Sunspot Has Produced M-Class Flares, But No CMEs

Due to current issues on the SOHO spacecraft, the LASCO instrument was not taking data during this event. This instrument is used to develop the near real-time coronal mass ejections alerts. The STEREO beacon data is now coming online and indicates a possible small coronal mass ejection. A preliminary indication of its direction indicates a low likelihood of any geomagnetic storms at Earth.

A particularly large and complex sunspot appeared over the left limb of the sun on Saturday, May 5, beginning its two-week trek across the face of the star in conjunction with the sun's rotation. The sunspot, dubbed Active Region 1476, has so far produced seven M-class flares and numerous C-class flares, including two M-class flares on May 9, 2012 that peaked at 8:32 EDT and 10:08 EDT. These flares were all short-lived and there were no associated coronal mass ejections, so we do not expect any geomagnetic storms at Earth.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News050912-Mflares.html

NASA Image Gallery Highlights Earth’s Changing Face

In celebration of this year's Earth Day on April 22, NASA's Webby Award-winning Global Climate Change website, http://climate.nasa.gov , has unveiled a new version of its popular image gallery, "State of Flux." The gallery, which can be found at http://climate.nasa.gov/sof , presents stunning images, mostly from space, of our ever-changing planet, chronicling changes taking place over time periods ranging from days to centuries.

Each image pair in the continuously updated gallery highlights before-and-after impacts of change, including the destruction wrought by extreme events such as wildfires and floods, the retreat of glaciers caused by climate change, and the expanding footprint of urban areas due to population growth.

The redesigned gallery, which currently features more than 160 comparison views, is now organized and sortable by categories, including ice, human impact, water, land cover and extreme events. A selection of some of the Global Climate Change website team’s favorite images is highlighted in a new "Top Picks" category.

Another new feature is a map view, which places each image into its geographical context. Guests can zoom in to specific locations on the map, or select by region, and see where particular changes are taking place around the globe. They can also share links to each image set and download high-resolution versions of the images.

"Seeing our planet from space gives us a global view that we can't get elsewhere," said Amber Jenkins, editor of the Global Climate Change website, who established the gallery in 2009. "It underscores how fragile and interconnected our planet is, and how it is constantly changing. With this new version of the gallery, we want people to be better able to immerse themselves in the images, and gain that sense of perspective."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20120419.html

Paydirt at 8-Year-Old Mars Rover's 'New Landing Site'

A report in the May 4 edition of the journal Science details discoveries Opportunity made in its first four months at the rim of Endeavour Crater, including key findings reported at a geophysics conference in late 2011.

Opportunity completed its original three-month mission on Mars eight years ago. It reached Endeavour last summer, three years after the rover's science team chose Endeavour as a long-term destination. This crater is about 4 billion years old and 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter.

The impact that excavated the crater left a jumble of fused-together rock fragments around the rim. In a chunk brought to the surface by a later, much smaller impact into the rim, Opportunity found evidence that the original impact released heated, underground water that deposited zinc in that rock. Later after the impact, cool water flowed through cracks in the ground near the edge of the crater and deposited veins of the mineral gypsum.

"These bright mineral veins are different from anything seen previously on Mars, and they tell a clear story of water flowing through cracks in the rocks," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. He is the principal investigator for Opportunity and lead author of the new report by 27 researchers. "From landing until just before reaching the Endeavour rim, Opportunity was driving over sandstone made of sulfate grains that had been deposited by water and later blown around by the wind. These gypsum veins tell us about water that flowed through the rocks at this exact spot. It's the strongest evidence for water that we've ever seen with Opportunity."

For the past four months, the solar-powered rover has been working at one outcrop on the Endeavour rim, called Greeley Haven. Reduced daylight during the Martian winter, and accumulated dust on the rover's solar array, have kept energy too low for driving. "The days are now growing longer, and the sun is moving higher in the sky at Endeavour Crater. We expect Opportunity to resume driving in the next two months and continue exploring other parts of the crater's rim," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Researchers hope to get Opportunity to one of the deposits of clay minerals that have been detected in Endeavour's rim by observations from orbit. These minerals could be evidence of a non-acidic wet phase of the region's environmental history.

"Exploring Endeavour Crater is like having a new landing site," said JPL's Timothy Parker, a co-author of the new report. "That's not just because of the difference in the geology here compared to what we saw during most of the first eight years, but also because there's a whole vista before us inviting much more exploration."

Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued for years of bonus, extended missions. Both have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Spirit stopped communicating in 2010.

NASA launched the next-generation Mars rover, car-size Curiosity of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, on Nov. 26 for arrival at Mars' Gale Crater in August 2012.

For more information http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20120503.html

'Beautiful Earth' Combines Live Music, American Indian Perspectives with NASA Science and Technology

Composer Kenji Williams couples awe-inspiring NASA satellite imagery with innovative violin and electronic melodies in his "Bella Gaia" program. The Visitor Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., hosted a live performance of Bella Gaia on April 19 as part of a NASA educational program called "Beautiful Earth."

Beautiful Earth combines Williams's Bella Gaia show with interactive talks by scientists and American Indian educators, and hands-on workshops for students. Williams's performance of Bella Gaia (which translates to "Beautiful Earth)" provides an emotional element to the science education program.

"I would love for people to feel a real and personal connection with the science of the living Earth," Williams said. "Without this emotional connection, stewardship of our resources will be difficult to develop in any long-lasting way. A 'culture of ecology’ is what is needed to create pervasive change, and this is what I would like audiences to feel with their minds and hearts."

