Aug 29 2012

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 12-300 NASA "MOHAWK GUY" TO HOST SHOW ON THIRD ROCK RADIO

WASHINGTON -- NASA's "Mohawk Guy" Bobak Ferdowsi, a flight director for the Mars Science Laboratory mission that lowered the Curiosity rover to the Martian surface in early August, will host a two-hour online broadcast on Internet radio station Third Rock Radio at 4 p.m. EDT, Thursday, August 30. The show, entitled "Getting Curious with the Mohawk Guy," will feature Ferdowsi discussing his experience with the landing of Curiosity, NASA's evolving image, and renewed interest in science and exploration. Ferdowsi works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. Ferdowsi has become an Internet sensation. His image has helped popularize the Mars rover mission with young people, and modernized the general public's perception of NASA engineers and scientists. "I never thought I'd be hosting a radio show," Ferdowsi said. "Landing a rover on Mars rocks, and so does this music!" Ferdowsi has worked at JPL since 2003. He holds a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Washington, and a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the landing of the Curiosity rover, he captured the public's attention with his star-spangled Mohawk hairstyle. Third Rock Radio is produced under a NASA Space Act Agreement with RFC Media of Houston. It was created to help cultivate new interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics among young Americans.

RELEASE: 12-301 NASA CURIOSITY ROVER BEGINS EASTBOUND TREK ON MARTIAN SURFACE

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has set off from its landing vicinity on a trek to a science destination about a quarter-mile (400 meters) away, where it may begin using its drill. The rover drove eastward about 52 feet (16 meters) on Tuesday, its 22nd Martian day after landing. This third drive was longer than Curiosity's first two drives combined. The previous drives tested the mobility system and positioned the rover to examine an area scoured by exhaust from one of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft engines that placed the rover on the ground. "This drive really begins our journey toward the first major driving destination, Glenelg, and it's nice to see some Martian soil on our wheels," said mission manager Arthur Amador of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "The drive went beautifully, just as our rover planners designed it." Glenelg is a location where three types of terrain intersect. Curiosity's science team chose it as a likely place to find a first rock target for drilling and analysis. "We are on our way, though Glenelg is still many weeks away," said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. "We plan to stop for just a day at the location we just reached, but in the next week or so we will make a longer stop." During the longer stop at a site still to be determined, Curiosity will test its robotic arm and the contact instruments at the end of the arm. At the location reached Tuesday, Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) will collect a set of images toward the mission's ultimate driving destination, the lower slope of nearby Mount Sharp. A mosaic of images from the current location will be used along with the Mastcam images of the mountain taken at the spot where Curiosity touched down, Bradbury Landing. This stereo pair taken about 33 feet (10 meters) apart will provide three-dimensional information about distant features and possible driving routes. Curiosity is three weeks into a two-year prime mission on Mars. It will use 10 science instruments to assess whether the selected study area ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-165 NASA, WHOI TO HOLD MEDIA BRIEFING ON OCEAN SALINITY EXPEDITION

WASHINGTON -- NASA-funded researchers are making final preparations at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Mass., for an ocean-going campaign designed to shed new light on the link between ocean salinity and shifts in global precipitation patterns. Reporters are invited to attend a media briefing on the expedition at 10 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, Sept. 5, at WHOI. Media also can participate via telephone. NASA's field campaign, named the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Region Study (SPURS), will take the research vessel Knorr to a high-salinity region in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal. The six-week voyage will deploy numerous instruments, many of which will make autonomous measurements over the course of a year to create a three-dimensional picture of salinity beneath the ocean surface. The panelists on the briefing are: -- Raymond Schmitt, senior scientist, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution -- Eric Lindstrom, physical oceanography program scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington -- Dave Fratantoni, associate scientist, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Reporters who attend the briefing will meet SPURS researchers, tour the Knorr and see the variety of instruments and vehicles that will be deployed at sea. The instruments will collect data to complement observations from NASA's salinity-sensing instrument aboard the Aquarius/SAC-D (Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas) observatory launched in June 2011.

