Oct 24 2012

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 12-371 2012 ANTARCTIC OZONE HOLE SECOND SMALLEST IN 20 YEARS

WASHINGTON -- The average area covered by the Antarctic ozone hole this year was the second smallest in the last 20 years, according to data from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites. Scientists attribute the change to warmer temperatures in the Antarctic lower stratosphere. The ozone hole reached its maximum size Sept. 22, covering 8.2 million square miles (21.2 million square kilometers), or the area of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined. The average size of the 2012 ozone hole was 6.9 million square miles (17.9 million square kilometers). The Sept. 6, 2000 ozone hole was the largest on record at 11.5 million square miles (29.9 million square kilometers). "The ozone hole mainly is caused by chlorine from human-produced chemicals, and these chlorine levels are still sizable in the Antarctic stratosphere," said NASA atmospheric scientist Paul Newman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Natural fluctuations in weather patterns resulted in warmer stratospheric temperatures this year. These temperatures led to a smaller ozone hole." The ozone layer acts as Earth's natural shield against ultraviolet radiation, which can cause skin cancer. The ozone hole phenomenon began making a yearly appearance in the early 1980s. The Antarctic ozone layer likely will not return to its early 1980s state until about 2065, Newman said. The lengthy recovery is because of the long lifetimes of ozone-depleting substances in the atmosphere. Overall atmospheric ozone no longer is declining as concentrations of ozone-depleting substances decrease. The decrease is the result of an international agreement regulating the production of certain chemicals. This year also showed a change in the concentration of ozone over the Antarctic. The minimum value of total ozone in the ozone hole was the second highest level in two decades. Total ozone, measured in Dobson units (DU), reached 124 DU on Oct. 1. NOAA ground-based measurements at the South Pole recorded 136 DU on Oct. 5. When the ozone hole is not present, total ozone typically ranges from 240-500 DU. This is the first year growth of the ozone hole has been observed by an ozone-monitoring instrument on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. The instrument, called the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite (OMPS), is based on previous instruments, such as the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet instrument (SBUV/2), which have flown on multiple satellites. OMPS continues a satellite record dating back to the early 1970s. In addition to observing the annual formation and extent of the ozone hole, scientists hope OMPS will help them better understand ozone destruction in the middle and upper stratosphere with its Nadir Profiler. Ozone variations in the lower stratosphere will be measured with its Limb Profiler. "OMPS Limb looks sideways, and it can measure ozone as a function of height," said Pawan K. Bhartia, a NASA atmospheric physicist and OMPS Limb instrument lead. "This OMPS instrument allows us to more closely see the vertical development of Antarctic ozone depletion in the lower stratosphere where the ozone hole occurs." NASA and NOAA have been monitoring the ozone layer on the ground and with a variety of instruments on satellites and balloons since the 1970s. Long-term ozone monitoring instruments have included TOMS, SBUV/2, Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment series of instruments, the Microwave Limb Sounder, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument, and the OMPS instrument on Suomi NPP. Suomi NPP is a bridging mission leading to the next-generation polar-orbiting environmental satellites called the Joint Polar Satellite System, which will extend ozone monitoring into the 2030s. NASA and NOAA have a mandate under the Clean Air Act to monitor ozone-depleting gases and stratospheric depletion of ozone. NOAA complies with this mandate by monitoring ozone via ground and satellite measurements. The NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., performs the ground-based monitoring. The Climate Prediction Center performs the satellite monitoring.

RELEASE: 12-373 NASA SELECTS EARLY STAGE INNOVATION PROPOSALS FROM 10 UNIVERSITIES

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected 10 university-led proposals for study of innovative, early-stage space technologies designed to improve shielding from space radiation, spacecraft thermal management and optical systems. The 1-year grants are worth approximately $250,000 each, with an additional year of research possible. Each of these technology areas requires dramatic improvements over existing capabilities for future science and human exploration missions. Early stage, or low technology readiness level concepts, could mature into tools that solve the difficult challenges facing future NASA missions. The selected areas address the high-priority technical needs as identified by the National Research Council in its recent report "NASA Space Technology Roadmaps and Priorities: Restoring NASA's Technological Edge and Paving the Way for a New Era in Space." "NASA's Space Technology Program is moving out on solving the cross-cutting technology challenges we face as we move beyond low-Earth orbit and head to an asteroid, Mars and beyond," said Michael Gazarik the program's director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Our science and human deep space missions need advancements in these technology areas to enable exploration of space. We're excited and proud to partner with the best minds from American universities to take on these tough technical challenges." Universities selected for early stage innovation grants and the names of their proposals are: ---Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland; "Heat rejection system for thermal management in space utilizing a planar variable-conductance heat pipe" ---Colorado State University, Fort Collins; "Computational approaches for developing active radiation dosimeters for space applications based on new paradigms for risk assessment" ---Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta; "Design and development of a next generation high capacity, light weight, 20-K pulse tube cryocooler for active thermal control on future space exploration missions" ---Pennsylvania State University, University Park; "Integrated control electronics for adjustable X-ray optics" ---Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.; "Adaptable single active loop thermal control system (TCS) for future space missions" ---University of Alabama in Huntsville; "Advanced scintillating fiber technology in high energy neutron spectrometers for exploration" ---University of Arizona, Tucson; "Wavefront control for high performance coronagraphy on segmented and centrally obscured telescopes" ---University of Houston; "High hydrogen content nanostructured polymer radiation protection system" ---University of New Hampshire, Durham; "Small active readout device for dose spectra from energetic particles and neutrons (DoSEN)" ---Oregon State University, Corvallis; "Enabling self-propelled condensate flow during phase-change heat rejection using surface texturing" The selected efforts will explore new approaches to protect crews from ionizing space radiation and develop new technologies to measure and characterize the ionizing particle environment wherever humans may travel beyond Earth orbit. Researchers also will explore technologies to greatly increase the capability to store cryogenic fluids and investigate heat rejection technologies capable of operating reliably and efficiently through a wide range of thermal conditions. In addition, researchers will develop technologies that could lead to new classes of X-ray telescopes and explore techniques aimed at direct imaging and characterization of Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. Second year funding for these grants will be contingent on technical progress and the availability of appropriated funds. The selections are part of NASA's Space Technology Research Grants Program. The program is designed to accelerate the development of technologies originating from academia that support the future science and exploration needs of NASA, other government agencies and American industry. The program is part of NASA's Space Technology Program, which is innovating, developing, testing, and flying technology for use in NASA's future missions and the greater aerospace community.