NASA's Beautiful Earth showcases Earth's systems and highlights many NASA missions studying Earth. The show on April 19 focused on the water cycle and featured video of American Indians from the Ottawa and Chippewa tribes undertaking a "water walk," a sacred ceremony that celebrates the connections between water and life. The production also included imagery of forest fires in the Amazon and time-lapses of Arctic ice.

Williams created Bella Gaia to inspire people and give them a glimpse into the rare vantage point that astronauts have when they are in space.

"I was inspired by a meeting and conversation with NASA astronaut Mike Fincke several years ago," Williams said. "He told me of his profound transformation the first time he saw the Earth from space, from the International Space Station. I was so inspired by his story that it got me thinking, 'How could I bring this transformative experienced that astronauts commonly have, to those of us who can't go to space?'"

This "transformative experience," which author Frank White called the Overview Effect, represents a change in how some returning astronauts conceptualize Earth, one that overshadows manmade boundaries by a sudden awareness that Earth operates as a borderless, interconnected whole.

In this Beautiful Earth program, Williams played violin over electronic music against a multimedia backdrop of NASA scientific visualizations and views of Earth from space. Interactive talks featured several speakers, including astronomer Jim Rock, of the Native American Dakota tribe, and Thorsten Markus, chief of Goddard's Cryospheric Sciences Lab.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/beautiful-earth.html

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NASA Celebrates Earth Day 2012 in the Washington Area

NASA is taking part in the celebration of Earth Day's 42nd anniversary on the National Mall in Washington from April 20 through April 22. The agency's involvement includes three consecutive days of activities and exhibits open to the public. Additional activities are scheduled at nearby NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The "NASA Village" on the National Mall will contain activities and exhibits in three tents that highlight the use of NASA science and technology to advance knowledge and awareness of our home planet. The area is located one block west of 12th Street and the Smithsonian Metro station entrance.

The Earth and Activities tents will host exhibits and hands-on demonstrations throughout the weekend. Activities include the Weather Versus Climate game, a "Go Green" environment challenge, and Earth Science Pursuit. The Green Theater will feature large satellite images and presentations by NASA scientists and others.

On Earth Day, April 22, a performance stage hosted by the Earth Day Network will feature presentations by NASA along with a wide variety of entertainment.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/ed-2012-dc.html

NASA's WISE Mission Sees Skies Ablaze With Blazars

Astronomers are actively hunting a class of supermassive black holes throughout the universe called blazars thanks to data collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The mission has revealed more than 200 blazars and has the potential to find thousands more.

Blazars are among the most energetic objects in the universe. They consist of supermassive black holes actively "feeding," or pulling matter onto them, at the cores of giant galaxies. As the matter is dragged toward the supermassive hole, some of the energy is released in the form of jets traveling at nearly the speed of light. Blazars are unique because their jets are pointed directly at us.

"Blazars are extremely rare because it's not too often that a supermassive black hole's jet happens to point towards Earth," said Francesco Massaro of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology near Palo Alto, Calif., and principal investigator of the research, published in a series of papers in the Astrophysical Journal. "We came up with a crazy idea to use WISE's infrared observations, which are typically associated with lower-energy phenomena, to spot high-energy blazars, and it worked better than we hoped."

The findings ultimately will help researchers understand the extreme physics behind super-fast jets and the evolution of supermassive black holes in the early universe.

WISE surveyed the entire celestial sky in infrared light in 2010, creating a catalog of hundreds of millions of objects of all types. Its first batch of data was released to the larger astronomy community in April 2011 and the full-sky data were released last month.

Massaro and his team used the first batch of data, covering more than one-half the sky, to test their idea that WISE could identify blazars. Astronomers often use infrared data to look for the weak heat signatures of cooler objects. Blazars are not cool; they are scorching hot and glow with the highest-energy type of light, called gamma rays. However, they also give off a specific infrared signature when particles in their jets are accelerated to almost the speed of light.

One of the reasons the team wants to find new blazars is to help identify mysterious spots in the sky sizzling with high-energy gamma rays, many of which are suspected to be blazars. NASA's Fermi mission has identified hundreds of these spots, but other telescopes are needed to narrow in on the source of the gamma rays.

Sifting through the early WISE catalog, the astronomers looked for the infrared signatures of blazars at the locations of more than 300 gamma-ray sources that remain mysterious. The researchers were able to show that a little more than half of the sources are most likely blazars.

"This is a significant step toward unveiling the mystery of the many bright gamma-ray sources that are still of unknown origin," said Raffaele D'Abrusco, a co-author of the papers from Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "WISE's infrared vision is actually helping us understand what's happening in the gamma-ray sky."

The team also used WISE images to identify more than 50 additional blazar candidates and observed more than 1,000 previously discovered blazars. According to Massaro, the new technique, when applied directly to WISE's full-sky catalog, has the potential to uncover thousands more.

"We had no idea when we were building WISE that it would turn out to yield a blazar gold mine," said Peter Eisenhardt, WISE project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who is not associated with the new studies. "That's the beauty of an all-sky survey. You can explore the nature of just about any phenomenon in the universe."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20120412.html

Sector 33 Puts You in the Control Tower

Angry birds in space may be OK, but angry pilots in the sky are another thing altogether.

NASA in January released an educational game called Sector 33 in which the goal is to keep imaginary pilots and their airliners happy by remaining a safe distance in the sky from each other using math and problem-solving skills.

In the game, available free of charge for Apple iPhone and iPad devices, the player acts as an air traffic controller by guiding airplanes through a sector of airspace spanning Nevada and California.

