Why Mars exploration will be suspended in April, 2013

Planet Mars mission controllers are preparing to suspend explorations of the Red Planet via spacecraft for 17 to 21 days in April, 2013.

The planet Mars was a bright red “star” in our sky on August 5, 2012, when the newest Mars rover Curiosity made its dramatic descent to the surface of the Red Planet. But by early April 2013, when Mars and Venus will sweep near each other after sunset, what otherwise would be an awesome conjunction of two cool planets will lost in the sunset glare. Mars has now left the evening sky, on its way to passing behind the sun as seen from Earth on April 18. Around the time this happens – for 17 to 21 days in April, 2013 – NASA will be forced to temporarily suspend its exploration of Mars.

 Artist’s concept of Mars conjunction on April 18, 2013. 

 The sun will be between Earth and Mars. This geometry of worlds occurs – called a “conjunction of Mars” – happens about every 26 months. During a Mars conjunction, radio transmissions between Earth and Mars may be corrupted by the intervening sun. So NASA Mars missions have a moratorium on sending commands to spacecraft on the surface of Mars or in orbit around Mars. Image via NASA.

Curiosity self-portrait Feb. 3, 2013 via NASA

NASA said in a press release on March 20:

The sun can easily disrupt radio transmissions between the two planets during [Mars and the sun's] near-alignment [as seen from Earth]. To prevent an impaired command from reaching an orbiter or rover, mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are preparing to suspend sending any commands to spacecraft at Mars for weeks in April. Transmissions from Mars to Earth will also be reduced.

From the standpoint of earthly observers, Mars conjunctions are not identical from year to year. As seen from Earth, Mars could be nearer to the sun at a given year’s conjunction, or farther away, and the sun might be in an active or a quiet phase of its 11-year cycle of activity.
This year, Mars and the sun will be relatively close together on the sky’s dome at conjunction, in contrast to some other years. Meanwhile, the sun is near the peak of its cycle, albeit a mild peak, in contrast to some. So the chances for radio interference between Earth and Mars are good.

Curiosity self-portrait August 8, 2012. 

The rover will be out of touch with NASA in April 2013, as all Mars missions are suspended for up to three weeks. Image via NASA.Click here to expand image.

But the biggest difference for this 2013 conjunction is having Curiosity on Mars, according to NASA scientists. Odyssey – a robotic spacecraft orbiting Mars since 2001 – and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – orbiting Mars since 2006 – relay almost all data coming from Curiosity and an older rover, Opportunity. NASA said:

Transmissions from Earth to the orbiters will be suspended while Mars and the sun are two degrees or less apart in the sky, from April 9 to 26, with restricted commanding during additional days before and after.

Read more about NASA’s plans for the upcoming conjunction of Mars with the sun

Bottom line: NASA mission controllers will suspend Mars exploration via spacecraft for 17 to 21 days in April, 2013. At that time, Mars will be behind the sun as seen from Earth. The space engineers are worried that interference from the sun could impair radio transmissions between Earth and Mars, causing the spacecraft to execute a faulty command.

Collision Course? A Comet Heads for Mars

March 27, 2013: Over the years, the spacefaring nations of Earth have sent dozens of probes and rovers to explore Mars.  Today there are three active satellites circling the red planet while two rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity, wheel across the red sands below.  Mars is dry, barren, and apparently lifeless.

Soon, those assets could find themselves exploring a very different kind of world.

"There is a small but non-negligible chance that Comet 2013 A1 will strike Mars next year in October of 2014," says Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at JPL.  "Current solutions put the odds of impact at 1 in 2000."

In a new ScienceCast video, experts discuss what might happen if Comet 2013 A1 hits Mars. Play it

 

The nucleus of the comet is probably 1 to 3 km in diameter, and it is coming in fast, around 56 km/s (125,000 mph). "It if does hit Mars, it would deliver as much energy as 35 million megatons of TNT," estimates Yeomans.

For comparison, the asteroid strike that ended the dinosaurs on Earth 65 million years ago was about three times as powerful, 100 million megatons. Another point of comparison is the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February of 2013, damaging buildings and knocking people down. The Mars comet is packing 80 million times more energy than that relatively puny asteroid.

An impact wouldn't necessarily mean the end of NASA's Mars program. But it would transform the program-- along with Mars itself.
"I think of it as a giant climate experiment," says Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters.  "An impact would loft a lot of stuff into the Martian atmosphere--dust, sand, water and other debris. The result could be a warmer, wetter Mars than we're accustomed to today."
Meyer worries that solar-powered Opportunity might have a hard time surviving if the atmosphere became opaque.  Nuclear-powered Curiosity, though, would carry on just fine.  He also notes that Mars orbiters might have trouble seeing the surface, for a while at least, until the debris begins to clear.

A direct impact remains unlikely.  Paul Chodas of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program stresses that a 1 in 2000 chance of impact means there's a 1999 in 2000 chance of no impact.  "A near-miss is far more likely," he points out.

Even a near miss is a potentially big event.  The latest orbit solutions put the comet somewhere within 300,000 km of the red planet at closest approach.  That means Mars could find itself inside the comet's gassy, dusty atmosphere or "coma."  Visually, the comet would reach 0th magnitude, that is, a few times brighter than a 1st magnitude star, as seen from the Red Planet.

"Cameras on ALL of NASA's spacecraft currently operating at Mars should be able to take photographs of Comet 2013 A1," says Jim Bell, a planetary scientist and Mars imaging specialist at Arizona State University. "The issue with Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be the ability to point them in the right direction; they are used to looking down, not up. Mission designers will have to figure out if that is possible."

