NASA SETS BRIEFINGS FOR NEXT SHUTTLE MISSION TO THE SPACE STATION

NASA will hold a series of news briefings on Monday, Nov. 3, to preview the upcoming space shuttle Endeavour mission that will outfit the International Space Station for six-person crews.

NASA Television and the agency's Web site will provide live coverage of the briefings from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. News media questions also will be taken from other participating NASA locations.

Endeavour's 15-day flight, designated STS-126, is targeted for launch Nov. 14. The flight will deliver supplies and equipment to prepare the station for six-person crews starting next spring. The mission also includes four spacewalks to service the two Solar Array Rotary Joints that allow the arrays to track the sun.

U.S. reporters planning to attend the briefings in Houston must contact the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 by Oct. 29 to arrange for credentials. Journalists who are foreign nationals must contact the Johnson newsroom by Oct. 16.

Also on Nov. 3, Endeavour's seven astronauts will be available for round-robin interviews at Johnson. Reporters must contact Gayle Frere at 281-483-8645 by Oct. 29 to reserve an interview opportunity.

Chris Ferguson will command Endeavour's crew, which includes Pilot Eric Boe, and Mission Specialists Donald Pettit, Steve Bowen, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Shane Kimbrough, and Sandra Magnus. The spacewalkers will be Stefanyshyn-Piper, Bowen and Kimbrough. Magnus will remain on the station as flight engineer and science officer of the Expedition 18 crew. Expedition 17 Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff will return to Earth on Endeavour to conclude six months on the station.

Briefing times (all times CST):

7 a.m.: Video B-roll feed on NASA TV

8 - 9:30 a.m.: Program Overview Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon International Space Station Program Manager Mike Suffredini

9:30 - 11 a.m.: Mission Overview STS-126 Lead Flight Director Mike Sarafin International Space Station Lead Flight Director Ginger Kerrick Launch Package Manager Kevin Engelbert

11 a.m.: NASA TV Video File

11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.: Spacewalk Overview Briefing Lead Extravehicular Activity Officer John Ray

1 - 2 p.m.: STS-126 Crew News Conference

For NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For the latest information about the STS-126 mission and its crew, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

For the latest information on the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

Splashy Portrait Helps Explain How Stars Form

Different wavelengths of light swirl together like watercolors in a new, ethereal portrait of a bright, star-forming region.

The multi-wavelength picture combines infrared, visible and X-ray light from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope, and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton orbiting X-Ray telescope, respectively.

The colorful image offers a fresh look at the history of the star-studded region, called NGC 346, revealing new information about how stars form in the universe. NGC 346 is the brightest star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a so-called irregular dwarf galaxy that orbits our Milky Way galaxy, 210,000 light-years away.

"NGC 346 is an astronomical zoo," said Dimitrios Gouliermis of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, lead author of a new paper describing the observations in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal. "When we combined data at various wavelengths, we were able to tease apart what's going on in different parts of the cloud."

The new picture is available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/multimedia/20081008.html .

Small stars are scattered throughout the NGC 346 region, while massive stars populate its center. The massive stars and most of the small stars formed at the same time out of one dense cloud, while other small stars were created later through a process called triggered star formation. Intense radiation from massive stars ate away at the surrounding dusty cloud, triggering gas to expand and create shock waves that compressed nearby cold dust and gas into new stars. The red-orange filaments surrounding the center of the image show where this process has occurred.

But a set of even younger small stars in the region, seen as a pinkish blob at the top of the image, couldn't be explained by this mechanism. Scientists were scratching their heads over what caused this seemingly isolated group of stars to form.

By combining multi-wavelength data of NGC 346, Gouliermis says he and his team were able to pinpoint the trigger as a very massive star that blasted apart in a supernova explosion about 50,000 years ago. According to the astronomers, this very massive star spurred the isolated young stars into existence before it died, but through a different type of triggered star formation than that which occurred near the center of the region. Fierce winds from the massive star, and not radiation, pushed dust and gas together, compressing it into new stars.

