NASA Launches Groundbreaking Soil Moisture Mapping Satellite

NASA successfully launched its first Earth satellite designed to collect global observations of the vital soil moisture hidden just beneath our feet. The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory, a mission with broad applications for science and society, lifted off at 6:22 a.m. PST (9:22 a.m. EST) Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket.



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Astronauts Speak with University of California Students from Space Station

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering students at the University of California, Davis will have a rare opportunity to speak with Expedition 42 crew members currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS) at 12:45 p.m. EST (9:45 a.m. PST) Thursday, Feb. 5. The 20-minute Earth-to-space call will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.



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Launch of NASA Soil Moisture Mapping Mission Set for Saturday

NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive mission (SMAP) now is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California at 6:20 a.m. PST (9:20 a.m. EST) Saturday, Jan. 31.

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NASA TV Coverage Set for NOAA DSCOVR Launch Feb. 8

The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) is scheduled to launch at 6:10 p.m. EST Sunday, Feb. 8 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. A backup launch opportunity is available at 6:07 p.m. on Feb. 9, if needed.



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Launch of NASA Soil Moisture Mapping Mission Set for Saturday

NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive mission (SMAP) now is scheduled to launch from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California at 9:20 a.m. EST (6:20 a.m. PST) Saturday, Jan. 31 on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket. NASA Television coverage of the launch will begin at 7 a.m.



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UPDATE -- NASA Hosts Media, Social Media for “State of NASA” Events at Agency Centers

NASA centers across the country are opening their doors Monday, Feb. 2 to media and social media for “State of NASA” events, unique opportunities for a behind-the-scenes look at the agency’s work on its journey to Mars.



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NASA Invites Media, Social Media to Major Space Launch System Booster Test

Media and social media followers are invited to watch as NASA tests the largest, most powerful booster ever built March 11 at ATK Aerospace System's test facility in Promontory, Utah. The booster will power NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), which will be used to help send humans to deep space destinations including an asteroid and Mars.



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NASA TV Coverage Reset for Launch of Newest Earth-Observing Mission

NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive mission (SMAP) launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, now is scheduled for 9:20 a.m. EST (6:20 a.m. PST) Friday, Jan. 30, with a three-minute launch window. The launch of the United Launch Alliance/Delta II rocket was scrubbed Thursday due to a violation of upper-level wind constraints. Launch managers have initiated a 24-hour recycle. The weather forecast for this launch window shows a 90 percent chance of favorable conditions.



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Astronomers Discover Ancient System with Five Small Planets

The star system Kepler-444 is the oldest known to host terrestrial-sized planets.

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NASA Hosts Media, Social Media for “State of NASA” Events at Agency Centers

NASA centers across the country are opening their doors Monday, Feb. 2 to media and social media for “State of NASA” events, unique opportunities for a behind-the-scenes look at the agency’s work on its journey to Mars. These events follow the president’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget proposal delivery to Congress.



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NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Releases 2014 Annual Report

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), an advisory committee that reports to NASA and Congress, has issued its 2014 annual report examining NASA's safety performance over the past year and highlighting accomplishments, issues and concerns to agency and government officials.



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NASA's SMAP Earth Mission Awaits Launch

NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission is set to launch Thursday, Jan. 29, at 6:20 a.m. PST (9:20 a.m. EST) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

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Cassini Catches Titan Naked in the Solar Wind

Researchers studying data from NASA's Cassini mission have observed that Saturn's largest moon, Titan, behaves much like Venus, Mars or a comet when exposed to the raw power of the solar wind.

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SMAP Readiness Review Gives 'Go' for Launch

Managers from NASA and United Launch Alliance (ULA) met Tues., Jan. 27, at Vandenberg Air Force Base to assess the status of NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive spacecraft and the ULA Delta II rocket that will boost SMAP into space.

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Building a Better Weather Forecast? SMAP May Help

Soil moisture data from NASA's SMAP mission will open a path to improved weather forecasts.

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Citizen Scientists Lead Astronomers to Mystery Objects in Space

"Hmm, what's that?" Simply by asking the question, volunteers have led researchers to illuminate a little-known stage of massive star formation.

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NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Captures Best-Ever View of Dwarf Planet

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned the sharpest images ever seen of the dwarf planet Ceres.

