NASA P-3 Airborne Lab Image: Transantarctic Mountains

This image of the Transantarctic Mountains was taken from the NASA P-3 airborne laboratory on Nov. 27, 2013, near the end of the 2013 IceBridge Antarctic campaign.

NASA’s Operation IceBridge images Earth's polar ice in unprecedented detail to better understand processes that connect the polar regions with the global climate system. 

IceBridge utilizes a highly specialized fleet of research aircraft and the most sophisticated suite of innovative science instruments ever assembled to characterize annual changes in thickness of sea ice, glaciers, and ice sheets.

In addition, IceBridge collects critical data used to predict the response of earth’s polar ice to climate change and resulting sea-level rise. 

IceBridge also helps bridge the gap in polar observations between NASA's ICESat satellite missions.

Image Credit: NASA / Michael Studinger

NASA DAWN readied for engagement with CERES

This artist's concept shows NASA's Dawn spacecraft heading toward the dwarf planet Ceres. 

Dawn spent nearly 14 months orbiting Vesta, the second most massive object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, from 2011 to 2012.

It is heading towards Ceres, the largest member of the asteroid belt.

When Dawn arrives, it will be the first spacecraft to go into orbit around two destinations in our solar system beyond Earth. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is ready to engage with dwarf planet Ceres, and mission managers have stated.

Dawn has been cruising toward Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, since September 2012, when it departed from its other target, Vesta.

Ceres presents an icy—possibly watery—counterpoint to the dry Vesta, where Dawn spent almost 14 months.

Vesta and Ceres are two of the largest surviving protoplanets—bodies that almost became planets—and will give scientists clues about the planet-forming conditions at the dawn of our solar system.

When Dawn enters orbit around Ceres, it will be the first spacecraft to see a dwarf planet up-close and the first spacecraft to orbit two solar system destinations beyond Earth.

"Our flight plan around Ceres will be choreographed to be very similar to the strategy that we successfully used around Vesta," said Bob Mase, Dawn's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"This approach will build on that and enable scientists to make direct comparisons between these two giants of the asteroid belt."

As a prelude, the team will begin approach operations in late January 2015. The next month, Ceres will be big enough in Dawn's view to be imaged and used for navigation purposes.

Dawn will arrive at Ceres—or, more accurately, it will be captured by Ceres' gravity—in late March or the beginning of April 2015.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft will be getting an up-close look at the dwarf planet Ceres starting in late March or the beginning of April 2015. 

This graphic shows the science-gathering orbits planned for the spacecraft, with the altitudes above the surface noted for each of the orbits. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Dawn will make its first full characterization of Ceres later in April, at an altitude of about 8,400 miles (13,500 kilometers) above the icy surface.

Then, it will spiral down to an altitude of about 2,750 miles (4,430 kilometers), and obtain more science data in its survey science orbit.

This phase will last for 22 days, and is designed to obtain a global view of Ceres with Dawn's framing camera, and global maps with the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR).

Dawn will then continue to spiral its way down to an altitude of about 920 miles (1,480 kilometers), and in August 2015 will begin a two-month phase known as the high-altitude mapping orbit.

During this phase, the spacecraft will continue to acquire near-global maps with the VIR and framing camera at higher resolution than in the survey phase.

The spacecraft will also image in "stereo" to resolve the surface in 3-D.

NASA WISE: Massive black hole duo

Two black holes are entwined in a gravitational tango in this artist's conception. 

Supermassive black holes at the hearts of galaxies are thought to form through the merging of smaller, yet still massive black holes, such as the ones depicted here. 

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), helped lead astronomers to what appears to be a new example of a dancing black hole duo. 

Called WISE J233237.05-505643.5, the suspected black hole merger is located about 3.8 billion light-years from Earth, much farther than other black hole binary candidates of a similar nature. 

Credit: NASA

Astronomers have spotted what appear to be two supermassive black holes at the heart of a remote galaxy, circling each other like dance partners.

The incredibly rare sighting was made with the help of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

Follow-up observations with the Australian Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri, Australia, and the Gemini South telescope in Chile, revealed unusual features in the galaxy, including a lumpy jet thought to be the result of one black hole causing the jet of the other to sway.

"We think the jet of one black hole is being wiggled by the other, like a dance with ribbons," said Chao-Wei Tsai of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who is lead author of a paper on the findings appearing in the Dec. 10 issue of Astrophysical Journal.

"If so, it is likely the two black holes are fairly close and gravitationally entwined."

The findings could teach astronomers more about how supermassive black holes grow by merging with each other.

