Stay Connected with NASA for the Solstice Lunar Eclipse!

The first total lunar eclipse in two years will grace the sky the night of Monday, Dec. 20, and we want you to be there. Sure, it's a school night, but with winter solstice and a new year upon us, what better time to gather your family and friends to see the moon in a new light?

At NASA, we're pretty excited for this year's lunar eclipse, so we're offering a number of features and activities for astronomy buffs and moon-gazers alike. To learn about the science behind eclipses, visit NASA's Eclipse page, where Mr. Eclipse provides information about viewing the eclipse from all over the United States.

Want to know more about the lunar eclipse? Lunar experts from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center will be hosting two live Web chats to discuss the eclipse. On Monday, Dec. 20 from 3-4 p.m. EST, Dr. Rob Suggs will answer your questions. Later on Dec. 20, make plans to stay "Up All Night" with astronomer Mitzi Adams at she answers your questions from midnight to 5:00 a.m. EST.

Starting now, you can subscribe to NASA JPL's "I'm There: Lunar Eclipse" text campaign to connect with others in your area by texting us your viewing location and comments on the night of the eclipse. To sign up, text IMTHERE to 67463 and we'll send you a reminder to go out and watch on Dec. 20 (message and data rates may apply).

Want to share or flip through photos of the eclipsed moon? Join NASA JPL's lunar eclipse Flickr group and connect with other professional and amateur photographers as they capture the moon's path through the Earth's shadow. We'll choose one lucky photographer to have his or her work featured as official JPL wallpaper at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wallpaper.

If you don't want to brave the December chill, or if your weather doesn't cooperate for lunar viewing, we have you covered! A live video feed of the lunar eclipse will be streamed online on Dec. 20. The camera is mounted at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

On Dec. 20 and 21, join the conversation on Twitter by including #eclipse and @NASAJPL in your lunar eclipse tweets, and you may even see them show up among our live comment stream on NASA JPL's "I'm There: Lunar Eclipse" program.

A New Trio of Expedition 26 Blasts Off Toward Station

A new trio of Expedition 26 flight engineers blasted off Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:09 p.m. EST (1:09 a.m. Thursday, Baikonur time). Dmitry Kondratyev, Catherine Coleman and Paolo Nespoli are onboard the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft and headed for a docking with the International Space Station.

West Antarctica is Seeing Dramatic Ice Loss

Scientists have previously shown that West Antarctica is losing ice, but how that ice is lost remained unclear. Now, using data from Earth observing satellites and airborne science missions, scientists are closing in on ice loss culprits above and below the ice.

The findings, presented Dec. 15 at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, Calif., are expected to improve predictions of sea level rise.

Time Not Healing Glacial Wounds

A new analysis by Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder Colo., and colleagues found that more than a decade after two major Antarctic ice shelves collapsed, glaciers once buttressed by the shelves continue to lose ice.

Changes are most evident in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and along the Antarctic Peninsula. A spine of mountains forces passing winds to give up their moisture as snow, feeding glaciers that in turn feed the ice shelves that jut out into the Southern Ocean. More than a decade ago, dramatic changes started affecting a series of ice shelves, collectively called Larsen, along the Peninsula's northeast coast. In 1995, Larsen A was the first to collapse followed by a larger loss of Larsen B in 2002. Today, a small piece of the Larsen B and the entirety of the vast Larsen C hang on.

Investigating how the glaciers have responded to the loss of these ice shelf "dams," Scambos and colleagues tracked elevation information using data from satellites such as NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) and previous airborne missions. They show that between 2001 and 2006, glaciers feeding Larsen A and Larsen B lost 12 gigatons of ice loss per year, or 30 percent of all ice lost throughout the Peninsula.

Moreover, the continued draw down of glaciers, such as Drygalski Glacier, fifteen years after the loss of Larsen A, have set precedent for what to expect elsewhere. Losses by glaciers that fed the Larsen B, such as Crane Glacier, are likely to continue.

Scambos and a team of colleagues have now placed instruments on glaciers just south of the area where the shelves disintegrated, anticipating that further warming will lead to further glacier speed-ups. The instruments and new aircraft overflights will provide further insight into shelf break-up and the onset of ice acceleration.

Wind Matters

Further south is West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier, another site of major ice loss presently draining more than 19 cubic miles of ice per year from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It continues to deteriorate rapidly and scientists want to know why.

By combining satellite and airborne data, Bob Bindschadler, a glaciologist with the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has successfully gained more insight into interactions between the atmosphere, ocean and ice even though the data can’t reveal these connections directly.

Bindschadler and colleagues looked at images from the Landsat satellite and spotted a series of large surface undulations on the ice shelf. Next they matched the undulations with the timing of warm water pulses in the waters adjacent to the ice shelf. When surface winds are strong, they stir the Southern Ocean and lift the warm water onto the continental shelf where the additional heat contributes to melt.

Airborne data showed the ice shelf was up to 150 meters (492 feet) thinner when the warmer water was present, allowing Bindschadler’s team to establish a direct link between the rate of ice shelf melting and atmospheric wind speed. When the team accounted for the heat coming in and the ice lost, they concluded that only 22 percent of the heat is used in melting. Whether the remaining heat might melt additional ice is unknown, but it is clear that the atmospheric circulation has a strong role on the future of the ice shelf and the fate of the ice sheet inland. Stronger winds would lead to an acceleration of ice loss; weaker winds would have a stabilizing effect.

"In short, ice shelves are affected by what winds are doing," Bindschadler said. "As Antarctic Circumpolar winds continue to increase, ice shelves are at increasing risk."

Enjoy The Best Meteor Shower of The Year

Baby, it's cold outside -- but you can still enjoy the best meteor shower of the year. The 2010 Geminid meteor shower promises to be lively, with realistic viewing rates of 50-80 meteors per hour and potential peaks reaching 120 meteors per hour. Anytime between Dec. 12-16 is a valid window for Geminid-watching, but the night of Dec. 13-14 is the anticipated peak.

About the Chats

You have two opportunities to learn more about the Geminids from meteor experts based at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. On Monday, Dec. 13 from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. EST, meteor experts Danielle Moser and Rhiannon Blaauw will answer your questions, then you can stay "up all night" to observe the Geminids with NASA astronomer Bill Cooke. Have the coffee ready, then join them online from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. EST as the Geminids peak in the skies over Earth.

Joining the chats is easy. Simply return to this page a few minutes before each of the chat start times list above. The chat module will appear at the bottom of this page. After you log in, wait for the chat module to be activated, then ask your questions. Here's to a spectacular viewing!

Live Camera Viewing of the Geminids

December can be an uncertain month for weather, but clouds and meteor-watching don't mix. To assist in the weather-workaround, NASA and meteor-observing partners are working on a network of live Web cameras that will watch the skies from different locations. Links for the live feeds will be available on this page on the night of Dec. 13-14 -- just in case your local weather is uncooperative or you decide not to brave the chilly December evening.

