Nasa on EARTH Magazine

Juno unveils Jupiter's secrets

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 14:05:49 -0500

Over the last few decades, we have come to know Jupiter from thousands of Hubble Space Telescope images such as this one. Now, Juno is providing unprecedented new views of the planet and revealing secrets about the Great Red Spot (lower left), the other storms and swirling clouds at the top of the planet's atmosphere, and many features far below. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Simon (NASA Goddard).

The Roman god Jupiter was known for his dalliances with women other than his wife, the goddess Juno. Juno was not fooled, however. Although her husband might cloak himself in a cloud to conceal his activities, Juno developed the ability to see through those clouds and discover Jupiter’s true nature.

Deep Space Network

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 13:48:23 -0500

The Deep Space Network has antennae in Australia, Spain and Goldstone, Calif., as shown here, which relay messages between Juno and Earth. Credit: public domain.

Messages from Juno and other spacecraft in the far reaches of the solar system are relayed to scientists via NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), which was created in 1958. DSN consists of three sets of powerful radio antennae spaced about 120 degrees longitude apart around the world near Barstow, Calif., Canberra, Australia, and Madrid, Spain. The complexes are all situated in bowl-shaped terrain in semi-mountainous rural areas to minimize interference from external radio waves. As Earth rotates, at least one of the DSN antennae is pointed toward the spacecraft at all times. Communications via DSN begin and end at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the system.

Wrangling the data to choose Mars landing sites

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 14:14:33 -0500

An ancient, water-carved delta in Jezero Crater — the landing site chosen for the Mars 2020 rover mission — is seen in this false color image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL/MSSS/Brown University.

NASA has sent four rovers to Mars, and the fifth — the Mars 2020 Rover — is slated to launch in summer 2020 for an early 2021 arrival. Selecting suitable landing sites is a critical and painstaking pre-launch step in ensuring both the technical and scientific success of these missions.

Benchmarks: July 29, 1958: The Birth of NASA

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 16:07:07 -0400

U.S. astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin climbs down the ladder of the lunar lander during the July 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, which effectively ended the space race. Credit: NASA.

Growing up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., meant that my house was often frequented by guests who wanted to visit our nation’s capital. Without fail, this meant my family and I would be taking a trip to one of the Smithsonian’s most popular attractions, the National Air and Space Museum. I can’t count the number of times I visited the museum before I left for college, but it was a lot. Although glimpsing the museum’s collection of aircraft and spacecraft was cool at first, I would much rather have spent those afternoons wandering the halls of the National Museum of Natural History.

Down to Earth With: Maria Zuber

Wed, 23 May 2018 16:48:13 -0400

In 2011, a pair of orbiters will launch for the moon, making some of the most exact measurements yet of our satellite. Luckily for the orbiters, they’ll have Maria Zuber at the helm. A geophysicist at MIT, Zuber was recently named one of “America’s Best Leaders” last year by U.S. News & World Report for her role in establishing women in high-level science. The moon orbiters alone will make her one of the first women to lead a NASA robotic space mission. Recently, Zuber talked with EARTH reporter Brian Fisher Johnson about the mission, leadership and saving the economy.

Down to Earth With: Marc Kuchner

Wed, 23 May 2018 16:34:07 -0400

Marc Kuchner. Credit: Digital Vision; top: Jennifer Nuzzo

Marc Kuchner likes to joke that when he feels sociable at a party, he tells fellow guests that he is an astronomer. But when he wants to be left alone, he says, he tells them he is an astrophysicist. At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., Kuchner spends his time thinking about planets outside the solar system and looking for ways to better see them — and he’s devoted some of his time to working on the Terrestrial Planet Finder, a proposed NASA mission to look for and image Earth-like exoplanets. For his work on improving the detection and understanding of exoplanets, SPIE, an international society that advances light-based research, awarded him the group’s Early Career Achievement Award earlier this year.

Comment: Could NASA find evidence of extraterrestrial life by 2050?

Tue, 01 May 2018 12:26:02 -0400

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which launched in April, is the successor to the Kepler Space Telescope and is the most sophisticated exoplanet-hunting spacecraft yet. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

by Jacob Haqq-Misra

Ceres: A bright spot in the asteroid belt

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:14:51 -0400

A color-coded topographic map of Occator Crater on Ceres (blue indicates the lowest elevation and brown the highest). The 34-million-year-old crater, approximately 92 kilometers wide and 4 kilometers deep, contains the brightest material on the dwarf planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.