The WISE satellite scanned the entire sky twice in infrared wavelengths before being put into hibernation in 2011. NASA recently gave the spacecraft a second lease on life, waking it up to search for asteroids, in a project called NEOWISE.

The new study took advantage of previously released all-sky WISE data. Astronomers sifted through images of millions of actively feeding supermassive black holes spread throughout our sky before an oddball, also known as WISE J233237.05-505643.5, jumped out.

"At first we thought this galaxy's unusual properties seen by WISE might mean it was forming new stars at a furious rate," said Peter Eisenhardt, WISE project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and a co-author of the study.

"But on closer inspection, it looks more like the death spiral of merging giant black holes."

Almost every large galaxy is thought to harbor a supermassive black hole filled with the equivalent in mass of up to billions of suns.

How did the black holes grow so large? One way is by swallowing ambient materials. Another way is through galactic cannibalism.

When galaxies collide, their massive black holes sink to the center of the new structure, becoming locked in a gravitational tango. Eventually, they merge into one even-more-massive black hole.

More information: Preprint paper: arxiv.org/abs/1310.2257

SpaceX launches commercial satellite after 3rd attempt

After two delays, private US company SpaceX on Tuesday successfully launched its first commercial satellite, after repairs were made to the Falcon 9 rocket.

It roared into space at 2241 GMT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, SpaceX said in a statement.

Its $100 million satellite was placed in orbit 14 minutes later, a SpaceX spokesman confirmed.

The rocket's cargo was a telecommunications satellite for the Luxembourg company SES, which until now has used European Ariane rockets or the Russian Proton for its satellite launches.

"Restart was good, apogee raised to 80k km (50k miles). Yes!!!," SpaceX owner Elon Musk, the billionaire Internet entrepreneur, said shortly after takeoff.

SES-8 is SpaceX's first launch to a geostationary transfer orbit -- 80,000 kilometers (50,000 miles) from Earth -- and most challenging mission to date, the company said earlier on Twitter.

The SES-8 satellite is due to provide television, cable TV and other services to countries including China, India and Vietnam.

SpaceX is eager to get into the commercial satellite launch business, estimated to be worth $190 billion a year.

The launch is the first using an improved version of the Falcon 9 after a test flight in California.

Hubble traces subtle signals of water on hazy worlds

To determine what's in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, astronomers watch the planet pass in front of its host star and look at which wavelengths of light are transmitted and which are partially absorbed. 

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Using the powerful eye of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, two teams of scientists have found faint signatures of water in the atmospheres of five distant planets.

The presence of atmospheric water was reported previously on a few exoplanets orbiting stars beyond our solar system, but this is the first study to conclusively measure and compare the profiles and intensities of these signatures on multiple worlds.

The five planets—WASP-17b, HD209458b, WASP-12b, WASP-19b and XO-1b—orbit nearby stars.

The strengths of their water signatures varied. WASP-17b, a planet with an especially puffed-up atmosphere, and HD209458b had the strongest signals.

The signatures for the other three planets, WASP-12b, WASP-19b and XO-1b, also are consistent with water.

"We're very confident that we see a water signature for multiple planets," said Avi Mandell, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and lead author of an Astrophysical Journal paper, published today, describing the findings for WASP-12b, WASP-17b and WASP-19b.

"This work really opens the door for comparing how much water is present in atmospheres on different kinds of exoplanets, for example hotter versus cooler ones."

The studies were part of a census of exoplanet atmospheres led by L. Drake Deming of the University of Maryland in College Park.

Both teams used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to explore the details of absorption of light through the planets' atmospheres.

The observations were made in a range of infrared wavelengths where the water signature, if present, would appear.

The teams compared the shapes and intensities of the absorption profiles, and the consistency of the signatures gave them confidence they saw water.

The observations demonstrate Hubble's continuing exemplary performance in exoplanet research.

"To actually detect the atmosphere of an exoplanet is extraordinarily difficult. But we were able to pull out a very clear signal, and it is water," said Deming, whose team reported results for HD209458b and XO-1b in a Sept. 10 paper in the same journal.

Deming's team employed a new technique with longer exposure times, which increased the sensitivity of their measurements.

Alhambra sky survey maps galactic evolution

The picture shows a small fragment of the sky as seen in the most complete mapping of the sky available today. Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), right, and the same fragment observed by ALHAMBRA, left.

The ALHAMBRA project, led by researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía and in which the University of Valencia has participated, has identified and classified more than half a million galaxies, after seven years of close observation of the universe from the Observatory of Calar Alto (CAHA, Almería) and thanks to a technique that breaks the stars energy in their colours through astronomical filters.

