NASA Tests Robotic Ice Tools

Want to go ice fishing on Jupiter's moon Europa? There's no promising you'll catch anything, but a new set of robotic prototypes could help.

Since 2015, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been developing new technologies for use on future missions to ocean worlds. That includes a subsurface probe that could burrow through miles of ice, taking samples along the way; robotic arms that unfold to reach faraway objects; and a projectile launcher for even more distant samples.

All these technologies were developed as part of the Ocean Worlds Mobility and Sensing study, a research project funded by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington. Each prototype focuses on obtaining samples from the surface -- or below the surface -- of an icy moon.

"In the future, we want to answer the question of whether there's life on the moons of the outer planets -- on Europa, Enceladus and Titan," said Tom Cwik, who leads JPL's Space Technology Program. "We're working with NASA Headquarters to identify the specific systems we need to build now, so that in 10 or 15 years, they could be ready for a spacecraft."

Those systems would face a variety of challenging environments. Temperatures can reach hundreds of degrees below freezing. Rover wheels might cross ice that behaves like sand. On Europa, surfaces are bathed in radiation.

"Robotic systems would face cryogenic temperatures and rugged terrain and have to meet strict planetary protection requirements," said Hari Nayar, who leads the robotics group that oversaw the research. "One of the most exciting places we can go is deep into subsurface oceans -- but doing so requires new technologies that don't exist yet."

› DOWNLOAD VIDEO Exploring Ocean Worlds with Robots

A hole in the ice

Brian Wilcox, an engineering fellow at JPL, designed a prototype inspired by so-called "melt probes" used here on Earth. Since the late 1960s, these probes have been used to melt through snow and ice to explore subsurface regions.

The problem is that they use heat inefficiently. Europa's crust could be 6.2 miles deep or it could be 12.4 miles deep (10 to 20 kilometers); a probe that doesn't manage its energy would cool down until it stopped frozen in the ice.

Wilcox innovated a different idea: a capsule insulated by a vacuum, the same way a thermos bottle is insulated. Instead of radiating heat outwards, it would retain energy from a chunk of heat-source plutonium as the probe sinks into the ice.

A rotating sawblade on the bottom of the probe would slowly turn and cut through the ice. As it does so, it would throw ice chips back into the probe's body, where they would be melted by the plutonium and pumped out behind it.

Removing the ice chips would ensure the probe drills steadily through the ice without blockages. The ice water could also be sampled and sent through a spool of aluminum tubing to a lander on the surface. Once there, the water samples could be checked for biosignatures.

"We think there are glacier-like ice flows deep within Europa's frozen crust," Wilcox said. "Those flows churn up material from the ocean down below. As this probe tunnels into the crust, it could be sampling waters that may contain biosignatures, if any exist."

To ensure no Earth microbes hitched a ride, the probe would heat itself to over 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius) during its cruise on a spacecraft. That would kill any residual organisms and decompose complex organic molecules that could affect science results.

A longer reach

Researchers also looked at the use of robotic arms, which are essential for reaching samples from landers or rovers. On Mars, NASA's landers have never extended beyond 6.5 to 8 feet (2 to 2.5 meters) from their base. For a longer reach, you need to build a longer arm.

A folding boom arm was one idea that bubbled up at JPL. Unfolded, the arm can extend almost 33 feet (10 meters). Scientists don't know which samples will be enticing once a lander touches down, so a longer reach could give them more options.

For targets that are even farther away, a projectile launcher was developed that can fire a sampling mechanism up 164 feet (50 meters).

Both the arm and the launcher could be used in conjunction with an ice-gripping claw. This claw could someday have a coring drill attached to it; if scientists want pristine samples, they'll need to bore through up to eight inches (about 20 centimeters) of Europa's surface ice, which is thought to shield complex molecules from Jupiter's radiation.

After deployment from a boom arm or a projectile launcher, the claw could anchor itself using heated prongs that melt into the ice and secure its grip. That ensures that a drill's bit is able to penetrate and collect a sample.

Wheels for a cryo-rover

In July, NASA will mark a 20-year legacy of rovers driving across Martian desert, harkening back to the July 4, 1997 landing of Mars Pathfinder, with its Sojourner rover.

But building a rover for an icy moon would require a rethink.

Places like Saturn's moon Enceladus have fissures that blow out jets of gas and icy material from below the surface. They'd be prime science targets, but the material around them is likely to be different than ice on Earth.

Instead, tests have found that granular ice in cryogenic and vacuum conditions behaves more like sand dunes, with loose grains that wheels can sink into. JPL researchers turned to designs first proposed for crawling across the moon's surface. They tested lightweight commercial wheels fixed to a rocker bogey suspension system that has been used on a number of JPL-led missions.

The next steps

Each of these prototypes and the experiments conducted with them were just starting points. With the ocean worlds study complete, researchers will now consider whether these inventions can be further refined. A second phase of development is being considered by NASA. Those efforts could eventually produce the technologies that might fly on future missions to the outer solar system.

This research was funded by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate's Game Changing Development Program, which investigates ideas and approaches that could solve significant technological problems and revolutionize future space endeavors.

Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

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Prolific Mars Orbiter Completes 50,000 Orbits

The most data-productive spacecraft yet at Mars swept past its 50,000th orbit this week, continuing to compile the most sharp-eyed global coverage ever accomplished by a camera at the Red Planet.

In addition, the spacecraft -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) -- recently aided preparations for NASA's next mission to Mars, the InSight lander. Insight will launch next year on a mission to study the planet's deep interior. Meanwhile, the orbiter continues diverse science observations of Mars and communications-relay service for two active Mars rovers, Curiosity and Opportunity.

MRO's Context Camera (CTX) exploits a sweet spot in the balance between resolution and image file size. With a resolution of about 20 feet (6 meters) per pixel in images of the Martian surface, it has provided a library of images now covering 99.1 percent of Mars. That is approximately equivalent to the land area of Earth. No other camera ever sent to Mars has photographed so much of the planet in such high resolution.

The Context Camera has taken about 90,000 images since the spacecraft began examining Mars from orbit in late 2006. Each one reveals shapes of features down to sizes smaller than a tennis court, in a swath of ground about 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) wide.

"Reaching 99.1-percent coverage has been tricky because a number of factors, including weather conditions, coordination with other instruments, downlink limitations, and orbital constraints, tend to limit where we can image and when," said Context Camera Team Leader Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego.

In addition to observing nearly the entire planet at least once, the Context Camera has observed 60.4 percent of the planet more than once. These observations aid science directly and also certify the safety of future landing sites.

Malin said, "Single coverage provides a baseline we can use for comparison with future observations, as we look for changes. Re-imaging areas serves two functions: looking for changes and acquiring stereoscopic views from which we can make topographic maps."

A dramatic type of change the Context Camera has documented more than 200 times is a fresh impact crater appearing between the times of two observations. These images enabled scientists to calculate the rate at which small asteroids, or bits of comets, are colliding with Mars. Some of the fresh impacts reveal white material interpreted as water ice. The latitudes and estimated depths of the ice-exposing craters provide evidence about the distribution of buried ice near the surface. MRO's Shallow Radar has found ice farther underground, but this very shallow ice would go undetected if not for its exposure by impacts.

One of MRO's other cameras, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), can zoom in on the new impact craters found by the Context Camera. For some of these craters, HiRISE and MRO's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars have confirmed the presence of water ice. However, even though MRO has returned more than 300 terabits of science data, the much higher spatial resolution of HiRISE has limited its coverage of Mars' surface to about three percent. A third MRO camera, the Mars Color Imager, observes almost the entire planet every day to track weather change. Another instrument, the Mars Climate Sounder, records vertical profiles of the atmosphere's temperatures and suspended particles.

The spacecraft was launched Aug. 12, 2005. It entered an elongated orbit of Mars in March 2006, then spent several months using friction with Mars' upper atmosphere to revise its orbit. Since beginning its science operations in November 2006, MRO has been flying near-polar orbits lasting about two hours, at altitudes from 155 to 196 miles (250 to 316 kilometers). The mission completed its 50,000th orbit on Monday, March 27.