Orbiting in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres is the nearest dwarf planet to Earth and the only one within the inner solar system. It has been studied closely by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft since March 2015.

From space to village: NASA's SERVIR program brings a big picture to local communities

Thu, 14 Dec 2017 14:43:49 -0500

Through its SERVIR program, NASA is putting geospatial satellite images and analysis tools into the hands of local decision-makers around the world to help them address natural disasters and the effects of climate change. Credit: K. Cantner, AGI (base image: ©iStockphoto.com/sushi7688).

Life is tightly linked to weather in the Lower Mekong countries of Southeast Asia, and the weather is rarely still. In 2016, the Mekong River was at its lowest level since 1926 as the region endured the second season of its worst drought in 90 years. The drought was felt across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, jeopardizing exports like rice, seafood and fruit. In 2015, the Thailand Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives even asked rice farmers to delay their early summer planting because of water shortages, a move with big financial risks.

Mars class of 2020: A diverse group of missions takes aim at the Red Planet

Tue, 12 Sep 2017 13:34:32 -0400

Credit: K. Cantner, AGI.

About every 26 months, the positions of Earth and Mars in their respective orbits align for a few weeks such that spacecraft can take the shortest possible route to the Red Planet. A shorter trip means less fuel — and consequently less mass — to carry, as well as less time for mishaps to occur in transit. These are compelling factors for cost- and weight-conscious mission planners, so it’s during these brief, roughly biennial launch windows that space agencies have typically sent spacecraft to Mars.

Down to Earth With: Evan Thomas

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 14:37:31 -0400

At age 16, Evan Thomas made a list of 100 life goals — his bucket list. At only 27 years old, he's done pretty well so far: Graduate college with a degree in aerospace engineering — check. Get a doctorate by age 25 — almost (missed by 11 days). Work for NASA — check. Start a business, help people, travel the world — check, check, check. Get a private pilot license — check. Climb the world's tallest mountains — in process. Credit: Courtesy of Evan Thomas.

At age 16, Evan Thomas made a list of 100 life goals — his bucket list. At only 27 years old, he’s done pretty well so far: Graduate college with a degree in aerospace engineering — check. Get a doctorate by age 25 — almost (missed by 11 days). Work for NASA — check. Start a business, help people, travel the world — check, check, check. Get a private pilot license — check. Climb the world’s tallest mountains — in process.

Benchmarks: July 15-24, 1975: Apollo-Soyuz mission launches space collaboration

Thu, 22 Jun 2017 09:50:39 -0400

The crew of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project included Apollo commander Thomas P. Stafford (standing, left), docking module pilot Donald K. "Deke" Slayton (seated, left) and command module pilot Vance D. Brand (seated, center), and Soyuz commander Alexei A. Leonov (standing, right) and flight engineer Valeriy N. Kubasov (seated, right). Credit: NASA.

The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union spurred innovations and historic firsts for humankind from Sputnik to the moon landing. However, much of the drive to break through those technological barriers and explore the vast, starry landscape of space was rooted in a desire to display military dominance in space amid the competition and animosity of the Cold War.

Philae: Achievement and disappointment

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 10:04:55 -0400

Taken from an animation, these still shots illustrate the Philae lander separating from Rosetta and descending. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab.

Rosetta’s Philae lander made the first landing on the surface of a comet when it touched down on Nov. 12, 2014, three months after Rosetta began orbiting 67P. The landing, though historic, did not go as planned, and Philae was unable to accomplish much of the scientific program that had been scheduled for its 10 instruments.

Rosetta's journey

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:59:14 -0400

Infographic and timeline summarizing the milestones of Rosetta's journey from its launch in 2004 to its mission end in 2016. Credit: ESA.

Launch date: March 2, 2004

What's in a name: Rosetta, Philae, and 67P?

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:54:00 -0400

Artist's impression of the Rosetta spacecraft approaching its destination: Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab/Rosetta/Navcam.