The finding demonstrates that both wind- and radiation-induced triggered star formation are at play in the same cloud. According to Gouliermis, "The result shows us that star formation is a far more complicated process than we used to believe, comprising different competitive or collaborative mechanisms."

The new image also reveals a bubble, seen as a blue halo to the left, caused by the supernova explosion that happened 50,000 years ago. Further analysis shows that this bubble is located within a large expanding gaseous shell, possibly powered by the explosion and the winds of other bright stars in its vicinity.

Infrared light (red) shows cold dust; visible light (green) denotes glowing gas; and X-rays (blue) represent very warm gas. Ordinary stars appear as blue spots with white centers, while young stars enshrouded in dust appear as red spots with white centers.

Other authors of this paper include Thomas Henning and Wolfgang Brandner of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, and You-Hua Chu and Robert Gruendl of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information about Spitzer is at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

NASA ISSUES SPACE SHUTTLE TO CONSTELLATION WORKFORCE TRANSITION REPORT

NASA is releasing an updated version of the Workforce Transition Strategy Report, which was delivered to Congress on Wednesday. The report details the agency's plan to minimize job losses while transitioning from the Space Shuttle Program to the Constellation Program.

The report will be available online Wednesday at 3 p.m. EDT at:

http://www.nasa.gov/transition

The initial report was submitted to Congress on March 31, 2008. The next update will be submitted to Congress in spring 2009.

MESSENGER Returns Images from Oct. 6 Mercury Fly-By

MESSENGER is the first mission sent to orbit the planet closest to the sun. On Oct. 6, 2008, at roughly 4:40 a.m. ET, MESSENGER flew by Mercury for the second time this year. During the encounter, the probe swung just 125 miles (200 kilometers) above the cratered surface of Mercury, snapping hundreds of pictures and collecting a variety of other data from the planet as it gains a critical gravity assist that keeps the probe on track to become the first spacecraft ever to orbit the innermost planet beginning in March 2011.

At roughly 1:50 a.m. ET on October 7, MESSENGER's most recent images began to be received back on Earth. The spectacular image shown here is one of the first to be returned. It shows Mercury about 90 minutes after the spacecraft’s closest approach. The bright crater just south of the center of the image is Kuiper, identified on images from the Mariner 10 mission in the 1970s.

For most of the terrain east of Kuiper, toward the limb (edge) of the planet, the departing images are the first spacecraft views of that portion of Mercury’s surface. A striking characteristic of this newly imaged area is the large pattern of rays that extend from the northern region of Mercury to regions south of Kuiper.

Artists and Astronomers 'Observe' the Universe Together

Our current view of the universe, to quote Albert Einstein, is "not weirder than we do imagine, but weirder than we can imagine." That said, we have no choice but to observe the universe through human eyes and brains. How can we even start to make sense of it?

One answer might be to call in the artists. For thousands of years, people have used art to explore ideas that humble, confuse or even frighten us. A new exhibition opening in Pasadena continues this tradition, bringing artists and astronomers together to create original pieces of art.

Called "Observe," the exhibition is the culmination of a yearlong collaboration between two Pasadena institutions -- the Art Center College of Design and NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology. Beginning Oct. 10, visitors to the Art Center's Williamson Gallery will be challenged to stretch their imaginations as infrared observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are visualized through the minds of five contemporary Southern California artists.

"Science is bringing us spectacular discoveries that torque our everyday perception of reality. Things like black holes, multiple universes and time distortions challenge our human-centered culture and beliefs," said Stephen Nowlin, director of the Williamson Gallery. "This is an exhibition about the newly unknown."

Dan Goods, an Observe artist and a visual strategist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, was fascinated by the idea that light from distant stars and galaxies travels for years before reaching us. "Some of those stars died thousands of years ago, and they only exist in the light that is still on its way to our eyes," he pointed out.

Goods built a clock that spans a large room. Spheres throughout the room represent the hours. The spheres all look the same at the entrance, but like stars in the sky, they are actually different sizes and distances away. Speakers on the spheres play back sounds from people in the room, distorted and delayed by random time increments. This distortion represents a phenomenon called "redshift" in astronomy, in which light is stretched to longer wavelengths as it travels through space. "It's like the stars are talking to you," Goods explained.