More About the Geminids

Geminids are pieces of debris from an object called 3200 Phaethon. Long thought to be an asteroid, Phaethon is now classified as an extinct comet. Basically it is the rocky skeleton of a comet that lost its ice after too many close encounters with the sun. Earth runs into a stream of debris from 3200 Phaethon every year in mid-December, causing meteors to fly from the constellation Gemini. When the Geminids first appeared in the late 19th century, shortly before the U.S. Civil War, the shower was weak and attracted little attention. There was no hint that it would ever become a major display.

WASP-12b is The First Carbon-Rich Planet

Astronomers have discovered that a huge, searing-hot planet orbiting another star is loaded with an unusual amount of carbon. The planet, a gas giant named WASP-12b, is the first carbon-rich world ever observed. The discovery was made using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, along with previously published ground-based observations.

"This planet reveals the astounding diversity of worlds out there," said Nikku Madhusudhan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, lead author of a report in the Dec. 9 issue of the journal Nature. "Carbon-rich planets would be exotic in every way -- formation, interiors and atmospheres."

It's possible that WASP-12b might harbor graphite, diamond, or even a more exotic form of carbon in its interior, beneath its gaseous layers. Astronomers don't currently have the technology to observe the cores of exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars beyond our sun, but their theories hint at these intriguing possibilities.

The research also supports theories that carbon-rich rocky planets much less massive than WASP-12b could exist around other stars. Our Earth has rocks like quartz and feldspar, which are made of silicon and oxygen plus other elements. A carbon-rich rocky planet could be a very different place.

"A carbon-dominated terrestrial world could have lots of pure carbon rocks, like diamond or graphite, as well as carbon compounds like tar," said Joseph Harrington of the University of Central Florida, in Orlando, who is the principal investigator of the research.

Carbon is a common component of planetary systems and a key ingredient of life on Earth. Astronomers often measure carbon-to-oxygen ratios to get an idea of a star's chemistry. Our sun has a carbon-to-oxygen ratio of about one to two, which means it has about half as much carbon as oxygen. None of the planets in our solar system is known to have more carbon than oxygen, or a ratio of one or greater. However, this ratio is unknown for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Unlike WASP-12b, these planets harbor water -- the main oxygen carrier -- deep inside their atmospheres, making it hard to detect.

WASP-12b is the first planet ever to have its carbon-to-oxygen ratio measured at greater than one (the actual ratio is most likely between one and two). This means the planet has excess carbon, some of which is in the form of atmospheric methane.

"When the relative amount of carbon gets that high, it's as though you flip a switch, and everything changes," said Marc Kuchner, an astronomer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., who helped develop the theory of carbon-rich rocky planets but is not associated with the study. "If something like this had happened on Earth, your expensive engagement ring would be made of glass, which would be rare, and the mountains would all be made of diamonds."

Madhusudhan, Harrington and colleagues used Spitzer to observe WASP-12b as it slipped behind its star, in a technique known as secondary eclipse, which was pioneered for exoplanets by Spitzer. These data were combined with previously published observations taken from the ground with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Madhusudhan used the data to conduct a detailed atmospheric analysis, revealing chemicals such as methane and carbon monoxide in the planet's atmosphere.

WASP-12b derives its name from the consortium that found it, the Wide Angle Search for Planets. It is 1.4 times as massive as Jupiter and located roughly 1,200 light-years away from Earth. This blistering world whips around its star in a little over a day, with one side always facing the star. It is so close to its star that the star's gravity stretches the planet into an egg-like shape. What's more, the star's gravity is siphoning mass off the planet into a thin disk that orbits around with it.

The Spitzer data also reveal more information about WASP-12b's temperature. The world was already known to be one of the hottest exoplanets found so far; the new observations indicate that the side that faces the star is 2,600 Kelvin, or 4,200 degrees Fahrenheit. That's more than hot enough to melt steel.

Microorganisms able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical

NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."

This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.

Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth. Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.

Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.

"We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team's lead scientist. "If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?"

The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.

The key issue the researchers investigated was when the microbe was grown on arsenic did the arsenic actually became incorporated into the organisms' vital biochemical machinery, such as DNA, proteins and the cell membranes. A variety of sophisticated laboratory techniques was used to determine where the arsenic was incorporated.

The team chose to explore Mono Lake because of its unusual chemistry, especially its high salinity, high alkalinity, and high levels of arsenic. This chemistry is in part a result of Mono Lake's isolation from its sources of fresh water for 50 years.

The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth's evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.

"The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake."

The research team included scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Penn., and the Stanford Synchroton Radiation Lightsource in Menlo Park, Calif.

NASA's Astrobiology Program in Washington contributed funding for the research through its Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology program and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. NASA's Astrobiology Program supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life on Earth.

A team of astronomers made the first characterizations of a super-Earth's atmosphere

A team of astronomers, including two NASA Sagan Fellows, has made the first characterizations of a super-Earth's atmosphere, by using a ground-based telescope. A super-Earth is a planet up to three times the size of Earth and weighing up to 10 times as much. The findings, reported in the Dec. 2 issue of the journal Nature, are a significant milestone toward eventually being able to probe the atmospheres of Earth-like planets for signs of life.

The team determined the planet, GJ 1214b, is either blanketed with a thin layer of water steam or surrounded by a thick layer of high clouds. If the former, the planet itself would have an icy composition. If the latter, the planet would be rocky or similar to the composition of Neptune, though much smaller.

"This is the first super-Earth known to have an atmosphere," said Jacob Bean, a NASA Sagan Fellow and astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "But even with these new measurements, we can't say yet what that atmosphere is made of. This world is being very shy and veiling its true nature from us."

GJ 1214b, first discovered in December 2009, is 2.7 times the size of Earth and 6.5 times as massive. Previous observations of the planet's size and mass demonstrated it has a low density for its size, leading astronomers to conclude the planet is some kind of solid body with an atmosphere.

The planet orbits close to its dim star, at a distance of 0.014 astronomical units. An astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the sun, approximately 93 million miles. GJ 1214b circles too close to its star to be habitable by any life forms.

Bean and his team observed infrared light as the planet crossed in front of its star. During such transits, the star's light filters through the atmosphere. Gases absorb the starlight at particular wavelengths, leaving behind chemical fingerprints detectable from Earth. This same type of technique has been used to study the atmospheres of distant "hot Jupiters," or Jupiter-like planets orbiting close to their stars, and found gases like hydrogen, methane and sodium vapor.

In the case of the super-Earth, no chemical fingerprints were detected; however, this doesn't mean there are no chemicals present. Instead, this information ruled out some possibilities for GJ 1214b's atmosphere, and narrowed the scope to either an atmosphere of water steam or high clouds. Astronomers believe it's more likely the atmosphere is too thin around the planet to let enough light filter through and reveal chemical fingerprints.

"A steamy atmosphere would have to be very dense – about one-fifth water vapor by volume -- compared to our Earth, with an atmosphere that's four-fifths nitrogen and one-fifth oxygen with only a touch of water vapor," Bean said. "During the next year, we should have some solid answers about what this planet is truly like."