All of the names associated with the Rosetta mission, including the orbiter itself, the lander and all of the place names coined by mission scientists on 67P, refer to ancient Egyptian sites or deities, in homage to the Egyptian origin of the Rosetta Stone and Philae obelisk.

Rosetta mission ends with a bang: But the discoveries will continue

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:05:59 -0400

Rosetta's navigation camera (NavCam) captured this image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on March 24, 2015, at nearly 90 kilometers from the comet's center. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NavCam – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.

The most ambitious exploration of a comet came to a successful conclusion when the Rosetta spacecraft executed a controlled crash onto the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) on Sept. 30. The impact concluded a voyage of more than 10 years and close to 80 billion kilometers. Rosetta was the first spacecraft to orbit a comet and to drop a lander onto its surface.

Ice (Re)Cap: August 2016

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 10:03:18 -0400

Landsat data collected between 1984 and 2012 show that much of Canada and Alaska is greening as vegetation expands. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Cindy Starr.

From Antarctica to the Arctic; from polar caps, permafrost and glaciers to ocean-rafted sea ice; and from burly bears to cold-loving microbes, fascinating science is found in every nook and crevasse of Earth’s cryosphere, and new findings are announced often. Here are a few of the latest updates.

Down to Earth With: Planetary scientist Steven Squyres

Fri, 17 Jun 2016 12:35:58 -0400

Steven Squyres is the James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and the principal investigator of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, which landed the rovers Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in 2004. Credit: NASA.

Squyres already considered himself a scientist, and, with his father’s help, would conduct rudimentary experiments with a chemistry kit. By the time he was 10, he had become fascinated by meteorology and erected a weather station in his backyard. He vividly remembers building an anemometer out of funnels, and realizing that his device would need to be calibrated in order to accurately measure wind speed. So, he asked his father to drive the family car up and down their street. While perplexed neighbors looked on, Squyres excitedly hung the instrument out the window, shouting to his dad to drive 5 miles per hour as he counted how many times the kitchen funnels spun around. Next, Squyres asked his dad to drive 10 miles per hour, and then even faster, repeating his counts at each speed until the calibration was complete.

Buried lunar craters filled by lava long ago

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 13:26:52 -0400

The nearside of the moon with highlands (lighter regions) and maria (darker regions). Credit: NASA.

Craters dot much of the nearside of the moon. And buried beneath this pockmarked landscape, according to the latest findings from NASA’s two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft, are the remnants of even more craters, many of which were covered long ago by lava.

Down to Earth With: Solar physicist Thomas Berger

Mon, 09 May 2016 13:55:52 -0400

A NASA schematic showing the technologies and infrastructure that can be affected by space weather. Credit: NASA.

Growing up in California during the Space Race, Thomas Berger was fascinated with aeronautics and aviation, so when he arrived at the University of California at Berkeley, physics seemed like the natural choice. After graduating with a degree in engineering physics, Berger took a job with Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank. But he soon decided it was not for him and returned to graduate school at Stanford, where he discovered a new passion: solar physics.

Geomedia: Performance: Bella Gaia is a show in orbit and Earth is the star

Fri, 22 Apr 2016 12:37:13 -0400

Bella Gaia is a live performance featuring music, dance and NASA satellite imagery of Earth. Credit: NASA.

On the screen, images of the far reaches of the cosmos — galaxies, stellar nebulae and supernovae — loom high over a stage. The words, “The Living Universe,” appear and the view zooms in: first on our galaxy, then on our solar system and, finally, on Earth. Bella Gaia, a live performance piece featuring dance and music set in front of a large projection-screen displaying images of Earth from space, begins.

Comment: GAVRT: Learning science by doing science

Tue, 19 Apr 2016 16:04:31 -0400

Students operating the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope. Credit: GAVRT Program.

Science education is very much a part of the lexicon of K-12 education these days, and numerous STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) initiatives are underway in schools across the United States. Nonetheless, most students get very little exposure to doing hands-on science, and virtually no exposure to the ways in which scientific research is actually done. The Next Generation Science Standards calls for increased emphasis on observation, analysis and prediction, but currently, most pre-college science education involves memorization of a collection of facts. Emphasis is more often placed on the results of science, not the process for arriving at those results. A partnership among NASA, the Lewis Center for Educational Research (LCER) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is working to provide one alternative: The Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope Program (GAVRT) — a collaboration in which K-12 students learn about science by doing real science.