The player can adjust the planes' path and speed to safely reach certain spots in the sky in the fastest time possible, while at the same time keeping the planes a specific distance from each other.

So far the app has been a big hit with the online community, earning a top rating of five stars with more than 60 percent of those offering customer reviews.

"Users of Sector 33 are telling us that they love the app, it's fun yet educational, and makes gamers think on their feet as they try to solve the various air traffic control problems built into the game," said Gregory Condon, manager of NASA's Smart Skies Education Project based at the Ames Research Center in California.

Sector 33 is based on Smart Skies Line Up With Math, an educational software title developed under the direction of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and distributed in cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration and National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/sector33.html

Tackling the Global Water Challenge

In a speech on March 22, 2012, marking World Water Day, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton launched a new partnership to improve water security. The U.S. Water Partnership is a public-private partnership that seeks to mobilize U.S.-based knowledge, expertise and resources to improve water security around the world, particularly in those countries most in need.

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver joined Secretary Clinton and representatives of other U.S. government and private sector entities for the World Water Day event at the U.S. Department of State in Washington as the partnership was announced.

As one of the new members of the Partnership, NASA brings a variety of expertise, ingenuity and resources to the challenge.

In response to widespread famines in Africa in the 1980s, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) created an early warning system to provide timely information about drought and famine conditions. The system has since evolved into a worldwide Famine Early Warning System Network that uses data from NASA and others to classify food insecurity levels and alert authorities to predicted crises. NASA's data on long-term changes in rainfall, vegetation, reservoir height and other climate factors enhance USAID's ability to accurately predict food shortages and disseminate these findings to a broad audience around the world.

In April 2011, NASA and USAID signed a memorandum of understanding to expand their joint efforts to overcome international development challenges such as food security, climate change, and energy and environmental management. The agreement formalized ongoing agency collaborations that use Earth science data to address developmental challenges, and to assist in disaster mitigation and humanitarian responses.

Another NASA-USAID partnership, SERVIR, is bringing Earth observation information to local decision makers in targeted areas of the world to address threats related to climate change, biodiversity, and extreme events such as flooding, forest fires, and storms. SERVIR, which comes from the Spanish word meaning "to serve," features web-based access to satellite imagery, decision-support tools and interactive visualization capabilities to put previously inaccessible information into the hands of scientists, environmental managers, and decision-makers.

Regional SERVIR hubs are located at the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean in Panama, the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development based in Kenya, and the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, Nepal. SERVIR was developed by researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

NASA’s Earth observation research capabilities in space are also contributing new knowledge to tackle the global water challenge. In 2009, researchers using data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite showed that groundwater in northern India had been disappearing. The research, lead by Matt Rodell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., showed that the water was being consumed primarily to irrigate cropland faster than the aquifers were being replenished by natural processes.

Data on the depletion of groundwater around the world using GRACE observations is also contributing to public awareness of the global water challenge. Starting today, World Water Day, graphic displays of changes in global groundwater supply appear on a huge electronic billboard in New York City’s Time Square.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/world_water_day_2012.html

NASA Quiet Sonic Boom Research Effort Ends With a Whisper

NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center recently completed NASA’s latest quiet sonic boom research study at Edwards Air Force Base.

The Waveforms and Sonic boom Perception and Response, or WSPR, project gathered data from a select group of more than 100 volunteer Edwards Air Force Base residents on their individual attitudes toward sonic booms produced by aircraft in supersonic flight over Edwards.

NASA and industry are studying technology that will reduce the noise and annoyance associated with sonic booms to the point where aircraft flying over populated areas at supersonic speeds do not disturb the peace, and aviation and governmental authorities may consider lifting prohibitions. But before the current restrictions on supersonic flight over land can be changed, much research is needed to understand how individuals and communities react to low-noise sonic booms.

WSPR's primary purpose is to develop data collection methods and test protocols for future public perception studies in communities that do not usually experience sonic booms. The base's unique flight-test airspace puts Edwards residents in a position to experience loud booms regularly, so their reactions to low-noise booms will be a valuable guide for future work in sonic boom perception and response.

"Understanding the study participants' responses to sonic booms is very important to NASA," said Larry Cliatt, Dryden’s principal investigator for the research effort. “We’re pleased with their participation.”

Participants used a standard questionnaire to provide information every time they heard any sonic boom while at home. In keeping with the "there's an app for that" age, some participants responded using smart phones with apps supplied by the WSPR project. Other study participants used a web-based application, and some used paper forms.

For the supersonic flight portion of the research that occurred between Nov. 4 and Nov. 18, NASA F/A-18 aircraft flew specific flight profiles to generate booms, while NASA researchers monitored the flights, noting precise times and actual boom intensities recorded by ground instruments installed in the Edwards' base housing areas. Dryden conducted 22 flights during the test period, yielding 82 quiet sonic booms and five of normal intensity. The softest WSPR project boom was recorded at .08 pounds per square foot (psf) overpressure, while the loudest registered well within the normal range at 1.4 psf.

NASA Dryden takes great care to ensure that loud sonic booms do not impact residential communities, using preflight weather balloons and sonic boom analysis before every sonic boom research flight.