"After 11 and a half years in flight, the spacecraft is healthy and remains fully functional," said MRO Project Manager Dan Johnston at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "It's a marvelous vehicle that we expect will serve the Mars Exploration Program and Mars science for many more years to come."

On March 22, the mission made the latest adjustment to the orbit, with a 45.1-second burn of six intermediate-size rocket engines, each of which provides 5 pounds (22 newtons) of thrust. This maneuver revised the orbit orientation, so that the spacecraft can be at the right place at the right time, on Nov. 26, 2018, to receive critical radio transmissions from NASA's InSight Mars lander as it descends to the surface.

MRO has already provided more than 60 images from HiRISE for advance analysis of the landing region for InSight. In a broad plain of the Elysium Planitia region of equatorial Mars, InSight will use a seismometer and heat probe to examine the interior of Mars to better understand the formation process of rocky planets like Earth. The final MRO image for assessment of this landing area will be taken Thursday, March 30.

For additional information about Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit:

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California Students to Speak to NASA Astronauts on International Space Station

Students from Betsy Ross Elementary School in Anaheim, California, will speak with NASA astronauts living and working aboard the International Space Station at 11:40 a.m. EDT Monday, April 3.

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NASA Awards Facilities Engineering Design, Inspection Services Contract

NASA has awarded an architect and engineering services contract to Accura Rosser 8(a) JV of Atlanta to perform engineering design and inspection services at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

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NASA Announces Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellows for 2017

NASA has selected 28 fellows for its prestigious Einstein, Hubble and Sagan fellowships. Each post-doctoral fellowship provides three years of support to awardees to pursue independent research in astronomy and astrophysics. The new fellows will begin their programs in the fall of 2017 at a host university or research center of their choosing in the United States.

"We are thrilled to have some of the most exciting young scientists in the world to help us explore the mysteries of the cosmos," said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "We look forward to all the great science they will do in the next three years during their fellowships."

Participants in the Einstein fellows program conduct research broadly related to the mission of NASA's Physics of the Cosmos (PCOS) program, which aims to expand our knowledge of the origin, evolution and fate of the universe. The PCOS program consists of a suite of operating science missions and possible future missions that focus on specific aspects of these questions.

"We are looking forward to welcoming this talented group of young scientists as the incoming Einstein Fellows, and to learning more about their work," said Belinda Wilkes, Director of the Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which manages the Einstein Fellows program for NASA. "Their research is diverse, covering the full range of PCOS science, and promises to significantly expand and advance the astrophysics research being carried out by NASA and its world-class science missions."

The eight new Einstein Fellows are listed below in alphabetical order with their host institutions:

• Vivienne Baldassare, Yale University
• Jennifer Barnes, Undecided
• Rahul Kannan, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
• Philip Mocz, Princeton University
• Alexander Philippov, University of California, Berkeley
• Anna Rosen, Harvard University
• Zachary Slepian, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• Krista Smith, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

Participants in the Hubble Fellowship program conduct research broadly related to the mission of NASA's Cosmic Origins (COR) program, which aims to examine the origins of galaxies, stars and planetary systems, and the evolution of these structures with cosmic time. The COR program consists of a suite of operating science missions and possible future missions that focus on specific aspects of these questions.

"Congratulations to all of the new Hubble Fellows. It's an impressive class, and I have no doubt that they will continue the rich tradition of being leaders in the field of astronomy and astrophysics. As a former fellow and director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, where these fellowships originated back in the early 1990s, it is a pleasure to sign their award letters and welcome them as new fellows," said Ken Sembach. "They now have a rare, wonderful opportunity to experience scientific freedom and expand their scientific horizons on a path of their choosing. I wish them all the best and eagerly look forward to their accomplishments."

Each year, the current Hubble Fellows convene for a three-day symposium to present results of their recent research and to meet with other Hubble Fellows and the scientific and administrative staff who manage the program for NASA. The 2017 symposium was held in Baltimore on March 13-15.

The 17 new Hubble Fellows are listed below in alphabetical order with their host institutions:

• Rachael Beaton, Princeton University
• Ivan Cabrera Ziri Castro, Harvard College Observatory
• Ena Choi, Columbia University
• Susan Clark, Institute for Advanced Study
• Wen-fai Fong, University of Arizona
• Katheryn Decker French, Carnegie Observatories
• Anne Jaskot, University of Massachusetts
• Alexander Ji, Carnegie Observatories
• Sebastiaan Krijt, University of Chicago
• Sarah Loebman, University of California, Davis
• Brett McGuire, National Radio Astronomy Observatory
• Evan Schneider, Princeton University
• Jordan Stone, University of Arizona
• Johanna Teske, Carnegie Institution
• Siyao Xu, University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Ke Zhang, University of Michigan
• George Zhou, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

The Sagan Fellowship supports scientists whose research is aligned with NASA's Exoplanet Exploration program. The primary goal of this program is to discover and characterize planetary systems and Earth-like planets around other stars. The current and past Sagan Fellows will meet in Pasadena, California, at the Sagan Fellows Symposium later this year to take advantage of networking opportunities and update their peers on their research efforts.

"The field of exoplanets continues to explode with new discoveries and advancements each day. The Sagan fellows will contribute to these advancements by pushing the boundaries with their research." said Sagan Program Scientist Dawn Gelino, deputy director for the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech in Pasadena.

The three 2017 Sagan Fellows are listed below with their host institutions:

• Raphaelle Haywood, Harvard College Observatory
• Benjamin Pope, New York University
• Andrew Vanderburg, University of Texas, Austin

The Chandra X-ray Center administers the Einstein Fellowships for NASA. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations. STScI administers the Hubble Fellowships for NASA. STScI is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope and the science and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2018. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington. The NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, which is operated at Caltech in coordination with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, administers the Sagan Fellowship Program for NASA.

A full list of the 2017 fellows and other information about these programs is available at:

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News Media Contact

Felicia Chou

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NASA to Preview ‘Grand Finale’ of Cassini Saturn Mission

NASA will hold a news conference at 3 p.m. EDT Tuesday, April 4, at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, to preview the beginning of Cassini's final mission segment, known as the Grand Finale, which begins in late April. The briefing will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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NASA to Preview 'Grand Finale' of Cassini Saturn Mission

NASA will hold a news conference at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT) Tuesday, April 4, at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to preview the beginning of Cassini's final mission segment, known as the Grand Finale, which begins in late April. The briefing will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since June 2004, studying the planet, its rings and its moons. A final close flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on April 22 will reshape the Cassini spacecraft's orbit so that it begins its final series of 22 weekly dives through the unexplored gap between the planet and its rings. The first of these dives is planned for April 26. Following these closer-than-ever encounters with the giant planet, Cassini will make a mission-ending plunge into Saturn's upper atmosphere on Sept. 15.

The panelists for the briefing are:

• Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division at the agency's headquarters in Washington
• Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at JPL
• Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL
• Joan Stupik, Cassini guidance and control engineer at JPL

The event will also be streamed live at:

http://youtube.com/nasajpl/live

Media and the public also may ask questions during the briefing on Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA.

Supporting graphics, video and background information about Cassini's Grand Finale will be posted before the briefing at:

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The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

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NASA Announces Upcoming International Space Station Crew Assignments

Five NASA astronauts have been assigned to upcoming spaceflights. Joe Acaba, Ricky Arnold, Nick Hague, Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Shannon Walker all have begun training for missions launching later this year and throughout 2018.

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NASA Launches App for Amazon Fire TV

NASA has released its popular app for a new platform, Amazon Fire TV. This version joins previous releases of the app for iOS, Android and Apple TV devices

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NASA Unveils New Searchable Video, Audio and Imagery Library for the Public

NASA officially has launched a new resource to help the public search and download out-of-this-world images, videos and audio files by keyword and metadata searches from NASA.gov.

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Mars Rover Leader Peter Theisinger to Receive National Trophy

Peter Theisinger, who led the projects that developed the NASA rovers Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity and successfully placed them on Mars, will receive the 2017 National Air and Space Museum Trophy for Lifetime Achievement.