Opportunity might have trouble observing the aftermath of a comet impact if dust in the air cuts sunlight to the rover's solar panels. More

"The issue with the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers will be power for imaging at night," he continues. "Opportunity is solar powered and so would need to dip into reserve battery power to operate the cameras at night. Whether or not we will be able to do this will depend on how much power the rover is getting from dusty solar panels in the daytime. On the other hand, Curiosity is nuclear powered, so it could have better odds at night-time imaging."

Researchers will be keenly interested to see how the comet's atmosphere interacts with the atmosphere of Mars.  For one thing, there could be a meteor shower. "Analyzing the spectrum of disintegrating meteors could tell us something interesting about the chemistry of the upper atmosphere," notes Meyer.

Another possibility is Martian auroras.  Unlike Earth, which has a global magnetic field that wraps around our entire planet, Mars is only magnetized in patches.  Here and there, magnetic umbrellas sprout out of the ground, creating a crazy-quilt of magnetic poles concentrated mainly in the southern hemisphere.  Ionized gases hitting the top of the Martian atmosphere could spark auroras in the canopies of the magnetic umbrellas.

Even before the comet flyby was known, NASA had already decided to send a spacecraft to Mars to study the dynamics of the Martian atmosphere.  If the probe, named MAVEN (short for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution"), is launched on time in November 2013, it would reach Mars just a few weeks before the comet in 2014.

However, notes MAVEN's principal investigator Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado, the spacecraft won't be ready to observe the comet when it reaches Mars.  "It takes a while to get into our science mapping orbit, deploy the booms, turn on and test the science instruments--and so on," he explains.

"MAVEN won't be fully operational until perhaps two weeks after the comet passes.  There are some effects that I would expect to linger for a relatively long period--especially if the comet hits Mars--and we will be able to observe those changes."

Astronomers around the world are monitoring 2013 A1.  Every day, new data arrive to refine the comet's orbit.  As the error bars shrink, Yeomans expects a direct hit to be ruled out.  "The odds favor a flyby, not a collision," he says.

Either way, this is going to be good. Stay tuned for updates as the comet approaches.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Meteor lit up sky over US east coast on March 22

People from North Carolina to Maine, and as far inland as Ohio, saw a very bright meteor streak across the sky on March 22.

At about 8 p.m. last night (Friday, March 22), people in the U.S. East – from North Carolina to Maine, and as far inland as Ohio – reported seeing a bright flash streaking quickly across the sky. It appears to have been a small meteor, or rock from space. The object didn’t explode and cause damage like the Russian meteor on February 15, 2013. The object over Russia is now believed to have been 17 meters in diameter before it struck Earth’s atmosphere. The March 22 meteor was probably much smaller, more like one meter, according to NASA experts.

Did you see the meteor? Post your pictures or videos to EarthSky’s Facebook page

When is the next meteor shower?

This is what the American Meteor Society (AMS) calls a “heat map.” It’s a compilation of eye-witness reports of the March 22, 2013 meteor. Read more about the March 22 meteor from the AMS here.

Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, told The Associated Press that, based on the reports, it was a “single meteor event.” He said:

Judging from the brightness, we’re dealing with something as bright as the full moon. The thing is probably a yard across. We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the Northeast.

The video below is from a security camera in Thurmont, Maryland.

There were no reports of damage from the March 22 meteor. It was just over a month ago that a meteor exploded over Russia’s Ural mountains. That explosion, which occurred some 8-12 miles (14-20 kilometers) above ground, shattered windows in and around the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia and caused some 1,000 injuries, but thankfully no deaths. Scientists are now saying it was the most powerful meteor explosion in Earth’s atmosphere since the Tunguska event in 1908.

This next video comes from security camera footage uploaded by CBS WUSA 9 - http://bcove.me/0qma7y2v

Astronomers sometimes use the word bolide to describe an exceptionally bright fireball such as this one, especially if it makes a sound (no reports so far of sound from this one, that we know of). The term bolide comes the Greek word bolis, meaning a missile or to flash. Bright meteors are seen pretty often, if you consider the whole Earth. In 2012, bright meteors or bollides were seen in the U.K. and New Zealand, and over San Francisco on October 17. So they are not uncommon.

However, from any one spot on Earth, they are uncommon, Among astronomers, it’s sometimes said you might witness one bolide, or very bright fireball, in your lifetime. So if you saw this one, this was yours!
If you observed it, you might want to tell someone what you saw. Here’s a place to report your meteor sighting.

Here’s an estimated trajectory model for the March 22, 2013 meteor. This model is calculated by computing the intersection points of each witness with all other witnesses. The points are then averaged for the starting and ending points of the meteor. Via American Meteor Society.

Bottom line: Many across the U.S. East on March 22, 2013 saw a very bright meteor streak across the night sky. It was a rock from space – probably about one meteor across – that vaporized in Earth’s atmosphere.

- EarthSky

NASA on asteroid defense: If it’s coming in three weeks, pray

Many captured video or photographs of the asteroid that exploded over Russia February 15, 2013.

The U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee met in a hearing on March 19, 2013 to discuss threats from space.

On February 15, a small asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, generating shock waves that shattered windows and injured some 1,500 people. On that same day, asteroid 2012 DA14 made a close pass by Earth, at a scant 17,200 miles (27,700 km) from our world’s surface, closer than some communication satellites. In response to these events, the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee met in a hearing on March 19, 2013. The hearing was titled Threats from Space: A Review of U.S. Government Efforts to Track and Mitigate Asteroids and Meteors. Scientists and lawmakers discussed the risk of, and defense strategy for, an unforeseen asteroid or meteor on collision course with Earth. While trying to emphasize the need for adequate funding for detecting and characterizing near-Earth objects, and diverting them if necessary, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said:

From the information we have, we don’t know of an asteroid that will threaten the population of the United States. But if it’s coming in three weeks…pray.