Other projects include an interactive video installation by Daniel Wheeler, which invites visitors to "send" data all over the world to create an abstract collage of images; and a planetarium-like room filled with changing projections of the stars by Lita Albuquerque. George Legrady used a projected laser to make patterns representing all the pointing commands that have been sent up to Spitzer in space. And Lynn Aldrich created a fake-fur wormhole -- a theoretical tunnel through space and time -- that people can crawl through.

"I was amazed by the serendipities that cropped up," said Michelle Thaller, outreach manager at the Spitzer Science Center. "Lynn Aldrich's furry wormhole is a great way to represent the weird, almost chaotic nature of other dimensions!"

"I've always thought that Spitzer's images were spectacular, but working with the artists has made me look at scientific data in a whole new way," she added. "Data out of context can become art."

Observe opens to the public on Oct. 10 as part of ArtNight Pasadena, a weekend of art around town sponsored by the Pasadena Arts and Culture Commission. Opening-night hours are 6 to 10 p.m. The exhibition will run though Jan. 9, 2009, ushering in the International Year of Astronomy, a yearlong celebration of the 400th anniversary of Galileo and the first telescope.

JPL manages the Spitzer mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information about Spitzer is at www.spitzer.caltech.edu . More information about the Art Center College of Design is at www.artcenter.edu . More information about Pasadena ArtNight is at www.artcenter.edu/artnight .

Phoenix Lander Digs and Analyzes Soil as Darkness Gathers

As fall approaches Mars' northern plains, NASA's Phoenix Lander is busy digging into the Red Planet's soil and scooping it into its onboard science laboratories for analysis.

Over the past two weeks, Phoenix's nearly 2.4-meter-long (8 feet) arm moved a rock, nicknamed "Headless," about 0.4 meters (16 inches), and snapped an image of the rock with its camera. Then, the robotic arm scraped the soil underneath the rock and delivered a few teaspoonfuls of soil onto the lander's optical and atomic-force microscopes. These microscopes are part of Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA).

Scientists are conducting preliminary analysis of this soil, nicknamed "Galloping Hessian." The soil piqued their interest because it may contain a high concentration of salts, said Diana Blaney, a scientist on the Phoenix mission with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

As water evaporates in arctic and arid environments on Earth, it leaves behind salt, which can be found under or around rocks, Blaney said. "That's why we wanted to look under 'Headless,' to see if there's a higher concentration of salts there."

More digging is underway. Phoenix scientists want to analyze a hard, icy layer beneath the Martian soil surface, and excavating to that icy layer underneath a rock might give scientists clues about processes affecting the ice.

So the robotic arm has dug into a trench called "La Mancha," in part to see how deep the Martian ice table is. The Phoenix team also plans to dig a trench laterally across some of the existing trenches in hopes of revealing a cross section, or profile, of the soil's icy layer.

"We'd like to see how the ice table varies around the workspace with the different topography and varying surface characteristics such as different rocks and soils," said Phoenix co-investigator Mike Mellon of the University of Colorado, Boulder. "We hope to learn more about how the ice depth is controlled by physical processes, and by looking at how the ice depth varies, we can pin down how it got there."

Over the weekend, on the 128th Martian day, or sol, Phoenix engineers successfully directed the robotic arm to dig in a trench called "Snow White" in the eastern portion of the lander's digging area. The robotic arm then delivered the material to an oven screen on Phoenix's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer.

The Phoenix team will try to shake the oven screen so the soil can break into smaller lumps and fall through for analysis.

The Phoenix lander, originally planned for a three-month mission on Mars, is now in its fifth month. As fall approaches, the lander's weather instruments detect diffuse clouds above northern Mars, and temperatures are getting colder as the daylight hours wane.