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NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Captures Best-Ever View of Dwarf Planet

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has returned the sharpest images ever seen of the dwarf planet Ceres. The images were taken 147,000 miles (237,000 kilometers) from Ceres on Jan. 25, and represent a new milestone for a spacecraft that soon will become the first human-made probe to visit a dwarf planet.



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Asteroid That Flew Past Earth Today Has Moon

Radar Images from Goldstone indicate that asteroid 2004 BL86, which safely flew past Earth today, has a moon.

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SMAP Will Track a Tiny Cog That Keeps Cycles Spinning

Soil moisture, which keeps Earth's interlocking cycles of water, carbon and energy turning in harmony, is the focus of NASA's SMAP mission, launching Jan. 29.

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NASA Observes Day of Remembrance

NASA will pay will tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, as well as other NASA colleagues, during the agency's annual Day of Remembrance Wednesday, Jan. 28.



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Extremely dark, dry and rich in organics: VIRTIS view of 67P/C-G

Based on the press release of the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy covering the results of the VIRTIS instrument – the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer on Rosetta – that were published last night in the journal Science. The results are based on data collected by VIRTIS between August and December 2014. The first surprising result emerging from VIRTIS’s study of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is the measurement of its albedo, or how much sunlight is reflected by the surface of the nucleus. With an albedo of only 6%, about half as much as the Moon's, 67P/C-G is one of the darkest objects in the Solar System. Such a low reflecting power indicates that the surface of the comet contains minerals such as, for example, iron sulfides, but also carbon-based compounds. The low albedo also indicates that there is little or no water ice on the outermost layers of the surface of the nucleus. “This clearly doesn't mean that the comet is not rich in water, but only that there is no water ice in the outermost shell, just over one millimetre thick,” explains Fabrizio Capaccioni, VIRTIS Principal Investigator from INAF-IAPS in Rome, Italy. “The reason for this is rooted in the recent history of the comet's evolution, since repeated passes in the vicinity of the Sun cause surface ice to sublimate.” Another interesting result based on these infrared observations concerns the discovery of macromolecular organic compounds over the entire surface of the comet's nucleus. Some of these compounds are similar to the carboxylic acids – or actually to polymers of carboxylic acids – that are present in amino acids. While amino acids were already observed in cometary materials and in primordial meteorites, this is the first time that such compounds are directly observed on the surface of a comet […]



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UPDATE - NASA, Boeing, SpaceX Discuss Plan for Launching American Astronauts from the U.S. in 2017

(Updates how media can participate via phone) -- NASA, Boeing and SpaceX will hold a news briefing on NASA Television at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston at noon EST (11 a.m. CST) Monday, Jan. 26, to highlight key development activities, test plans and objectives for achieving certification of two American crew transportation systems.



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GIADA’s dust measurements: 3.7-3.4 AU

Based on inputs from GIADA team members Alessandra Rotundi (instrument PI) and Marco Fulle, following the publication of “Dust Measurements in the Coma of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Inbound to the Sun Between 3.7 and 3.4 AU” in the journal Science today. GIADA is Rosetta’s Grain Impact Analyzer and Dust Accumulator. Our published research so far focuses on two aspects of the dust around Comet 67P/C-G: the different populations of dust grain found either in bound orbits or out-flowing from the nucleus, and the dust-to-gas ratio in the coma. First let’s discuss the grain population, considering measurements made with both GIADA and OSIRIS on 4 August 2014, when we were still at 275 km from the comet. These observations allowed us to count about 350 grains in bound orbits around the comet nucleus, and 48 fast, out-flowing grains that were ejected about a day before the observations. These two families of detected grains – out-flowing and bound – do not overlap in space. Out-flowing grains were not detected farther than 20 km from the spacecraft, whereas bound grains were not detected closer than 130 km from the spacecraft (that is, they were found within about 145 km of the comet). The space density of bound grains is at least 100 times lower than that of out-flowing grains and, in general bound grains are much bigger than out-flowing grains. Indeed, based on the observed brightness range, we infer that the bound grains varied from 4 cm to 2 m*, whereas the out-flowing grains seen in the images were less than 1.7 cm. And in fact the largest grain detected directly by GIADA is on the order of 0.1mm. We don’t see so many larger grains outflowing from the comet, because the gas density at the nucleus surface was still unable to lift larger […]



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Five Things about NASA's SMAP

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, scheduled for launch on Jan. 29, will measure the moisture in Earth's soil with greater accuracy and higher resolution than any preceding mission, producing a global map of soil moisture every three days.