The team, which included Bean's co-authors -- Eliza Miller-Ricci Kempton, a NASA Sagan Fellow at the University of California in Santa Cruz, and Derek Homeier of the Institute for Astrophysics in Gottingen, Germany -- examined GJ 1214b using the ground-based Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory in Chile.

"This is an important step forward, narrowing our understanding of the atmosphere of this planet," said NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program Scientist Douglas Hudgins at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Bizarre worlds like this make exoplanet science one of the most compelling areas in astrophysics today."

The Sagan Fellowship Program is administered by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Its purpose is to advance the scientific and technical goals of NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program. The program is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Soyuz Soyuz Spacecraft Lands in Kazakhstan

Expedition 25 landed safely in Kazakhstan at 11:46 p.m. EST Thursday (Friday 10:46 a.m. Kazakhstan time). The trio -- Doug Wheelock, Shannon Walker and Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin -- undocked in the Soyuz TMA-19 at 8:23 p.m. ending their 5-1/2 month stay at the International Space Station.

Wheelock has spent 178 days in space on his two missions (15 days on STS-120). Walker spent 163 days in space on this, her first mission. Each spent 161 days aboard the station as members of Expedition 24/25.

Yurchikhin has 371 total days in space (163 during Expedition 24/25). He was also a flight engineer during Expedition 15 (197 days) and a mission specialist for STS-112 (11 days).

Staying behind on the orbiting laboratory are Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineers Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka. Their increment officially began when the Soyuz TMA-19 undocked.

The departing Expedition 25 crew spent its final days packing gear for the return home as well as reviewing and training for its landing procedures. They also participated in the usual station science and maintenance activities.


The crew members remaining behind prepared for their handover activities all week. They reviewed emergency procedures as the outgoing station residents transitioned into their new roles. They also continued station science activities such as collecting and storing blood samples for the Human Research Facility.

Build the Future Students used LEGOs to 'Build the Future' at NASA's Kennedy Space Center

Students used LEGOs to 'Build the Future' at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010. The 'Build the Future' event was part of pre-launch activities for the STS-133 mission.

NASA and The LEGO Group signed a Space Act Agreement that features educational games and activities designed to spark children's interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

NASA's FASTSAT Launches Successfully

On Saturday, Nov. 20, FASTSAT made contact with ground stations at Svalbard, Norway and Kodiak, Alaska, and received commands from and communicated with mission controllers at the small satellite command center located at the Huntsville Operations and Science Control Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The satellite continues to function nominally as the commissioning phase of the mission continues.

NASA's Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite, or FASTSAT, launched on Nov. 19 aboard a Minotaur IV rocket from Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska. FASTSAT is a unique platform that can carry multiple small payloads to low-Earth orbit creating opportunities for researchers to conduct low-cost scientific and technology research on an autonomous satellite in space.

Astronomers Found Youngest Nearby Black Hole

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have found evidence of the youngest black hole known to exist in our cosmic neighborhood. The 30-year-old black hole provides a unique opportunity to watch this type of object develop from infancy.

The black hole could help scientists better understand how massive stars explode, which ones leave behind black holes or neutron stars, and the number of black holes in our galaxy and others.

The object is a remnant of SN 1979C, a supernova in the galaxy M100 approximately 50 million light years from Earth. Even though the light from the supernova took this long to reach Chandra, researchers see the object as it appeared when it was just 30-years-old. A helpful analogy is to imagine taking a picture of a baby and mailing across oceans. No matter how long it took to receive the picture, you would still see the image of a baby.

Data from Chandra, NASA's Swift satellite, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton and the German ROSAT observatory revealed a bright source of X-rays that has remained steady during observation from 1995 to 2007. This suggests the object is a black hole being fed either by material falling into it from the supernova or a binary companion.

"If our interpretation is correct, this is the nearest example where the birth of a black hole has been observed," said Daniel Patnaude of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. who led the study.

The scientists think SN 1979C, first discovered by an amateur astronomer in 1979, formed when a star about 20 times more massive than the sun collapsed. Many new black holes in the distant universe previously have been detected in the form of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). However, SN 1979C is different because it is much closer and belongs to a class of supernovas unlikely to be associated with a GRB. Theory predicts most black holes in the universe should form when the core of a star collapses and a GRB is not produced.

"This may be the first time the common way of making a black hole has been observed," said co-author Abraham Loeb, also of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "However, it is very difficult to detect this type of black hole birth because decades of X-ray observations are needed to make the case."

The idea of a black hole with an observed age of only about 30 years is consistent with recent theoretical work. In 2005, a theory was presented that the bright optical light of this supernova was powered by a jet from a black hole that was unable to penetrate the hydrogen envelope of the star to form a GRB. The results seen in the observations of SN 1979C fit this theory very well.

Although the evidence points to a newly formed black hole in SN 1979C, another intriguing possibility is that a young, rapidly spinning neutron star with a powerful wind of high energy particles could be responsible for the X-ray emission. This would make the object in SN 1979C the youngest and brightest example of such a "pulsar wind nebula" and the youngest known neutron star. The Crab pulsar, the best-known example of a bright pulsar wind nebula, is about 950 years old.

"It's very rewarding to see how the commitment of some of the most advanced telescopes in space, like Chandra, can help complete the story," said Jon Morse, head of the Astrophysics Division at NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

The results will appear in the New Astronomy journal in a paper by Patnaude, Loeb, and Christine Jones of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Images Honor Apollo 12

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has visited and photographed two craters informally named for the spacecraft that carried men to the moon 41 years ago this week.

Opportunity drove past "Yankee Clipper" crater on Nov. 4 and reached "Intrepid crater" on Nov. 9. For NASA's Apollo 12, the second mission to put humans onto the moon, the command and service module was called Yankee Clipper, piloted by Dick Gordon, and the lunar module was named Intrepid, piloted by Alan Bean and commanded by the late Pete Conrad. The Intrepid landed on the moon with Bean and Conrad on Nov. 19, 1969, while Yankee Clipper orbited overhead. Their landing came a mere four months after Apollo 11's first lunar landing.

This week, Bean wrote to the Mars Exploration Rover team: "I just talked with Dick Gordon about the wonderful honor you have bestowed upon our Apollo 12 spacecraft. Forty-one years ago today, we were approaching the moon in Yankee Clipper with Intrepid in tow. We were excited to have the opportunity to perform some important exploration of a place in the universe other than planet Earth where humans had not gone before. We were anxious to give it our best effort. You and your team have that same opportunity. Give it your best effort."

Rover science team member James Rice, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., suggested using the Apollo 12 names. He was applying the rover team's convention of using names of historic ships of exploration for the informal names of craters that Opportunity sees in the Meridian Planum region of Mars.

"The Apollo missions were so inspiring when I was young, I remember all the dates. When we were approaching these craters, I realized we were getting close to the Nov. 19 anniversary for Apollo 12," Rice said. He sent Bean and Gordon photographs that Opportunity took of the two craters.

The images are available online at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13593 and http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13596. Intrepid crater is about 20 meters (66 feet) in diameter. Yankee Clipper crater is about half that width.