Benchmarks: April 22, 1995: GLOBE is launched

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 18:16:03 -0400

Over the last 20 years, GLOBE students have collected 130 million environmental observations, often without the use of sophisticated instruments. To calculate tree heights (left), students make and use a simple clinometer to measure the angle between the ground and the treetops. To measure clouds (right), students divide the sky into quadrants using their raised arms, then identify cloud types and estimate coverage in each quadrant. Credit: both: courtesy of The Globe Program/All Rights Reserved.

Studying the global environment requires collecting numerous detailed observations. And although it may seem today like we’re awash in such data, relevant observations — collected at the right time and place — are often unavailable. For example, scientists studying precipitation must rely on just a handful of sampling stations: All of the world’s raingages gathered together would only cover an area the size of two basketball courts.

Lunar atmosphere more active than we thought

Sun, 27 Mar 2016 16:47:00 -0400

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft orbits near the moon's surface in this illustration. Credit: NASA Ames/Dana Berry

LADEE — pronounced “laddie” and short for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer — was among the shortest-lived of NASA’s successful satellites. Launched on Sept. 7, 2013, it crashed onto the moon’s surface, as intended, on April 17, 2014, after six months orbiting the moon. Data collected by LADEE have already greatly expanded our understanding of the atmosphere of the moon and other bodies in the solar system; the spacecraft also made a number of unexpected discoveries, some of which were presented at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco last December.

Benchmarks: February 1962 and 1984: John Glenn and Bruce McCandless make space flight history

Tue, 02 Feb 2016 11:25:08 -0500

Left: Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. in his Mercury flight suit. Right: Astronaut Bruce McCandless pilots the Manned Maneuvering Unit during the first untethered spacewalk on Feb. 7, 1984. Credit: both: NASA.

On the morning of Feb. 20, 1962, John H. Glenn sat inside the Mercury Friendship 7 space capsule, perched atop a rocket that had initially been designed to deliver nuclear warheads to the far ends of the world. That rocket would propel Glenn into space, and into the history books, as the first American to orbit Earth.

Map shows where lightning zaps most

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 09:14:55 -0400

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/ Joshua Stevens.

Lightning strikes far more often over land than sea and is more concentrated closer to the equator — both testaments to the greater atmospheric instability over those parts of the planet. These are just two observations evident from a global map of lightning strikes produced recently by NASA based on nearly two decades of data from the OrbView-1/Microlab satellite and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite. The new map color-codes Earth by the average number of lightning flashes seen annually per square kilometer — brighter colors mean more lightning — and refines earlier efforts based on fewer data. So where on Earth does lightning strike most? That would be in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which is struck roughly 150 times per square kilometer each year, followed by the area near Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. If you look closely, you can also see the contributions of certain orographic features like the Himalayas and the Rockies on lightning-strike patterns.

New satellite maps carbon dioxide sources and sinks in high definition

Tue, 23 Dec 2014 16:35:32 -0500

The first map produced by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission shows atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, averaged over a five-week window, around the planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A recently launched satellite is now measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide with greater precision than ever before. Launched on July 2, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) is already mapping levels of carbon dioxide, the presence of which in the air constantly varies by region and over time. It has also validated a new technique of analysis that was not even contemplated when the mission was planned, according to scientists who discussed the mission at a press conference last Thursday during the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco.

Nanoflares power the sun's superheated corona

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 11:36:13 -0500

An active region on the sun, as seen in extreme ultraviolet light by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft. Credit: NASA/SDO.

The sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, reaches temperatures of more than 1 million degrees Celsius, hundreds of times hotter than its visible surface. The reason for this has puzzled scientists, who so far have only been able to theorize explanations.

Red Planet Roundup: November 2014

Mon, 06 Oct 2014 09:54:18 -0400

As Curiosity and Opportunity rove around Mars, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Mars Express and Mars Odyssey orbit above, and scientists on Earth study the Red Planet from afar, new findings are announced almost weekly. Here are a few of the latest updates.

Warm river water melted Arctic sea ice

Fri, 08 Aug 2014 11:10:25 -0400

Sea-ice extent and open-water surface temperatures in the Beaufort Sea changed dramatically between June 14 (left) and July 5, 2012 (right), during which the barrier of "landfast" sea ice blocking the mouth of the Mackenzie River (left image, bottom) gave way. Credit: NASA.

