Sector 33 Game App Goes Android

Feel like exercising your math skills to virtually manage the nation's crowded airways? Yup, there's an app for that – and has been for about a year now.

But until now, the popular NASA-developed game app called Sector 33, which gives you a sense of what it's like to be an air traffic controller, was only available for mobile device owners who use the Apple-based iOS operating system.

Now Sector 33 is available to a wider audience of students and adults alike with its recent release of a version for the Android operating system, which you can download for free at GooglePlay.

"We didn't want to overlook the millions of students who have access to and use Android-based devices, so now they too can enjoy the educational and entertaining Sector 33 app, and perhaps be inspired to pursue a career in aviation," said Rebecca Green, lead for the Smart Skies project at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.

In the game, the player acts as an air traffic controller by guiding airplanes through a sector of airspace spanning Nevada and California.

The player can adjust the planes' path and speed to quickly reach certain spots in the sky, while at the same time keeping the planes a safe distance from each other – obviously a key objective of real-life Air Traffic Control (ATC).

To achieve a perfect score, players must apply a little math and use problem-solving skills as they balance time, aircraft positions and safety.

For more info, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/

Hubble Sees a Glowing Jet From A Young Star

This image shows an object known as HH 151, a bright jet of glowing material trailed by an intricate, orange-hued plume of gas and dust. It is located some 460 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull), near to the young, tumultuous star HL Tau.

In the first few hundred thousand years of life, new stars like HL Tau pull in material that falls towards them from the surrounding space. This material forms a hot disc that swirls around the coalescing body, launching narrow streams of material from its poles. These jets are shot out at speeds of several hundred kilometers (or miles) per second and collide violently with nearby clumps of dust and gas, creating wispy, billowing structures known as Herbig-Haro objects — like HH 151 seen in the image.

Such objects are very common in star-forming regions. They are short-lived, and their motion and evolution can actually be seen over very short timescales, on the order of years. They quickly race away from the newly-forming star that emitted them, colliding with new clumps of material and glowing brightly before fading away.

Cassini Sheds Light on Cosmic Particle Accelerators

During a chance encounter with what appears to be an unusually strong blast of solar wind at Saturn, NASA's Cassini spacecraft detected particles being accelerated to ultra-high energies. This is similar to the acceleration that takes place around distant supernovas.

Since we can't travel out to the far-off stellar explosions right now, the shockwave that forms from the flow of solar wind around Saturn's magnetic field provides a rare laboratory for scientists with the Cassini mission -- a partnership involving NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency -- to observe this phenomenon up-close. The findings, published this week in the journal Nature Physics, confirm that certain kinds of shocks can become considerably more effective electron accelerators than previously thought.
Shock waves are commonplace in the universe, for example in the aftermath of a stellar explosion as debris accelerate outward in a supernova remnant, or when the flow of particles from the sun - the solar wind - impinges on the magnetic field of a planet to form a bow shock. Under certain magnetic field orientations and depending on the strength of the shock, particles can be accelerated to close to the speed of light at these boundaries. These may be the dominant source of cosmic rays, high-energy particles that pervade our galaxy.
Scientists are particularly interested in "quasi-parallel" shocks, where the magnetic field and the "forward"-facing direction of the shock are almost aligned, as may be found in supernova remnants. The new study, led by Adam Masters of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Sagamihara, Japan, describes the first detection of significant acceleration of electrons in a quasi-parallel shock at Saturn, coinciding with what may be the strongest shock ever encountered at the ringed planet.
"Cassini has essentially given us the capability of studying the nature of a supernova shock in situ in our own solar system, bridging the gap to distant high-energy astrophysical phenomena that are usually only studied remotely," said Masters.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and ASI, the Italian space agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Hubble Sees Cosmic “Flying V” of Merging Galaxies

This large “flying V” is actually two distinct objects — a pair of interacting galaxies known as IC 2184. Both the galaxies are seen almost edge-on in the large, faint northern constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe), and can be seen as bright streaks of light surrounded by the ghostly shapes of their tidal tails.

