NASA's Juno Mission Provides Infrared Tour of Jupiter's North Pole

Scientists working on NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter shared a 3-D infrared movie depicting densely packed cyclones and anticyclones that permeate the planet's polar regions, and the first detailed view of a dynamo, or engine, powering the magnetic field for any planet beyond Earth. Those are among the items unveiled during the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, on Wednesday, April 11.

In this animation the viewer is taken low over Jupiter's north pole to illustrate the 3-D aspects of the region's central cyclone and the eight cyclones that encircle it. The movie utilizes imagery derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno mission during its fourth pass over the massive planet. Infrared cameras are used to sense the temperature of Jupiter's atmosphere and provide insight into how the powerful cyclones at Jupiter's poles work. In the animation, the yellow areas are warmer (or deeper into Jupiter's atmosphere) and the dark areas are colder (or higher up in Jupiter's atmosphere). In this picture the highest "brightness temperature" is around 260K (about -13°C) and the lowest around 190K (about -83°C). The "brightness temperature" is a measurement of the radiance, at 5 µm, traveling upward from the top of the atmosphere towards Juno, expressed in units of temperature.

Juno mission scientists have taken data collected by the spacecraft's Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument and generated the 3-D fly-around of the Jovian world's north pole. Imaging in the infrared part of the spectrum, JIRAM captures light emerging from deep inside Jupiter equally well, night or day. The instrument probes the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below Jupiter's cloud tops. The imagery will help the team understand the forces at work in the animation - a north pole dominated by a central cyclone surrounded by eight circumpolar cyclones with diameters ranging from 2,500 to 2,900 miles (4,000 to 4,600 kilometers).

NASA's Juno mission has provided the first view of the dynamo, or engine, powering Jupiter's magnetic field. The new global portrait reveals unexpected irregularities and regions of surprising magnetic field intensity. Red areas show where magnetic field lines emerge from the planet, while blue areas show where they return. As Juno continues its mission, it will improve our understanding of Jupiter's complex magnetic environment.

"Before Juno, we could only guess what Jupiter's poles would look like," said Alberto Adriani, Juno co-investigator from the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome. "Now, with Juno flying over the poles at a close distance it permits the collection of infrared imagery on Jupiter's polar weather patterns and its massive cyclones in unprecedented spatial resolution."

Another Juno investigation discussed during the media briefing was the team's latest pursuit of the interior composition of the gas giant. One of the biggest pieces in its discovery has been understanding how Jupiter's deep interior rotates.

"Prior to Juno, we could not distinguish between extreme models of Jupiter's interior rotation, which all fitted the data collected by Earth-based observations and other deep space missions," said Tristan Guillot, a Juno co-investigator from the Université Côte d'Azur, Nice, France. "But Juno is different -- it orbits the planet from pole-to-pole and gets closer to Jupiter than any spacecraft ever before. Thanks to the amazing increase in accuracy brought by Juno's gravity data, we have essentially solved the issue of how Jupiter's interior rotates: The zones and belts that we see in the atmosphere rotating at different speeds extend to about 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers).

An infrared view of Jupiter's North Pole. The movie utilizes imagery derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno mission. The images were obtained during Juno's fourth pass over Jupiter. Infrared cameras are used to sense the temperature of Jupiter's atmosphere and provide insight into how the powerful cyclones at Jupiter's poles work. In the animation, the yellow areas are warmer (or deeper into Jupiter's atmosphere) and the dark areas are colder (or higher up in Jupiter's atmosphere). In this picture the highest "brightness temperature" is around 260K (about -13°C) and the lowest around 190K (about -83°C). The "brightness temperature" is a measurement of the radiance, at 5 µm, traveling upward from the top of the atmosphere towards Juno, expressed in units of temperature.

"At this point, hydrogen becomes conductive enough to be dragged into near-uniform rotation by the planet's powerful magnetic field."

The same data used to analyze Jupiter's rotation contain information on the planet's interior structure and composition. Not knowing the interior rotation was severely limiting the ability to probe the deep interior. "Now our work can really begin in earnest -- determining the interior composition of the solar system's largest planet," said Guillot.

At the meeting, the mission's deputy-principal investigator, Jack Connerney of the Space Research Corporation, Annapolis, Maryland, presented the first detailed view of the dynamo, or engine, powering the magnetic field of Jupiter.

Connerney and colleagues produced the new magnetic field model from measurements made during eight orbits of Jupiter. From those, they derived maps of the magnetic field at the surface and in the region below the surface where the dynamo is thought to originate. Because Jupiter is a gas giant, "surface" is defined as one Jupiter radius, which is about 44,400 miles (71,450 kilometers).