In other words, unless we know in advance that an asteroid is coming – and therefore have time to divert it – there is little we could do about an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Bolden added:

The reason I can’t do anything in the next three weeks is because for decades we have put it off.

What exploded over Russia? Watch two videos with new answers
View from space: Russian meteor entering Earth’s atmosphere

All asteroids within a third of Earth’s distance from the sun in mid-February, 2013 are shown, with Earth at the center, in pseudo 3D. The red oval around Earth represents a distance 10 times greater than the moon’s distance. View larger.. 

Computer-generated image via Scott Manley at Armagh Observatory

NASA is currently tracking about 95 percent of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that are .62 miles (nearly 1,000 meters) or larger in diameter. White House Science Advisor John Holdren told legislators that:

… an asteroid of that size, a kilometer or bigger, could plausibly end civilization.

So far, none of the objects NASA is tracking appear to be an immediate threat. However, as Chairman Smith pointed out:

The meteor that struck Russia was estimated to be 17 meters and wasn’t tracked at all. The smaller they are, the harder they are to spot, and yet they can be life-threatening. Some space challenges require innovation, commitment and diligence. This is one of them.

A small asteroid – like the one that exploded over Russia on February 15 – would not be world destroying. But clearly objects smaller than .62 miles (1,000 meters) have the potential to cause damage.
Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) said the events on February 15:

… serve as evidence that we live in an active solar system with potentially hazardous objects passing through our neighborhood with surprising frequency.

Artist’s concept of asteroid 2012-DA14, via NASA



John Holdren said the best way to detect objects that might be on a collision course with Earth would be to put an infrared-sensing telescope in a Venus-like orbit. Holdren estimated the cost of such a telescope to be between $500 million and $750 million. Another costly and time-intensive undertaking would be mounting a mission to divert a threatening object after detection. NASA’s hunt for threatening asteroids will be affected by federal sequestration cuts, and at present funding levels NASA estimates it will take nearly 20 years to identify all potentially threatening Near Earth Objects.

One solution that all lawmakers seemed amenable to was crowdsourcing, that is, working with other countries and amateur astronomers to crowdsource the hunt for threatening asteroids. Holdren said:

The odds of a Near-Earth Object strike causing massive casualties and destruction of infrastructure are very small, but the potential consequences of such an event are so large it makes sense to take the risk seriously.

Bottom line: On March 19, 2013, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee met in a hearing titled Threats from Space: A Review of U.S. Government Efforts to Track and Mitigate Asteroids and Meteors.  Legislators, NASA administrators and others discussed the need for adequate funding for detecting and characterizing near-Earth objects, and diverting them if necessary.

Photos: Auroras seen at high and mid-latitudes this weekend

The sun ejected a fast-moving, Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME) on March 15 that was expected to create a geomagnetic storm and subsequent auroras this past weekend. And so it did, around both the northern and southern parts of Earth’s globe. The CME hit Earth’s magnetic field at 0600 UTC Sunday morning (March 17, 2013), or around 1 a.m. CDT in the central U.S. According to spaceweather.com:

The impact lifted the solar wind speed from 300 km/s to 700 km/s and sparked a moderately strong (Kp=6) geomagnetic storm. Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian border into the United States as far south as Colorado.

Meanwhile, auroras were also seen in the far Southern Hemisphere (for example, in Australia). The geomagnetic storm from the March 15 CME continued to spark auroras Sunday night, although on Sunday night we didn’t hear of any mid-latitude auroras. The reports we got were from places like Sweden, Norway and Finland.

March 17, 2013 aurora photographed by Chris Schuler in Ft. Yukon, Alaska. David Schuler wrote in his awesome blog Gwichyaa Zhee, “Some call it a collision of charged particles in the atmosphere. We call it beauty. The lights were dancing a jig tonight, quick and bright. Chris made this photograph near our cabin.” 

Read more about why this past weekend was so good for auroras

Tony Bateman – EarthSky friend on Facebook, from Korpo (formerly part of Finland) – captured the video below on March 17. He wrote:

About 6 Hours of aurora in under 1.35 minutes of video. Solar storm of 17th March 2013. Reached KP7 strength for many hours. The whole sky was filled in all directions, this video caught a small amount of the show.

Geologist and astrophotographer Colin Legg captured this amazing image of the aurora as seen from Australia on March 17. He calls this photo Fire in the Sky.

March 17, 2013 aurora as seen from Australia via Colin Legg. View larger. Visit Colin’s Facebook page for more beautiful photography.

Plus we got several wonderful photos from Facebook friends at high northerly latitudes of last night’s aurora.

Birgit Boden in Sweden saw Jupiter near the moon last night (March 17), plus an aurora. Awesome, Birgit!

March 17, 2013 aurora from Geir Walmann in Norway. Thank you, Geir!

Bottom line: Auroras seen at high and mid-latitudes on March 17, 2013.
- EarthSky

CME impact sparks auroras over US states

Skies over North America turned green for St. Patrick's Day.

A CME impact during the early hours of March 17th sparked auroras in the United States at least as far south as Colorado.

More auroras are possible tonight, mainly over the Arctic, as Earth's magnetic field continues to reverberate from the impact.

Check http://spaceweather.com for photos and updates.

Geomagnetic storm and aurora alert this weekend

March 15, 2013 coronal mass ejection or CME, as captured by SOHO, the Solar Heliospheric Observatory. View larger.