Theisinger has worked on spacecraft missions to six planets since joining NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, in 1967. He is now a special assistant to the laboratory's director. Previous leadership roles included managing JPL's Engineering and Science Directorate and JPL's Spacecraft Systems Engineering Section.

Theisinger was named as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2013, paired with JPL colleague Richard Cook. At different times, Theisinger and Cook each managed the Mars Exploration Rover Project, which built Spirit and Opportunity, and the Mars Science Laboratory Project, which built Curiosity. The former project still operates the golf-cart-size Opportunity, which landed with air-bag-cushioned bounces in 2004. The latter project operates the car-size Curiosity, which landed with a sky-crane maneuver in 2012.

Theisinger will receive the lifetime achievement honor Wednesday evening, March 29, at a ceremony at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum ceremony in Washington.

The museum presents this trophy annually to recognize past and present accomplishments in the management or execution of a scientific or technological project, a distinguished career of service in air and space technology, or a significant contribution in chronicling the history of air and space technology. Previous recipients include astronauts James Lovell, Neil Armstrong and John Glenn; scientists James Van Allen, Harold Masursky and Stamatios Krimigis; and engineer-managers Norm Augustine, John Casani, Burt Rutan and Simon Ramo.

Theisinger was born in Fresno, California, in 1945 and now lives in La Crescenta, California. He graduated from Caltech in Pasadena, California, with a degree in physics. His career at JPL began with the Mariner 5 mission to Venus and has included contributions to the Voyager mission to the outer planets (launched in 1977 and still going) and the Galileo mission to Jupiter (launched in 1989 and concluded in 2003). His Mars experience dates back to the 1971 Mariner 9 orbiter mission to Mars.

Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

News Media Contact

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National Air and Space Museum, Washington

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2017-091

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NASA Astronaut Jack Fischer Available for Interviews Before Space Station Mission

NASA astronaut Jack Fischer, who is making final preparations for an April 20 launch to the International Space Station, will be available for live satellite interviews from 8 to 9 a.m. EDT Tuesday, April 4.

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Wang Appointed to Head NASA’s Office of Communications

Jen Rae Wang has been selected by Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot as NASA's Associate Administrator for the Office of Communications. Wang joins NASA with more than a decade of experience at the highest levels of state and federal government in public, legislative, and media affairs both domestically and internationally, strategic communicati

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NuSTAR Probes Puzzling Galaxy Merger

A supermassive black hole inside a tiny galaxy is challenging scientists' ideas about what happens when two galaxies become one.

Was 49 is the name of a system consisting of a large disk galaxy, referred to as Was 49a, merging with a much smaller "dwarf" galaxy called Was 49b. The dwarf galaxy rotates within the larger galaxy's disk, about 26,000 light-years from its center. Thanks to NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission, scientists have discovered that the dwarf galaxy is so luminous in high-energy X-rays, it must host a supermassive black hole much larger and more powerful than expected.

"This is a completely unique system and runs contrary to what we understand of galaxy mergers," said Nathan Secrest, lead author of the study and postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington.

Data from NuSTAR and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey suggest that the mass of the dwarf galaxy's black hole is huge, compared to similarly sized galaxies, at more than 2 percent of the galaxy's own mass.

"We didn't think that dwarf galaxies hosted supermassive black holes this big," Secrest said. "This black hole could be hundreds of times more massive than what we would expect for a galaxy of this size, depending on how the galaxy evolved in relation to other galaxies."

The dwarf galaxy's black hole is the engine of an active galactic nucleus (AGN), a cosmic phenomenon in which extremely high-energy radiation bursts forth as a black hole devours gas and dust. This particular AGN appears to be covered by a donut-shaped structure made of gas and dust. NASA's Chandra and Swift missions were used to further characterize the X-ray emission.

Normally, when two galaxies start to merge, the larger galaxy's central black hole becomes active, voraciously gobbling gas and dust, and spewing out high-energy X-rays as matter gets converted into energy. That is because, as galaxies approach each other, their gravitational interactions create a torque that funnels gas into the larger galaxy's central black hole. But in this case, the smaller galaxy hosts a more luminous AGN with a more active supermassive black hole, and the larger galaxy's central black hole is relatively quiet.

An optical image of the Was 49 system, compiled using observations from the Discovery Channel Telescope in Happy Jack, Arizona, uses the same color filters as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Since Was 49 is so far away, these colors are optimized to separate highly-ionized gas emission, such as the pink-colored region around the feeding supermassive black hole, from normal starlight, shown in green. This allowed astronomers to more accurately determine the size of the dwarf galaxy that hosts the supermassive black hole.

The pink-colored emission stands out in a new image because of the intense ionizing radiation emanating from the powerful AGN. Buried within this region of intense ionization is a faint collection of stars, believed to be part of the galaxy surrounding the enormous black hole. These striking features lie on the outskirts of the much larger spiral galaxy Was 49a, which appears greenish in the image due to the distance to the galaxy and the optical filters used.

Scientists are still trying to figure out why the supermassive black hole of dwarf galaxy Was 49b is so big. It may have already been large before the merger began, or it may have grown during the very early phase of the merger.

"This study is important because it may give new insight into how supermassive black holes form and grow in such systems," Secrest said. "By examining systems like this, we may find clues as to how our own galaxy's supermassive black hole formed."

In several hundred million years, the black holes of the large and small galaxies will merge into one enormous beast.

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NuSTAR was developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Virginia. NuSTAR's mission operations center is at UC Berkeley, and the official data archive is at NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center. ASI provides the mission's ground station and a mirror archive. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

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2017-088

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NASA Tests Observing Capability on Hawaii's Coral Reefs

NASA pulled off a scientific double play in Hawaii this winter, using the same instruments and aircraft to study both volcanoes and coral reefs. Besides helping scientists understand these two unique environments better, the data will be used to evaluate the possibility of preparing a potential future NASA satellite that would monitor ecosystem changes and natural hazards.

The advantages of studying active volcanoes from the air rather than the ground are obvious. Coral reefs may not offer the same risks in a close encounter that volcanoes do, but there's another good reason to study them by remote sensing: they're dotted across thousands of square miles of the globe. It's simply not feasible to survey such a large area from a boat. So NASA has been monitoring coral reefs by satellite and aircraft for several decades. Recent airborne efforts have used sensors that provide better spatial and spectral resolution than currently available from NASA satellite systems.

"Reefs are threatened by bleaching due to rising sea surface temperatures as well as, to some degree, by increasing acidification of ocean waters," said Woody Turner of NASA Headquarters in Washington, the program scientist for the recent Hawaii study. "On top of that, since they're coastal ecosystems, they are also subject to sediment and other effluents running offshore. We have an urgent need to get a handle now on how reefs are changing."

Over the past four years, NASA has flown a series of research flights over California, carrying airborne prototypes of instruments in preparation for a possible future satellite mission called the Hyperspectral Infrared Imager (HyspIRI), now in the conceptual design phase. The Golden State has many diverse landscapes to test the instruments' observational capabilities, but not coral reefs or erupting volcanoes. This winter's HyspIRI Hawaii field campaign filled that gap.

To get the next best thing to a satellite's point of view, HyspIRI Hawaii used a high-altitude ER-2 aircraft from NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center, Palmdale, California. During the study, the aircraft was based at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Flying at approximately 60,000 feet (18,000 meters) and thus above most of Earth's atmosphere, the ER-2 carried the Airborne Visible and Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS), developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and the MODIS-ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER), developed by NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. AVIRIS is an imaging spectrometer that observes the complete reflected spectrum of light in the visible and shortwave infrared wavelengths. MASTER has multiple observational channels in the thermal infrared wavelengths. Together AVIRIS and MASTER provide the same combination of spectral bands planned for the future HyspIRI mission -- and powerful data for current coral reef research.

Six coral reef-related projects with diverse objectives are using imagery that AVIRIS and MASTER collected around the Hawaiian archipelago in January through early March.