These maps provide an extraordinary advancement in current knowledge and will guide the science team in planning the spacecraft's remaining observations.

"We're finding that Jupiter's magnetic field is unlike anything previously imagined,"said Connerney. "Juno's investigations of the magnetic environment at Jupiter represent the beginning of a new era in the studies of planetary dynamos."

The map Connerney's team made of the dynamo source region revealed unexpected irregularities, regions of surprising magnetic field intensity, and that Jupiter's magnetic field is more complex in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. About halfway between the equator and the north pole lies an area where the magnetic field is intense and positive. It is flanked by areas that are less intense and negative. In the southern hemisphere, however, the magnetic field is consistently negative, becoming more and more intense from the equator to the pole.

The researchers are still figuring out why they would see these differences in a rotating planet that's generally thought of as more-or-less fluid.

"Juno is only about one third the way through its planed mapping mission and already we are beginning to discover hints on how Jupiter's dynamo works," said Connerney. "The team is really anxious to see the data from our remaining orbits."

Juno has logged nearly 122 million miles (200 million kilometers) to complete those 11 science passes since entering Jupiter's orbit on July 4, 2016. Juno's 12th science pass will be on May 24.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Italian Space Agency (ASI), contributed two instruments, a Ka-band frequency translator (KaT) and the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM). Lockheed Martin Space, Denver, built the spacecraft.

https://www.nasa.gov/juno

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu

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

https://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno

https://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

More information on Jupiter can be found at:

https://www.nasa.gov/jupiter

News Media Contact

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov

JoAnna Wendel

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1003

joanna.r.wendel@nasa.gov

2018-071

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NASA Invites Media to Launch of GRACE Follow-On Spacecraft

Media accreditation now is open to cover the launch of NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission – twin satellites that constitute the agency’s latest Earth-observing mission.

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NASA Announces New Chief Scientist

Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot has named the Science Mission Directorate’s Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green as the agency's new chief scientist, effective May 1. He succeeds Dr. Gale Allen, who has served in an acting capacity since 2016 and will retire after more than 30 years of government service.

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Bound for Mars: Countdown to First Interplanetary Launch from California

In the early morning hours of May 5, millions of Californians will have an opportunity to witness a sight they have never seen before - the historic first interplanetary launch from America's West Coast. On board the 189-foot-tall (57.3-meter) United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will be NASA's InSight spacecraft, destined for the Elysium Planitia region located in Mars' northern hemisphere. The May 5 launch window for the InSight mission opens at 4:05 am PDT (7:05 EDT, 11:05 UTC) and remains open for two hours.

"If you live in Southern California and the weather is right, you'll probably have a better view of the launch than I will," said Tom Hoffman, project manager for NASA's InSight mission from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "I'll be stuck inside a control room looking at monitors -- which is not the best way to enjoy an Atlas 5 on its way to Mars."

NASA's InSight to Mars will be the first interplanetary launch from America's West Coast. Residents in some of California's coastal communities could get a front row seat when the mission launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Here's when and where to see it.

In clear skies, the InSight launch should be viewable up and down a wide swath of the California coast. Residents from as far north as Bakersfield to perhaps as far south as Rosarito, Mexico, may see the Atlas rocket rising in the predawn sky and then heading south, parallel to the coastline.

The United Launch Alliance two-stage Atlas V 401 launch vehicle will produce 860,200 pounds (3.8 million newtons) of thrust as it climbs away from its launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Lompoc, California. During the first 17 seconds of powered flight, the Atlas V will climb vertically above its launch pad. Then it will begin a pitch and yaw maneuver that will place it on a trajectory towards Earth's south pole.

"After lift-off from Vandenberg's Space Launch Complex 3, the Atlas V begins a southerly trajectory and climbs out over the Channel Islands off Oxnard," said Tim Dunn, launch director for the Launch Services Program at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "If you live on the California Central Coast or south to L.A. and San Diego, be sure to get up early on May 5^th, because Atlas V is the gold standard in launch vehicles and it can put on a great show."

Mach One occurs 1 minute and 18 seconds into the Atlas V's powered flight. At that time the vehicle will be about 30,000 feet (9 kilometers) in altitude and 1 mile (1.75 kilometers) down range. Two minutes and 36 seconds later, the Atlas first stage will shut down at an altitude of about 66 miles (106 kilometers) and 184 miles (296 kilometers) down range. The Centaur second stage (carrying InSight inside a 40-foot-long payload fairing) separates from the now-dead first stage six seconds later. Ten seconds later, the Centaur's engine kicks in with its 22,890 pounds (101,820 newtons) of thrust, which will carry it and InSight into its 115-mile-high (185-kilometer) parking orbit 13 minutes and 16 seconds after launch. This parking orbit will last 59 to 66 minutes, depending on the date and time of the launch. The Centaur will then re-ignite for one last burn at one hour and 19 minutes after launch, placing InSight into a Mars-bound interplanetary trajectory. Spacecraft separation from the Centaur will occur about 93 minutes after liftoff for the first May 5 launch opportunity as the spacecraft is approximately over the Alaska-Yukon region.