Consequently, Phoenix faces an increasing drop in solar energy as the sun falls below the Martian horizon. Mission engineers and scientists expect this power decline to curtail activities in the coming weeks. As darkness deepens, Phoenix will primarily become a weather station and will likely cease all activity by the end of the year.

The Phoenix mission is led by Principal Investigator Peter Smith at the University of Arizona. Project management is the responsibility of JPL, with development partnership by Lockheed Martin in Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

More information about Phoenix is at: www.nasa.gov/phoenix .

NASA SELECTS ITT FOR SPACE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK SERVICES

NASA has selected ITT Corporation, Advanced Engineering and Sciences of Herndon, Va., to perform telemetry, tracking and command services for near-Earth missions under the Space
Communications Network Services contract.

The contract, with an estimated maximum value of $1.26 billion, will support NASA's Space and Near Earth Networks, which provide most of the communications for a wide range of NASA's science-based Earth-orbiting spacecraft, including the International Space Station, the space shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Earth Observing System satellites.

This cost-plus-award-fee core and indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract has a basic period of performance of five years and three months, including the phase-in period. The contract also includes two one-year options.

The core portion of the contract provides for the operation and maintenance of NASA's Space Network, comprised of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites and associated ground systems located primarily at White Sands, N.M., and Guam. The contract also provides support to ancillary Space Network sites located in American Samoa, Ascension Island and Australia.

The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity portion of the contract provides for operation and maintenance of NASA's Near Earth Network, including operations at Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Va.; the White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, N.M.; the Merritt Island Launch Annex in Florida; and McMurdo Station in Antarctica. It also includes commercial tracking and data-acquisition operations worldwide, and the Electronics Systems Test Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. This portion of the contract also includes support for the Satellite Laser Ranging network and the global Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network. Support in the areas of systems and sustaining engineering, logistics, facilities management and hardware and software development for the Space Network and the Near Earth Network also will be provided.

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

NASA ASTRONAUT TALKS WITH STUDENT CHESS OPPONENTS THURSDAY

NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff will meet his opponents in the ongoing Earth vs. space chess match Thursday, Oct. 9. At 1:05 p.m. CDT, NASA Television will broadcast the live linkup with Chamitoff, who lives aboard the International Space Station, and his competitors from the Stevenson Elementary School in Bellevue, Wash.

Reporters may attend the event in the Bellevue Community College's Carlson Theater, where the kindergarten through third grade members of the U.S. Chess Championship Team and its chess club teammates will gather.

The students are key players in the Earth vs. space match, proposing moves that are voted on by the public via the Internet. The match began Sept. 29.

The U.S. Chess Federation is facilitating the match on its Web site at:

http://www.uschess.org/nasa2008

Chamitoff, a space station flight engineer orbiting 210 miles above Earth at five miles a second, is a chess aficionado. He brought a chess set with him when he arrived at the complex last June. Chamitoff has added Velcro to the chess pieces to keep them from floating away in the weightlessness of space. He has been playing long-distance chess with station control centers around the world. So far, he is undefeated.

For more information about the U.S. Chess Federation, visit:

http://www.uschess.org

For more about Chamitoff and the space station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

For NASA TV schedule updates, downlinks, and streaming video information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

NASA AND THE ADLER PLANETARIUM HOST NASA FUTURE FORUM IN CHICAGO

NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale will deliver a keynote address on Friday, Oct. 10, at the Adler Planetarium to kick off NASA's Future Forum in Chicago. The 8:45 a.m. CDT event marks the final Future Forum and is part of a year-long series celebrating the agency's 50th anniversary. The forum will focus on how space exploration benefits Chicago's economic and academic sectors.

During the forum, astronauts Robert Satcher, Jr., and Kenneth Ham will discuss upcoming space shuttle missions. Carl Walz, director of NASA's Advanced Capabilities Division at the agency's headquarters in Washington, will provide an overview of the agency's plans to return astronauts to the moon and travel beyond. Other NASA participants include Woodrow Whitlow, Jr., director of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, and senior officials, engineers and scientists.

