Feb 22 2010

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 10-230

NASA AND OPTIMUS PRIME COLLABORATE TO EDUCATE YOUTH

WASHINGTON -- NASA has developed a contest to raise students' awareness of technology transfer efforts and how NASA technologies contribute to our everyday lives. NASA is collaborating with Hasbro using the correlation between the popular TRANSFORMERS brand, featuring its leader OPTIMUS PRIME, and spinoffs from NASA technologies created for aeronautics and space missions that are used here on Earth. The goal is to help students understand that NASA technology 'transforms' into things that are used daily. These 'transformed' technologies include water purifiers, medical imaging software, or fabric that protects against UV rays. The Innovative Partnerships Program Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in conjunction with NASA's Office of Education, has designed a video contest for students from third to eighth grade. Each student, or group of students, will submit a three- to five-minute video on a selected NASA spinoff technology listed in the 2009 Spinoff publication. Videos must demonstrate an understanding of the NASA spinoff technology and the associated NASA mission, as well as the commercial application and public benefit associated with the ?transformed? technology. Video entries are due by December 31. The videos will be posted on the NASA YouTube channel, and the public will be responsible for the first round of judging. The top five submissions from each of the two grade groups (third-fifth and sixth-eighth) will advance for final judging. A NASA panel will select a winning entry from each group, and the students will receive a glass OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Award at the Space Foundation's National Space Symposium in 2011. The innovators of the NASA technology highlighted in the winning videos also will receive trophies, along with their commercial partners.

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RELEASE: 10-216

NASA DATA SHED NEW LIGHT ABOUT WATER AND VOLCANOES ON MARS

HOUSTON -- Data from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest liquid water has interacted with the Martian surface throughout the planet's history and into modern times. The research also provides new evidence that volcanic activity has persisted on the Red Planet into geologically recent times, several million years ago. Although the lander, which arrived on Mars on May 25, 2008, is no longer operating, NASA scientists continue to analyze data gathered from that mission. These recent findings are based on data about the planet's carbon dioxide, which makes up about 95 percent of the Martian atmosphere. "Atmospheric carbon dioxide is like a chemical spy, said Paul Niles, a space scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. It infiltrates every part of the surface of Mars and can indicate the presence of water and its history. Phoenix precisely measured isotopes of carbon and oxygen in the carbon dioxide of the Martian atmosphere. Isotopes are variants of the same element with different atomic weights. Niles is lead author of a paper about the findings published in Thursday's online edition of the journal Science. The paper explains the ratios of stable isotopes and their implications for the history of Martian water and volcanoes. "Isotopes can be used as a chemical signature that can tell us where something came from, and what kinds of events it has experienced, Niles said. This chemical signature suggests that liquid water primarily existed at temperatures near freezing and that hydrothermal systems similar to Yellowstone's hot springs have been rare throughout the planet's past. Measurements concerning carbon dioxide showed Mars is a much more active planet than previously thought. The results imply Mars has replenished its atmospheric carbon dioxide relatively recently, and the carbon dioxide has reacted with liquid water present on the surface. Measurements were performed by an instrument on Phoenix called the Evolved Gas Analyzer. The instrument was capable of doing more accurate analysis of carbon dioxide than similar instruments on NASA's Viking landers in the 1970s. The Viking Program provided the only previous Mars isotope data sent back to Earth. The low gravity and lack of a magnetic field on Mars mean that as carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, it will be lost to space. This process favors loss of a lighter isotope named carbon-12 compared to carbon-13. If Martian carbon dioxide had experienced only this process of atmospheric loss without some additional process replenishing carbon-12, the ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 would be much higher than what Phoenix measured. This suggests the Martian atmosphere recently has been replenished with carbon dioxide emitted from volcanoes, and volcanism has been an active process in Mars' recent past. However, a volcanic signature is not present in the proportions of two other isotopes, oxygen-18 and oxygen-16, found in Martian carbon dioxide. The finding suggests the carbon dioxide has reacted with liquid water, which enriched the oxygen in carbon dioxide with the heavier oxygen-18. Niles and his team theorize this oxygen isotopic signature indicates liquid water has been present on the Martian surface recently enough and abundantly enough to affect the composition of the current atmosphere. The findings do not reveal specific locations or dates of liquid water and volcanic vents, but recent occurrences of those conditions provide the best explanations for the isotope proportions. The Phoenix mission was led by principal investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The University of Arizona provided the lander's Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer.

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RELEASE: 10-249

WISE CAPTURES KEY IMAGE OF COMET MISSION'S DESTINATION

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, caught a glimpse of the comet that the agency's EPOXI mission will visit in November. The WISE observation will help the EPOXI team put together a large-scale picture of the comet, known as Hartley 2. "WISE's infrared vision provides data that complement what EPOXI will see with its visible-light and near-infrared instruments, said James Bauer, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. It's as if WISE can see an entire country, and EPOXI will visit its capital. WISE's infrared vision will allow the telescope to get a new estimate of the size of the comet's nucleus, or core, as well as a more thorough look at the sizes of dust particles that surround it. This information, when combined with what EPOXI finds as it gets closer to Hartley 2, will reveal how the comet has changed over time. The WISE image is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/pia13438.html On Nov. 4, the EPOXI mission, which uses the already in flight Deep Impact flyby spacecraft, will reach its closet approach to Hartley 2. The spacecraft will examine the dusty, icy body in detail as it flies by, providing the best, extended view of a comet in history. WISE and several other ground- and space-based telescopes are participating in the viewing, working together to tackle mysteries about our solar system's origins that are frozen inside comets. For stargazers, opportunities to view the comet are possible throughout October. On Wednesday, Oct. 20, Hartley 2 will reach its closest approach to Earth since it was discovered in 1986. The comet will be approximately 11 million miles away and should be visible with the naked eye near the constellation Perseus if viewed in dark skies. Observers will need binoculars or telescopes from urban areas in the Northern Hemisphere. Southern Hemisphere stargazers can see the comet later in the month. WISE captured its view of the comet during an ongoing scan of the sky in infrared light. The mission has been busy cataloging hundreds of millions of objects, from comets to distant, powerful galaxies. In late September, it used up its frozen cryogen coolant as expected and began a new phase of its survey. Called the NEOWISE Post-Cryogenic Mission, it primarily focuses on finding additional asteroids and comets. To date, the WISE mission has observed more than 150,000 asteroids and 110 comets, including Hartley 2. "Astronomers can reference our catalog to get detailed infrared data about their favorite asteroid or comet, said Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NEOWISE at JPL. Space missions can also use our observations

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