InSight's launch period is May 5 through June 8, 2018, with multiple launch opportunities over windows of approximately two hours each date. Launch opportunities are set five minutes apart during each date's window.

Additional information on viewing the launch in person is at:https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/mission/timeline/launch/watch-in-person/.

Live televised coverage of the launch will be available at:https://www.nasa.gov/live.

Whichever date the launch occurs, InSight's landing on Mars is planned for Nov. 26, 2018, around noon PST (3 p.m. EST / 20:00 UTC).

NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander will study the deep interior of Mars to learn how all rocky planets formed, including Earth and its moon. The lander's instruments include a seismometer to detect marsquakes and a probe that will monitor the flow of heat in the planet's subsurface.

NASA' s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The InSight spacecraft, including cruise stage and lander, was built and tested by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver. NASA's Launch Services Program at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida provides launch management. United Launch Alliance of Centennial, Colorado, is NASA's launch service provider of the Atlas 5 rocket. A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission.

For more information about InSight, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/

News Media Contact

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov

JoAnna Wendel

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1003

joanna.r.wendel@nasa.gov

2018-069

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Frostburg State Students to Speak with NASA Astronaut in Space

Frostburg State University, in collaboration with its sister institutions in Frostburg, Maryland, will speak with NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold who is living, working and doing research aboard the International Space Station at 9:55 a.m. EDT Monday, April 9.

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NASA Awards Contract for Logistics Support Services

NASA has awarded a contract to L&M Technologies Inc. of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to provide logistics support services at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

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NASA Brings Universe of Discovery to USA Science and Engineering Festival

Step into the future of aviation and space exploration with NASA at the USA Science and Engineering Festival on Saturday, April 7, and Sunday, April 8, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington.

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NASA Announces New Hubble Fellows Selected for 2018

NASA has selected 24 new Fellows for its prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). The program enables outstanding postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research in any area of NASA Astrophysics, using theory, observation, experimentation, or instrument development. Each fellowship provides the awardee up to three years of support.

The new NHFP preserves the legacy of NASA's previous postdoctoral fellowship programs, the Hubble, Einstein and Sagan Fellowships. Once selected, fellows are named to one of three sub-categories corresponding to three broad scientific questions NASA has sought to answer about the universe:

• How does the universe work? - Einstein Fellows
• How did we get here? - Hubble Fellows
• Are we alone? - Sagan Fellows

The NHFP continues to be one of the highlights of NASA's pursuit of excellence in space science.

"The NASA Hubble Fellowship Program selects some of the best new scientists and provides opportunities for them to excel in the field of astrophysics," said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division Director at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "Their discoveries will advance our understanding of the cosmos and bring us closer to solving the mysteries of the universe."

The newly selected NHFP Fellows will begin their programs in the fall of 2018 at a host university or research center of their choosing in the United States. The list below provides the names of the 2018 awardees, their host institutions, and their proposed research topics:

Einstein Fellows

• Kate Alexander, Northwestern University, Quantifying the Diversity of Relativistic Transients with Radio Observations
• Benedikt Diemer, Harvard University, Mapping the True Boundary of Dark Matter Halos with the Splashback Radius
• Ke Fang, Stanford University, The Highest-energy Electromagnetic Counterparts to Neutron Star Mergers
• Maximiliano Isi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fundamental Physics in the Era of Gravitational Wave Astronomy
• Ben Margalit, University of California-Berkeley, Interpreting the Diverse Transient Sky
• Aaron Smith, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Radiation Signatures of the First Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes
• Vladimir Zhdankin, Princeton University, First-Principles Modeling of Astrophysical Turbulence in Collisionless, Nonthermal Plasmas