In addition, this research has also calculated the distances from these galaxies to us with unprecedented accuracy.

ALHAMBRA (Advanced Large, Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical survey) has a system of twenty filters covering all wavelengths in the optical and three filters in the infrared, which accurately determines the energy emitted by galaxies and the distance of half a million galaxies with unprecedented depth for the sample size.

The ALHAMBRA mapping represents an ambitious scientific project that has mobilised scientists from sixteen research institutes.

Led by Mariano Moles (CEFCA) and developed in the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), it was designed to trace the universe's evolution during the last ten million years.

"ALHAMBRA represents a decisive step to solve pressing issues in cosmology and astrophysics through photometric mapping, offering accuracy required to determine the distance of the detected objects," Moles says.

Thus, "the unbiased character of these mappings allows obtaining relevant data for all cosmic scales and, in this sense, the ALHAMBRA project is a precursor of the new long-range mapping that is being proposed."

Read more here

NASA NuSTAR: Fiona Harrison speaks about the mission - Video

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), sees the high-energy X-rays emitted by the densest, hottest regions of the universe.

The brainchild of Fiona Harrison, Caltech's Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics and Astronomy and NuSTAR's principal investigator, the phone-booth-sized NuSTAR was launched from beneath an airplane's wing, unfolding to the length of a school bus once in orbit.

Professor Harrison will describe NuSTAR's unlikely journey and share some of its remarkable results at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, December 4, in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium. Admission is free.



Q: What's "new" about NuSTAR?

NuSTAR is the first focusing high-energy X-ray telescope. X-rays can be focused by reflection, but they're so penetrating that they only reflect at very glancing angles—sort of like skipping a stone off the surface of a lake.

But most of the X-rays don't interact even then, so you use "nested optics," which you can think of as a set of cones nested inside one another like Russian dolls.

Each cone intercepts some of the X-ray beam. The higher the energy, the more glancing the reflecting angle is, and the more cones you need.

Other focusing telescopes, such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, observe X-rays with energies below about 10 kilo-electronvolts. NuSTAR can see up to 79 kilo-electronvolts.

Chandra has four nested mirrors, each about an inch thick and set at about a one-degree angle; NuSTAR has 133 mirrors as thin as my fingernail and almost parallel to the incoming light.

We developed the detector here at Caltech. It's a digital camera, but made out of a special material that stops the high-energy X-rays that would have gone straight through previous X-ray imaging detectors.

NuSTAR is hundreds of times more sensitive, and its images are 10 times crisper than its nonfocusing predecessors, which basically worked like the pinhole camera you may have used to watch a solar eclipse.

So we're able to observe the universe to much greater depth and in much greater detail than has previously been possible.

Q: What does NuSTAR see that we wouldn't see at other wavelengths?

A whole variety of things. Medical X-rays are about 60 kilo-electronvolts, which is in the band that we observe.

They penetrate the skin but stop in the bones, casting a shadow that shows up on the film. Similarly, we can look into the hearts of galaxies with high-energy X-rays, which penetrate the clouds of dust and gas where low-energy X-rays would be absorbed.

We can see supermassive black holes, or rather the X-rays emitted by the very hot stuff falling into them. We can see neutron stars, which are the collapsed cores of burned-out stars so dense that a teaspoon of neutron star would weigh more than all of humanity. We can see the remnants of dead, exploded stars.
Q: What is your role in all this?

We built a pinhole-camera-type X-ray telescope as part of my PhD work at Berkeley in the early '90s, but we needed something much more sensitive to do what we really wanted to do.

So we came down to Caltech, and we began developing NuSTAR's technology for a balloon experiment called the High-Energy Focusing Telescope, or HEFT. HEFT flew in 2005 and it was so successful that we submitted a proposal to NASA's Small Explorer program to build a space version.

As the principal investigator, I was responsible for putting the team together that proposed NuSTAR to NASA, and for overseeing the construction and launch.

Now I lead the science team, which decides what to look at and analyzes all the data. Our primary mission ends in 2014, so right now I'm starting to write a proposal to extend the mission for another two years as a guest-investigator program open to anyone anywhere in the world.

I hope NuSTAR keeps me busy for another 10 years or more. There are no expendables such as cryogenic coolant, so it's a matter of how long the orbit lasts.

We do experience atmospheric drag, so NuSTAR will eventually reenter and burn up. Either that, or something will break. As a small, inexpensive mission, we don't have redundant systems. If something breaks, there's no backup to switch over to.