In September 2012, the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by sea ice was the smallest on record since satellite monitoring began in 1979. Several factors are thought to have contributed to that summer’s diminished ice, including a large cyclone in August that brought warmer ocean waters into the area and broke up the ice and a longer-term trend of thinning and weakening sea ice. Now, researchers have found that at least one large burst of warm freshwater into the Arctic earlier in the summer probably played a role as well.

Rosetta: Off to decipher a comet's secrets

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 12:58:25 -0400

Artist's impression of Rosetta's signal being received on Earth after 31 months in silent, deep-space hibernation. Credit: ESA-J. Mai; opposite page: ESA, image by AOES Medialab

“Hello World.”

Benchmarks: June 16, 1963 & June 18, 1983: Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride become first and third women in space

Thu, 15 May 2014 10:33:49 -0400

Credit: Copyright Shutterstock.com/peresanz.

On June 16, 1963, during the height of the Cold War, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in space. It would be 19 years before another woman would fly in space — Soviet Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982 — and 20 years before the first American woman, Sally Ride, made it into space on June 18, 1983. These pioneers inspired the generations of women astronauts who followed. In the three decades since Ride’s foray into outer space, 57 other women have also taken flight (see sidebar) and, last year, half of NASA’s new class of astronauts were women.

MAVEN takes off for Mars to study the planet's atmosphere

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 16:02:54 -0500

MAVEN launched on Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. NASA

NASA’s latest Mars mission, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter, successfully blasted off toward the Red Planet today to study how its evolving atmosphere contributed to climate change on Earth's neighbor.

Geologic Column: Sometimes, the sky really is falling

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:26:48 -0400

A meteor estimated at about 20 meters in diameter streaked through the sky on Feb. 15, 2013, leaving an impressive trace over Chelyabinsk, Russia. ©Alex Alishevskikh, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

Lisa A. Rossbacher Courtesy of Lisa A. Rossbacher

Airplane pilots have a long history of using euphemisms to minimize the sense of risk in their work. Pilot-speak for crashing an airplane, for example, is “ruining your entire day.” In the same parlance, encountering an asteroid could cause all of us to have a very, very bad day. But maybe our close calls — such as the fireball that flew over Russia in February — can serve as reminders to renew our focus on searching for and understanding objects that could, literally, impact our planet.

Bare Earth Elements: Mars-Observing Fleet Set to Face Silent Treatment

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:38:51 -0400

Outbound communications from NASA to its group of Mars-observing orbiters and rovers will be curtailed starting April 4. And as of April 9, no commands will be sent in the Red Planet’s direction. Lest anyone worry that this radio silence has to do with sequester-related budgetary constraints affecting the space agency, don’t fret, it’s only temporary and it has more to do with orbital, rather than fiscal, dynamics.

Two NASA spacecraft reveal ancient underground cracks from moon's formation

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:45:47 -0500

This graphic shows the density of the lunar highlands on the near and far sides of the moon as generated using gravity data from NASA's GRAIL mission and topography data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Red corresponds to higher than average densities and blue to lower than average densities; white corresponds to basalt.

SAN FRANCISCO: The face of the moon has always enchanted humankind, but new data from a NASA mission have given scientists a glimpse of what lies beneath the surface. A new, highly detailed map of the moon’s gravity has revealed evidence of underground cracks created by its hot, molten center as it came into shape billions of years ago, a team of scientists announced today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Simple organic compounds detected by Curiosity on Mars

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 11:33:14 -0500

Too early to tell if findings are evidence of biological activity, scientists say

SAN FRANCISCO: The Curiosity rover has detected evidence of simple, chlorinated organic compounds in soil on Mars for the first time, project scientists announced Monday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The scientists characterized the finding as very exciting, but they stressed that the results do not provide “definitive” evidence of past or present life on Mars.