After a two-day stop to photograph the rocks exposed at Intrepid, Opportunity continued on a long-term trek toward Endeavour crater, a highly eroded crater about 1,000 times wider than Intrepid. Endeavour's name comes from the ship of James Cook's first Pacific voyage.

During a drive of 116.9 meters (383.5 feet) on Nov. 14, Opportunity's "odometer" passed 25 kilometers (15.53 miles). That is more than 40 times the driving-distance goal set for Opportunity to accomplish during its original three-month prime mission in 2004.

Mars Exploration Project Manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said, "Importantly, it's not how far the rovers have gone but how much exploration and science discovery they have accomplished on behalf of all humankind."

At the beginning of Opportunity's mission, the rover landed inside "Eagle crater," about the same size as Intrepid crater. The team's name for that landing-site crater paid tribute to the lunar module of Apollo 11, the first human landing on the moon. Opportunity spent two months inside Eagle crater, where it found multiple lines of evidence for a wet environment in the area's ancient past.

The rover team is checking regularly for Opportunity's twin, Spirit, in case the increasing daily solar energy available at Spirit's location enables the rover to reawaken and resume communication. No signal from Spirit has been received since March 22. Spring began last week in the southern hemisphere of Mars.

Discovery's Launch Postponed Next possible launch might be Nov. 30

Engineers met in a series of meetings today to discuss inspection and repair options for space shuttle Discovery’s ground umbilical carrier plate (GUCP) and a crack in the external fuel tank foam insulation. Discovery's launch was postponed Friday until at least Nov. 30 because of a hydrogen gas leak at the GUCP. Technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida have been measuring the alignment of the plate on the external tank and performing leak checks. Crews expect to begin disconnecting the GUCP Tuesday afternoon after disconnecting the hydrogen vent line that attaches to the GUCP. Managers will assess repair options after the disconnected GUCP is inspected. Teams also have begun analysis and inspection of the approximately 20-inch long crack in the external tank foam. Teams are planning to use terahertz or backscatter scans to see beneath the foam to look for any other potential issues. As soon as Wednesday, technicians could begin dissecting the cracked section so foam experts can make a thorough evaluation in order to help determine the cause of the crack. Teams still are working out plans to reapply foam to the external tank after inspections are complete. Shuttle managers continue evaluating the data to determine the best repair methods and next launch opportunity for Discovery’s STS-133 mission to the International Space Station.

International Space Station, to inspire the next generation

LEGO bricks aren't just for kids, and they aren't just for Earth, either.

Astronauts on board the International Space Station will build small model spacecraft and working objects in orbit and share the experience with schoolchildren watching on Earth.

The students will build some of the same things in their own classrooms and see firsthand how differently objects behave in space, where there is practically no gravity, compared to the familiar world of Earth.

The project is one of the first steps in a three-year partnership between NASA and the Denmark-based The LEGO Group , maker of the ubiquitous plastic bricks that have been covering children's playroom floors for decades.

"We're going to use the classroom of space, the International Space Station, to inspire the next generation," said Leland Melvin, associate administrator for NASA Education and a former astronaut. Melvin flew two shuttle flights, spending time at the station during both missions. He joined LEGO officials Nov. 1 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to announce the partnership.

Two small LEGO shuttles are packed inside Discovery for the STS-133 launch to promote the new partnership. They are expected to stay in their lockers, but astronauts may pull them out during the mission if they have time, said Debbie Biggs, an education specialist for International Space Station National Lab Education Projects.

NASA's fundamental goal is to use the partnership to inspire children to learn about science, technical fields, engineering and math. Known as STEM education, the focus has been a priority for the agency throughout this year's "Summer of Innovation."

Stephan Turnipseed, president of LEGO Education North America, said LEGO is the right partner because the bricks encourage kids to develop their inner engineer.

"Children think with their hands," Turnipseed said.

Astronaut Dan Tani, a veteran shuttle flier and station resident, agreed.

"LEGO taught me a lot of things about how things are built, what makes sense in terms of structure," said Tani, who brought his daughter to the LEGO activity tent. "I don't think I'd have been as good an engineer if it had not been for things like LEGO and construction kinds of toys."

There were plenty of children who thought so, too. Visiting LEGO's activity tent at one of the launch viewing sites at Kennedy on Wednesday, kids took to 1 ton of bricks and specialized pieces with barely any instructions. They quickly constructed spacecraft of all shapes, some small with launch facilities, others large replicas of the space shuttle. Some made a run at imagining colonies on the moon or Mars.

"You can make anything you want," said Tanner, a nine-year-old who has been building LEGO sets for years.

Melvin and Turnipseed were delighted with the kids' enthusiasm. They even joined in the building.

"This is showing what happens when we give kids a challenge, give them a tool that allows them to express their response to that challenge, their ideas," Turnipseed said.

LEGO and NASA still are working on lesson plans for students that will coincide with the work the astronauts perform in space, Biggs said. Some of the plans may even have the students challenge the astronaut to see who can build something quicker.

Astronaut Cady Coleman, in training for a mission to the International Space Station later this year, is slated to be the first astronaut enlisted to build LEGO objects in space.

Space shuttle Endeavour will carry nine specialized kits to the station in February during the STS-134 mission. Working with them inside a see-through glove box so the small pieces don't get lost in the station, Coleman will assemble LEGO blocks into models and working machines.

She already is practicing with some of the kits with her son and even picking up tips from other kids.

Melvin said the LEGO partnership is crucial for NASA's education mission because the blocks invite children to think, basically, like engineers. After all, building with the toys means deciding what kind of shape to make, what combination of blocks together make that shape the best and what can the thing do when it's finished. They also come up with designs that will be stronger depending on how the bricks are aligned with each other.

LEGO also is releasing four kits to the public based on NASA spacecraft and missions. Rather than being a part of a line of science fiction or fantasy toy kits, though, the NASA sets are being marketed as part of the company's "CITY" line, which calls on kids to build things that are part of everyday life.

"We believe that space, that space exploration, the fact that we have satellites in the air, it is a part of everyday life," Turnipseed said. "The children get it, they understand the importance of what we're doing."

"Space is permeated into everything we do," Melvin said.

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Assessing Cassini Spacecraft

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are working to understand what caused NASA's Cassini spacecraft to put itself into "safe mode," a precautionary standby mode. Cassini entered safe mode around 4 p.m. PDT (7 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, Nov. 2.

Since going into safe mode, the spacecraft has performed as expected, suspending the flow of science data and sending back only data about engineering and spacecraft health. Cassini is programmed to put itself into safe mode automatically any time it detects a condition on the spacecraft that requires action from mission controllers on the ground.

Engineers say it is not likely that Cassini will be able to resume full operations before a planned Nov. 11 flyby of Saturn's moon Titan. But Cassini has 53 more Titan flybys planned in its extended mission, which lasts until 2017.

"The spacecraft responded exactly as it should have, and I fully expect that we will get Cassini back up and running with no problems," said Bob Mitchell, Cassini program manager based at JPL. "Over the more than six years we have been at Saturn, this is only the second safing event. So considering the complexity of demands we have made on Cassini, the spacecraft has performed exceptionally well for us."