These tidal tails are thin, elongated streams of gas, dust and stars that extend away from a galaxy into space. They occur when galaxies gravitationally interact with one another, and material is sheared from the outer edges of each body and flung out into space in opposite directions, forming two tails. They almost always appear curved, so when they are seen to be relatively straight, as in this image, it is clear that we are viewing the galaxies side-on.

Also visible in this image are bursts of bright blue, pinpointing hot regions where the colliding gas clouds stir up vigorous star formation. 

Celestial Valentine

Generations of stars can be seen in this infrared portrait from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. In this wispy star-forming region, called W5, the oldest stars can be seen as blue dots in the centers of the two hollow cavities (other blue dots are background and foreground stars not associated with the region).

Younger stars line the rims of the cavities, and some can be seen as pink dots at the tips of the elephant-trunk-like pillars. The white knotty areas are where the youngest stars are forming. Red shows heated dust that pervades the region's cavities, while green highlights dense clouds.

Chandra Suggests Rare Explosion Created Our Galaxy's Youngest Black Hole

New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest a highly distorted supernova remnant may contain the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy. The remnant appears to be the product of a rare explosion in which matter is ejected at high speeds along the poles of a rotating star.

The remnant, called W49B, is about a thousand years old as seen from Earth and located about 26,000 light-years away.

"W49B is the first of its kind to be discovered in the galaxy," said Laura Lopez, who led the study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It appears its parent star ended its life in a way that most others don't."

Usually when a massive star runs out of fuel, the central region of the star collapses, triggering a chain of events that quickly culminate in a supernova explosion. Most of these explosions are generally symmetrical, with the stellar material blasting away more or less evenly in all directions.

However, in the W49B supernova, material near the poles of the doomed rotating star was ejected at a much higher speed than material emanating from its equator. Jets shooting away from the star's poles mainly shaped the supernova explosion and its aftermath.

The remnant now glows brightly in X-rays and other wavelengths, offering the evidence for a peculiar explosion. By tracing the distribution and amounts of different elements in the stellar debris field, researchers were able to compare the Chandra data to theoretical models of how a star explodes. For example, they found iron in only half of the remnant while other elements such as sulfur and silicon were spread throughout. This matches predictions for an asymmetric explosion.

"In addition to its unusual signature of elements, W49B also is much more elongated and elliptical than most other remnants," said co-author Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz of the University of California at Santa Cruz. "This is seen in X-rays and several other wavelengths and points to an unusual demise for this star."

Because supernova explosions are not well understood, astronomers want to study extreme cases like the one that produced W49B. The relative proximity of W49B also makes it extremely useful for detailed study.

The authors examined what sort of compact object the supernova explosion left behind. Most of the time, massive stars that collapse into supernovas leave a dense, spinning core called a neutron star. Astronomers often can detect neutron stars through their X-ray or radio pulses, although sometimes an X-ray source is seen without pulsations. A careful search of the Chandra data revealed no evidence for a neutron star. The lack of such evidence implies a black hole may have formed.

"It's a bit circumstantial, but we have intriguing evidence the W49B supernova also created a black hole," said co-author Daniel Castro, also of MIT. "If that is the case, we have a rare opportunity to study a supernova responsible for creating a young black hole."

Supernova explosions driven by jets like the one in W49B have been linked to gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in other objects. GRBs, which have been seen only in distant galaxies, also are thought to mark the birth of a black hole. There is no evidence the W49B supernova produced a GRB, but it may have properties -- including being jet-driven and possibly forming a black hole -- that overlap with those of a GRB.

The new results on W49B, which were based on about two-and-a-half days of Chandra observing time, appear in a paper in Sunday's issue of the Astrophysical Journal. The other co-author was Sarah Pearson from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass. 

Mars Rock Takes Unusual Form

On Mars, as on Earth, sometimes things can take on an unusual appearance. A case in point is a shiny-looking rock seen in a recent image from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.