At 2:54 a.m. EDT (6:54 UTC) on March 15, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME). The CME left the sun at speeds of around 900 miles per second (1,450 km), which is a fairly fast speed for CMEs. Its effects are expected to reach Earth in one to three days, creating a geomagnetic storm and the potential for beautiful auroras. It’s possible the auroras will be visible at lower latitudes than usual (they are typically confined to high latitudes). Spaceweather.com said on the evening of March 15:

Three-dimensional computer models based on observations from SOHO and NASA’s twin STEREO probes predict the CME will cross the void between sun and Earth in two days or less. NOAA forecasters estimate a 70% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the cloud arrives on March 17th. … High latitude (and possibly even middle latitude) sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend.

Incoming CMEs also have the potential to affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground, but, historically, CMEs at this speed have caused mild to moderate effects at Earth.

Read more about today’s CME from NASA
What are coronal mass ejections?

Aurora and rising moon on February 14 via Stigs Netrom. When the sun ejects a CME, assuming the solar particles are directly toward Earth, a geomagnetic storm can result, creating auroras.

 

 March 15, 2013 coronal mass ejection via NASA

Bottom line: The sun ejected a coronal mass ejection, or CME, on March 15. It is moving at a fairly high rate of speed and should arrive at Earth from within one to two days, creating a storm in Earth’s magnetic field and thus bringing auroras or northern lights. Stay alert for them this weekend!

- EarthSky

Sun-Earth Day 2013: Solar Max-Storm Warning: Effects on the Solar System

Webcast Information:

Date: March 22, 2013
Time: 1:00 - 2:30 PM EST
Location: Wallops Flight Facility
URL: http://www.ustream.tv/nasaedge


NASA's Sun Earth Days team is joining forces with NASA EDGE to explore the violent nature of our Sun at the peak of solar activity and share discoveries from NASA's heliophysics and planetary missions during this exciting period.

NASA EDGE is an unscripted, non-traditional video podcast (vodcast) designed to highlight all things NASA in a unique and fun way. By using a combination of funny, offbeat and informative sketches, features and interviews, the NASA EDGE team creates a vodcast that reaches a much broader online audience. Built in the framework of sports talk radio (i.e. Mike and Mike in the Morning - ESPN Radio), NASA EDGE has generated a positive buzz for NASA in a way in which young teens and adults can relate.

Webcast Information:

On March 22, 2013, NASA EDGE will bring you a LIVE webcast form Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) located on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Wallops is now NASA's principal facility for management and implementation of suborbital research programs. This makes it the perfect location to highlight many of NASAs 'Engineering' accomplishments while bringing you the latest information about Solar Maximum!
Date: March 22, 2013
Time: 1:00 - 2:30 PM EST
Location: Wallops Flight Facility
URL: http://www.ustream.tv/nasaedge

Highlights will include:

• What is Solar Maximum? An overview of the sun and why we study it.
• All about auroras and how/why we study them
• Highlights about the VISIONS Sounding Rocket and Launch!
• Planetary Effects of Solar Max
• The MMS mission: Overview and Status!
• Wallops Flight Facility - Overview
• Launching a sounding rocket from Wallops
• LADEE Engineer and Scientist: How do engineers and scientists work together to accomplish a launch at Wallops Flight Facility? Upcoming LADEE launch in August.
• Q&A session with the audience and social media

Stay tuned for updates!

Sunset Comet

March 15, 2013: For a comet, visiting the sun is risky business. Fierce solar heat vaporizes gases long frozen in the fragile nucleus, breaking up some comets and completely destroying others.

That's why astronomers weren't sure what would happen in early March when Comet Pan-STARRS, a first-time visitor to the inner solar system, dipped inside the orbit of Mercury. On March 10^th, NASA’s STEREO-B spacecraft watched as the comet made its closest approach to the sun only 28 million miles away. At that distance, the sun loomed 3 times wider and felt more than 10 times hotter than it does on Earth.

The comet survived.

A new ScienceCast video tracks the progress of Comet Pan-STARRS and the development of its wild tail. Play it

Still intact, Comet Pan-STARRS is emerging from the Sun’s glare into the sunset skies of the northern hemisphere. Solar heating has caused the comet to glow brighter than a first magnitude star. Bright twilight sharply reduces visibility, but it is still an easy target for binoculars and small telescopes 1 and 2 hours after sunset. As of March 15th, people are beginning to report that they can see the comet with the unaided eye.

Discovered in June 2011 by astronomers using the Pan-STARRS survey telescope atop the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii, the comet is paying its first visit to the inner solar system. It hails from the Oort cloud, a deep space reservoir of comets far beyond the orbit of Pluto. Because Comet PanSTARRs is a newcomer, its potential brightness and ability to withstand solar heating was unknown.
Now we know. "It is a gorgeous comet--one of the brightest in years," says astronomer Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory.

Comet specialist Emmanuel Jehin of the European Southern Observatory has been monitoring Pan-STARRS using a remote-controlled telescope in Chile. Based on his data, Knight concludes that "Comet Pan-STARRS seems to be producing quite a bit of dust compared to an average comet. This is very good for its visibility, because the extra dust is reflecting sunlight and making Pan-STARRS appear brighter than it would otherwise."

The amount of dust and gas spewing from the comet implies a nucleus on the order of 1 km in diameter--in other words, neither unusually large nor small. Size-wise, it is a fairly typical comet.

NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft photographed "wild striations" in the tail of Comet Pan-STARRS as it passed by the sun. Play the movie

The comet’s tail is anything but typical. STEREO-B images processed by Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC reveal many wild and ragged striations in the cloud of dust trailing behind Pan-STARRS.  "Wow!" says Battams. "The fine-structure is breathtaking. We think this is caused by some fairly complex interaction between the solar wind and the comet's rotating nucleus. It's going to take computer models to figure this one out."

The comet is now receding from Earth. It will slowly dim as it heads back into deep space. Ironically, though, its visibility will improve for a while as it heads into darker skies away from the sun. In the last weeks of March it could become an easy naked-eye object.

Step outside after sunset, face west, and take a look.

 Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Panorama From NASA Mars Rover Shows Mount Sharp

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-097&cid=release_2013-097

PASADENA, Calif. -- Rising above the present location of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, higher than any mountain in the 48 contiguous states of the United States, Mount Sharp is featured in new imagery from the rover.

A pair of mosaics assembled from dozens of telephoto images shows Mount Sharp in dramatic detail. The component images were taken by the 100-millimeter-focal-length telephoto lens camera mounted on the right side of Curiosity's remote sensing mast, during the 45th Martian day of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 20, 2012).

This layered mound, also called Aeolis Mons, in the center of Gale Crater rises more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the crater floor location of Curiosity. Lower slopes of Mount Sharp remain a destination for the mission, though the rover will first spend many more weeks around a location called "Yellowknife Bay," where it has found evidence of a past environment favorable for microbial life.

A version of the mosaic that has been white-balanced to show the terrain as if under Earthlike lighting, which makes the sky look overly blue, is at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16768 . White-balanced versions help scientists recognize rock materials based on their terrestrial experience. The Martian sky would look like more of a butterscotch color to the human eye. A version of the mosaic with raw color, as a typical smart-phone camera would show the scene, is at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16769 .

In both versions, the sky has been filled out by extrapolating color and brightness information from the portions of the sky that were captured in images of the terrain.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity and the rover's 10 science instruments to investigate environmental history within Gale Crater, a location where the project has found that conditions were long ago favorable for microbial life.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, and built the rover.

For more information about the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

Follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Geomagnetic Storm Warning

A magnetic eruption on the sun during the early hours of March 15th hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward Earth.

NOAA forecasters estimate a 70% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the CME arrives on March 17th.

High-latitude and possibly even middle-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend.

More information and updates to follow tomorrow morning.

Three 'near' misses in one weekend

Asteroid 2013 ET could have wiped out a large city

An asteroid as big as a city block shot relatively close past Earth at the weekend.

Discovered just six days ago, the 140m Asteroid 2013 ET passed about 966000km from Earth on Saturday. That is about 2.5 times as far as the moon, fairly close on a cosmic yardstick.

"The scary part of this one is that it is something we didn't even know about," Patrick Paolucci, president of Slooh Space Camera, said during a webcast featuring live images of the asteroid from a telescope in the Canary Islands.

Moving at a speed of about 41843km/h, the asteroid could have wiped out a large city if it had hit Earth, added Slooh telescope engineer Paul Cox.

Asteroid 2013 ET is nearly eight times larger than the bus-sized asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia last month, injuring 1500 people. The force of the explosion, equivalent to about 440 kilotons of dynamite, created a shock wave that shattered windows and damaged buildings.

Later that day, a small asteroid, known as DA14, passed about 27680km from Earth, closer than the orbiting networks of communications and weather satellites.

"One of the reasons we're finding more of these objects is that there are more people looking," Cox said.

Two other small asteroids, both about the size of the Russian meteor, were in Earth's neighbourhood at the weekend. Asteroid 2013 EC 20 passed just 4828km away on Saturday, said Cox.

Yesterday, Asteroid 2013 EN 20 flew about 449007km away from Earth.

"We know the solar system is a busy place," said Cox. "We're not sitting here on our pale-blue dot on our own in nice safety . This should be a wake-up call to governments."

The US Congress has asked Nasa to find and track all near-Earth objects of 1km or larger in diameter. Nasa estimates about 95% have been identified. But only about 10% of smaller asteroids have been discovered, it says.

The effort is intended to give scientists and engineers as much time as possible to learn if an asteroid or comet is on a collision course with Earth, in hopes of sending up a spacecraft or taking other measures to avert catastrophe.

About 100 tons of material from space hits Earth every day.

Astronomers expect an object about the size of the Russian meteor to strike about every 100 years.

- Times Live

Private SpaceX Capsule Brings Big Science to Space Station

The NanoRacks Plate Reader, shown here, will enable in orbit analysis of research samples for certain studies aboard the International Space Station.  CREDIT: NASA


The International Space Station is now home to more than 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of supplies delivered by an unmanned, privately built space capsule that reached the orbiting science laboratory on Sunday (March 3).

Among the goods SpaceX's Dragon capsule transported to the station were science experiments primed and ready for the six international residents of the space station.

"Dragon is scheduled to return to Earth on March 25, bringing home nearly double the amount of supplies it brought up, about 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms)," NASA officials said in a statement. "Returning investigation samples will demonstrate how life in microgravity affects the growth of plant seedlings, changes to the human body, the behavior of semiconductors and detergents, and more."

Some of the experiments will only stay on board for three weeks, making a round trip back to Earth with Dragon when the capsule detaches from the station. One of those experiments involves thale cress, a plant used in many experiments because of its small, relatively easy-to-map genome.

Scientists affiliated with NASA and the European Space Agency sent up one experiment called "Seedling Growth-1," designed to investigate how well plants grow amid stresses such as low oxygen. [See video of SpaceX's Dragon docking in orbit]

"The experiment will study how plants adapt to micro- and low-gravity environments," NASA officials wrote in a statement. "Researchers hope to determine the ability of vegetation to provide a complete, sustainable, dependable and economical means for human life-support in space."