Since Cassini launched in 1997, Cassini has put itself into safe mode a total of six times.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Space Shuttle Discovery Mission Now Targeted for Wednesday

The official countdown clock began ticking backward at 2 p.m. EDT Sunday. Launch is targeted for Wednesday, Nov. 3 at 3:52 p.m. NASA Test Director Steve Payne said this morning that the work to repair the leaks is complete, the system is repressurized and work is on schedule for Discovery’s launch.

The Mission Management Team plan to meet Monday morning with a Pre-launch News Conference scheduled to follow at 11 a.m. The new conference will be carried live on NASA Television and at www.nasa.gov/ntv.

The weather forecast remains at 70 percent chance of favorable conditions at launch time.

Space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to Launch on November 1st

Workers packed the special suits aboard Discovery at Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida as part of the continuing preparations for Monday's liftoff. The spacewalking suits are the familiar white versions that carry an astronaut’s power and life support systems. In that sense, each spacesuit is basically a small spacecraft for an astronaut outside the safety of the shuttle or the International Space Station. Mission Specialists Alvin Drew and Tim Kopra will don the suits for two spacewalks on the outside of the station. Spacewalking suits are considerably stronger than the orange partial pressure suits the whole crew wears for launch and landing.

Technicians also are continuing closeout work today on Discovery's aft compartment and preparations are under way to pressurize the main propulsion systems.

The STS-133 crew meets with its lead flight directors today at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and will conduct a conference with the Expedition 25 crew on board the space station. Discovery's six-person crew will fly to Kennedy on Thursday afternoon for the countdown and launch Monday at 4:40 pm. EDT.‪

During space shuttle Discovery's final spaceflight, the STS-133 crew members will take important spare parts to the International Space Station along with the Express Logistics Carrier-4. Discovery has been moved to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. STS-133 is slated to launch Nov. 1.

NASA Celebrating 10 Years on the International Space Station

Celebrating 10 Years on the International Space Station

How big is the International Space Station? Find out that and more as NASA looks back on 10 years of humans in orbit.
check here http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/expedition_10_years/

NASA and OPTIMUS PRIME in Educating Youth

NASA has developed a contest to raise students' awareness of technology transfer efforts and how NASA technologies contribute to our everyday lives.

NASA is collaborating with Hasbro using the correlation between the popular TRANSFORMERS brand, featuring its leader OPTIMUS PRIME, and spinoffs from NASA technologies created for aeronautics and space missions that are used here on Earth. The goal is to help students understand that NASA technology 'transforms' into things that are used daily. These 'transformed' technologies include water purifiers, medical imaging software, or fabric that protects against UV rays.

The Innovative Partnerships Program Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in conjunction with NASA's Office of Education, has designed a video contest for students from third to eighth grade. Each student, or group of students, will submit a three- to five-minute video on a selected NASA spinoff technology listed in the 2009 Spinoff publication. Videos must demonstrate an understanding of the NASA spinoff technology and the associated NASA mission, as well as the commercial application and public benefit associated with the “transformed” technology. Video entries are due by December 31.

The videos will be posted on the NASA YouTube channel, and the public will be responsible for the first round of judging. The top five submissions from each of the two grade groups (third-fifth and sixth-eighth) will advance for final judging. A NASA panel will select a winning entry from each group, and the students will receive a glass OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Award at the Space Foundation's National Space Symposium in 2011. The innovators of the NASA technology highlighted in the winning videos also will receive trophies, along with their commercial partners.

NASA a major exhibitor at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C

NASA will be a major exhibitor at the USA Science and Engineering Festival being held in Washington, D.C., this weekend. The Festival, which is free and open to the public, runs 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. EDT. Sat., Oct. 23, and Sun., Oct. 24. The NASA exhibits are located on the National Mall between 4th and 7th Streets, NW (directly in front of the National Museum of Natural History) and on the south side of Freedom Plaza between 13th and 14th Streets, NW.

From human space flight to aeronautics research, and from scientific study in the far reaches of the universe to our own planet's systems:

* Have you ever wondered how the Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, work? Here’s your chance to find out from the experts. You can even lie down on our Martian terrain and let a robotic rover amble its way across your back!
* Did you know that the Sun is the center of our solar system and is 93 million miles away from Earth? Even from that distance, its intensity can cause eye damage if you look directly at it. But NASA has a solution. Come and take a safe peek at Earth’s “SuperStar” through special solar telescopes.
* Do you remember learning ROYGBIV – the colors of the rainbow or electromagnetic spectrum? Many of NASA's observatories use the infrared part of that spectrum to make scientific discoveries. Do you want to understand how that works? See your image taken with our special infrared camera, then pop an ice cube in your mouth or hold a cold drink in your hand – what a difference you will see!
* Would you to meet a cartoon character who is mysterious and fun? Alkina’s ready to talk to you! She can share the intrigue of gamma rays, black holes, dark matter and other spooky things – just in time for Halloween.
* Guess what? Stars have stages of life just like we do. Stop by our Astro Camp booth to explore that concept using simple craft objects like string and beads.

These are just a few of the many different things you can learn by visiting the NASA booths at the USA Science and Engineering Festival. Rocket scientists, engineers and team members from NASA’s education and outreach programs will be on hand to help you become part of our exciting missions!

The Festival is also serving as a culminating event for NASA Education's successful 2010 Summer of Innovation pilot program, which reached more than 75,000 middle-schoolers during its inaugural year. Interactive NASA and SOI displays and exhibits will offer kids and parents alike the opportunity for hands-on experiences in our scientific and engineering missions and learn how you can be involved in the 2011 Summer of Innovation.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope Find Weird, Warm Spot on an Exoplanet

Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveal a distant planet with a warm spot in the wrong place.

The gas-giant planet, named upsilon Andromedae b, orbits tightly around its star, with one face perpetually boiling under the star's heat. It belongs to a class of planets termed hot Jupiters, so called for their scorching temperatures and large, gaseous constitutions.

One might think the hottest part of these planets would be directly under the sun-facing side, but previous observations have shown that their hot spots may be shifted slightly away from this point. Astronomers thought that fierce winds might be pushing hot, gaseous material around.

But the new finding may throw this theory into question. Using Spitzer, an infrared observatory, astronomers found that upsilon Andromedae b's hot spot is offset by a whopping 80 degrees. Basically, the hot spot is over to the side of the planet instead of directly under the glare of the sun.

"We really didn't expect to find a hot spot with such a large offset," said Ian Crossfield, lead author of a new paper about the discovery appearing in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal. "It's clear that we understand even less about the atmospheric energetics of hot Jupiters than we thought we did."

The results are part of a growing field of exoplanet atmospheric science, pioneered by Spitzer in 2005, when it became the first telescope to directly detect photons from an exoplanet, or a planet orbiting a star other than our sun. Since then, Spitzer, along with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, has studied the atmospheres of several hot Jupiters, finding water, methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

In the new study, astronomers report observations of upsilon Andromedae b taken across five days in February of 2009. This planet whips around its star every 4.6 days, as measured using the "wobble," or radial velocity technique, with telescopes on the ground. It does not transit, or cross in front of, its star as many other hot Jupiters studied by Spitzer do.