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Gullies on Vesta Suggest Past Water-Mobilized Flows

Protoplanet Vesta, visited by NASA's Dawn spacecraft from 2011 to 2013, was once thought to be completely dry, incapable of retaining water because of the low temperatures and pressures at its surface.

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SPIDER Experiment Touches Down in Antarctica

An instrument called SPIDER just landed after 16 days drifting in the wind above Antarctica, searching for signs of inflation in the earliest moments of the universe.

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NASA, Microsoft Collaboration Will Allow Scientists to 'Work on Mars'

NASA and Microsoft have teamed up to develop software called OnSight, a new technology that will enable scientists to work virtually on Mars using wearable technology called Microsoft HoloLens.

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NASA, Microsoft Collaboration Will Allow Scientists to ‘Work on Mars’

NASA and Microsoft have teamed up to develop software called OnSight, a new technology that will enable scientists to work virtually on Mars using wearable technology called Microsoft HoloLens.



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NASA, Boeing, SpaceX Discuss Plan for Launching American Astronauts from U.S. in 2017

NASA, Boeing and SpaceX will hold a news briefing on NASA Television at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston at noon EST (11 a.m. CST) Monday, Jan. 26, to highlight key development activities, test plans and objectives for achieving certification of two American crew transportation systems.



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CometWatch 16 November

This four-image mosaic comprises images taken from a distance of 28.4 km from the centre of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 16 January. The image resolution is 2.4 m/pixel and the individual 1024 x 1024 frames measure 2.5 km across. The mosaic is slightly cropped and rotated, and measures 4.5 x 4.2 km. The image portrays 67P/C-G from an unusual angle, providing a side view onto the Imhotep region, home to Cheops and its neighbouring boulders on the underside of the comet's larger lobe (left hand side of the image). At the same time, the rough terrains and cliffs on the transition region between the comet's neck and its smaller lobe can also be seen, steeply declining towards the well-defined edge in the lower right corner of the image. While the curious orientation of the comet in this image is similar to that of the 2 November CometWatch, a slightly different illumination reveals a wealth of surface details on one of the sides of the larger lobe (in the foreground in this image) that were previously hidden. Among the interesting features that now stand out are what appears to be a series of almost parallel structures visible just above the image centre and, below them, a secluded pocket of smooth terrain punctuated with a few boulders. Also in contrast to the 2 November view, we can now see the crisp outline of the comet's larger lobe and signs of cometary activity towards the top left of the image. The four individual 1024 x 1024 frames, along with a montage of the frames, are provided below:



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NASA Spinoff 2015 Features Space Technology Making Life Better on Earth

NASA technologies are being used to locate underground water in some of the driest places on the Earth, build quieter and more fuel-efficient airplanes, and create shock absorbers that brace buildings in earthquakes.



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NASA Joins White House, from Ground and Space, to Discuss State of STEM Education in America

NASA will join the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) Wednesday, Jan. 21 for its third annual State of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (SoSTEM) event. The event will air live on NASA Television, beginning at 1 p.m. EST, and also will be live-streamed online.



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CometWatch 12 January

This four-image mosaic comprises images taken from a distance of 27.9 km from the centre of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 January. The image resolution is 2.4 m/pixel and the individual 1024 x 1024 frames measure 2.4 km across. The mosaic is slightly cropped and measures 4.4 x 3.9 km. This view is complementary to the 8 January CometWatch, with the comet's smaller lobe in the foreground, but this time on the left. The new view provides a side-on look onto the large and roughly circular depression close to the Agilkia site, but this time from the opposite side, revealing parts of the cavity that were hidden from sight in the 8 January image. The larger of the two comet's lobe fills the right half of the image. While the light effect is less dramatic than in the 8 January image due to a different orientation of the shadows, the new view perhaps allows a better comparison between different surface features. Indeed, the view incorporates the smooth surface along the comet's neck, itself covered in dust and boulders, to pitted terrains interspersed with smoother patches, boulders and cliffs. The four individual 1024 x 1024 frames, along with a montage of the frames, are provided below:



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NASA TV Coverage Set for Launch of Newest Earth-Observing Mission

NASA is preparing for a Thursday, Jan. 29, launch of the first U.S. Earth-observing satellite designed to collect global observations of surface soil moisture. The agency’s Soil Moisture Active Passive mission (SMAP) will lift off from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 9:20 a.m. EST (6:20 a.m. PST) on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket.