Hubble Fellows

• Philip Cowperthwaite, Carnegie Observatories, Driving the Growth of Joint Gravitational Wave and Electromagnetic Astronomy
• Daniel Goldstein, Jet Propulsion Laboratory,Putting a New Generation of Strongly Lensed Supernovae to Work
• Max Gronke, University of California-Santa Barbara, Casting (Lyman-Alpha) Light on Galaxy Formation
• Melodie Kao, Arizona State University, How Do Substellar Objects Generate Magnetic Fields?
• Charlotte Mason, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Revolutionizing Reionization with JWST
• Aaron Meisner, Caltech, Revealing the Sun's Coolest, Nearest Neighbors with NEOWISE-Reactivation
• Erica Nelson, Harvard University, The Emergence of Galactic Structure
• Anna Schauer, University of Texas-Austin, Minihaloes: Formation Sites of the First Stars and the Onset of Reionization
• Irene Shivaei, University of Arizona, Unveiling the Obscured Early Universe in the JWST Era
• Tuguldur Sukhbold, The Ohio State University, Core-Collapse Supernovae Across Metallicities and Engines
• Jamie Tayar, University of Hawaii-Institute for Astronomy, Subgiants: Models, Rotation, Convection, and Planets
• Yuan-Sen Ting, Institute for Advanced Study, Chemically Tagging the Milky Way

Sagan Fellows

• Ian Czekala, University of California-Berkeley, A Uniform Measurement of Pre-Main Sequence Stellar Masses and System Architectures Using Protoplanetary Disks
• Johan Mazoyer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Can We Detect Exo-Earths with Future Large Space-Based Coronagraphic Instruments?
• Erik Petigura, Caltech, The Origin of Small Planets
• Kamber Schwarz, University of Arizona, The Evolution of Volatile Molecules from Protoplanetary Disks to Exoplanet Atmospheres
• Daniel Tamayo, Princeton University, A Million-Fold Speedup in the Dynamical Characterization of Exoplanet Systems

More than 500 of the world's prominent and active scientists in astrophysics have been supported in their early careers since NASA began the fellowship program in 1990 with the creation of the original Hubble Fellowship. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) administers the NHFP on behalf of NASA, in collaboration with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) at Caltech in Pasadena, California, and the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

An important part of the NHFP are the Symposia, which allow Fellows the opportunity to present results of their research, to meet each other and the scientific and administrative staff who manage the program.

The Chandra X-ray Center administers the Einstein Fellowship program 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 Fellowship program 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 2020. 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.

For photos and more information about the 2018 NHFP Fellows and this program visit:

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News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-1821

Calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

Cheryl Gundy

Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore

410-338-4707

gundy@stsci.edu

2018-068

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NASA Awards Contract to Build Quieter Supersonic Aircraft

NASA has taken another step toward re-introducing supersonic flight with the award Tuesday of a contract for the design, building and testing of a supersonic aircraft that reduces a sonic boom to a gentle thump.

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Aerospace Tech Startups Get a Chance to Pitch at JPL

Fifteen startup companies in the aerospace sector descended on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on March 15 to pitch their ideas to a packed von Karman auditorium filled with JPL technologists, corporate and government agency leaders, and potential investors.

The event, co-hosted by JPL and Starburst Accelerator, gave each presenter about 15 minutes to pitch their products and business plans in the hopes of bending the ears of investors, and raising awareness of the emergent business sector in the process.

For JPL, the occasion was a chance for technology leaders and program offices across the Lab to get an up-close look at some of the innovative concepts coming from aerospace startups.

Highlights from the day's pitches included a satellite-based electric propulsion system both lighter and more efficient than current market options; an underwater drone surveillance network nicknamed the "Swiss Army Knife of the sea;" and a space-based gas station where future missions could fuel up and unload.

Six judges on the panel gave feedback and asked questions while the scoring results from the audience were collected by Starburst through a mobile app for use in their accelerator and sponsorship programs. The event was focused on awareness, networking and community-building, according to Francois Chopard, chief executive of Starburst.

"There are more and more startups entering the space industry," Chopard said. "For large corporations, there is a new way to innovate: to work and collaborate with outside companies and outside innovation."

Tom Cwik, program manager of JPL's Office of Space Technology, said JPL recognizes that the commercial space sector is expanding, due in large part to the innovations coming out of venture-backed startups driving new ideas. "JPL is going to be a part of that," Cwik said during the Starburst event. "We want to increase the interactions with this community, find the overlap in technology, and collaborate."

JPL's manager for technology partnerships, Richard French, said top-tier firms and forward-leaning government agencies are both actively engaged with new tools for capturing commercially driven innovation and technologies.

"Commercial space is expanding and is gaining momentum, in part due to a major increase in venture-backed startup companies," French said. "JPL is expecting to increase interactions with the emerging commercial space sector and will be expanding our exploration of the overlap between JPL's future mission needs and commercial opportunities."

The recent event, French said, is the beginning of that expansion, and he expects more events and programs to be on JPL's radar in the future.

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-1821

calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

Written by Taylor Hill

JPL Internal Communications

2018-067

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New Research Heading to Space Station Aboard 14th SpaceX Resupply Mission

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station soon will receive a delivery of experiments dealing with how the human body, plants and materials behave in space following the 4:30 p.m. EDT launch Monday of a SpaceX commercial resupply mission.

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