Spitzer measured the total combined light from the star and planet, as the planet orbited around. The telescope can't see the planet directly, but it can detect variations in the total infrared light from the system that arise as the hot side of the planet comes into Earth's field of view. The hottest part of the planet will give off the most infrared light.

One might think the system would appear brightest when the planet was directly behind the star, thus showing its full sun-facing side. Likewise, one might think the system would appear darkest when the planet swings around toward Earth, showing its backside. But the system was the brightest when the planet was to the side of the star, with its side facing Earth. This means that the hottest part of the planet is not under its star. It's sort of like going to the beach at sunset to feel the most heat. The researchers aren't sure how this could be.

They've guessed at some possibilities, including supersonic winds triggering shock waves that heat material up, and star-planet magnetic interactions. But these are just speculation. As more hot Jupiters are examined, astronomers will test new theories.

"This is a very unexpected result," said Michael Werner, the Spitzer project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who was not a part of the study. "Spitzer is showing us that we are a long way from understanding these alien worlds."

The Spitzer observations were made before it ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009, officially beginning its warm mission.

Check you favorite images, videos, missions and information in iPhone, iPod touch and iPad

The NASA App for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, combines all of your favorite NASA images, videos, missions and information into one, easy-to-use, application. It's available free of charge on the App Store from Apple directly on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad or within iTunes.

for more info visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/iphone/index.html

The first snapshots of Aftermath of Possible Asteroid Collision

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured the first snapshots of a suspected asteroid collision. The images show a bizarre X-shaped object at the head of a comet-like trail of material.

In January, astronomers began using Hubble to track the object for five months. They thought they had witnessed a fresh asteroid collision, but were surprised to learn the collision occurred in early 2009.

"We expected the debris field to expand dramatically, like shrapnel flying from a hand grenade," said astronomer David Jewitt of the University of California in Los Angeles, who is a leader of the Hubble observations. "But what happened was quite the opposite. We found that the object is expanding very, very slowly."

The peculiar object, dubbed P/2010 A2, was found cruising around the asteroid belt, a reservoir of millions of rocky bodies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is estimated modest-sized asteroids smash into each other about once a year. When the objects collide, they inject dust into interplanetary space. But until now, astronomers have relied on models to make predictions about the frequency of these collisions and the amount of dust produced.

Catching colliding asteroids is difficult because large impacts are rare while small ones, such as the one that produced P/2010 A2, are exceedingly faint. The two asteroids that make up P/2010 A2 were unknown before the collision because they were too faint to be noticed. The collision itself was unobservable because of the asteroids' position in relation to the sun. About 10 or 11 months later, in January 2010, the Lincoln Near-Earth Research (LINEAR) Program Sky Survey spotted the comet-like tail produced by the collision. But only Hubble discerned the X pattern, offering unequivocal evidence that something stranger than a comet outgassing had occurred.

Although the Hubble images give compelling evidence for an asteroid collision, Jewitt says he still does not have enough information to rule out other explanations for the peculiar object. In one such scenario, a small asteroid's rotation increases from solar radiation and loses mass, forming the comet-like tail.

"These observations are important because we need to know where the dust in the solar system comes from, and how much of it comes from colliding asteroids as opposed to 'outgassing' comets," Jewitt said. "We also can apply this knowledge to the dusty debris disks around other stars, because these are thought to be produced by collisions between unseen bodies in the disks. Knowing how the dust was produced will yield clues about those invisible bodies."

The Hubble images, taken from January to May 2010 with the telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, reveal a point-like object about 400 feet wide, with a long, flowing dust tail behind a never-before-seen X pattern. Particle sizes in the tail are estimated to vary from about 1/25th of an inch to an inch in diameter.

The 400-foot-wide object in the Hubble image is the remnant of a slightly larger precursor body. Astronomers think a smaller rock, perhaps 10 to 15 feet wide, slammed into the larger one. The pair probably collided at high speed, about 11,000 mph, which smashed and vaporized the small asteroid and stripped material from the larger one. Jewitt estimates that the violent encounter happened in February or March 2009 and was as powerful as the detonation of a small atomic bomb.

Sunlight radiation then swept the debris behind the remnant asteroid, forming a comet-like tail. The tail contains enough dust to make a ball 65 feet wide, most of it blown out of the bigger body by the impact-caused explosion. The science journal Nature will publish the findings in the Oct. 14 issue.

"Once again, Hubble has revealed unexpected phenomena occurring in our celestial 'back yard," said Eric Smith, Hubble Program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Though it's often Hubble's deep observations of the universe or beautiful images of glowing nebulae in our galaxy that make headlines, observations like this of objects in our own solar system remind us how much exploration we still have to do locally."

Astronomers do not have a good explanation for the X shape. The crisscrossed filaments at the head of the tail suggest that the colliding asteroids were not perfectly symmetrical. Material ejected from the impact, therefore, did not make a symmetrical pattern, a bit like the ragged splash made by throwing a rock into a lake. Larger particles in the X disperse very slowly and give this structure its longevity.

Astronomers plan to use Hubble again next year to view the object. Jewitt and his colleagues hope to see how far the dust has been swept back by the sun's radiation and how the mysterious X-shaped structure has evolved.

The Soyuz TMA-01M rocket launched

The Soyuz TMA-01M rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, Oct. 8, 2010 carrying Expedition 25 Soyuz Commander Alexander Kaleri of Russia, NASA Flight Engineer Scott J. Kelly and Russian Flight Engineer Oleg Skripochka to the International Space Station.

Expedition 25 Crew to Launch on Thursday at 7:10 p.m. EDT

The Expedition 25 crew has been working on the International Space Station’s treadmill located inside the Russian segment. The treadmill is disassembled, inspected then reassembled as part of its six-month maintenance schedule. Photographs are taken of the exercise device’s parts and downlinked to Earth for analysis by specialists.

Commander Doug Wheelock continues working on the Oxygen Generation System in the Destiny laboratory. Wheelock is installing a system that will combine carbon dioxide and hydrogen to create water and methane. The water will be used in the station’s Water Processing Assembly and the methane will be vented overboard.

Flight Engineer Fyodor Yurchikhin continued his work in the Russian segment of the International Space Station. Yurchkihin updated the Inventory Management System and replaced equipment in the Zarya control module. He also inspected filters and checked coolant levels.

The Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft is at the launch pad in Kazakhstan and set for a Thursday launch at 7:10 p.m. EDT to carry three new Expedition 25 crew members to the International Space Station. Flight Engineers Scott Kelly, Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka are due to arrive at the orbiting laboratory Saturday and dock to the Poisk module at 8:02 p.m

A team of planet hunters Finds First Potentially Habitable Exoplanet

This artist's conception shows the inner four planets of the Gliese 581 system and their host star, a red dwarf star only 20 light years away from Earth. The large planet in the foreground is the newly discovered GJ 581g, which has a 37-day orbit right in the middle of the star's habitable zone and is only three to four times the mass of Earth, with a diameter 1.2 to 1.4 times that of Earth.