Bare Earth Elements: Let the real Curiosity begin

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 18:22:35 -0400

NASA's Curiosity rover, also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, touched down on the red planet's surface early Monday morning August 6 EDT. NASA

This image of Curiosity, with its parachute deployed, was taken as it descended through the Martian atmosphere by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter. NASA

An illustration of Curiosity's scientific instrumentation, including the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) unit. NASA

This has been a year of scientific milestones. In just the last few months, we have witnessed the first successful launch of a privately built spacecraft — SpaceX’s Dragon capsule — which docked with the International Space Station in May, as well as the announcement in July that the Higgs Boson, the lynchpin particle in the Standard Model of physics, had at last been confidently detected. And by now, you have surely heard that Curiosity — the latest model in NASA’s lineage of robotic Mars-exploring rovers — has successfully landed on the red planet. In case you hadn’t, here is your official notice:

Hazardous Living: Watching Curiosity land safely was exhilarating

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 02:01:33 -0400

Sometimes humanity accomplishes something absolutely awesome. Tonight was one of those nights. We put another rover on Mars — by far the most advanced rover yet. Curiosity is now out exploring Gale Crater and much is expected of her.

2012 budget requests a mixed bag for science

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

The White House. Wikimedia Commons

The Obama administration emphasized scientific innovation and education in its fiscal year 2012 budget requests. On Monday, the president’s science advisor, John Holdren, summarized the requests across the different agencies as part of a “tough-love” strategy outlined in the president’s State of the Union speech in January to “win the future.”

A day without Glory

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Glory was expected to fly in a low-Earth orbit about 705 kilometers above Earth's surface. NASA

Glory was set to join the "Afternoon Constellation" or "A-train" of polar-orbiting satellites. NASA

On a warm afternoon in early March, the Taurus XL rocket that was prepped for launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California looked more like a giant chopstick standing on end than a potential game changer in the debate over climate change science. The barrel-shaped satellite that the rocket carried — named Glory — was designed to deliver critical information about small airborne particles called aerosols. The elusive particles account for much of the uncertainty in climate models, and data from the satellite would have helped scientists determine more of the aerosols’ key properties than ever before. Instead, before dawn the next morning and just minutes after launch, Glory’s remains crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean near Antarctica.

A memoir: A decade-plus of tracking lunar larceny

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong opens a sample return container during Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) training in Houston, Texas. NASA

A moon rock brought back by Apollo 16 astronauts. NASA

The first Apollo 11 sample return container arrives at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston. NASA, scan by Ed Hengeveld

In the back alleys of the world’s capitals and in the ballrooms of presidential palaces exists a black market that preys on the imagination of some and the greed of others. These black-market items were neither carved nor painted; in fact, they are not of this Earth. They traveled 400,000 kilometers via six Apollo missions and three unmanned Soviet missions to and from the moon.

Bids in space: When should we outsource government science?

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Government research and development has its limits: Time, money and bureaucracy can all hamper the timely progress of research. As a result, many federal agencies are looking to private companies to help drive new innovation and keep costs down — but it’s never that simple. Two current hot-button topics — returning humans to space and geoengineering — highlight a range of issues related to how private and public investment in science can coexist. This month, we focus on NASA.

Blogging on EARTH: Webb Space Telescope ensnared in political drama

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

A full-scale replica of the James Webb Space Telescope sits outside the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NASA

Timothy Oleson at Machu Picchu in Peru. courtesy of Dave Clark

Perhaps you have heard of the psychological principle of entrapment. In college, a friend of mine once described it to me while we stood in a seemingly endless line in one of the dining halls. As I recall, the essence of it is that the more money, time or effort you invest in some venture waiting for a return — a sandwich in my case — the harder it is to simply let it go or give up hope, regardless of how unfavorable the potential cost-benefit ratio is. At the time, I remember thinking that my friend, a budding behavioral psychologist, was merely re-packaging a bit of common sense as some trumped-up, pseudo-scientific axiom. Bullheaded, I scoffed and left the sandwich line, mainly to irritate him, but also to prove that I was not so easily ruled by outside forces.

Charting a course correction: A review of Earth: The Operators' Manual

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Rare are the scientists like Richard Alley. An exceptional researcher known for his work on the great polar ice sheets, he is also a central figure in policy discourse on climate change through his testimony in front of Congress and work with groups such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for which he shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Alley is also an outstanding communicator: His audiences at scientific meetings typically overflow the room, and he is enviably comfortable speaking to eight-year-olds. His new work, entitled “Earth: The Operators’ Manual” (ETOM), is a succinct discussion of how our actions affect Earth’s climate, as well as a compelling and hopeful call-to-arms to address warming. ETOM is also a truly multimedia affair, consisting of a book, a three-part miniseries for PBS and public television, outreach events at five major science centers and a website (http://earththeoperatorsmanual.com) for the general public.