•  Under principal investigator Steven Ackleson (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington), a team investigated how coral reefs and water quality vary, in both space and time, over the huge distance encompassed by the Hawaiian Islands and the 1,200-mile-long (2,000-kilometer-long) Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument north of the main islands. Ackleson's team used the airborne instruments and in-water observations to collect data on reef condition and water quality and compared them with data collected from 2010 to 2014 with a different hyperspectral imager.

•  To study reefs' responses to stress, Kyle Cavanaugh (UCLA) led a study of the composition of shallow reefs (coral, algae and sand) and the extent of their bleaching. The team hopes to uncover the practical limits of the proposed HyspIRI instrument in observing these features. Like Ackleson's and most of the other investigators' projects, this study combined airborne imagery with ocean measurements.

•  Heidi Dierssen (University of Connecticut) used in-water spectrometers in conjunction with the airborne AVIRIS imaging spectrometer products to look at pigment differences among corals' photosynthetic algae, known as zooxanthellae. A goal is to determine the degree to which differences in pigment -- which relate to different types of algae with different biological characteristics and responses to environmental change -- can be detected from an airborne platform and ultimately from space.

•  To determine how changes in a reef's environment -- cloudiness, water temperature, water murkiness -- might affect coral health, and how these environmental factors themselves might be influenced by changing land use on the islands, Paul Haverkamp (supported by Cramer Fish Sciences, West Sacramento, California) will be comparing this year's AVIRIS data with observations from AVIRIS campaigns flown between 2000 and 2007. The study focuses on reefs in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, and Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii.

•  Eric Hochberg (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences) and his team will compare this year's AVIRIS measurements with AVIRIS data from 2000 to study how human and climate stresses may be affecting reefs around the islands. They will quantify reef composition and primary productivity and correlate them with oceanographic conditions, land use and land cover on the islands, and local human threats to investigate how the reefs' condition and relationship to their environments may have changed in the last 16 years.

•  ZhongPing Lee of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, took field measurements of reefs concurrently with the HyspIRI flights, using a special system that precisely measures the spectrum of colors in ocean water, which provides important information about what's in the water. Lee and his team measured the shape of the seafloor, the water's optical properties, and other characteristics to compare with the same measurements made by AVIRIS.

Get a 360-degree view of the ER-2 landing on Oahu during the HyspIRI Hawaii mission:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwkr-nsbaus&feature=youtu.be

News Media Contact

Alan Buis

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

818-354-0474

Alan.Buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Written by Carol Rasmussen

NASA Earth Science News Team

2017-087

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NASA Selects Mission to Study Churning Chaos in our Milky Way and Beyond

NASA has selected a science mission that will measure emissions from the interstellar medium, which is the cosmic material found between stars.

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NASA Selects Mission to Study Churning Chaos of Nearby Cosmos

NASA has selected a science mission that will measure emissions from the interstellar medium, which is the cosmic material found between stars.

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NASA Selects Mission to Study the Churning Chaos in Our Milky Way and Beyond

NASA has selected a science mission that will measure emissions from the interstellar medium, which is the cosmic material found between stars.

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NASA's Juno Spacecraft Set for Fifth Jupiter Flyby

NASA's Juno spacecraft will make its fifth flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops on Monday, March 27, at 1:52 a.m. PDT (4:52 a.m. EDT, 8:52 UTC).

At the time of closest approach (called perijove), Juno will be about 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops, traveling at a speed of about 129,000 miles per hour (57.8 kilometers per second) relative to the gas-giant planet. All of Juno's eight science instruments will be on and collecting data during the flyby.

"This will be our fourth science pass -- the fifth close flyby of Jupiter of the mission -- and we are excited to see what new discoveries Juno will reveal," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Every time we get near Jupiter's cloud tops, we learn new insights that help us understand this amazing giant planet."

The Juno science team continues to analyze returns from previous flybys. Scientists have discovered that Jupiter's magnetic fields are more complicated than originally thought, and that the belts and zones that give the planet's cloud tops their distinctive look extend deep into the its interior. Observations of the energetic particles that create the incandescent auroras suggest a complicated current system involving charged material lofted from volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io.

Peer-reviewed papers with more in-depth science results from Juno's first flybys are expected to be published within the next few months.

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops -- as close as about 2,600 miles (4,100 kilometers). During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.

More information on the Juno mission is available at:

http://ift.tt/nLTrQg

http://missionjuno.org

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

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News Media Contact

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077

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2017-086

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NASA Selects CubeSat, SmallSat Mission Concept Studies

NASA has selected 10 studies under the Planetary Science Deep Space SmallSat Studies (PSDS3) program to develop mission concepts using small satellites to investigate Venus, Earth's moon, asteroids, Mars and the outer planets.

For these studies, small satellites are defined as less than 180 kilograms in mass (about 400 pounds). CubeSats are built to standard specifications of 1 unit (U), which is equal to about 4x4x4 inches (10x10x10 centimeters). They often are launched into orbit as auxiliary payloads, significantly reducing costs.

"These small but mighty satellites have the potential to enable transformational science," said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "They will provide valuable information to assist in planning future Announcements of Opportunity, and to guide NASA's development of small spacecraft technologies for deep space science investigation."

NASA's Science Mission Directorate is developing a small satellite strategy, with the goal of identifying high-priority science objectives in each discipline that can be addressed with CubeSats and SmallSats, managed for appropriate cost and risk. This multi-disciplinary approach will leverage and partner with the growing commercial sector to collaboratively drive instrument and sensor innovation.

The PSDS3 awardees were recognized this week at the 48th Lunar and Planetary Society Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. The total value of the awards is $3.6 million.

The recipients are:

Venus

Christophe Sotin, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California: Cupid's Arrow, a 66-pound (30-kilogram) probe to measure noble gases and their isotopes to investigate the geological evolution of Venus and why Venus and Earth have evolved so differently.

Valeria Cottini, University of Maryland, College Park: CubeSat UV Experiment (CUVE), a 12-unit CubeSat orbiter to measure ultraviolet absorption and nightglow emissions to understand Venus' atmospheric dynamics.

Moon

Suzanne Romaine, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts: CubeSat X-ray Telescope (CubeX), a 12-unit CubeSat to map the elemental composition mapping of airless bodies such as the moon, to understand their formation and evolutionary history using X-ray pulsar timing for deep space navigation.

Timothy Stubbs, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland: Bi-sat Observations of the Lunar Atmosphere above Swirls (BOLAS), tethered 12-unit CubeSats to investigate the lunar hydrogen cycle by simultaneously measuring electromagnetic fields near the surface of the moon, and incoming solar winds high above.

Asteroids

Jeffrey Plescia, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland: Asteroid Probe Experiment (APEX), a SmallSat with a deployable seismometer to rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis and directly explore its interior structure, surface properties, and rotational state.

Benton Clark, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado: CubeSat Asteroid Encounters for Science and Reconnaissance (CAESAR), a constellation of 6-unit CubeSats to evaluate the bulk properties of asteroids to assess their physical structure, and to provide constraints on their formation and evolution.

Mars

David Minton, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana: Chariot to the Moons of Mars, a 12-unit CubeSat with a deployable drag skirt to produce high-resolution imagery and surface material composition of Phobos and Deimos, to help understand how they were formed.

Anthony Colaprete, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California: Aeolus, a 24-unit CubeSat to directly measure vertically-resolved global winds to help determine the global energy balance at Mars and understand daily climate variability.

Icy Bodies and Outer Planets

Kunio Sayanagi, Hampton University, Virginia: Small Next-generation Atmospheric Probe (SNAP), an atmospheric entry probe to measure vertical cloud structure, stratification, and winds to help understand the chemical and physical processes that shape the atmosphere of Uranus.

Robert Ebert, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio: JUpiter MagnetosPheric boundary ExploreR (JUMPER), a SmallSat to explore Jupiter's magnetosphere, including characterizing the solar wind upstream of the magnetosphere to provide science context for future missions such as the Europa Clipper.