A team of planet hunters from the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington has announced the discovery of a planet with three times the mass of Earth orbiting a nearby star at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star's "habitable zone."

This discovery was the result of more than a decade of observations using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, one of the world's largest optical telescopes. The research, sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation, placed the planet in an area where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. If confirmed, this would be the most Earth-like exoplanet yet discovered and the first strong case for a potentially habitable one.

To astronomers, a "potentially habitable" planet is one that could sustain life, not necessarily one where humans would thrive. Habitability depends on many factors, but having liquid water and an atmosphere are among the most important.

The new findings are based on 11 years of observations of the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 581using the HIRES spectrometer on the Keck I Telescope. The spectrometer allows precise measurements of a star's radial velocity (its motion along the line of sight from Earth), which can reveal the presence of planets. The gravitational tug of an orbiting planet causes periodic changes in the radial velocity of the host star. Multiple planets induce complex wobbles in the star's motion, and astronomers use sophisticated analyses to detect planets and determine their orbits and masses.

"Keck's long-term observations of the wobble of nearby stars enabled the detection of this multi-planetary system," said Mario R. Perez, Keck program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Keck is once again proving itself an amazing tool for scientific research."

Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution lead the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey. The team's new findings are reported in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal and posted online at:http://arxiv.org

"Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Vogt. "The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."

The paper reports the discovery of two new planets around Gliese 581. This brings the total number of known planets around this star to six, the most yet discovered in a planetary system outside of our own. Like our solar system, the planets around Gliese 581 have nearly-circular orbits.

Comparing the Gliese 581 to Our Solar System

The orbits of planets in the Gliese 581 system are compared to those of our own solar system. The Gliese 581 star has about 30% the mass of our sun, and the outermost planet is closer to its star than we are to the sun. The fourth planet, G, is a planet that could sustain life.

The new planet designated Gliese 581g has a mass three to four times that of Earth and orbits its star in just under 37 days. Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet with a definite surface and enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere.

Gliese 581, located 20 light years away from Earth in the constellation Libra, has two previously detected planets that lie at the edges of the habitable zone, one on the hot side (planet c) and one on the cold side (planet d). While some astronomers still think planet d may be habitable if it has a thick atmosphere with a strong greenhouse effect to warm it up, others are skeptical. The newly-discovered planet g, however, lies right in the middle of the habitable zone.

The planet is tidally locked to the star, meaning that one side is always facing the star and basking in perpetual daylight, while the side facing away from the star is in perpetual darkness. One effect of this is to stabilize the planet's surface climates, according to Vogt. The most habitable zone on the planet's surface would be the line between shadow and light (known as the "terminator").

Kennedy Space Center Gearing Up for November 1 launch

Technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are servicing the solid rocket booster hydraulic power units as the space shuttle Discovery stack is readied for launch. Liftoff remains targeted for Nov. 1 at 4:40 p.m. EDT. The remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole passed well offshore from Kennedy and aren't affecting operations at the center. Discovery's processing at the pad also was not affected by the storm. At NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the STS-133 crew will perform a bench review of flight crew equipment.

New cosmic phenomenon termed Coreshine

Astronomers have discovered a new, cosmic phenomenon, termed "coreshine," which is revealing new information about how stars and planets come to be.

The scientists used data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to measure infrared light deflecting off cores -- cold, dark cocoons where young stars and planetary systems are blossoming. This coreshine effect, which occurs when starlight from nearby stars bounces off the cores, reveals information about their age and consistency. In a new paper, to be published Friday, Sept. 24, in the journal Science, the team reports finding coreshine across dozens of dark cores.

"Dark clouds in our Milky Way galaxy, far from Earth, are huge places where new stars are born. But they are shy and hide themselves in a shroud of dust so that we cannot see what happens inside," said Laurent Pagani of the Observatoire de Paris and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, both in France. "We have found a new way to peer into them. They are like ghosts because we see them but we also see through them."

Pagani and his team first observed one case of the coreshine phenomenon in 2009. They were surprised to see that starlight was scattering off a dark core in the form of infrared light that Spitzer could see. They had thought the grains of dust making up the core were too small to deflect the starlight; instead, they expected the sunlight would travel straight through. Their finding told them that the dust grains were bigger than previously thought -- about 1 micron instead of 0.1 micron (a typical human hair is about 100 microns).

That might not sound like a big difference, but it can significantly change astronomers' models of star and planet formation. For one thing, the larger grain size means that planets -- which form as dust circling young stars sticks together -- might take shape more quickly. In other words, the tiny seeds for planet formation may be forming very early on, when a star is still in its pre-embryonic phase.

But this particular object observed in 2009 could have been a fluke. The researchers did not know if what they found was true of other dark clouds -- until now. In the new study, they examine 110 dark cores, and find that about half of them exhibit coreshine.

The finding amounts to a new tool for not only studying the dust making up the dark cores, but also for assessing their age. The more developed star-forming cores will have larger dust grains, so, using this tool, astronomers can better map their ages across our Milky Way galaxy. Coreshine can also help in constructing three-dimensional models of the cores -- the deflected starlight is scattered in a way that is dependent on the cloud structures.

Said Pagani, "We're opening a new window on the realm of dark, star-forming cores."

Other authors are Aurore Bacmann of the Astrophysics Laboratory of Grenoble, France, and Jürgen Steinacker, Amelia Stutz and Thomas Henning of the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany. Steinacker is also with the Observatoire de Paris, and Stutz is also with the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The Spitzer measurements are based on data from the mission's public archive, taken before the telescope ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009 and began its current warm mission.

New Images of Saturn's Aurora

A new movie and images showing Saturn's shimmering aurora over a two-day period are helping scientists understand what drives some of the solar system's most impressive light shows.

The new, false-color images and video are available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

The movie and images are part of a new study that, for the first time, extracts auroral information from the entire catalogue of Saturn images taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument (VIMS) aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft. These images and preliminary results are being presented by Tom Stallard, lead scientist on a joint VIMS and Cassini magnetometer collaboration, at the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome on Friday, Sept. 24.

In the movie, the aurora phenomenon clearly varies significantly over the course of a Saturnian day, which lasts around 10 hours 47 minutes. On the noon and midnight sides (left and right sides of the images, respectively), the aurora can be seen to brighten significantly for periods of several hours, suggesting the brightening is connected with the angle of the sun. Other features can be seen to rotate with the planet, reappearing at the same time and the same place on the second day, suggesting that these are directly controlled by the orientation of Saturn's magnetic field.

"Saturn's auroras are very complex and we are only just beginning to understand all the factors involved," Stallard said. "This study will provide a broader view of the wide variety of different auroral features that can be seen, and will allow us to better understand what controls these changes in appearance."

Auroras on Saturn occur in a process similar to Earth's northern and southern lights. Particles from the solar wind are channeled by Saturn's magnetic field toward the planet's poles, where they interact with electrically charged gas (plasma) in the upper atmosphere and emit light. At Saturn, however, auroral features can also be caused by electromagnetic waves generated when the planet's moons move through the plasma that fills Saturn's magnetosphere.