NASA astronauts and senior officials will be available to answer questions from news media. Reporters who would like to attend should contact Sonja Alexander at sonja.r.alexander@nasa.gov or 202-358-1761.

Event schedule for the NASA Chicago Future Forum: (All times CDT, subject to minor changes)

- 8:30 a.m. - Welcome by Paul H. Knappenberger, Jr., PhD, president, Adler Planetarium, Chicago
- 8:45 a.m. - Remarks by NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale
- 9 a.m. - Overview of the NASA Exploration Program by Carl Walz
- 10 a.m. - Innovation Panel: "Unleashing the power of technology and creativity"
- 11:15 a.m. -Discovery Panel: "Pushing the limits of knowledge to inspire new generations"
- 12:30 p.m. -Luncheon speaker: Mr. John W. Rowe, Chairman, President and CEO, Exelon Corporation
- 1:45 p.m. - Inspiration Panel: "Building idea factories for the future"

For more information on NASA's 50th Anniversary Future Forums, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/50th/future_forums

For complete biographical information about Dale, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/dale_bio.html

For more information about the Adler Planetarium, visit:

http://www.adlerplanetarium.org

NASA SPACECRAFT READY TO EXPLORE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM

The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space is ready for launch Oct. 19. The two-year mission will begin from the Kwajalein Atoll, a part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Called the Interstellar Boundary Explorer or IBEX, the spacecraft will conduct extremely high-altitude orbits above Earth to investigate and capture images of processes taking place at the farthest reaches of the solar system. Known as the interstellar boundary, this region marks where the solar system meets interstellar space.

"The interstellar boundary regions are critical because they shield us from the vast majority of dangerous galactic cosmic rays, which otherwise would penetrate into Earth's orbit and make human spaceflight much more dangerous," said David J. McComas, IBEX principal investigator and senior executive director of the Space Science and Engineering Division at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

The story of the outer solar system began to unfold when the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts left the inner solar system and headed out toward the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space.

"The Voyager spacecraft are making fascinating observations of the local conditions at two points beyond the termination shock that show totally unexpected results and challenge many of our notions about this important region," said McComas.

Other spacecraft have continued the exploration of the interstellar boundary region. Recently, a pair of NASA sun-focused satellites, the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory mission, detected a higher-energy version of the particles IBEX will observe in the heliosphere. The heliosphere is an area that contains the solar wind. It stretches from the sun to a distance several times the orbit of Pluto.

IBEX is poised to thoroughly map this interstellar boundary region of the solar system. The images will allow scientists to understand the global interaction between our sun and the galaxy for the very first time.

IBEX will be launched aboard a Pegasus rocket dropped from under the wing of an L-1011 aircraft flying over the Pacific Ocean. The Pegasus will carry the spacecraft approximately 130 miles above Earth and place it in orbit.

"What makes the IBEX mission unique is that it has an extra kick during launch," said Willis Jenkins, IBEX program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "An extra solid-state motor pushes the spacecraft further out of low-Earth orbit where the Pegasus launch vehicle leaves it."

The IBEX mission is the next in NASA's series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorers spacecraft. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission was developed by Southwest Research Institute with national and international partner participation.

For more information about IBEX, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ibex

NASA AWARDS FUTURE VEHICLE AIRCRAFT RESEARCH CONTRACTS

NASA has awarded research contracts worth a total of $12.4 million to six industry teams to study advanced concepts for subsonic and supersonic commercial transport aircraft that could
enter service in 25 to 30 years.

NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate selected teams led by The Boeing Company, GE Aviation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northrop Grumman to receive separate 18-month study contracts valued at approximately $2 million each.

The focus of the studies is on commercial transports that can overcome significant performance and environmental challenges for the benefit of the general public. The work is intended to identify key technology development needs, such as advanced airframes and propulsion systems, as well as breakthroughs that will enable such vehicles to enter service in 2030-2035. The vehicles represent a research and development generation known as "N+3," denoting three generations beyond the current commercial transport fleet.