For more information about NASA's CubeSat activities, visit:

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News Media Contact

Andrew Good

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-2433

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2017-085

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Study of Complex 2016 Quake May Alter Hazard Models

Last November's magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake in New Zealand was so complex and unusual, it is likely to change how scientists think about earthquake hazards in plate boundary zones around the world, finds a new international study.

The study, led by GNS Science, Avalon, New Zealand, with NASA participation, is published this week in the journal Science. The team found that the Nov. 14, 2016, earthquake was the most complex earthquake in modern history. The quake ruptured at least 12 major crustal faults, and there was also evidence of slip along the southern end of the Hikurangi subduction zone plate boundary, which lies about 12 miles (20 kilometers) below the North Canterbury and Marlborough coastlines.

Lead author and geodesy specialist Ian Hamling of GNS Science says the quake has underlined the importance of re-evaluating how rupture scenarios are defined for seismic hazard models in plate boundary zones worldwide.

"This complex earthquake defies many conventional assumptions about the degree to which earthquake ruptures are controlled by individual faults, and provides additional motivation to re-think these issues in seismic hazard models," Hamling says.

The research team included 29 co-authors from 11 national and international institutes. To conduct the study, they combined multiple datasets, including satellite radar interferometry and GPS data that measure the amount of ground movement associated with the earthquake, along with field observations and coastal uplift data. The team found that parts of New Zealand's South Island moved more than 16 feet (5 meters) closer to New Zealand's North Island and were uplifted by as much as 26 feet (8 meters).

The Kaikoura earthquake rupture began in North Canterbury and propagated northward for more than 106 miles (170 kilometers) along both well-known and previously unknown faults. It straddled two distinct active fault domains, rupturing faults in both the North Canterbury Fault zone and the Marlborough Fault system.

The largest movement during the earthquake occurred on the Kekerengu fault, where pieces of Earth's crust were displaced relative to each other by up to 82 feet (25 meters), at a depth of about 9 miles (15 kilometers). Maximum rupture at the surface was measured at 39 feet (12 meters) of horizontal displacement.

Hamling says there is growing evidence internationally that conventional seismic hazard models are too simple and restrictive. "Even in the New Zealand modeling context, the Kaikoura event would not have been included because so many faults linked up unexpectedly," he said. "The message from Kaikoura is that earthquake science should be more open to a wider range of possibilities when rupture propagation models are being developed."

The scientists analyzed interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1A and -1B satellites, which are operated by the European Space Agency, along with InSAR data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's ALOS-2 satellite. They compared pre- and post-earthquake images of Earth's surface to measure land movement across large areas and infer movement on faults at depth. The Sentinel and ALOS-2 satellites orbit Earth in near-polar orbits at altitudes of 373 and 434 miles (600 and 700 kilometers), respectively, and image the same point on Earth at repeat intervals ranging from six to 30 days. The Sentinel and ALOS-2 satellites use different wavelengths, which means they pick up different aspects of surface deformation, adding to the precision and completeness of the investigation.

In the spirit of international cooperation, both space agencies had re-prioritized their satellites immediately after the quake to collect more images of New Zealand to help with research and support the emergency response activities.

Before the earthquake, coauthors Cunren Liang and Eric Fielding of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, developed new InSAR data processing techniques to measure the ground deformation in the satellite flight direction using wide-swath images acquired by the ALOS-2 satellite. This is the first time this new approach has been successfully used in earthquake research.

"We were surprised by the amazing complexity of the faults that ruptured in the Kaikoura earthquake when we processed the satellite radar images," said Fielding. "Understanding how all these faults moved in one event will improve seismic hazard models."

The authors say the Kaikoura earthquake was one of the most recorded large earthquakes anywhere in the world, enabling scientists to undertake analysis in an unprecedented level of detail. This paper is the first in a series of studies to be published on the rich array of data collected from this earthquake.

News Media Contact

Alan Buis
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0474
alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Ian Hamling
GNS Science, Avalon, New Zealand
011-64-570-4568

2017-084

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NASA TV to Air Seventh Orbital ATK Resupply Mission to International Space Station

NASA commercial cargo provider Orbital ATK is targeting its seventh commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for 9 p.m., EDT Friday, March 24, the start of a 30-minute launch window.

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Study of Complex 2016 Quake May Alter Hazard Models

NASA Awards Facilities, Construction, Engineering, Technical Services Contract

NASA has awarded the Facilities, Construction, Engineering and Technical Services III Contract (FaCETS III) contract to PTSI Managed Services, Inc., of Pasadena, California, for infrastructure maintenance at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

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NASA Updates Schedule for International Space Station Spacewalks

Expedition 50 astronauts will conduct up to three spacewalks outside the International Space Station (ISS) in late March and early April to prepare for the future arrival of U.S. commercial crew spacecraft and upgrade station hardware.

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NASA to Host 2017 Human Exploration Rover Challenge

Media are invited to watch as nearly 100 high school and college teams from across the globe compete Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1 during NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

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Andromeda's Bright X-Ray Mystery Solved by NuSTAR

The Milky Way's closest neighbor, Andromeda, features a dominant source of high-energy X-ray emission, but its identity was mysterious until now. As reported in a new study, NASA's NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) mission has pinpointed an object responsible for this high-energy radiation.

The object, called Swift J0042.6+4112, is a possible pulsar, the dense remnant of a dead star that is highly magnetized and spinning, researchers say. This interpretation is based on its emission in high-energy X-rays, which NuSTAR is uniquely capable of measuring. The object's spectrum is very similar to known pulsars in the Milky Way.

It is likely in a binary system, in which material from a stellar companion gets pulled onto the pulsar, spewing high-energy radiation as the material heats up.

"We didn't know what it was until we looked at it with NuSTAR," said Mihoko Yukita, lead author of a study about the object, based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The study is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

This candidate pulsar is shown as a blue dot in a NuSTAR X-ray image of Andromeda (also called M31), where the color blue is chosen to represent the highest-energy X-rays. It appears brighter in high-energy X-rays than anything else in the galaxy.

The study brings together many different observations of the object from various spacecraft. In 2013, NASA's Swift satellite reported it as a high-energy source, but its classification was unknown, as there are many objects emitting low energy X-rays in the region. The lower-energy X-ray emission from the object turns out to be a source first identified in the 1970s by NASA's Einstein Observatory. Other spacecraft, such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton had also detected it. However, it wasn't until the new study by NuSTAR, aided by supporting Swift satellite data, that researchers realized it was the same object as this likely pulsar that dominates the high energy X-ray light of Andromeda.

Traditionally, astronomers have thought that actively feeding black holes, which are more massive than pulsars, usually dominate the high-energy X-ray light in galaxies. As gas spirals closer and closer to the black hole in a structure called an accretion disk, this material gets heated to extremely high temperatures and gives off high-energy radiation. This pulsar, which has a lower mass than any of Andromeda's black holes, is brighter at high energies than the galaxy's entire black hole population.

Even the supermassive black hole in the center of Andromeda does not have significant high-energy X-ray emission associated with it. It is unexpected that a single pulsar would instead be dominating the galaxy in high-energy X-ray light.

"NuSTAR has made us realize the general importance of pulsar systems as X-ray-emitting components of galaxies, and the possibility that the high energy X-ray light of Andromeda is dominated by a single pulsar system only adds to this emerging picture," said Ann Hornschemeier, co-author of the study and based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

Andromeda is a spiral galaxy slightly larger than the Milky Way. It resides 2.5 million light-years from our own galaxy, which is considered very close, given the broader scale of the universe. Stargazers can see Andromeda without a telescope on dark, clear nights.

"Since we can't get outside our galaxy and study it in an unbiased way, Andromeda is the closest thing we have to looking in a mirror," Hornschemeier said.

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NuSTAR was developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Virginia. NuSTAR's mission operations center is at UC Berkeley, and the official data archive is at NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center. ASI provides the mission's ground station and a mirror archive. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

For more information on NuSTAR, visit:

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http://ift.tt/M2Dvln

News Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6425

elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-083

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How A.I. Captured a Volcano's Changing Lava Lake

One of our planet's few exposed lava lakes is changing, and artificial intelligence is helping NASA understand how.