Some casual observers might see a resemblance to a car door handle, hood ornament or some other type of metallic object. To Ronald Sletten of the University of Washington, Seattle, a collaborator on Curiosity's science team, the object is an interesting study in how wind and the natural elements cause erosion and other effects on various types of rocks.
Find out what likely caused the shiny appearance of the Martian rock, and see some examples of similar phenomena found on Earth.

NASA SDO Mission Highlights

When the science team released its first images in April of 2010, SDO's data exceeded everyone’s hopes and expectations, providing stunningly detailed views of the sun. In the three years since then, SDO's images have continued to show breathtaking pictures and movies of eruptive events on the sun. Such imagery is more than just pretty, they are the very data that scientists study. By highlighting different wavelengths of light, scientists can track how material on the sun moves. Such movement, in turn, holds clues as to what causes these giant explosions, which, when Earth-directed, can disrupt technology in space.

In its third year of observations, however, SDO has also opened up several new, unexpected doors to scientific inquiry. Over the last year scientists spent much time poring over data from comet observations. Comets that travel close to the sun – known as sun-grazers -- have long been observed as they move toward the sun, but the view was always obscured by the sun's bright light when the comets got too close. But SDO has now captured images of two comets as they passed close to the sun.

In December 2011, Comet Lovejoy swept right through the sun's corona, with its long tail streaming behind it. SDO sent back pictures of the comet's long tail being buffeted by systems around the sun. Such comet tails move in response to the sun's otherwise invisible magnetic field, so they can also act as tracers of the complex magnetic field higher up in the corona, offering scientists a unique way of observing movement there. Observations of the comet's long trail of water vapor and the material its lost, as well as how it vaporizes in the intense radiation of the sun could also be used to study atomic material and their ratios in the corona. SDO's third year, therefore, brought two research communities together: comet researchers who can use solar observations for their studies and solar scientists who can use comet observations to study the sun.

The second novel highlight of SDO's third year occurred on June 5, 2012, when Venus crossed in front of the sun, as viewed from Earth – an occurrence that will not happen again for more than 100 years. SDO cameras trained on the transit to help calibrate its instruments and to learn more about Venus's atmosphere. Since the points at which Venus first touched and later left the sun are known down to minute detail, SDO could use this information to make sure its images are oriented to true solar north – calibrating its orientation to within a tenth of a pixel. Scientists also recorded how the sun's extreme ultraviolet light traveled through Venus's atmosphere in order to learn more about what elements exist around the planet.

The third new area of SDO data came from an always-planned source, the helioseismic and magnetic imager (HMI). The instrument provides real time maps of magnetic fields of the entire surface of the sun, showing how strong they are and – for the first time ever -- in which direction they are pointing. Since HMI is providing a type of data never before collected, and so it has opened up a whole new area of inquiry. Changing and realigning magnetic fields are at the heart of the sun's eruptions, so this too is a crucial set of data. Scientists have spent time over the last year to figure out how to best create visual maps from the data – as well as how to interpret them. The HMI images have been affectionately referred to as "hedgehog pictures" since they show spiky quill like lines pointing out of – or in toward – the sun.
Studying such complex magnetic motions inside the sun can help scientists understand the complex magnetic fields around the sun, which lead to the eruptions that can cause space weather effects near Earth and other objects in the solar system. Ultimately research into these constantly changing magnetic fields may lead to advance warning of such activity, which can send radiation, particles, and magnetic fields toward Earth and sometimes disrupt technology at Earth and other planets.

SDO is the first mission in a NASA’s Living With a Star program, the goal of which is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to address those aspects of the sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. built, operates, and manages the SDO spacecraft for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.

Hubble Catches a Side-on Spiral Streak

This thin, glittering streak of stars is the spiral galaxy ESO 121-6, which lies in the southern constellation of Pictor (The Painter's Easel). Viewed almost exactly side-on, the intricate structure of the swirling arms is hidden, but the full length of the galaxy can be seen — including the intense glow from the central bulge, a dense region of tightly packed young stars sitting at the center of the spiral arms.

