules, such as DNA, that are indicators of biological activity. "If organics cannot persist at the surface, that approach would not be wise, but if they can, it's a different story," McKay said.

The Phoenix mission was led by Principal Investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The Phoenix finding of perchlorate was reported by JPL's Michael Hecht and co-authors. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, also manages Mars Science Laboratory for the NASA Exploration Missions Directorate, Washington.

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Solar Probe Plus Mission to Plunge Directly Into Sun's Atmosphere

The small car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the sun's atmosphere approximately four million miles from our star's surface. It will explore a region no other spacecraft ever has encountered. NASA has selected five science investigations that will unlock the sun's biggest mysteries.

"The experiments selected for Solar Probe Plus are specifically designed to solve two key questions of solar physics -- why is the sun's outer atmosphere so much hotter than the sun's visible surface and what propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar system? " said Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington. "We've been struggling with these questions for decades and this mission should finally provide those answers."

As the spacecraft approaches the sun, its revolutionary carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures exceeding 2550 degrees Fahrenheit and blasts of intense radiation. The spacecraft will have an up close and personal view of the sun enabling scientists to better understand, characterize and forecast the radiation environment for future space explorers.

NASA invited researchers in 2009 to submit science proposals. Thirteen were reviewed by a panel of NASA and outside scientists. The total dollar amount for the five selected investigations is approximately $180 million for preliminary analysis, design, development and tests.

The selected proposals are:

-- Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation: principal investigator, Justin C. Kasper, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. This investigation will specifically count the most abundant particles in the solar wind -- electrons, protons and helium ions -- and measure their properties. The investigation also is designed to catch some of the particles for direct analysis.

-- Wide-field Imager: principal investigator, Russell Howard, Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. This telescope will make 3-D images of the sun's corona, or atmosphere. The experiment will also provide 3-D images of solar wind and shocks as they approach and pass the spacecraft. This investigation complements instruments on the spacecraft providing direct measurements by imaging the plasma the other instruments sample.

-- Fields Experiment: principal investigator, Stuart Bale, University of California Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. This investigation will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, radio emissions, and shock waves that course through the sun's atmospheric plasma. The experiment also serves as a giant dust detector, registering voltage signatures when specks of space dust hit the spacecraft's antenna.

-- Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun: principal investigator, David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. This investigation consists of two instruments that will monitor electrons, protons and ions that are accelerated to high energies in the sun's atmosphere.

-- Heliospheric Origins with Solar Probe Plus: principal investigator, Marco Velli of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Velli is the mission's observatory scientist, responsible for serving as a senior scientist on the science working group. He will provide an independent assessment of scientific performance and act as a community advocate for the mission..




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