CryoScoop: Massive rift portends Antarctic berg

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Kathryn Hansen is an associate editor at EARTH and writes the CryoScoop blog. Karen Frey

Researchers flying over West Antarctica last month were at the right place at the right time, spotting an actively growing rift that they expect will spawn an iceberg about 10 times the size of Manhattan.

CryoScoop: Sea ice synopsis and a whale tale

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Arctic sea ice in September 2011 shows an open Northwest Passage (red) and a minimum extent that falls below the average for last 30 years (yellow). NASA

Kathryn Hansen is an associate editor at EARTH and writes the CryoScoop blog. Lora Koenig

The extent of Arctic sea ice shrinks each year during the northern hemisphere’s spring and summer, trading a white frozen surface for dark open ocean. Reaching its lowest annual extent by September or October, the ice grows back again through the cold and dark winter months.

Crystal Ball EARTH: Policy: A tale of two years

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

The U.S. Capitol Building Diliff

The International Space Station, seen from the shuttle Discovery. The shuttle program is due to be retired in 2010, and the space station decommissioned in 2015. NASA

Florida Power & Light's Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center will be the largest solar thermal plant outside of California when it opens in 2010. Florida Power & Light

BP's Thunderhorse oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Congress and the Obama administration are considering whether to allow more drilling off U.S. coasts. BP p.l.c.

In U.S. policy, the past year was dominated by discussions of energy and climate change issues, at least in the earth sciences realm. In the first year of his administration, President Barack Obama focused on his top campaign priorities — but between discussions of healthcare reform, trying to rejuvenate the economy and setting up his cabinet, he still found time to discuss the sciences.

Crystal Ball EARTH: Space: NASA keeps watch on a changing planet

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

NASA's Glory satellite will launch by the end of 2010. NASA

The TIM instrument will measure total solar irradiation. NASA

Launched in January 2003, NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) is examining changes in ice and land masses on Earth. ICESat will be replaced by its successor, ICESat-II, in 2014. NASA

A NASA P-3B aircraft makes its final approach into Thule Air Base in Greenland. NASA

Aquarius, scheduled to launch in 2010 aboard Argentina's SAC-D spacecraft, will measure changes in ocean salinity. NASA

The GRIP campaign will help researchers get highly accurate measurements of rapid intensification or other changes in a hurricane. NASA

The unmanned Global Hawk aircraft will fly over hurricanes while onboard instruments take continuous measurements. NASA

In 2009, we saw a number of changes on Earth. The average global ocean surface temperature last summer was the warmest on record. Thin seasonal ice has recently replaced thick older ice as the dominant type of ice in the Arctic. And scientists saw that despite a quiet sun with few sunspots, Earth can continue to be bombarded with a high level of solar energy.

Hazardous Living: Atlantis' final countdown

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

The space shuttle Atlantis lifted off on July 8 for the final time. NASA TV

Megan Sever is managing editor of EARTH and writes the Hazardous Living blog. Jim Sever

As the space shuttle Atlantis prepared for liftoff for the final time this morning, I was humming Europe’s 1986 hit “Final Countdown” in my office. As the countdown proceeded, I got chills. When Atlantis lifted off, I got a little teary-eyed. Watching NASA TV for the next hour, I couldn’t help but wonder what will become of all the people involved in the space shuttle program — mission control, the engineers, the astronauts. It’s hard not to think of this as the end of the U.S. space program. But as we’re assured by NASA, it most certainly is not.

Hazardous Living: Discovery's emotional final voyage

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

The space shuttle Discovery lifted off Feb. 24 at 4:53 p.m. ET for the final time. NASA TV

Robonaut 2 is a humanoid robot designed to help astronauts on boring or dangerous tasks. The Discovery crew is delivering Robonaut 2 to the International Space Station. NASA

Megan Sever (pictured at Yellowstone) writes Hazardous Living for EARTH. Megan Sever

Today, at 4:53 p.m. ET, the space shuttle Discovery launched for the last time. When it returns to Earth in 11 days, the shuttle will be retired.