Beyond helping scientists learn how to grow food in space, the research might contribute to better agricultural practices back on Earth. Understanding how these plants react to a stressful environment could lend insight into how farmers could mitigate those taxing situations back on the planet's surface.

Some of the experiments sent to the International Space Station will play a role in education, as well.

"Students from several California schools developed investigations to study bacteria, iron corrosion, battery performance and carbon dioxide levels aboard the station, all of which will be delivered by Dragon," NASA officials wrote in a statement.

Personal product manufacturer Procter & Gamble sent up another experiment that will study how to better preserve toothpaste, gels and creams.

"Particle additives can make a product last longer by maintaining its consistency, but they sink and clump together after a certain amount of time, which can spoil a product," NASA officials said. "It's difficult to study these dynamics on Earth because gravity gets in the way, making the space station an ideal research platform for these important industrial processes."

Although Dragon's launch went flawlessly, once the capsule parted from the Falcon 9 rocket used to boost it into orbit, one glitch became apparent. A thruster problem delayed Dragon's approach to the space station by a day. The spacecraft is expected to return to Earth with experiment results and other gear on March 25.

Dragon also brought a few treats for the astronauts, with bananas and apples among the first items unloaded to the space station.

- Space.com

A Quiet Interlude in Solar Max

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Something unexpected is happening on the Sun. 2013 was supposed to be the year of “solar maximum,” the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Yet 2013 has arrived and solar activity is relatively low. Sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent. The quiet has led some observers to wonder if forecasters missed the mark.

Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has a different explanation. “This is solar maximum,” he says. “But it looks different from what we expected because it is double-peaked.”
Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum. At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares. At the other end, solar max brings high sunspot numbers and frequent solar storms. It’s a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years.
Reality is more complicated. Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular. The back-and-forth swing in sunspot counts can take anywhere from 10 to 13 years to complete. Also, the amplitude of the cycle varies; some solar maxima are very weak, others very strong.

The top image above shows the Earth-facing surface of the Sun on February 28, 2013, as observed by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. HMI observes the solar disk at 6173 Ångstroms, a wavelength designed to study surface oscillations and the magnetic field. HMI observed just a few small sunspots on an otherwise clean face, which is usually riddled with many spots during peak solar activity. The video below shows a full solar rotation observed by HMI from February 1-28, 2013. (Download the animation from the links below the image.)

Pesnell notes yet another complication in the solar cycle: “The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.” Solar activity went up, dipped, then rose again, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years. The same thing could be happening now, as sunspot counts jumped in 2011 and dipped in 2012. Pesnell expects them to rebound in 2013: “I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013 and possibly last into 2014,”

The second image above plots monthly sunspot numbers for solar cycle 24 (the current one), cycle 23, and cycle 21, the last one with one, normal peak.

Another curiosity of the solar cycle is that the Sun's hemispheres do not always peak at the same time. In the current cycle, the south has been lagging behind the north. The second peak, if it occurs, will likely feature the southern hemisphere playing catch-up, with a surge in activity south of the Sun's equator.

Pesnell is a member of the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, which last assembled in 2008 to forecast the next solar maximum. The panel declared: “The next solar cycle (Cycle 24) will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May 2013.”

Given the tepid state of solar activity now, a maximum in May seems unlikely. “We may be seeing what happens when you predict a single amplitude and the Sun responds with a double peak,” says Pesnell. He notes a similarity between Solar Cycle 24 and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century. If the two cycles are twins, “it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015.”

NASA images courtesy Solar Dynamics Observatory and Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager science teams. Sunspot number data from the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. NASA animation by Robert Simmon. Caption adapted from a story by Tony Phillips, Science@NASA.

Instrument: 

SDO - HMI - NASA

Tiny Satellites' Big Mission: Going Beyond Earth Orbit

Two CubeSats, designed by NASA's JPL and three university partners, are soon to go where no CubeSats have gone before: beyond Earth orbit.

The space agency’s twin Interplanetary NanoSpacecraft Pathfinder In Relevant Environment (INSPIRE) satellites, each no larger than a loaf of bread, will be the first CubeSats to leave Earth's orbit for interplanetary space.

CubeSats are tiny satellites, some no bigger than four inches (10 cm) on each side, sent into orbit as secondary payloads on other launch vehicles. The twin INSPIRE CubeSats are "3U" models, each made of three 4x4x4 cubes laid end to end.

If the interplanetary test launch succeeds, CubeSats could someday blanket the solar system, conducting cheap, high-risk missions to comets, asteroids, moons and planets.

Just where the pioneering CubeSats will go is still unclear, however, since it’s not known yet which model rocket will be used for launch, said James Cutler, director of the Michigan Exploration Laboratory at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. UMich is one of the three academic institutions (the others are University of Texas and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo) partnering with JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) to develop the craft.

"The first mission will be basically an escape trajectory," meaning it will travel beyond Earth’s gravitational influence, Cutler explained. "The rocket's going to send us in some unknown direction."

Lacking much propulsion or scientific instrumentation, the INSPIRE craft are a test of whether tiny machines can survive the harsh environment of space.

The INSPIRE project has been approved by NASA to launch sometime between 2014 and 2016, but a specific launch vehicle hasn't been selected.

One of the challenges of the project is figuring how the tiny satellites will communicate with Earth. CubeSats are far cheaper than a traditional space mission but they lack room for complex communications systems or large power sources.