RELEASE: 12-295 NASA'S WISE SURVEY UNCOVERS MILLIONS OF BLACK HOLES

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission has led to a bonanza of newfound supermassive black holes and extreme galaxies called hot DOGs, or dust-obscured galaxies. Images from the telescope have revealed millions of dusty black hole candidates across the universe and about 1,000 even dustier objects thought to be among the brightest galaxies ever found. These powerful galaxies that burn brightly with infrared light are nicknamed hot DOGs. "WISE has exposed a menagerie of hidden objects," said Hashima Hasan, WISE program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We've found an asteroid dancing ahead of Earth in its orbit, the coldest star-like orbs known and now, supermassive black holes and galaxies hiding behind cloaks of dust." WISE scanned the whole sky twice in infrared light, completing its survey in early 2011. Like night-vision goggles probing the dark, the telescope captured millions of images of the sky. All the data from the mission have been released publicly, allowing astronomers to dig in and make new discoveries. The latest findings are helping astronomers better understand how galaxies and the behemoth black holes at their centers grow and evolve together. For example, the giant black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, called Sagittarius A*, has 4 million times the mass of our sun and has gone through periodic feeding frenzies where material falls towards the black hole, heats up, and irradiates its surroundings. Bigger central black holes, up to a billion times the mass of our sun, even may shut down star formation in galaxies. In one study, astronomers used WISE to identify about 2.5 million actively feeding supermassive black holes across the full sky, stretching back to distances more than 10 billion light-years away. About two-thirds of these black holes never had been detected before because dust blocks their visible light. WISE easily sees these monsters because their powerful, accreting black holes warm the dust, causing it to glow in infrared light. In two other WISE papers, researchers report finding what are among the brightest galaxies known, one of the main goals of the mission. So far, they have identified about 1,000 candidates. These extreme objects can pour out more than 100 trillion times as much light as our sun. They are so dusty, however, that they appear only in the longest wavelengths of infrared light captured by WISE. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope followed up on the discoveries in more detail and helped show that, in addition to hosting supermassive black holes feverishly snacking on gas and dust, these DOGs are busy churning out new stars. "These dusty, cataclysmically forming galaxies are so rare WISE had to scan the entire sky to find them," said Peter Eisenhardt, lead author of the paper on the first of these bright, dusty galaxies, and project scientist for WISE at JPL. "We are also seeing evidence that these record setters may have formed their black holes before the bulk of their stars. The 'eggs' may have come before the 'chickens.'" More than 100 of these objects, located about 10 billion light-years away, have been confirmed using the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, as well as the Gemini Observatory in Chile, Palomar's 200-inch Hale telescope near San Diego, and the Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. The WISE observations combined with data at even longer infrared wavelengths from Caltech's Submillimeter Observatory atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, revealed that these extreme galaxies are more than twice as hot as other infrared-bright galaxies. One theory is their dust is being heated by an extremely powerful burst of activity from the supermassive black hole. "We may be seeing a new, rare phase in the evolution of galaxies," said Jingwen Wu of JPL, lead author of the study on the submillimeter observations. All three papers are being published in the Astrophysical Journal.

RELEASE: 12-299 NASA COMPLETES MAXIMUM PARACHUTE TEST FOR ORION SPACECRAFT

HOUSTON -- NASA Tuesday successfully completed another parachute test of its Orion spacecraft high above the skies of the U.S. Yuma Army Proving Ground in southwestern Arizona. The test examined the maximum pressure Orion's parachutes might face when returning from exploration missions. Orion will be the most advanced spacecraft ever designed and carry astronauts farther into space than ever before. It will provide emergency abort capability, sustain astronauts during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space. During the test, a C-130 airplane dropped a dart-shaped test vehicle with a simulated Orion parachute compartment from an altitude of 25,000 feet. Orion's drogue chutes were deployed at approximately 20,000 feet, followed by small pilot chutes, which then deployed the three main parachutes. Each of the main parachutes is 116 feet wide and weighs more than 300 pounds. "Each one of these tests helps us verify the parachute system for Orion is safe, efficient and robust," said Chris Johnson, a NASA project manager for Orion's parachute assembly system. "Today's test demonstrated the parachutes can deploy at the maximum velocity expected when returning from deep space." This is the latest in a series of parachute drop tests, with each one designed to test a different condition or behavior of the parachutes. Besides the dart-shaped test vehicle used to simulate the speeds at which Orion will descend, NASA also uses a test vehicle that more closely resembles the actual Orion spacecraft. Orion will fly its first test flight, Exploration Flight Test 1, in 2014. During the test, the spacecraft will travel more than 3,600 miles into space -- 15 times farther from Earth than the International Space Station -- and reach speeds of more than 20,000 mph before returning to Earth. This unmanned test flight will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It is designed to test several Orion systems, including the heat shield and parachutes at speeds generated during a return from deep space. In 2017, Orion will be launched by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS will enable new missions of exploration and expand human presence across the solar system.