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'Lost' 2003 Mars Lander Found by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

The Beagle 2 Mars Lander, built by the United Kingdom, has been thought lost on Mars since 2003, but has now been found in images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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NASA's New Horizons Begins First Stages of Pluto Encounter

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is entering the first of several approach phases, culminating July 14 with the first close-up flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto.

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NEOWISE: A Yearlong Look at the Sky

A NASA spacecraft using infrared imaging discovered 40 near-Earth objects in one year and observed many others, including a comet that has become this month's brightest.

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NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Begins First Stages of Pluto Encounter

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft recently began its long-awaited, historic encounter with Pluto. The spacecraft is entering the first of several approach phases that culminate July 14 with the first close-up flyby of the dwarf planet, 4.67 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) from Earth.



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Astronaut Twins Available for Interviews about Yearlong Space Station Mission, Health Study

NASA will host an opportunity for media to conduct in-person interviews with astronaut Scott Kelly and his twin brother, former astronaut Mark Kelly, Monday, Jan. 19.



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NASA, NOAA to Announce 2014 Global Temperature, Climate Conditions

Climate experts from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will announce the release of new data on 2014 global temperatures during a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EST Friday, Jan. 16.



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Rivers Are Draining Greenland Quickly: NASA-UCLA

Meltwater rivers flowing on Greenland's frozen surface may contribute as much to global sea level rise as all other processes that drain water from the ice sheet combined.

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CometWatch – 6 January

This four-image montage comprises images taken from a distance of 27.9 km from the centre of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 6 January. The image resolution at this distance is 2.3 m/pixel and the individual 1024 x 1024 frames measure about 2.4 km across. Rotation and translation of the comet during the imaging sequence make it difficult to create an accurate mosaic, so if you attempt a mosaic always refer to the individual images before drawing conclusions about any strange structures or low intensity extended emission. The scene provides a nice view across the larger lobe (foreground) and up onto the smaller comet lobe (upper frames), taking in a wide range of surface textures from smooth regions with scattered boulders to rougher and more complex terrains. Ramp up the exposure to bring out more details of the cliffs leading up to the smaller lobe, and to capture some of the comet's activity. The four individual frames are provided below:



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NASA Cargo Launches to Space Station aboard SpaceX Resupply Mission

More than two tons of supplies and NASA science investigations are on the way to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft launched Saturday on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 4:47 a.m. EST.



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RS-25 Engine Testing Blazes Forward for NASA's Space Launch System

The new year is off to a hot start for NASA's Space Launch System (SLS). The engine that will drive America's next great rocket to deep space blazed through its first successful test Jan. 9 at the agency's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.



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NASA Awards Information Technology, Multimedia Services Contract

NASA has exercised the second option of its Information Technology and Multimedia Services (ITAMS) contract with DB Consulting Group, Inc., Silver Spring, Maryland, to provide information technology, multimedia, information management and external relations support services at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.



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Space Station Crew Available for Interviews Live from Orbiting Laboratory

Crew members of Expedition 42, currently aboard the International Space Station, are available for live interviews with media and social media during their mission aboard the orbital laboratory.



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NASA Satellite Set to Get the Dirt on Soil Moisture

A new NASA satellite that will peer into the topmost layer of Earth's soils to measure the hidden waters that influence our climate is in final preparations for a Jan. 29 launch.

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Will the Real Monster Black Hole Please Stand Up?

New data from NASA's NuSTAR mission determine which of two supermassive black holes is pouring out X-rays in a colliding pair of galaxies.

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NASA Satellite Set to Get the Dirt on Soil Moisture

A new NASA satellite that will peer into the topmost layer of Earth's soils to measure the hidden waters that influence our weather and climate is in final preparations for a Jan. 29 dawn launch from California.



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NASA, SpaceX Set New Launch Date for Next Resupply Mission to Space Station

The fifth official SpaceX cargo mission to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract now is scheduled to launch at 4:47 a.m. EST Saturday, Jan. 10, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. NASA Television coverage of the launch will begin at 3:30 a.m.