Tendrils of dark dust can be seen across the frame, partially obscuring the bright center of the galaxy and continuing out towards the smattering of stars at its edges, where the dust lanes and shapes melt into the inky background. Numerous nearby stars and galaxies are visible as small smudges in the surrounding sky, and the brightest stars are dazzlingly prominent towards the bottom left of the image.

ESO 121-6 is a galaxy with patchy, loosely-wound arms and a relatively faint central bulge. It actually belongs to a group of galaxies, a clump of no more than 50 similar structures all loosely bound to one another by gravity. The Milky Way is also a member of a galactic group, known as the Local Group.

Strobe-Like Flashes in a Suspected Binary Protostar

Two of NASA's great observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, have teamed up to uncover a mysterious infant star that behaves like a strobe light.

Every 25.34 days, the object, designated LRLL 54361, unleashes a burst of light. Although a similar phenomenon has been observed in two other young stellar objects, this is the most powerful such beacon seen to date.

The heart of the fireworks is hidden behind a dense disk and envelope of dust. Astronomers propose the light flashes are caused by periodic interactions between two newly formed stars that are binary, or gravitationally bound to each other. LRLL 54361 offers insights into the early stages of star formation when lots of gas and dust is being rapidly accreted, or pulled together, to form a new binary star.

Astronomers theorize the flashes are caused by material suddenly being dumped onto the growing stars, known as protostars. A blast of radiation is unleashed each time the stars get close to each other in their orbits. This phenomenon, called pulsed accretion, has been seen in later stages of star birth, but never in such a young system or with such intensity and regularity.

"This protostar has such large brightness variations with a precise period that it is very difficult to explain," said James Muzerolle of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. His paper recently was published in the science journal Nature.

Discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, LRLL 54361 is a variable object inside the star-forming region IC 348, located 950 light-years from Earth. Data from Spitzer revealed the presence of protostars. Based on statistical analysis, the two stars are estimated to be no more than a few hundred thousand years old.

The Spitzer infrared data, collected repeatedly during a period of seven years, showed unusual outbursts in the brightness of the suspected binary protostar. Surprisingly, the outbursts recurred every 25.34 days, which is a very rare phenomenon.
Astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to confirm the Spitzer observations and reveal the detailed stellar structure around LRLL 54361. Hubble observed two cavities above and below a dusty disk. The cavities are visible by tracing light scattered off their edges. They likely were blown out of the surrounding natal envelope of dust and gas by an outflow launched near the central stars. The disk and the envelope prevent the suspected binary star pair from being observed directly. By capturing multiple images over the course of one pulse event, the Hubble observations uncovered a spectacular movement of light away from the center of the system, an optical illusion known as a light echo.

Muzerolle and his team hypothesized the pair of stars in the center of the dust cloud move around each other in a very eccentric orbit. As the stars approach each other, dust and gas are dragged from the inner edge of a surrounding disk. The material ultimately crashes onto one or both stars, which triggers a flash of light that illuminates the circumstellar dust. The system is rare because close binaries account for only a few percent of our galaxy's stellar population. This is likely a brief, transitory phase in the birth of a star system.

Muzerolle's team next plans to continue monitoring LRLL 54361 using other facilities including the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope. The team hopes to eventually obtain more direct measurements of the binary star and its orbit.

Hexagon and Rings

Saturn's north polar hexagon basks in the Sun's light now that spring has come to the northern hemisphere. Many smaller storms dot the north polar region and Saturn's signature rings, which appear to disappear on account of Saturn's shadow, put in an appearance in the background.

The north polar hexagon was first observed by Voyager.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2012 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 750 nanometers.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 403,000 miles (649,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 21 degrees. Image scale is 22 miles (35 kilometers) per pixel.