On January 21, a fissure opened at the top of Ethiopia's Erta Ale volcano -- one of the few in the world with an active lava lake in its caldera. Volcanologists sent out requests for NASA's Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) spacecraft to image the eruption, which was large enough to begin reshaping the volcano's summit.

As it turned out, that spacecraft was already busy collecting data of the lava lake. Alerted by a detection from another satellite, an artificial intelligence (A.I.) system had ordered it to look at the volcano. By the time scientists needed these images, they were already processed and on the ground.

It's a fitting capstone to the A.I.'s mission. That software, called the Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE), has guided the actions of EO-1 for more than 12 years, helping researchers study natural disasters around the globe. ASE will conclude its operations this month, when EO-1's mission comes to an end. ASE leaves behind a legacy that suggests great potential for A.I. in future space exploration.

Besides the recent eruption, ASE helped scientists study an Icelandic volcano as ash plumes grounded flights across Europe in 2010. It also tracked catastrophic flooding in Thailand. The software cut the turnaround time for data from weeks to just days, as users could put in requests in real-time.

ASE was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and uploaded in 2003 to EO-1, an earth science satellite managed by Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The software directed EO-1 to alert researchers whenever it detected events of scientific interest, and autonomously tasked the spacecraft to take photos during subsequent orbital passes.

Additionally, it manages a "sensor web," a network of other satellites and ground sensors that all "talk" to one other, helping to prioritize which events to focus on.

"It's a milestone in A.I. application," said Steve Chien, principal investigator of ASE and head of the Artificial Intelligence Group at JPL. "We were supposed to do this for six months, and we were so successful that we did it for more than 12 years."

The software typically notified researchers within 90 minutes of detecting an event. It then downlinked data and re-tasked EO-1 within a few hours -- a process that previously took weeks when scientists and operations teams on the ground had to coordinate.

A.I. can free a spacecraft to act first, within carefully programmed parameters, allowing it to capture valuable science data that would otherwise be lost, said Ashley Davies, lead scientist for ASE and a volcanologist at JPL.

"It's putting some scientific smarts onboard a spacecraft," Davies said.

The recent eruption of Erta Ale highlights the speed and impact of space A.I. When a 1.9 mile-long (3 kilometer) fissure opened in late January, it caused parts of the caldera to collapse -- exactly the kind of fast-moving event that is hard to capture data on unless you're watching for it.

Fortunately, the JPL sensor-web has a wide reach. It's comprised of other satellites besides EO-1, and even on-the-ground sensors. When one of those other satellites picked up rapid temperature changes at the volcano's summit, that's when it pinged EO-1, which began planning to image the site.

"We caught this event at the perfect time, during an early, developing phase of the eruption," Davies said. Now he and other scientists had a much better sense of how the discharge of lava is evolving over time. "This simply wouldn't have happened without the Volcano Sensor Web."

Both Chien and Davies agreed that autonomy has enormous potential when it comes to studying events far from Earth, where vast distances make it impossible to know what's happening until the event has already passed. For example, A.I. could make it much easier to capture those dynamic moments when a comet passes by or volcanoes begin erupting on a distant moon.

Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about the Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment, visit:

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For more information about EO-1, visit:

http://ift.tt/2mC9ykZ

News Media Contact

Andrew Good

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-2433

andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-082

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Ice in Ceres' Shadowed Craters Linked to Tilt History

Dwarf planet Ceres may be hundreds of millions of miles from Jupiter, and even farther from Saturn, but the tremendous influence of gravity from these gas giants has an appreciable effect on Ceres' orientation. In a new study, researchers from NASA's Dawn mission calculate that the axial tilt of Ceres -- the angle at which it spins as it journeys around the sun -- varies widely over the course of about 24,500 years. Astronomers consider this to be a surprisingly short period of time for such dramatic deviations.

Changes in axial tilt, or "obliquity," over the history of Ceres are related to the larger question of where frozen water can be found on Ceres' surface, scientists report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Given conditions on Ceres, ice would only be able to survive at extremely cold temperatures -- for example, in areas that never see the sun.

"We found a correlation between craters that stay in shadow at maximum obliquity, and bright deposits that are likely water ice," said Anton Ermakov, postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and lead author of the study. "Regions that never see sunlight over millions of years are more likely to have these deposits."

Cycles of Obliquity

Throughout the last 3 million years, Ceres has gone through cycles where its tilt ranges from about 2 degrees to about 20 degrees, calculations indicate.

"We cannot directly observe the changes in Ceres' orientation over time, so we used the Dawn spacecraft's measurements of shape and gravity to precisely reconstruct what turned out to be a dynamic history," said Erwan Mazarico, a co-author at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The last time the dwarf planet reached a maximum tilt, which was about 19 degrees, was 14,000 years ago, researchers said. For comparison, Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees. This significant tilt causes our planet to experience seasons: The northern hemisphere experiences summer when it is oriented toward the sun, and winter when it's pointed away from the sun. By contrast, Ceres' current tilt is about 4 degrees, so it will not have such strong seasonal effects over the course of a year there (which is about 4.6 Earth years).

How Obliquity Relates to Ice

When the axial tilt is small, relatively large regions on Ceres never receive direct sunlight, particularly at the poles. These persistently shadowed regions occupy an area of about 800 square miles (2,000 square kilometers). But when the obliquity increases, more of the craters in the polar regions receive direct exposure to the sun, and persistently shadowed areas only occupy 0.4 to 4 square miles (1 to 10 square kilometers). These areas on Ceres' surface, which stay in shadow even at high obliquity, may be cold enough to maintain surface ice, Dawn scientists said.

These craters with areas that stay in shadow over long periods of time are called "cold traps," because they are so cold and dark that volatiles -- substances easily vaporized -- that migrate into these areas can't escape, even over a billion years. A 2016 study by the Dawn team in Nature Astronomy found bright material in 10 of these craters, and data from Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer indicate that one of them contains ice.

The new study focused on polar craters and modeled how shadowing progresses as Ceres' axial tilt varies. In the northern hemisphere, only two persistently shadowed regions remain in shadow at the maximum 20-degree tilt. Both of these regions have bright deposits today. In the southern hemisphere, there are also two persistently shadowed regions at highest obliquity, and one of them clearly has a bright deposit.

Shadowed Regions in Context

Ceres is the third body in the solar system found to have permanently shadowed regions. Mercury and Earth's moon are the other two, and scientists believe they received their ice from impacting bodies. However, Mercury and the moon do not have such wide variability in their tilts because of the stabilizing gravitational influence of the sun and Earth, respectively. The origin of the ice in Ceres' cold traps is more mysterious -- it may come from Ceres itself, or may be delivered by impacts from asteroids and comets. Regardless, the presence of ice in cold traps could be related to a tenuous water atmosphere, which was detected by ESA's Herschel Space Observatory in 2012-13. Water molecules that leave the surface would fall back onto Ceres, with some landing in cold traps and accumulating there.

"The idea that ice could survive on Ceres for long periods of time is important as we continue to reconstruct the dwarf planet's geological history, including whether it has been giving off water vapor," said Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator of the Dawn mission and study co-author, based at JPL.

Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. For a complete list of mission participants, visit:

http://ift.tt/1ALN8zu

More information about Dawn is available at the following sites:

http://ift.tt/tWXNUY

http://ift.tt/lSsAmh

News Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6425

elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-081

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The Many Faces of Rosetta's Comet 67P

Images returned from the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission indicate that during its most recent trip through the inner solar system, the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was a very active place - full of growing fractures, collapsing cliffs and massive rolling boulders. Moving material buried some features on the comet's surface while exhuming others. A study on 67P's changing surface was released Tuesday, March 21, in the journal Science.

"As comets approach the sun, they go into overdrive and exhibit spectacular changes on their surface," said Ramy El-Maarry, study leader and a member of the U.S. Rosetta science team from the University of Colorado, Boulder. "This is something we were not able to really appreciate before the Rosetta mission, which gave us the chance to look at a comet in ultra-high resolution for more than two years."

