May 29 2013

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 13-157 - NASA'S WISE MISSION FINDS LOST ASTEROID FAMILY MEMBERS --WASHINGTON -- Data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have led to a new and improved family tree for asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers used millions of infrared snapshots from the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE all-sky survey, called NEOWISE, to identify 28 new asteroid families. The snapshots also helped place thousands of previously hidden and uncategorized asteroids into families for the first time. The findings are a critical step in understanding the origins of asteroid families, and the collisions thought to have created these rocky clans. NEOWISE has given us the data for a much more detailed look at the evolution of asteroids throughout the solar system, said Lindley Johnson, the program executive for the Near-Earth Object Observation Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This will help us trace the NEOs back to their sources and understand how some of them have migrated to orbits hazardous to the Earth." The main asteroid belt is a major source of near-Earth objects (NEOs), which are those asteroids and comets that come within 28 million miles (45 million kilometers) of Earth's path around the sun. Some near-Earth objects start out in stable orbits in the main asteroid belt, until a collision or gravitational disturbance flings them inward like flippers in a game of pinball. The NEOWISE team looked at about 120,000 main belt asteroids out of the approximately 600,000 known. They found that about 38,000 of these objects, roughly one third of the observed population, could be assigned to 76 families, 28 of which are new. In addition, some asteroids thought to belong to a particular family were reclassified. An asteroid family is formed when a collision breaks apart a large parent body into fragments of various sizes. Some collisions leave giant craters. For example, the asteroid Vesta's southern hemisphere was excavated by two large impacts. Other smash-ups are catastrophic, shattering an object into numerous fragments, as was the case with the Eos asteroid family. The cast-off pieces move together in packs, traveling on the same path around the sun, but over time the pieces become more and more spread out. Previous knowledge of asteroid family lineages comes from observations of their orbits. NEOWISE also looked at the asteroids' reflectivity to identify family members. Asteroids in the same family generally have similar mineral composition and reflect similar amounts of light. Some families consist of darker-colored, or duller, asteroids, while others are made up of lighter-colored, or shinier, rocks. It is difficult to distinguish between dark and light asteroids in visible light. A large, dull asteroid can appear the same as a small, shiny one. The dark asteroid reflects less light but has more total surface area, so it appears brighter. NEOWISE could distinguish between the dark and light asteroids because it can detect infrared light, which reveals the heat of an object. The larger the object, the more heat it gives off. When the size of an asteroid can be measured, its true reflective properties can be determined, and a group of asteroids once thought to belong to a single family circling the sun in a similar orbit can be sorted into distinct families. We're separating zebras from the gazelles, said Joseph Masiero of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., who is lead author of a report on the new study that appears in the Astrophysical Journal. "Before, family members were harder to tell apart because they were traveling in nearby packs. But now we have a better idea of which asteroid belongs to which family." The next step for the team is to learn more about the original parent bodies that spawned the families. It's as if you have shards from a broken vase, and you want to put it back together to find out what happened, said Amy Mainzer, the NEOWISE principal investigator at JPL. "Why did the asteroid belt form in the first place and fail to become a planet? We are piecing together our asteroids' history." JPL, a division of the California of Technology in Pasadena, managed and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The spacecraft was put into hibernation mode in 2011, after completing its main objectives of scanning the entire sky twice.

RELEASE: 13-159 - NASA SELECTS 31 SPACE BIOLOGY RESEARCH PROPOSALS --WASHINGTON -- NASA's Space Biology Program will fund 31 proposals to help investigate how cells, plants and animals respond to changes in gravity. These studies will result in new basic knowledge that provides a foundation on which other NASA researchers and engineers can build approaches and countermeasures to problems confronting human exploration of space, or that translate into new biological tools or applications on Earth. The proposals were in response to the research announcement "Research Opportunities in Space Biology." The selected proposals are from 21 institutions in 13 states and will receive a total of about $14.9 million during a one- to four-year period. Space biologists examine and discover underlying mechanisms of adaptation to changes resulting from the spaceflight environment, such as altered gravity, stress, and radiation, and attempt to determine genetic, cellular and organismal mechanisms that regulate and sustain growth, metabolism, reproduction and development during that adaptation. Selected experiments will begin immediately. Nine will be conducted aboard the International Space Station. Fourteen ground-based studies will develop hypotheses to test aboard the orbiting laboratory. Investigators new to space biology will collect preliminary data in eight proposals. The Space Biology Program is managed by the Space Life and Physical Sciences Division in NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