Dryden's partners in the WSPR effort include NASA’s Langley Research Center, Wyle Laboratories, Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Fidell Associates Inc., Pennsylvania State University and Tetra Tech. The cooperation of Edwards Air Force Base personnel was crucial to the study’s success.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/Features/WSPR_research_complete.html

Ready to Launch! A New Website Sharing Space Station Benefits For Humanity

When the International Space Station was first imagined, the idea was to create an unprecedented research platform to support microgravity investigations for the benefit of all humankind. That goal is now a reality, and researchers have not waited for completion to begin working on studies to build on our knowledge of science and technology in space. Because of this, we can already see some amazing breakthroughs.

So just what has the space station yielded to humankind? You can discover the benefits for yourself, thanks to another international collaborative effort. Working together, the station partners launched the International Space Station Benefits for Humanity website on March 1. This site enables readers to look at the global progress resulting from the knowledge and technologies of the orbiting laboratory.

Camille Alleyne, International Space Station assistant program scientist with NASA, explains the goals behind this new effort. "The website is a great resource for the general public and other stakeholders," Alleyne said. "It communicates the value of the International Space Station as a unique scientific and educational platform that enables discoveries that benefit all humanity."

The site will be featured on all of the partner agency websites, in both English and the applicable native languages. This includes the Canadian Space Agency, or CSA; the European Space Agency, or ESA; the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA; the Russian Federal Space Agency, or Roscosmos; and NASA. The stories contributed were the work of writers from around the world, representing each of the agencies whose collaboration took the station from conception to reality.

"Working with the partners on this initiative was truly an extraordinary experience," Alleyne said. "This effort is a continued demonstration of the unprecedented achievement in international cooperation, which is one of the great values of the International Space Station."

Prompted by the International Space Station Multilateral Control Board, the site will feature stories that raise awareness to the station benefits already making a difference in our world. These accounts will be updated as additional accomplishments come to light and vary in topic from education to technology to telemedicine advancements.

"Users will find stories about station research that benefits humankind in the areas of human health, Earth observations and global education," Alleyne said. "Vaccine development research, station-generated images that assist in disaster relief and farming and educational projects that inspire future scientists, engineers and space explorers are some examples of research benefits. The resulting knowledge of these benefits will be extended to more countries and people for the betterment of humanity. They will be used to improve the quality of people's lives globally."

The site focuses primarily on findings that are making their way into general use here on Earth. For instance, doctors are already operating with space station robotics technology when they employ the neuroArm to perform delicate surgical procedures. There are also products with the potential for worldwide impact that are on the horizon, such as vaccines to inoculate against salmonella and even advanced delivery methods of microencapsulation for cancer treatments. These are just some of the developments derived from the work done aboard the space station highlighted as part of this humanitarian website.

As many efforts provide valuable conceptual and scientific data, however, researchers will continue to build upon the ever-growing body of space and microgravity knowledge. For results from specific investigations performed on the space station, readers can also visit NASA’s International Space Station Program Science Results Web page.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/humanities_website.html

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope: A time of accomplishment and achievement

Manufacturing and difficult of all flight mirrors was finished in a final test at the X-ray and Calibration Facility at Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. through these tests mirror segment were chilled to temperature similar to those Webb will see in space, around minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

It was the conclusion of work started in 2003. Heed lessons learned from the Hubble Space Telescope, the program adopted the plan of tackling the most difficult technical challenges first. That decision proved to be the right one. In June, all 18 flight main mirror segment, plus the secondary, tertiary and fine steering mirrors, were refined and coated soft beautiful surfaces that will enable Webb to image the most far-away galaxies.

Two of Webb's behind and leader structures were also completed. To assemble the flight telescope on the ground, a 139,000 pound structure will install the flight mirrors using an below track system supporting a robotic arm. The huge display place has been completed and assembled in the ultra-clean room used for telescope assembly at Goddard.

Also over was the pathfinder backplane, a full-scale engineering model of the middle section of the flight backplane. The backplane holds the mirror segment in place to form a single primary mirror. The full pathfinder constituent will consist of 12 of the 18 hexagonal cells (the center section of the primary mirror) of the telescope and contain a subset of two primary mirror segment assemblies, the secondary mirror, and the subsystem contain the tertiary and fine direction-finding mirrors. It will show integration and test actions that will be used on the flight reduce in size.

Webb's giant sunshield moved onward into a new testing phase last year, the last step before fabrication of the flight sunshield. Sunshield layer three became the first of five full-size flight-like layers stretched out in a fully replicated flight pattern. This enables engineers to make 3-D shape capacity that will tell them how the full-size sunshield layers will behave in space. Implementation this test is a critical step in the sunshield's progress and gives the engineers confidence and experience needed to manufacture the five flight layers.

An important sunshield use flight structure also completed fabrication in 2011. The space-qualified graphite composite tubes that will enable the sunshield to deploy in space have finished fabrication. The telescoping tube system was intended at Astro Aerospace, a industry unit of Northrop Grumman.

Capping the year's achievement, Webb's spacecraft also moved onward. The force system's 16 monopropellant rocket engine thrusters, which manage momentum and station-keeping on orbit, were upgraded to accept senior heat loading from the sunshield. Propulsion engineers also completed building four flight secondary combustion increased thrusters which maintain orbit after the launch vehicle finishes its burns. Engineers also established the flight software accountable for ground commands and science data liberation.

Successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope is the world's next-generation space observatory. It is the most influential space telescope ever built. Webb will observe the most remote objects in the universe, provide images of the very first galaxies ever formed and study planets around distant stars. The Webb reduce in dimension is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Fifty-Seven Student Rocket Teams to Take NASA Launch Challenge

More than 500 students from middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities in 29 states will show their rocketeering prowess in the 2011-12 NASA Student Launch Projects flight challenge. The teams will build and test large-scale rockets of their own design in April 2012.