Most comets orbit our sun in highly elliptical orbits that cause them to spend most of their time in the extremely cold outer solar system. When a comet approaches the inner solar system, the sun begins to warm the ice on and near the comet's surface. When the ice warms enough it can rapidly sublimate (turn directly from the solid to the vapor state). This sublimation process can occur with variable degrees of intensity and time-scales and cause the surface to change rapidly. Between August 2014 and September 2016, Rosetta orbited comet 67P during the comet's swing through the inner-solar system.

"We saw a massive cliff collapse and a large crack in the neck of the comet get bigger and bigger," said El-Maarry. "And we discovered that boulders the size of a large truck could be moved across the comet's surface a distance as long as one-and-a-half football fields."

In the case of the boulder, Rosetta's cameras observed a 282-million-pound (130-million-kilogram), 100-feet-wide (30-meter) space rock to have moved 150 yards (460 feet, or 140 meters) from its original position on the comet's nucleus. The massive space rock probably moved as a result of several outburst events that were detected close to its original position.

The warming of 67P also caused the comet's rotation rate to speed up. The comet's increasing spin rate in the lead-up to perihelion is thought to be responsible for a 1,600-foot-long (500-meters) fracture spotted in August 2014 that runs through the comet's neck. The fracture, which originally extended a bit longer than the Empire State Building is high, was found to have increased in width by about 100 feet (30 meters) by December 2014. Furthermore, in images taken in June 2016, a new 500- to 1,000-foot-long (150 to 300 meters) fracture was identified parallel to the original fracture.

"The large crack was in the 'neck' of the comet -- a small central part that connects the two lobes," said El-Maarry. "The crack was extending--indicating that the comet may split up one day."

Understanding how comets change and evolve with time gives us important insights into the types and abundance of ices in comets, and how long comets can stay in the inner solar system before losing all their ice and becoming balls of dust," said El-Maarry. "This helps us better understand the conditions of the early solar system, and possibly even how life started."

A link to an ESA press release with more information on the El-Maarry paper in Science can be found here:

http://ift.tt/2mp1kke

In a second Rosetta study released Tuesday, this one published in Nature Astronomy, scientists make the first definitive link between an outburst of dust and gas from the nucleus of 67P and the collapse of one of its prominent cliffs, which also exposed the comet's pristine, icy interior.

A link to an ESA press release on the Nature Astronomy paper can be found here:

http://ift.tt/2moYCLx

Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when the sun and its planets formed. Rosetta was the first spacecraft to witness at close proximity how a comet changes as it is subjected to the increasing intensity of the sun's radiation. Observations will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of our solar system and whether comets brought life-sustaining water and organic molecules to the Earth.

Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by the German Aerospace Center, Cologne; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen; French National Space Agency, Paris; and the Italian Space Agency, Rome. JPL, Pasadena, California, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the U.S. contribution of the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL also built the MIRO instrument and hosts its principal investigator, Mark Hofstadter. The Southwest Research Institute (San Antonio and Boulder, Colorado), developed the Rosetta orbiter's IES and Alice instruments and hosts their principal investigators, James Burch (IES) and Joel Parker (Alice).

For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit:

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Breaks Observed in Rover Wheel Treads

Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report

A routine check of the aluminum wheels on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has found two small breaks on the rover's left middle wheel-the latest sign of wear and tear as the rover continues its journey, now approaching the 10-mile (16 kilometer) mark.

The mission's first and second breaks in raised treads, called grousers, appeared in a March 19 image check of the wheels, documenting that these breaks occurred after the last check, on Jan. 27.

"All six wheels have more than enough working lifespan remaining to get the vehicle to all destinations planned for the mission," said Curiosity Project Manager Jim Erickson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "While not unexpected, this damage is the first sign that the left middle wheel is nearing a wheel-wear milestone,"

The monitoring of wheel damage on Curiosity, plus a program of wheel-longevity testing on Earth, was initiated after dents and holes in the wheels were seen to be accumulating faster than anticipated in 2013. Testing showed that at the point when three grousers on a wheel have broken, that wheel has reached about 60 percent of its useful life. Curiosity already has driven well over that fraction of the total distance needed for reaching the key regions of scientific interest on Mars' Mount Sharp.

Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada, also at JPL, said, "This is an expected part of the life cycle of the wheels and at this point does not change our current science plans or diminish our chances of studying key transitions in mineralogy higher on Mount Sharp."

Curiosity is currently examining sand dunes partway up a geological unit called the Murray formation. Planned destinations ahead include the hematite-containing "Vera Rubin Ridge," a clay-containing geological unit above that ridge, and a sulfate-containing unit above the clay unit.

The rover is climbing to sequentially higher and younger layers of lower Mount Sharp to investigate how the region's ancient climate changed billions of years ago. Clues about environmental conditions are recorded in the rock layers. During its first year on Mars, the mission succeeded at its main goal by finding that the region once offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life, if Mars has ever hosted life. The conditions in long-lived ancient freshwater Martian lake environments included all of the key chemical elements needed for life as we know it, plus a chemical source of energy that is used by many microbes on Earth.

Through March 20, Curiosity has driven 9.9 miles (16.0 kilometers) since the mission's August 2012 landing on Mars. Studying the transition to the sulfate unit, the farthest-uphill destination, will require about 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) or less of additional driving. For the past four years, rover drive planners have used enhanced methods of mapping potentially hazardous terrains to reduce the pace of damage from sharp, embedded rocks along the rover's route.

Each of Curiosity's six wheels is about 20 inches (50 centimeters) in diameter and 16 inches (40 centimeters) wide, milled out of solid aluminum. The wheels contact ground with a skin that's about half as thick as a U.S. dime, except at thicker treads. The grousers are 19 zigzag-shaped treads that extend about a quarter inch (three-fourths of a centimeter) outward from the skin of each wheel. The grousers bear much of the rover's weight and provide most of the traction and ability to traverse over uneven terrain.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, and built the project's rover, Curiosity. For more information about the mission, visit:

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Futuristic Clock Prepared for Space

No one keeps time quite like NASA.

Last month, the space agency's next-generation atomic clock was joined to the spacecraft that will take it into orbit in late 2017.

That instrument, the Deep Space Atomic Clock was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. On Feb. 17, JPL engineers monitored integration of the clock on to the Surrey Orbital Test Bed spacecraft at Surrey Satellite Technology in Englewood, Colorado.

Timekeeping plays a critical role in spacecraft navigation and will be especially important for future deep space missions. This clock will be smaller, lighter and magnitudes more precise than any atomic clock flown in space before.

Most spacecraft are tracked using "two-way" methods: the ground-based antenna 'pings' the spacecraft and waits for the signal to return. By measuring how long the signal takes to travel, the distance to the spacecraft can be calculated. A navigation team then processes this information to determine the spacecraft's flight path and determine if any course corrections are required.

The clock enables "one-way" tracking, where the spacecraft doesn't need to send the signal back to Earth. The tracking measurements could be taken onboard and processed with a spacecraft-based navigation system to determine the path and whether any maneuvers are needed to stay on course.

This will be a key advance for safely navigating future human exploration of the solar system by providing astronauts with their position and velocity when they need it. It will lighten the load on the antennas in NASA's Deep Space Network, allowing more spacecraft to be tracked with a single antenna.

The Deep Space Atomic Clock would also improve the precision and quantity of the radio data used by scientists for determining a planet's gravity field and probing its atmosphere.

The Deep Space Atomic Clock project is managed by JPL and funded by the Technology Demonstration Mission in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). STMD is responsible for developing the cross-cutting, pioneering, new technologies and capabilities needed by the agency to achieve its current and future missions.

For more information about the clock, visit:

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For more information about NASA's Technology Demonstration Mission, visit:

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Mars Volcano, Earth's Dinosaurs Went Extinct About the Same Time

New NASA research reveals that the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons produced one new lava flow at its summit every 1 to 3 million years during the final peak of activity. The last volcanic activity there ceased about 50 million years ago -- around the time of Earth's Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, when large numbers of our planet's plant and animal species (including dinosaurs) went extinct.