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

Mariner 10's Portrait of Venus

On Feb. 5, 1974, Mariner 10 took this first close-up photo of Venus. Made using an ultraviolet filter in its imaging system, the photo has been color-enhanced to bring out Venus's cloudy atmosphere as the human eye would see it. Venus is perpetually blanketed by a thick veil of clouds high in carbon dioxide and its surface temperature approaches 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dinosaur Footprints at NASA Goddard Take Another Step

A grouping of 110 to 112 million-year-old dinosaur footprints pressed into mud from the Cretaceous Period have now been safely moved from their original setting on the grounds of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Until further scientific study is possible, the footprints, now wrapped in protective material, will be stored on the Goddard campus.
Earlier this year, the footprint-bearing rock was reinforced and removed.

“We successfully made a mold of the upper surface to preserve the dinosaur footprints,” said Stephen Godfrey, Curator of Paleontology at the Calvert Marine Museum (www.Skullptures.com). He was contracted by Goddard to preserve and move the preserved footprints for further scientific examination and eventual display.

The original footprint was almost certainly that of a nodosaur, Godfrey confirmed.

“This is an armored type of dinosaur that had spikes all over their body. The spikes consist of bones that were embedded in their skin,” he said. “With the second large print, the orientation was different, and the shape of the print is different as well.”

Godfrey suspects the second creature was a three-toed ornithopod, perhaps from the iguanodontid family of dinosaurs, which were also herbivores much like the nodosaur.

A third, smaller footprint was originally found superimposed over the nodosaur track. Experts say it is likely a juvenile nodosaur meandering behind its parent on a more circuitous route.

After the dinosaurs left the footprints, single-celled organisms feeding on nutrients in the Cretaceous mud precipitated an iron-rich mineral known as hematite that solidified and preserved the tracks until natural processes buried and fossilized them, said Stanford.

Excavation of the stone with the dinosaur footprints had to wait until geologists and paleontologists learned more about the find and its surroundings, in accordance with Bureau of Land Management guidelines.

In December, 2012, Goddard scientists using ground penetrating radar showed that the sedimentary rock layer bearing these prints was preserved in its original location, but that investigation found no additional indications of locations of dinosaur track specimens of scientific value.

Further hands-on exploration by Goddard volunteers, including Godfrey, took place in mid-December 2012. Volunteers dug in several areas around the initial find location, but turned up no additional preserved footprints.

The entire find, containing at least three dinosaur footprints, is approximately seven feet long and three feet across at its widest point. Additionally, the footprint-bearing layer is bonded to a separate layer of iron-rich sandstone that complicated the efforts to extract and preserve it.

Before removing the rock layer, Godfrey made a silicon-rubber cast of the prints, then jacketed the entire find in multiple layers of plaster-soaked burlap (i.e. just like a cast) to add rigidity and to further ward against breakage during transport. Galvanized steel pipes wrapped into the jacket acted like splints to provide additional structural support.

The combined weight of the footprint, field jacket material and surrounding soil that was removed was estimated at approximately 3,000 pounds, so extra care was taken in moving it to avoid damaging the rather extraordinary find.
The future disposition of the dinosaur-track-bearing rock layer has not yet been determined. Senior management at Goddard will work with government officials and scientists to determine the best course of action.

"One of the amazing aspects of this find is that some of the starlight now seen in the night sky by astronomers was created in far-distant galaxies when these dinosaurs were walking on mud flats in Cretaceous Maryland where Goddard is now located," said Jim Garvin, Chief Scientist at NASA Goddard. "That starlight (from within the Virgo Supercluster) is only now reaching Earth after having traveled through deep space for 100 million years."

Center Director Chris Scolese added, "Much of the work at Goddard is focused on Earth and space science. The discovery and follow-on work with the dinosaur footprints created a wonderful blending of sciences. You have astronomy - the study of the Universe, geology - the study of the Earth, and paleontology - the study of the prehistoric life on Earth and they have all come together here at NASA Goddard."