"As we head away from Earth, we're talking about using much larger antennas" to communicate with the low-powered craft, says JPL's Dr. Andy Klesh, the principal investigator for INSPIRE. And the tiny spacecraft can send only a small amount of data back.

"In Earth orbit, we can talk in megabits per second, comparable to a cellphone," he says. "Whereas in deep space, we're going back to [the data transmission rates of] early modems."

Furthermore, once a spacecraft leaves the protective magnetic field surrounding Earth, it's at risk of failure from solar radiation. Traditional satellites are built with more expensive "radiation-hardened" components. The INSPIRE satellites are instead built to respond to a shut-down command from Earth if space weather systems detect an oncoming solar flare, Cutler said.

The test will "really push the edges of what the technology can actually do," he added.
INSPIRE is really only just the beginning, however. Cutler imagines a future with CubeSats exploring the whole solar system, or even doing reconnaissance to scout out potentially dangerous or mineral-rich asteroids.

Beyond that, "there's a lot of interesting science we could do at [the Martian moon] Phobos ... certainly some of the moons of Jupiter, or [Saturn’s moon] Titan would be interesting.”

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to SPACE.com. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Van Allen Probes Discover a New Radiation Belt

Feb. 28, 2013: Earth's radiation belts were one of the first discoveries of the Space Age. A new finding published in today's issue of Science shows that we still have much to learn about them. NASA's twin Van Allen Probes, launched just last August, have revealed a previously unknown third radiation belt around Earth.

"Even 55 years after their discovery, Earth's radiation belts still are capable of surprising us," said Nicky Fox, Van Allen Probes deputy project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "We thought we knew the radiation belts, but we don't."

A video from the Goddard Space Flight Center recaps the discovery of the new radiation belt. Play it

Previous observations of the Van Allen belts dating back to the late 1950s have documented two distinct regions of trapped radiation surrounding our planet, known as the inner and outer radiation belts. Particle sensors aboard the twin Van Allen Probes quickly revealed to scientists the existence of a transient, third radiation belt. Scientists observed the third belt for four weeks before a powerful interplanetary shock wave from the sun annihilated it.

Each of the two Van Allen Probes carries an identical set of five instrument suites that allow scientists to gather data on the belts in unprecedented detail. Key data for this discovery came from the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) instrument, part of the probes' Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma Suite (ECT).

"This is the first time we have had such high-resolution instruments look at time, space and energy together in the outer belt," says Daniel Baker, lead author of the study and REPT instrument lead at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "Previous observations of the outer radiation belt resolved it as a single blurry element. When we turned REPT on just two days after launch, we clearly saw the new belt and a [gap] between it and the outer belt."

Back in the 1950s when the radiation belts were discovered, they had little effect on ordinary people. Today the radiation belts are crucial to our high-tech society.  Hundreds of satellites used for everything from weather prediction to GPS to television routinely skim the belts, subjecting themselves to energetic particles that can damage solar panels and short-circuit sensitive electronics.  During geomagnetic storms when the belts are swollen by solar activity, whole fleets of satellites can be engulfed, imperiling the technological underpinnings of daily life on the planet below. The Van Allen Probes directly address these down-to-Earth problems

"The fantastic new capabilities and advances in technology in the Van  Allen Probes allow scientists to see in unprecedented detail how the radiation belts are populated with charged particles, what causes them to change, and how they affect the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere," says John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington DC.

For more information about the Van Allen Probes, visit  http://www.nasa.gov/vanallenprobes

Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Solar Cycle Update: Twin Peaks?

A new ScienceCast video explores the puzzling behavior of ongoing Solar Cycle 24. Play it

March 1, 2013: Something unexpected is happening on the sun.  2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar Max, the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Yet 2013 has arrived and solar activity is relatively low.  Sunspot numbers are well below their values in 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent for many months.

The quiet has led some observers to wonder if forecasters missed the mark. Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center has a different explanation: 
"This is solar maximum," he suggests. "But it looks different from what we expected because it is double peaked."

Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum. At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares. At the other end, Solar Max brings high sunspot numbers and solar storms. It’s a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years.

Reality, however, is more complicated. Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular. For one thing, the back-and-forth swing in sunspot counts can take anywhere from 10 to 13 years to complete; also, the amplitude of the cycle varies. Some solar maxima are very weak, others very strong.

Pesnell notes yet another complication: "The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks." Solar activity went up, dipped, then resumed, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years.

The same thing could be happening now. Sunspot counts jumped in 2011, dipped in 2012, and Pesnell expects them to rebound again in 2013: "I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013 and possibly last into 2014," he predicts.

Recent sunspot counts fall short of predictions. Credit: Dr. Tony Philips & NOAA/SWPC

Another curiosity of the solar cycle is that the sun's hemispheres do not always peak at the same time. In the current cycle, the south has been lagging behind the north. The second peak, if it occurs, will likely feature the southern hemisphere playing catch-up, with a surge in activity south of the sun's equator.

Pesnell is a leading member of the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, a blue-ribbon group of solar physicists who assembled in 2006 and 2008 to forecast the next Solar Max. At the time, the sun was experiencing its deepest minimum in nearly a hundred years. Sunspot numbers were pegged near zero and x-ray flare activity flat-lined for months at a time. Recognizing that deep minima are often followed by weak maxima, and pulling together many other threads of predictive evidence, the panel issued this statement:

"The Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel has reached a consensus. The panel has decided that the next solar cycle (Cycle 24) will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May 2013. Note, this is not a unanimous decision, but a supermajority of the panel did agree."

Given the tepid state of solar activity in Feb. 2013, a maximum in May now seems unlikely.

"We may be seeing what happens when you predict a single amplitude and the Sun responds with a double peak," comments Pesnell.