Located just south of Mars' equator, Arsia Mons is the southernmost member of a trio of broad, gently sloping shield volcanoes collectively known as Tharsis Montes. Arsia Mons was built up over billions of years, though the details of its lifecycle are still being worked out. The most recent volcanic activity is thought to have taken place in the caldera-the bowl-shaped depression at the top -- where 29 volcanic vents have been identified. Until now, it's been difficult to make a precise estimate of when this volcanic field was active.

"We estimate that the peak activity for the volcanic field at the summit of Arsia Mons probably occurred approximately 150 million years ago -- the late Jurassic period on Earth -- and then died out around the same time as Earth's dinosaurs," said Jacob Richardson, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It's possible, though, that the last volcanic vent or two might have been active in the past 50 million years, which is very recent in geological terms."

Richardson is presenting the findings on March 20, 2017, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. The study also is published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Measuring about 68 miles (110 kilometers) across, the caldera is deep enough to hold the entire volume of water in Lake Huron, and then some. Examining the volcanic features within the caldera required high-resolution imaging, which the researchers obtained from the Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The team mapped the boundaries of the lava flows from each of the 29 volcanic vents and determined the stratigraphy, or layering, of the flows. The researchers also performed a technique called crater counting -- tallying up the number of craters at least 330 feet (100 meters) in diameter -- to estimate the ages of the flows.

Using a new computer model developed by Richardson and his colleagues at the University of South Florida, the two types of information were combined to determine the volcanic equivalent of a batting order for Arsia Mons' 29 vents. The oldest flows date back about 200 million years. The youngest flows probably occurred 10 to 90 million years ago -- most likely around 50 million years ago.

The modeling also yielded estimates of the volume flux for each lava flow. At their peak about 150 million years ago, the vents in the Arsia Mons' caldera probably collectively produced about 0.25 to 2 cubic miles (1 to 8 cubic kilometers) of magma every million years, slowly adding to the volcano's size.

"Think of it like a slow, leaky faucet of magma," said Richardson. "Arsia Mons was creating about one volcanic vent every 1 to 3 million years at the peak, compared to one every 10,000 years or so in similar regions on Earth."

A better understanding of when volcanic activity on Mars took place is important because it helps researchers understand the Red Planet's history and interior structure.

"A major goal of the Mars volcanology community is to understand the anatomy and lifecycle of the planet's volcanoes. Mars' volcanoes show evidence for activity over a larger time span than those on Earth, but their histories of magma production might be quite different," said Jacob Bleacher, a planetary geologist at Goddard and a co-author on the study. "This study gives us another clue about how activity at Arsia Mons tailed off and the huge volcano became quiet."

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the Context Camera. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about NASA missions investigating Mars, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/

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Origami-inspired Robot Can Hitch a Ride with a Rover

The next rovers to explore another planet might bring along a scout.

The Pop-Up Flat Folding Explorer Robot (PUFFER) in development at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was inspired by origami. Its lightweight design is capable of flattening itself, tucking in its wheels and crawling into places rovers can't fit.

Over the past year and a half, PUFFER has been tested in a range of rugged terrains, from the Mojave Desert in California to the snowy hills of Antarctica. The idea is to explore areas that might be too risky for a full-fledged rover to go, such as steep slopes or behind sand dunes.

It's designed to skitter up 45-degree slopes, investigate overhangs and even drop into pits or craters. PUFFER is meant to be the hardy assistant to a larger robot companion: several of the microbots can be flattened like cards and stacked one on top of the other.

Then, they can be flicked out, popped up and begin exploring.

"They can do parallel science with a rover, so you can increase the amount you're doing in a day," said Jaakko Karras, PUFFER's project manager at JPL. "We can see these being used in hard-to-reach locations -- squeezing under ledges, for example."

PUFFER's creators at JPL hope to see the bot rolling across the sands of Mars someday. But they imagine it could be used by scientists right here on Earth, as well.

Carolyn Parcheta, a JPL scientist who uses robots to explore volcanoes, offered guidance on PUFFER's science instruments. She said the use of backpack-ready bots has enormous potential for fields like geology.

"Having something that's as portable as a compass or a rock hammer means you can do science on the fly," she said.

A paper prototype

PUFFER's body was originated by Karras, who was experimenting with origami designs. While he was a grad student at UC Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystem Lab, he worked on developing robotics based on natural forms, like animal and insect movement.

The PUFFER team substituted paper with a printed circuit board -- the same thing inside of your smartphone. That allowed them to incorporate more electronics, including control and rudimentary instruments.

"The circuit board includes both the electronics and the body, which allows it to be a lot more compact," said Christine Fuller, a JPL mechanical engineer who worked on PUFFER's structure and tested it for reliability. "There are no mounting fasteners or other parts to deal with. Everything is integrated to begin with."

JPL's Kalind Carpenter, who specializes in robotic mobility, made four wheels for the folding bot on a 3-D printer. Their first prototype was little more than rolling origami, but it quickly grew more complex.

The wheels evolved, going from four to two, and gaining treads that allow it to climb inclines. They can also be folded over the main body, allowing PUFFER to crawl. A tail was added for stabilization. Solar panels on PUFFER's belly allow it to flip over and recharge in the sun.

The team partnered with the Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, which developed a "skittering walk" that keeps the bot inching forward, one wheel at a time, without slipping. A company called Distant Focus Corporation, Champaign, Illinois, provided a high-resolution microimager sensitive enough to see objects that are just 10 microns in size -- a fraction of a diameter of a human hair.

Before long, PUFFER was ready for a test drive.

From the Mojave to Mars

Once they had a functional prototype, the JPL team took PUFFER out for field testing. In Rainbow Basin, California, the bot clambered over sedimentary rock slopes and under overhangs.

That terrain serves as an analog to Martian landscapes. On Mars, overhangs could be sheltering organic molecules from harmful radiation. Darkly colored Martian slopes, which are of interest to scientists, are another potential target.

On a level dirt path, PUFFER can drive about 2,050 feet (625 meters) on one battery charge. That could fluctuate a bit depending on how much any onboard instruments are used.

Besides desert conditions, PUFFER has been outfitted for snow. Carpenter designed bigger wheels and a flat fishtail to help it traverse wintry terrain. So far, it's been tested at a ski resort in Grand Junction, Colorado; Big Bear, California; and on Mt. Erebus, an active volcano in Antarctica.

One of PUFFER's more recent field tests wasn't particularly challenging, but can still be counted as a success: the Consumer Electronics Show. On a convention center floor in Las Vegas, it drew crowds of delighted technology fans.

PUFFER grows up

The next step is making PUFFER a scientist. The JPL team is looking at adding a number of instruments that would allow it to sample water for organic material, or a spectrometer to study the chemical makeup of its environment.

It's also getting bigger. Future designs might be as large as a breadbox, sacrificing its microbot size for added robustness.

Most exciting of all would be making PUFFER smarter. Right now, it runs off Bluetooth and can be controlled remotely. But Carpenter said they'd like to add autonomy, allowing a swarm of PUFFERs to conduct science as a mobile team.

"If Curiosity had a stack of PUFFERs on board, each of them could go to separate spots, and the rover would just go to the most interesting one," Carpenter said.

The team is hopeful PUFFER could end up on a future planetary mission. It already includes many Mars-compatible materials in its construction, including heritage technology from the Viking, Pathfinder and Phoenix missions.

For example, PUFFER's body is wrapped in Nomex, a strong textile used in the air bags that cushioned NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers when they touched down on Mars. Nomex is also used by firefighters to repel heat, meaning PUFFER could survive punishing high temperatures. A company called Pioneer Circuits, Santa Ana, California, helped integrate the Nomex into the folding circuit boards.

"Small robotic explorers like PUFFER could change the way we do science on Mars," Karras said. "Like Sojourner before it, we think it's an exciting advance in robotic design."

The PUFFER project is a Game Changing Development (GCD) program. The project is managed by JPL. The GCD program investigates ideas and approaches that could solve significant technological problems and revolutionize future space endeavors. GCD is part of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate.

For more information about GCD, please visit:

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Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

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