NASA created the twin Student Launch Projects to spark students' imaginations, challenge their problem-solving skills and give them real-world experience. The project aims to complement the science, mathematics and engineering lessons they study in the classroom.

"Just as NASA partners with innovative companies such as ATK to pursue the nation's space exploration mission, these young rocketeers pool their talent and ingenuity to solve complex engineering problems and fly sophisticated machines,” said Tammy Rowan, manager of Marshall's Academic Affairs Office.

A record 57 teams of engineering, math and science students will take part in the annual challenge, organized by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Fifteen middle and high school teams will tackle the non-competitive Student Launch Initiative, while 42 college and university teams will compete in the University Student Launch Initiative. The latter features a $5,000 first-place award provided by ATK Aerospace Systems of Salt Lake City, Utah.

"This competition is extremely important to ATK to mentor and train our future workforce," said Charlie Precourt, ATK general manager and vice president of Space Launch Systems. Precourt is a former space shuttle astronaut who piloted STS-71 in 1995 and commanded STS-84 in 1997 and STS-91 in 1998. "ATK is proud to enter our fifth year as a partner with NASA on this initiative to engage the next generation. The competition grows in impact each year."

Each Student Launch Projects team will build a powerful rocket, complete with a working science or engineering payload, which the team must design, install and activate during the rocket launch. The flight goal is to come as close as possible to an altitude of 1 mile, requiring a precise balance of aerodynamics, mass and propulsive power.

As in classroom studies, participants must "show their work," writing detailed preliminary and post-launch reports and maintaining a public website for their rocket-building adventure. Each team also must develop educational engagement projects for schools and youth organizations in its community, inspiring the imaginations and career passions of future explorers.

In April, the teams will converge at Marshall, where NASA engineers will put the students' creations through the same kind of rigorous reviews and safety inspections applied to the nation's space launch vehicles. On April 21, 2012, students will firing their rockets toward the elusive 1-mile goal, operating onboard payloads and waiting for chutes to open, signaling a safe return to Earth.

The student teams will vie for a variety of awards for engineering skill and ingenuity, team spirit and vehicle design. These include two new prizes: a pair of TDS2000 Series oscilloscopes, which are sophisticated tools for studying the change in flow of electrical voltage or current. Donated by Tektronix Inc. of Beaverton, Ore., the oscilloscopes will be presented to the two school teams that earn the "Best Payload" and "Best Science Mission Directorate Challenge Payload" honors.

This year's participants hail from Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. For a complete competitor list and more information about the challenge, visit:

Science Nugget: Using Many Instruments to Track a Comet

In 16 years of data observations, the Solar Heliophysics Observatory (SOHO) -- a joint European Space Agency and NASA mission –- made an unexpected claim for fame: the sighting of new comets at an alarming rate. SOHO has spotted over 2100 comets, most of which are from what's known as the Kreutz family, which graze the solar atmosphere where they usually evaporate completely.

But on December 2, 2011, the discovery of a new Kreutz-family comet was announced. This comet was found the old-fashioned way: from the ground. Australian astronomer Terry Lovejoy spotted the comet, making this the first time a Kreutz comet has been found through a ground-based telescope since the 1970's. The comet has been designated C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy).

Discovering a comet before it moves into view of space-based telescopes, gives scientists the opportunity to prepare the telescopes for the best possible observations. Indeed, since comet Lovejoy was visible from the ground, scientists have high hopes that this might be an exceptionally bright comet, making it all the easier to view and study. (Some Kreutz comets –- such as Ikeya-Seki in 1965 -- are so bright they can be seen with the naked eye in the daytime, though this is extremely rare.)

The comet moved into view of the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) on Monday, December 12. It should be visible in SOHO by Wednesday, Dec 14.

Next up is Hinode, which will make observations at about 6 p.m. ET on Dec 15, as the comet moves towards its closest approach to the sun. Hinode's solar optical telescope will take the highest resolution images of this close approach. As the comet passes through the sun's atmosphere, the corona, an increase in particle collisions may produce X-rays, so Hinode may also capture X-ray images of the comet.

The comet will likely pass within some 87,000 miles of the sun, and disappear behind the northwest limb of the sun shortly after it is seen by Hinode.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/track-comet.html

Shuttle Model Move Shows Way for Atlantis

Moving the high fidelity model of the space shuttle Dec. 10 called for an array of planning, about 100 people and a specialized trailer. It also called for the temporary removal of 18 light poles, four traffic signals and some signs.

It took the team about five hours to make the six-mile trip from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to the Turn Basin across the street from the Vehicle Assembly Building. The group started rolling at 7:30 a.m. so they wouldn't have to worry about the dark.

"It went very well," said Gerald "Jay" Green, project manager for the move. "I felt a great sense of accomplishment when we got it done."

A similar move will be made next year when space shuttle Atlantis is taken the opposite direction to its display location at the Visitor Complex.

The model's convoy never traveled more than about 6 mph. It came to a stop many times along the way so the trailer's built-in jacks could raise or lower the wings to get past obstacles such as guard shacks and traffic lights.

"There were four or five really hard spots," Green said.

But then, moving space shuttles and full-scale model shuttles has always required extra consideration. For instance, crews moving a space shuttle through the mountains in California had to cut slots in the rock to make room for the wings.

Moving the model didn't require such an extreme action, but it took a month of planning and considerable study of potential routes. Even 3-D modeling was incorporated to find problem zones. All this was before Green and his group found out they would have to move it with the wings attached.