Incidentally, Pesnell notes a similarity between Solar Cycle 24, underway now, and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century. If the two cycles are in fact twins, “it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015.”

No one knows for sure what the sun will do next. It seems likely, though, that the end of 2013 could be a lot livelier than the beginning.


Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

What Exploded over Russia?

Feb. 26, 2013:  When the sun rose over Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday, Feb. 15th, many residents of nearby Chelyabinsk already knew that a space rock was coming. Later that day, an asteroid named 2012 DA14 would pass by Earth only 17,200 miles above Indonesia. There was no danger of a collision, NASA assured the public.

Maybe that's why, when the morning sky lit up with a second sun and a shock wave shattered windows in hundreds of buildings around Chelyabinsk, only a few people picking themselves off the ground figured it out right away. This was not a crashing plane or a rocket attack.

"It was a meteor strike--the most powerful since the Tunguska event of 1908," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.

A new ScienceCast video reviews what researchers have learned about the Russian meteor. Play it

 

In a coincidence that still has NASA experts shaking their heads, a small asteroid completely unrelated to 2012 DA14 struck Earth only hours before the publicized event. The impactor flew out of the blue, literally from the direction of the sun where no telescope could see it, and took everyone by surprise.

"These are rare events and it is incredible to see them happening on the same day," says Paul Chodas of NASA's near-Earth Object Program at JPL.

Researchers have since pieced together what happened. The most telling information came from a network of infrasound sensors operated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). Their purpose is to monitor nuclear explosions.

Listen to the infrasound recording, sped up 135x into the range of human hearing. Play it
 

Infrasound is a type of very low-frequency sound wave that only elephants and a few other animals can hear. It turns out that meteors entering Earth's atmosphere cause ripples of infrasound to spread through the air of our planet. By analyzing infrasound records, it is possible to learn how long a meteor was in the air, which direction it traveled, and how much energy it unleashed.

The Russian meteor's infrasound signal was was the strongest ever detected by the CTBTO network. The furthest station to record the sub-audible sound was 15,000km away in Antarctica.

Western Ontario Professor of Physics Peter Brown analyzed the data: "The asteroid was about 17 meters in diameter and weighed approximately 10,000 metric tons," he reports. "It struck Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph and broke apart about 12 to 15 miles above Earth's surface. The energy of the resulting explosion exceeded 470 kilotons of TNT." For comparison, the first atomic bombs produced only 15 to 20 kilotons.

Based on the trajectory of the fireball, analysts have also plotted its orbit. "It came from the asteroid belt, about 2.5 times farther from the sun than Earth," says Cooke.
Comparing the orbit of the Russian meteor to that of 2012 DA14, Cooke has shown that there is no connection between the two. "These are independent objects," he says. "The fact that they reached Earth on the same day, one just a little closer than the other, appears to be a complete coincidence." [orbit diagram]

Infrasound records confirm that the meteor entered the atmosphere at a shallow angle of about 20 degrees and lasted more than 30 seconds before it exploded. The loud report, which was heard and felt for hundreds of miles, marked the beginning of a scientific scavenger hunt. Thousands of fragments of the meteor are now scattered across the Ural countryside, and a small fraction have already been found.

Preliminary reports, mainly communicated through the media, suggest that the asteroid was made mostly of stone with a bit of iron--"in other words, a typical asteroid from beyond the orbit of Mars," says Cooke. "There are millions more just like it."

And that is something to think about as the cleanup in Chelyabinsk continues.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips |Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

New video of Russian meteorite emerges

New footage of a meteorite exploding across the sky over the Russian region of Cheliabinsk near the Ural mountains. Amateur videos continue to emerge days after the meteorite struck the area, damaging buildings, shattering glass and sending more than 1,000 to hospital with cuts and scrapes. Search teams have descended on Lake Cherbarkul, where the meteorite crashed Friday, to look for remains, but have been unable to find any large pieces so far. Residents have also joined the search and claim to have found a few fragments themselves. The Russian space agency said the fireball was travelling 30 km per second and although it did not kill anyone, the meteorite caused around $33 million in damage. This prompted scientists on Monday to discuss the possibility of an early warning system for the planet that would encompass telescopes and anti-asteroid missiles. (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) VLADIMIR LIPUNOV, HEAD OF THE SPACE MONITORING LABORATORY WITH MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY, SAYING: "How many telescopes do we need? That depends on the field of view. It is now possible to build telescopes of 4 to 8 square degrees. We need 10 to 20 telescopes around the Earth, dozens of them." NASA estimates the meteorite was 17 metres across and weighed about 10,000 tonnes before entering Earth's atmosphere and exploding with nuclear bomb force.

- Reuters

How Do We Know the Russian Meteor and 2012 DA14 Aren't Related?

So how can we tell that the Russian meteor isn't related to asteroid 2012 DA14?

One way is to look at meteor showers -- the Orionids all have similar orbits to their parent comet, Halley. Similarly, the Geminids all move in orbits that closely resemble the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, which produced them. So if the Russian meteor was a fragment of 2014 DA14, it would have an orbit very similar to that of the asteroid.

It does not...

If you look at the image, the orbit of the Earth is the green circle. That of 2012 DA14 is the blue ellipse that is almost entirely within the orbit of the Earth; notice that it is close to circular. The other blue ellipse, stretching way beyond the orbit of Mars, is the first determination of the orbit of the Russian meteor. Notice that the two are nothing alike; in fact, they aren't even close.

This is one reason -- a big one -- why NASA says the asteroid 2012 DA14 are not connected.

Text/image credit: NASA/MSFC/Meteroid Environment Office