RELEASE: 13-162 - TEAMS PREPARE FOR NASA $1.5 MILLION ROBOT CHALLENGE --WASHINGTON -- Eleven teams from across the country and around the globe are preparing to compete for $1.5 million during NASA's 2013 Sample Return Robot Challenge, June 5-7 at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Teams will demonstrate a robot that can locate and collect geologic samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge could improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Anticipation is high for a successful sample collection this year, said Sam Ortega, program manager of Centennial Challenges, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "Last year, teams were finding their footing and tweaking their designs. This year, we have several teams that know what they're up against, and they can't wait to get back on the field. We have a lot of new competitors signed up. Improving this technology will be a huge boon, not just to NASA and space exploration, but also for countless applications here on Earth." There will be two levels of competition. For a robot to complete Level 1 successfully, it must leave from a starting platform in search of a sample that has been previously identified in the robot's onboard computer. The robot must then autonomously return one undamaged sample to its starting platform within a 30-minute time limit. Only teams that complete Level 1 will be allowed to compete in Level 2. To complete Level 2 successfully, a robot must autonomously return at least two undamaged samples, including the pre-cached sample, to its starting platform within a two-hour time limit. Samples are categorized as easy, intermediate and hard based on the complexity of their shape, size and design, with higher point values given for samples classified as hard. Samples range in shape and size from rectangular (like a shoe box) or round (like a tennis ball). Prize awards will range from $100,000 to $1.5 million depending on the amount of points scored. This is the second Sample Robot Return competition. During last year's competition, also at WPI, 11 teams registered to compete and the field narrowed to six as the competition approached. After robot inspections, only one team met the contest's rigorous requirements. That robot competed in Level 1, but failed to collect the required samples in the allotted time, so no prize money was awarded. The Centennial Challenges program does not award funds to competitors unless the challenge objectives have been met. This assures desired results are gained before government funds are paid. Returning teams this year include SpacePRIDE of Graniteville, S.C.; Survey of Los Angeles; Wunderkammer of Topanga, Calif.; Intrepid of Lynnwood, Wash.; and the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. New teams entering the competition are Fetch of Alexandria, Va.; Middleman of Dunedin, Fla.; Mystic Lake Robots of The Woodlands, Texas; Team AERO of Worcester, Mass.; the Autonomous Rover Team of the University of California at Santa Cruz; and Kuukuglur of Estonia. The challenge begins on the WPI campus Wednesday, June 5, with awards expected on Saturday, June 8, if competition objectives are met. The awards ceremony will take place during the day-long TouchTomorrow technology festival hosted by WPI. The festival will showcase the teams and robots as well as NASA and WPI exhibits in science, robotics and space technology. The TouchTomorrow festival is open to the public.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M13-086 - NASA HOSTS NEWS AND SOCIAL MEDIA EVENTS AROUND THIS WEEK'S ASTEROID PASS --WASHINGTON -- NASA is inviting members of the media and public to participate in online and television events May 30-31 with NASA officials and experts discussing the agency's asteroid initiative and the Earth flyby of the 1.7-mile-long asteroid 1998 QE2. At 4:59 p.m. EDT, Friday, May 31, 1998 QE2 will pass by Earth at a safe distance of about 3.6 million miles -- its closest approach for at least the next two centuries. The asteroid was discovered Aug. 19, 1998, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Program near Socorro, N.M. The schedule of events is: Thursday, May 30 -- 1:30-2:30 p.m.: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., will show on NASA Television live telescope images of the asteroid and host a discussion with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and experts from JPL and the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex. Scientists at Goldstone will be using radar to track and image the asteroid.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M13-087 - NASA HOSTS JUNE 4 MEDIA BRIEFING ON NEXT SOLAR MISSION LAUNCH --WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a news briefing at 1 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, June 4, about the upcoming launch of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission. The briefing will be held at NASA Headquarters at 300 E St. SW in Washington and air live on NASA Television and the agency's website. IRIS is scheduled to launch June 26 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. IRIS is a NASA Small Explorer Mission to observe how solar material moves, gathers energy, and heats up as it travels through a little-understood region in the sun's lower atmosphere. This interface region between the sun's photosphere and corona powers its dynamic million-degree atmosphere and drives the solar wind. The region is the origin of most of the ultraviolet solar emission that impacts the near-Earth space environment and Earth's climate. The panelists for the briefing are: -- Jeffrey Newmark, IRIS program scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington -- Alan Title, IRIS principal investigator, Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center, Palo Alto, Calif. -- Gary Kushner, IRIS program manager, Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center, Palo Alto, Calif. -- John Marmie, IRIS assistant project manager, NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.