Hubble's pics of Pluto: Dark orange and charcoal-black

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

NASA, ESA and M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute)

Blogging on EARTH

Today NASA released new Hubble images of dwarf planet Pluto — and far from being just an icy colorless rock, the images show a mottled, dynamic, orangey-black world that changes color with the seasons (on Pluto, the change of seasons lasts 248 Earth years — and although on Earth the seasons change due to the axial tilt of the planet, Pluto's eccentric, non-circular orbit plays a big role in its seasonal variations).

Map reveals height of the world's forests

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Calapooya Mountains as viewed from Fairview Peak Lookout in the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon. U.S. Forest Service

The Amazon Basin cover most of the width of South America (delineated in yellow). New research on global forest canopies helps quantify the amount of carbon the Amazon rainforest might hold. NASA

Amazon rainforest in the upper Amazon basin in Peru. Shao, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0

Satellite maps can show everything from city blocks to inaccessible mountain peaks from the comfort of our living rooms. Now, they can show us yet another dimension of the natural world: the heights of the world’s forests.

Moon much wetter than thought

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

The moon isn’t quite the bone-dry place scientists once thought; instead, its surface is covered in water, according to a landmark finding announced by scientists at NASA today. Teams from three different NASA missions — the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) mission that launched with the Indian Chandrayaan-1 satellite currently in orbit around the moon, the Deep Impact mission and the Cassini mission — pooled their data to confirm a finding that M3 principal investigator Carle Pieters said was “completely conclusive.”

NASA's LCROSS crashes on the moon

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

The first LCROSS rocket nears impact while the second spacecraft follows. NASA

LCROSS enroute to the moon. NASA

Blogging on EARTH

Usually, NASA hopes its space probes land safely at their destinations. This morning, the agency was planning for a big explosion on the moon — all in the hopes of confirming the presence of water on our nearest neighbor.

Opening up space travel to everyone

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Three glowing gas rings around supernova 1987A. P. Challis

Jason Marsh is done waiting around for someone else to transport him into space.

Marsh, a system administrator near Washington, D.C., is preparing to launch a new website for his Open Space Movement (OSM — currently here), a nonprofit project that aims to be a platform for developing and funding aerospace technology — and will be open to anyone who wants to join in.

Protecting planets from us - and us from them

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Apollo 11 astronauts in isolation garments. NASA

Rangers 6 through 9 made it to the moon, but were unsterilized - thus, their crash landings could have contaminated the moon. NASA

Although Apollo 11 astronauts and their ship were supposed to be quarantined to protect against possible pathogens in moon dust, the capsule door opened into the Pacific Ocean after landing. NASA

NASA scientists examine dust from comet Wild 2 in a clean room. Pathogens in the dust could still contaminate the scientists: Their eyes (soft, moist tissue) are exposed. NASA

The Space Shuttle Discovery on its way to the International Space Station. NASA

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin stands with the American flag on the moon. The astronauts' footprints are visible in the lunar soil. NASA

The two Viking landers were the only NASA spacecraft sent to Mars that received a full heat sterilization. NASA

A technician puts finishing touches on the Sputnik 1 satellite in the assembly shop in fall 1957. NASA

The Outer Space Treaty and planetary contamination

Is there life out there? Finding life has been a goal of the exploration of other celestial bodies since humans first imagined leaving our atmosphere — and that life may come in forms we do not immediately recognize. The search itself carries an inherent danger, however: We must not contaminate these pristine worlds with earthly microbes — lest we “rediscover” earthly microbes on a different planet, completely frustrating the science and devaluing the investment in the mission. If celestial bodies like Mars, the moon, comets, and Jupiter and Saturn’s icy moons do harbor microbial life, crash-landing a spacecraft on them could have serious consequences.

The Moon Men: "Rocket Men" and "Voices from the Moon"

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first step taken on the moon on July 20, 1969. Since that historic small step — which 600 million people around the world watched breathlessly — other space missions have captured headlines: NASA’s Space Shuttle program, the International Space Station, the intrepid Mars rovers. But none, perhaps, has had quite the impact on our imagination as the giant leap that Neil Armstrong took for mankind.