The first plans called for the model's wings to be cut off, but that decision was changed, forcing Green to model for a wingspan of 78 feet, not just the relatively narrow fuselage.

"We had to redo the plan in about a week," Green said. "We knew we would eventually have to take Atlantis, so we had to figure out what would make it work."

Some of the workers were on hand in case more signs or other hardware had to be removed as the model made its way.

Beyel Bros., a heavy lifting and hauling contractor, used a specialized trailer that had lifts built in, along with 144 wheels that could turn and swivel so the trailer could move nearly sideways if needed.

The tightest fit came when the wings crossed within six inches of a railroad crossing sign.

The shuttle model took a different route through the center, including going the "wrong way" on an entrance ramp to avoid going beneath the bridge over Kennedy Parkway. With tour buses and other traffic detoured to the other side of the parkway, the model moved north on the southbound side.

The model is expected to remain at the Turn Basin until February, when it will be taken on an open barge to Texas for display at Space Center Houston, the visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center.

The model, which weighs some 130,000 pounds, about the same as a real shuttle, is outfitted with doors and people toured the inside of it for years at the Visitor Complex.

"You can go in it, which I think is a great thing," Green said. "It's going somewhere where it's going to be used and enjoyed."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/news/explorermove.html

NASA Flies Robotic Lander Prototype to New Heights

NASA successfully completed the final flight in a series of tests of a new robotic lander prototype at the Redstone Test Center’s propulsion test facility on the U.S. Army Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala. Data from this test series will aid in the design and development of a new generation of small, smart, versatile robotic landers capable of performing science and exploration research on the surface of the moon or other airless bodies in the solar system, such as asteroids or the planet Mercury.

Since early October, the Robotic Lander Development Project at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville has subjected the lander prototype to a series of more complex outdoor flight tests maneuvers. The team steadily increased the lander's flight profile, starting by hovering the lander – dubbed Mighty Eagle -- at 3 feet, then 30 feet and finally a record 100-foot flight test.

During the 100-foot flight test, the lander autonomously flew for 30 seconds. The Mighty Eagle ascended to 100 feet, hovered and then demonstrated the equivalent of an autonomous landing on the lunar surface. The final maneuver simulated the required descent approach by horizontally translating 30 feet while descending and landing on target. The test demonstrated the lander's ability to maneuver to avoid hazards before performing a safe, controlled landing.

"The successful completion of the Mighty Eagle lander prototype provides a high level of confidence in our flight system design which significantly reduces cost and schedule," said Julie Bassler, Robotic Lander Development project manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. "Our combined NASA and contractor team went from the drawing board to successfully flight testing an autonomous, closed-loop, lander prototype system in less than two years," she said. "Mighty Eagle has performed well, demonstrating precision ascents, descents and horizontal translation flights to prove the lander can control itself and land safely."

"Our small team has worked tirelessly to develop a robust lander system," said Dr. Greg Chavers, lead systems engineer for the Robotic Lander Development Project at Marshall. "The prototype lander has the capability to launch, descend and land safely on its own -- without a man in the loop -- demonstrating the lander's autonomous and reusable test capability. Our team has matured the lander's guidance, navigation and control algorithms, which provided stable control of the lander, even through light wind and rain."

Mighty Eagle is a three-legged prototype that resembles an actual flight lander design. It is 4 feet tall and 8 feet in diameter and weighs 700 pounds when fueled with 90 percent hydrogen peroxide.

The lander receives its commands from an onboard computer that activates its 16 onboard thrusters -- 15 pulsed and one gravity cancelling thruster -- to carry it to a controlled landing using a pre-programmed flight profile. The prototype serves as a platform to develop and test algorithms, sensors, avionics, software, landing legs, and integrated system elements to support autonomous landings on airless planetary bodies, where aero-braking and parachutes are not options.

The next test phase of the test series is set to resume in early Spring when weather is more favorable for outdoor flight test. This new test series will test enhanced navigation capabilities.

Development and integration of the lander prototype is a cooperative endeavor led by the Robotic Lunar Lander Development Project at the Marshall Center; Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory; and the Von Braun Center for Science and Innovation, which includes the Science Applications International Corporation, Dynetics Corp., Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc., and Millennium Engineering and Integration Company, all of Huntsville.

The project is partnered with the U.S. Army’s Test and Evaluation Command’s test center located at Redstone Arsenal. The Redstone Test Center is one of six centers under the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command and has been a leading test facility for defense systems since the 1950s. Utilizing an historic test site at the arsenal, the project is leveraging the Redstone Test Center’s advanced capability for propulsion testing.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lunarquest/robotic/11-146.html

NASA's Hubble Finds Stellar Life and Death in a Globular Cluster

A new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows globular cluster NGC 1846, a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars in the outer halo of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way that can be seen from the southern hemisphere.

Aging bright stars in the cluster glow in intense shades of red and blue. The majority of middle-aged stars, several billions of years old, are whitish in color. A myriad of far distant background galaxies of varying shapes and structure are scattered around the image.