RELEASE: 12-374 NASA'S SPITZER SEES LIGHT OF LONESOME STARS

WASHINGTON -- A new study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggests a cause for the mysterious glow of infrared light seen across the entire sky. It comes from isolated stars beyond the edges of galaxies. These stars are thought to have once belonged to the galaxies before violent galaxy mergers stripped them away into the relatively empty space outside of their former homes. "The infrared background glow in our sky has been a huge mystery," said Asantha Cooray of the University of California at Irvine (UC Irvine), lead author of the new research published in the journal Nature. "We have new evidence this light is from the stars that linger between galaxies. Individually, the stars are too faint to be seen, but we think we are seeing their collective glow." The findings disagree with another theory explaining the same background infrared light observed by Spitzer. A group led by Alexander "Sasha" Kashlinsky of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., proposed in June this light, which appears in Spitzer images as a blotchy pattern, is coming from the very first stars and galaxies. In the new study, Cooray and colleagues looked at data from a larger portion of the sky, called the Bootes field, covering an arc equivalent to 50 full Earth moons. These observations were not as sensitive as those from the Kashlinsky group's studies, but the larger scale allowed researchers to better analyze the pattern of the background infrared light. "We looked at the Bootes field with Spitzer for 250 hours," said co-author Daniel Stern of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "Studying the faint infrared background was one of the core goals of our survey, and we carefully designed the observations in order to directly address the important, challenging question of what causes the background glow." The team concluded the light pattern of the infrared glow is not consistent with theories and computer simulations of the first stars and galaxies. Researchers say the glow is too bright to be from the first galaxies, which are thought not to have been as large or as numerous as the galaxies we see around us today. Instead, the scientists propose a new theory to explain the blotchy light, based on theories of "intracluster" or "intrahalo" starlight. Theories predict a diffuse smattering of stars beyond the halos, or outer reaches, of galaxies, and in the spaces between clusters of galaxies. The presence of these stars can be attributed to two phenomena. Early in the history of our universe as galaxies grew in size, they collided with other galaxies and gained mass. As the colliding galaxies became tangled gravitationally, strips of stars were shredded and tossed into space. Galaxies also grow by swallowing smaller dwarf galaxies, a messy process that also results in stray stars. "A light bulb went off when reading some research papers predicting the existence of diffuse stars," Cooray said. "They could explain what we are seeing with Spitzer." More research is needed to confirm this sprinkling of stars makes up a significant fraction of the background infrared light. For instance, it would be necessary to find a similar pattern in follow-up observations in visible light. NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) might finally settle the matter for good. "The keen infrared vision of the James Webb Telescope will be able to see some of the earliest stars and galaxies directly, as well as the stray stars lurking between the outskirts of nearby galaxies," said Eric Smith, JWST's deputy program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The mystery objects making up the background infrared light may finally be exposed." Other authors include Joseph Smidt, Francesco De Bernardis, Yan Gong and Christopher C. Frazer of UC Irvine; Matthew L. N. Ashby of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass; Peter R. Eisenhardt of JPL; Anthony H. Gonzalez of the University of Florida in Gainesville; Christopher S. Kochanek of Ohio State University in Columbus; Szymon Kozlowski of Ohio State and the Warsaw University Observatory in Poland; and Edward L. Wright of the University of California, Los Angeles. JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-206 NASA TV TO AIR SPACE STATION CARGO SHIP LAUNCH AND DOCKING

HOUSTON -- NASA Television will provide live coverage of the launch and docking of the next Russian cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station Wednesday, Oct. 31. The ISS Progress 49 resupply ship, loaded with 2.5 tons of food, fuel and supplies for the crew aboard the station, is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:41 a.m. CDT (3:41 a.m. EDT and 1:41 p.m. Kazakhstan time). NASA TV coverage of the launch begins at 2:15 a.m. A few hours later, NASA TV coverage will resume at 8 a.m. CDT for the docking of the Progress to the space station's Zvezda Service Module at 8:40 a.m.