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NASA Previews Yearlong Space Station Mission in Jan. 15 Briefing

NASA will hold two briefings Thursday, Jan. 15 at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, to preview the upcoming Expedition 43 mission aboard the International Space Station and the launch of the crew embarking on a yearlong mission. NASA Television and the agency’s website will broadcast the briefings live.



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Unusual Light Signal Hints at Distant Black Hole Merger

Scientists have found what appear to be two supermassive black holes in the final stages of a merger, a rare event never seen before.

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NASA Robot Plunges Into Volcano to Explore Fissure

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are developing robots to explore volcanoes.

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Volunteer 'Disk Detectives' Classify Possible Planetary Habitats

Citizen scientists are busy sifting through images from the WISE mission, logging 1 million potential planetary habitats.

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NASA's Kepler Marks 1,000th Exoplanet Discovery, Uncovers More Small Worlds in Habitable Zones

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has, to date, offered scientists more than 4,000 candidate planets -- the 1,000th of which was recently verified.

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NASA’s Kepler Marks 1,000th Exoplanet Discovery, Uncovers More Small Worlds in Habitable Zones

How many stars like our sun host planets like our Earth? NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope continuously monitored more than 150,000 stars beyond our solar system, and to date has offered scientists an assortment of more than 4,000 candidate planets for further study -- the 1,000th of which was recently verified.



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NASA Administrator, Media Tour Bally, Pa. Advanced Materials Manufacturer Jan. 9

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will get a firsthand look at work being done on advanced woven thermal protection systems used on the agency's Orion spacecraft during a visit to Bally Ribbon Mills (BRM) in Bally, Pennsylvania at noon EST Friday, Jan. 9.



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Happy New Year!

We’re back! After a pause over the festive period to recharge our batteries (hoping that Philae will soon do the same), the Rosetta blog has now reopened for business. Welcome back to all of you! Before we preview the exciting year ahead for Rosetta, we’d like to kindly remind you of some blog house rules: Please keep all comments relevant to the blog post that you’re commenting on (repeated posting of similarly themed and irrelevant comments on multiple posts will be considered as spamming or trolling and will be trashed). Please use respectful language when responding to other comments. If you disagree with something, that’s fine, but any comments that are considered aggressive or unnecessarily rude will not be published. Constructive criticism is welcome! While speculation of what you see in the images is welcome (we, too, often speculate), please remember that confirmation of features, processes, etc., will only be provided in peer-reviewed papers, a process that often takes several weeks or months. As usual, we will report on any results presented in a peer-reviewed paper once they are published. Comments including links to sites irrelevant to the post or to unpublished theories or non peer-reviewed papers will likely be trashed. Many thanks for helping to make this blog an enthusiastic forum for interesting and relevant discussion and debate! And with that, let’s take a look at the year ahead (see next post!). Wishing you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2015, The Rosetta blog team



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New Project Scientist for Mars Rover

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has a new science-team chief who has already helped lead the mission for a decade.

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NASA Announces Briefing on New Mission to Track Water in Earth's Soil

NASA will hold a briefing at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) Thursday, Jan. 8, about the upcoming Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission.

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NASA’s Chandra Detects Record-Breaking Outburst from Milky Way’s Black Hole

Astronomers have observed the largest X-ray flare ever detected from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This event, detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, raises questions about the behavior of this giant black hole and its surrounding environment.



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NASA Statement on GAO Decision to Deny Commercial Crew Contract Protest

NASA issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) decision to deny a protest Sierra Nevada Corp., of Louisville, Colorado, filed Sept. 26, 2014, challenging the agency’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) Contract awards made Sept. 16, 2014, to The Boeing Company, Space Exploration, Houston, and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), of Hawthorne, California.



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Student Scientists Persevere, Ready to Launch Experiments to Space Station

Students will look to the skies this week when SpaceX's fifth commercial resupply services (CRS) mission to the International Space Station lifts off at 6:18 a.m. EST Tuesday, Jan. 6, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft will carry scientific research conceived and designed by students who are learning first-hand what it takes to conduct research in space.



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NASA Announces Briefing on New Mission to Track Water in Earth’s Soil

NASA will hold a media briefing at 2 p.m. EST Thursday, Jan. 8, in the James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington to discuss the upcoming Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission.



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