The most intriguing object, however, doesn’t seem to belong in the cluster. It is a faint green bubble near the bottom center of the image. This so-called ‘planetary nebula’ is the aftermath of the death of a star. The burned-out central star can be seen inside the bubble. It is uncertain whether the planetary nebula is a member of NGC 1846, or simply lies along the line of sight to the cluster. Measurements of the motion of the cluster stars and the planetary nebula’s central star suggest it might be a cluster member.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/life-death.html

Lightning-made Waves in Earth's Atmosphere Leak Into Space

At any given moment about 2,000 thunderstorms roll over Earth, producing some 50 flashes of lightning every second. Each lightning burst creates electromagnetic waves that begin to circle around Earth captured between Earth's surface and a boundary about 60 miles up. Some of the waves – if they have just the right wavelength – combine, increasing in strength, to create a repeating atmospheric heartbeat known as Schumann resonance. This resonance provides a useful tool to analyze Earth's weather, its electric environment, and to even help determine what types of atoms and molecules exist in Earth's atmosphere, but until now they have only ever been observed from below.

Now, NASA's Vector Electric Field Instrument (VEFI) aboard the U.S. Air Force's Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite has detected Schumann resonance from space. This comes as a surprise, since current models of Schumann resonance predict these waves should be caged at lower altitude, between the ground and a layer of Earth's atmosphere called the ionosphere.

"Researchers didn't expect to observe these resonances in space," says Fernando Simoes, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "But it turns out that energy is leaking out and this opens up many other possibilities to study our planet from above."

Simoes is the first author on a paper about these observations that appeared online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on November 16 and will appear in the print publication in December. He explains that the concept of resonance in general is fairly simple: adding energy at the right time will help any given phenomenon grow. Think of a swing – if you push it back just as it hits the top of its arc, you add speed. Push it backwards in the middle of its swing, and you will slow it down. When it comes to waves, resonance doesn't occur because of a swing-like push, but because a series of overlapping waves are synchronized such that the crests line up with the other crests and the troughs line up with the other troughs. This naturally leads to a much larger wave than one where the crests and troughs cancel each other out.

The waves created by lightning do not look like the up and down waves of the ocean, but they still oscillate with regions of greater energy and lesser energy. These waves remain trapped inside an atmospheric ceiling created by the lower edge of the "ionosphere" – a part of the atmosphere filled with charged particles, which begins about 60 miles up into the sky. In this case, the sweet spot for resonance requires the wave to be as long (or twice, three times as long, etc) as the circumference of Earth. This is an extremely low frequency wave that can be as low as 8 Hertz (Hz) – some one hundred thousand times lower than the lowest frequency radio waves used to send signals to your AM/FM radio. As this wave flows around Earth, it hits itself again at the perfect spot such that the crests and troughs are aligned. Voila, waves acting in resonance with each other to pump up the original signal.

While they'd been predicted in 1952, Schumann resonances were first measured reliably in the early 1960s. Since then, scientists have discovered that variations in the resonances correspond to changes in the seasons, solar activity, activity in Earth's magnetic environment, in water aerosols in the atmosphere, and other Earth-bound phenomena.

"There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of studies on this phenomenon and how it holds clues to understanding Earth's atmosphere," says Goddard scientist Rob Pfaff, Principal Investigator of the VEFI instrument and an author on the GRL paper. "But they're all based on ground measurements."

C/NOFS, of course, measured them much higher – at altitudes of 250 to 500 miles. While models suggest that the resonances should be trapped under the ionosphere, it is not unheard of that energy can leak through. So the team began looking for waves of the correct, very low frequency in the observations from VEFI – an instrument built at NASA Goddard with high enough sensitivity to spot these very faint waves. And the team was rewarded. They found the resonance showing up in almost every orbit C/NOFS made around Earth, which added up to some 10,000 examples.

Detection of these Schumann resonances in space requires, at the very least, an adjustment of the basic models to incorporate a "leaky" boundary at the bottom of the ionosphere. But detecting Schumann resonance from above also provides a tool to better understand the Earth-ionosphere cavity that surrounds Earth, says Simoes.

"Combined with ground measurements, it provides us with a better way to study lightning, thunderstorms, and the lower atmosphere," he says. "The next step is to figure out how best to use that tool from this new vantage point."

For more information http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-waves.html

NASA's TRMM Satellite Sees Deadly Tornadic Thunderstorms in Southeastern U.S.

Tornadoes are expected to accompany severe storms in the springtime in the U.S., but this time of year they also usually happen. When a line of severe thunderstorms associated with a cold front swept through the U.S. southeast on Nov. 16, TRMM collected rainfall data on the dangerous storms from space.

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite flew over the southeastern United States on November 16, 2011 at 2310 UTC (6:10 p.m. EST) when tornadoes were occurring with a line of thunderstorms that stretched from western Florida north through North Carolina. At least six deaths were caused by one of these tornadoes that destroyed three homes near Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Typically in the fall, the transition from warm air to cooler air occurs as Canadian cold air moves down into the U.S. The combination of a strong cold front with warm, moist air in its path enables the creation of strong to severe storms at this time of year.

TRMM data was used to create a rainfall analysis of the line of severe thunderstorms associated with the cold front. The analysis showed that the area of moderate to very heavy rainfall (falling at more than 2 inches or 50 mm per hour) with this frontal system was only located in a narrow line. In addition to heavy rain and some tornadoes, the strong cold front brought winds gusting over 30 mph, and a temperature drop of as much as 20 degrees as the front passed.

TRMM rainfall imagery is created at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. To create the images, rain rates in the center swaths are taken from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), a unique space-borne precipitation radar, while rain rates in the outer swath are from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). The rain rates are overlaid on infrared (IR) data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS) to form a complete picture of the rainfall in a storm or storm system like this one.

Data captured at the same time with TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR) were used to create a three dimensional look at the line of severe storms. That 3-D image shows the vertical structure or height of the thunderstorms. The higher the cloud tops go, the stronger the storm. Strong updrafts had pushed precipitation within some of these storms to heights of 9.3 miles (15 kilometers).