Previous data from Cassini have contributed to a number of detailed snapshots of the aurora. But understanding the overall nature of the auroral region requires a huge number of observations, which can be difficult because Cassini observation time close to Saturn is in high demand, Stallard said.

However, VIMS observations of numerous other scientific targets also include auroral information. Sometimes the aurora can be clearly seen, but sometimes Stallard and colleagues add multiple images together to produce a signal. This wide set of observations allows Cassini scientists to understand the aurora in general, rather than the beautiful specific cases that dedicated auroral observations allow, Stallard said.

Stallard and his colleagues have investigated about 1,000 images from the 7,000 that VIMS has taken to date of Saturn's auroral region.

The new, false-color images show Saturn's aurora glowing in green around the planet's south pole. The auroral information in the two images was extracted from VIMS data taken on May 24, 2007, and Nov. 1, 2008. The video covers about 20 Earth hours of VIMS observations, from Sept. 22 and 23, 2007.

"Detailed studies like this of Saturn's aurora help us understand how they are generated on Earth and the nature of the interactions between the magnetosphere and the uppermost regions of Saturn's atmosphere," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

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 Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Stallard's work on Saturn's auroras is funded by the Science and Technologies Facilities Council, Swindon, U.K.

Expedition 24 Crew Successfully Return to Earth

Expedition 24 Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineers Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko landed their Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft in Kazakhstan on Saturday, Sept. 25, wrapping up a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

Skvortsov was at the controls of the spacecraft as it undocked at 10:02 p.m. EDT Friday from the Poisk docking port on the station's Zvezda module, a day later than planned because of a Poisk-side hatch sensor problem Thursday night. That problem prevented hooks on the Poisk side of the docking interface from opening, resulting in a one-day landing delay.

Following undocking and a normal descent, the crew landed at 1:23 a.m. near Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, as the station orbited 220 miles above over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan.

Russian recovery teams were on hand to help the crew exit the Soyuz vehicle and adjust to gravity after 176 days in space. Skvortsov and Kornienko will return to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow. Caldwell Dyson will return to Houston aboard a NASA plane.

The trio launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in April. As members of the Expedition 23 and 24 crews, they spent 174 days on the station. Caldwell Dyson and Expedition 25 Commander Doug Wheelock conducted three spacewalks to replace a faulty cooling pump module on the station’s truss structure. Kornienko conducted one spacewalk to perform assembly work on the Russian segment of the complex.

The station is now occupied by Wheelock, who assumed command of the station Wednesday, NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker and Russian Flight Engineer Fyodor Yurchikhin, who arrived in mid-June.

A new trio of Expedition 25 crew members, NASA’s Scott Kelly, Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Oct. 7, U.S. time and will arrive on the station about 48 hours later.

The Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft Landing

The Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 24 Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineers Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010. Russian Cosmonauts Skvortsov and Kornienko and NASA Astronaut Caldwell Dyson, are returning from six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 23 and 24 crews.

Your Face in Space

NASA wants to put a picture of you on one of the two remaining space shuttle missions and launch it into orbit. To launch your face into space and become a part of history, just follow the link below:
https://faceinspace.nasa.gov/index.aspx

Jupiter is approaching Earth

Been outside at midnight lately? There's something you really need to see. Jupiter is approaching Earth for the closest encounter between the two planets in more than a decade--and it is dazzling.

The night of closest approach is Sept. 20-21st. This is also called "the night of opposition" because Jupiter will be opposite the sun, rising at sunset and soaring overhead at midnight. Among all denizens of the midnight sky, only the moon itself will be brighter.

Earth-Jupiter encounters happen every 13 months when the Earth laps Jupiter in their race around the sun. But because Earth and Jupiter do not orbit the sun in perfect circles, they are not always the same distance apart when Earth passes by. On Sept. 20th, Jupiter will be as much as 75 million km closer than previous encounters and will not be this close again until 2022.

The view through a telescope is excellent. Because Jupiter is so close, the planet's disk can be seen in rare detail--and there is a lot to see. For instance, the Great Red Spot, a cyclone twice as wide as Earth, is bumping up against another storm called "Red Spot Jr." The apparition of two planet-sized tempests grinding against one another must be seen to be believed.

Also, Jupiter's trademark South Equatorial Belt (SEB) recently vanished, possibly submerging itself beneath high clouds. Researchers say it could reappear at any moment. The dramatic resurgence would be accompanied by a globe-straddling profusion of spots and cloudy swirls, clearly visible in backyard telescopes.

And what was that flash? Amateur astronomers have recently reported a surprising number of fireballs in Jupiter's atmosphere. Apparently, many small asteroids or comet fragments are hitting the giant planet and exploding among the clouds. Researchers who have studied these events say visible flashes could be occurring as often as a few times a month.

Finally, we mustn't forget the moons of Jupiter because they are also having a close encounter with Earth. These are planet-sized worlds with active volcanoes (Io), possible underground oceans (Europa), vast fields of craters (Callisto), and mysterious global grooves (Ganymede). When Galileo discovered the moons 400 years ago, they were no more than pinpricks of light in his primitive spy glass. Big, modern amateur telescopes reveal actual planetary disks with colorful markings.

It makes you wonder, what would Galileo think?

Expedition 24 Crew Members Prepare for landing on Friday in Kazakhstan

Expedition 24 Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineers Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko spent Monday preparing for their departure Thursday from the International Space Station. They packed items to be returned to Earth in their Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft, reviewed deorbit and landing procedures and checked out their Sokol launch and entry suits.

Once they undock, Expedition 25 will begin its increment with Commander Doug Wheelock and Flight Engineers Shannon Walker and Fyodor Yurchikhin continuing their stay on the station. Skvortsov will ceremonially hand command of the station over to Wheelock Wednesday afternoon.

NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian Cosmonauts Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka will join Expedition 25 as flight engineers when they dock in the new Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft next month.

Walker set up equipment for the Anomalous Long Term Effects in Astronauts' Central Nervous System experiment. Also known as ALTEA, the experiment uses several diagnostic technologies to measure the effect of the exposure of crew members to cosmic radiation. Specifically, ALTEA was set up Monday to measure the effectiveness of materials on the orbital complex designed to shield the crew from this radiation.

Meanwhile, Kornienko assisted Skvortsov in a session with the Russian Pilot-M experiment. Pilot-M tests piloting skill in simulations on a laptop under stopwatch control and studies the response of cosmonauts to the effects of stress factors in flight.

Yurchikhin worked with the Matryoshka-R experiment. The Russian payload is designed for sophisticated radiation studies and is named after the traditional Russian set of nested dolls.

Wheelock installed a cable that will send power to the Pressurized Multipurpose Module when it is delivered by the STS-133 crew aboard space shuttle Discovery later this year.

Caldwell Dyson set up the U.S. Sound Level Meter and performed an acoustic survey of the station, the data from which she later downloaded to controllers on the ground.