NASA MARS Orbiter: Tenth Anniversary Image from THEMIS

The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has completed an unprecedented full decade of observing Mars from orbit.

THEMIS captured this image on Feb. 19, 2012, 10 years to the day after the camera recorded its first view of Mars.

This image covers an area 11 by 32 miles (19 by 52 kilometers) in the Nepenthes Mensae region north of the Martian equator.

The view depicts a knobby landscape where the southern highlands are breaking up as the terrain descends into the northern lowlands.

Odyssey, launched in 2001, has worked at Mars longer than any mission in history.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

THEMIS was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing.

For more information about Mars Odyssey, visit mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey . For more about THEMIS, see themis.asu.edu/ .

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Paper Money is poison: Worldwide it Contains Bisphenol A

The cash register receipts that people place near paper money in billfolds, purses, and pockets has led to a worldwide contamination of paper money with bisphenol A (BPA),a potentially toxic substance found in some plastics, thermal paper and other products.

The amounts of BPA on dollars, Euros, rubles, yuans, and other currencies, are higher than in house dust, but human intake from currency is at least 10 times less than those from house dust.

That's the conclusion of a new study in the ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Kurunthachalam Kannan and Chunyang Liao point out that manufacturers use BPA to make polycarbonate plastics used in some consumer products, including water bottles, sports equipment, and household electronics.

Studies indicate that BPA acts as an endocrine disruptor -- meaning it mimics the action of the sex hormone estrogen. Exposure to BPA has been linked to a variety of health problems. Although a recent study found traces of BPA in U.S. currency, nobody knew until now about BPA in paper money worldwide.

The scientists' analysis of 156 pieces of paper money from 21 countries found that all contained traces of BPA. The report notes, however, that "estimated daily intake from paper currencies were 10-fold lower than those reported from exposures due to [indoor] dust ingestion in the United States."

The highest BPA levels were in paper money from Brazil, the Czech Republic and Australia, while the lowest occurred in paper money from the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Levels in U.S. notes were about average.

Kannan and Liao also found that the most likely source of the BPA in the currency is the thermal paper used in cash register receipts. They showed that receipts can transfer BPA onto cash when placed next to it or when a receipt is touched before handling currency.

"Although high levels of BPA were measured in paper currencies, human exposure through dermal [skin] absorption appears to be minor," the article notes.

NASA Space Shuttle Discovery Image: Thermal Tile Inspection

This close-up view of the nose of Discovery shows the thermal tiles covering the underside of the space shuttle.

Picture: NASA

NASA Cassini Image: Thermal cracks on Saturn's Moon Enceladus

This image shows a high-resolution heat intensity map of part of the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus, made from data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

The map reveals never-before-seen details of warm fractures that branch off like split ends from the ends of the main trenches of two "tiger stripes."

The features nicknamed "tiger stripes" are long fissures that spray water vapor and icy particles.

These two fissures, Cairo Sulcus (left) and Alexandria Sulcus (right), extend to the lower right, off the bottom of the image. The map also shows an intriguing isolated warm spot, shown in purple-red in the upper left of the image, that is separated from other active
fissures.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC/SWRI/SSI

NASA: Thermal Images of Shuttle Discovery

These newly-released thermal images capture the play of heat across the surface of the space shuttle Discovery as it returned to Earth on 11 September 2009.

They were taken from a Navy patrol aircraft, which tracked the space vehicle as it streaked past en route to Edwards Air Force base.

A total of 8 minutes of uninterrupted thermal footage was captured, recording the surface heat on the shuttle as it decelerated from Mach 19, or 6.5 kilometres per second, to just below Mach 9.

The observations will be combined with data from sensors on board the shuttle, as well as computer models.

This is the third time the HYTHIRM team has successfully captured thermal images of the space shuttle. The other two were STS-119 on 28 March (bottom left) and STS-125 on 24 May, which serviced the Hubble Space Telescope. Getting detailed information about the shuttle's heat distribution is important for evaluating the craft's safety, an issue that was highlighted by the space shuttle Columbia's destruction by heat when it re-entered the atmosphere in 2003.

(Image: NASA Langley)