According to USA Today tornadoes were reported in four states from that line of thunderstorms. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina all had reported tornadoes, and dozens of buildings and homes were damaged. The line of severe weather also took down trees and power lines leaving many without electricity.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) designed to monitor and study tropical rainfall.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/Tornadic-Storms.html

ESA To Collaborate with NASA on Solar Science Mission

Solar Orbiter will venture closer to the Sun than any previous mission. The spacecraft will also carry advanced instrumentation that will help untangle how activity on the sun sends out radiation, particles and magnetic fields that can affect Earth's magnetic environment, causing aurora, or potentially damaging satellites, interfering with GPS communications or even Earth's electrical power grids.

"Solar Orbiter will use multiple gravity assists from Venus to tilt its orbit until it can see the poles of the Sun, and that's never been done before," said Chris St. Cyr, NASA's project scientist for Solar Orbiter at Goddard. "A full view of the solar poles will help us understand how the sun's magnetic poles reverse direction every 11 years, causing giant eruptions and flares, called space weather, that can affect the rest of the solar system."

Being so close to the sun also means that the Solar Orbiter will stay over a given area of the solar surface for a longer time, allowing the instruments to track the evolution of sunspots, active regions, coronal holes and other solar activity far longer than has been done before.

Solar Orbiter is also designed to make major breakthroughs in our understanding of how the sun generates and propels the flow of particles in which the planets are bathed, known as the solar wind. Solar activity and solar eruptions create strong perturbations in this wind, triggering spectacular auroral displays on Earth and other planets. Solar Orbiter will be close enough to the sun to both observe the details of how the solar wind is accelerated off the sun and to sample the wind shortly after it leaves the surface.

The mission's launch is planned for 2017 from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a NASA-provided launch vehicle. Solar Orbiter will be placed into an elliptical orbit around the sun. Its closest approach will be near the orbit of Mercury, 75% of the distance between Earth and the sun – some 21,000,000 miles away from the sun's surface.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/ESA-SolarOrbiter.html

NASA's Hubble Confirms That Galaxies Are the Ultimate Recyclers

New observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are expanding astronomers' understanding of the ways in which galaxies continuously recycle immense volumes of hydrogen gas and heavy elements. This process allows galaxies to build successive generations of stars stretching over billions of years.

This ongoing recycling keeps some galaxies from emptying their "fuel tanks" and stretches their star-forming epoch to over 10 billion years.

This conclusion is based on a series of Hubble Space Telescope observations that flexed the special capabilities of its Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) to detect gas in the halo of our Milky Way and more than 40 other galaxies. Data from large ground-based telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona and Chile also contributed to the studies by measuring the properties of the galaxies.

Astronomers believe that the color and shape of a galaxy is largely controlled by gas flowing through an extended halo around it. The three studies investigated different aspects of the gas-recycling phenomenon.

The results are being published in three papers in the November 18 issue of Science magazine. The leaders of the three studies are Nicolas Lehner of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.; Jason Tumlinson of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.; and Todd Tripp of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The COS observations of distant stars demonstrate that a large mass of clouds is falling through the giant halo of our Milky Way, fueling its ongoing star formation. These clouds of hot hydrogen reside within 20,000 light-years of the Milky Way disk and contain enough material to make 100 million suns. Some of this gas is recycled material that is continually being replenished by star formation and the explosive energy of novae and supernovae, which kicks chemically enriched gas back into the halo.

The COS observations also show halos of hot gas surrounding vigorous star-forming galaxies. These halos, rich in heavy elements, extend as much as 450,000 light-years beyond the visible portions of their galactic disks. The amount of heavy-element mass discovered far outside a galaxy came as a surprise. COS measured 10 million solar masses of oxygen in a galaxy's halo, which corresponds to about one billion solar masses of gas -- as much as in the entire space between stars in a galaxy’s disk.

Researchers also found that this gas is nearly absent from galaxies that have stopped forming stars. In these galaxies, the “recycling” process ignites a rapid firestorm of star birth which can blow away the remaining fuel, essentially turning off further star-birth activity.

This is evidence that gas pushed out of a galaxy, rather than pulled in from intergalactic space, determine a galaxy's fate."

The Hubble observations demonstrate that those galaxies forming stars at a very rapid rate, perhaps a hundred solar masses per year, can drive two-million-degree gas very far out into intergalactic space at speeds of up to two million miles per hour. That's fast enough for the gas to escape forever and never refuel the parent galaxy.

While hot gas "winds" from galaxies have been known for some time, the new COS observations reveal that hot outflows extend to much greater distances than previously thought and can carry a tremendous amount of mass out of a galaxy. Some of the hot gas is moving more slowly and could eventually be recycled. The observations show how gas-rich star-forming spiral galaxies can evolve to elliptical galaxies that no longer have star formation.

The light emitted by this hot plasma is invisible, so the researchers used COS to detect the presence of the gas by the way it absorbs certain colors of light from background quasars. Quasars are the brightest objects in the universe and are the brilliant cores of active galaxies that contain active central black holes. The quasars serve as distant lighthouse beacons that shine through the gas-rich "fog" of hot plasma encircling galaxies. At ultraviolet wavelengths, COS is sensitive to the presence of heavy elements, such as nitrogen, oxygen, and neon. COS's high sensitivity allows many galaxies to be studied that happen to lie in front of the much more distant quasars. The ionized heavy elements are markers for estimating how much mass is in a galaxy's halo.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/recyclers.html