"The future of air transportation is all about protecting the environment and responding to increasing energy costs in a balanced way," said Juan Alonso, director of NASA's Fundamental Aeronautics Program at NASA's Headquarters in Washington. "We will need airplanes that are quieter and more fuel efficient, and cleaner-burning fuels to power them. We are challenging industry to introduce these new technologies without impairing the convenience, safety and security of commercial air transportation."

The studies constitute the first phase of a two-phase acquisition involving a competitive down-selection process. Participants who successfully complete the first phase will be asked to submit proposals for Phase 2, which provides additional funds for initial research on the enabling technologies identified in Phase 1.

The Phase 1 research projects are listed below, including team members and award amounts.

Development of Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research: The Boeing Company, Georgia Institute of Technology, GE Global Research and GE Aviation; $1.9 million.

Small Commercial Efficient and Quiet Air Transportation for 2030-2035: GE Aviation, GE Global Research, Georgia Institute of Technology and Cessna Aircraft Company; $1.97 million.

Aircraft and Technology Concepts for an N+3 Subsonic Transport: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Aurora Flight Sciences, Aerodyne Research Inc., Pratt and Whitney and Boeing Phantom Works; $2.13 million.

Advanced Concept Studies for Subsonic Commercial Transport Aircraft Entering Service in the 2030-2035 Time Period: Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, Tufts University, Sensis Corporation, Spirit Aerosystems Corp. and Rolls-Royce North America Inc.; $1.97 million.

Advanced Concepts Studies for Supersonic Commercial Transport Aircraft Entering Service in the 2030-2035 Time Period: The Boeing Company, Boeing Phantom Works, GE Global Research, Georgia Institute of Technology, M4 Engineering Inc., Pratt and Whitney, Rolls Royce and Wyle Labs; $2.28 million.

NASA N+3 Supersonic, Three Generations Forward in Aviation Technology: Lockheed Martin Corporation, GE Global Research, Purdue University and Wyle Laboratories; $1.96 million.

For more information about NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, visit:

http://aeronautics.nasa.gov

SMALL ASTEROID TO LIGHT UP SKY OVER AFRICA

An asteroid measuring several feet in diameter is expected to enter the atmosphere over northern Sudan before dawn Tuesday, setting off a potentially brilliant natural fireworks display.

It is unlikely any sizable fragments will survive the fiery passage through Earth's atmosphere. The event is expected to occur at 5:46 a.m. local time (10:46 p.m. EDT Monday).

"We estimate objects this size enter Earth's atmosphere once every few months," said Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Object Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The unique aspect of this event is that it is the first time we have observed an impacting object during its final approach."

The small space rock, designated 2008 TC3, will be traveling on an eastward trajectory that will carry it toward the Red Sea.

"Observers in the region could be in for quite a show," Yeomans said. "When the object enters the atmosphere, it could become an extremely bright fireball."

The small space rock first was observed by the Mount Lemon telescope of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey early Monday. NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth. The Near Earth Object Observation Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," plots the orbits of these objects to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

For more information, visit:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

Cassini Plans Doubleheader Flybys of Saturn's Geyser Moon

As major league baseball readies for the World Series, NASA's Cassini team will come to bat twice this month when the spacecraft flies by Saturn's geyser moon, Enceladus.

The Oct. 9 flyby is an inside pitch -- the closest flyby yet of any moon of Saturn, at only 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the surface. The Oct. 31 flyby is farther out, at 196 kilometers (122 miles).

Scientists are intrigued by the possibility that liquid water, perhaps even an ocean, may exist beneath the surface of Enceladus. Trace amounts of organics have also been detected, raising tantalizing possibilities about the moon's habitability.

While Cassini's cameras and other optical instruments were the focus of an Aug. 11 flyby, during Cassini's Oct. 9 flyby, the spacecraft's fields and particles instruments will venture deeper into the plume than ever before, directly sampling the particles and gases. The emphasis here is on the composition of the plume rather than imaging the surface.

"We know that Enceladus produces a few hundred kilograms per second of gas and dust and that this material is mainly water vapor and water ice," said Tamas Gambosi, Cassini scientist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "The water vapor and the evaporation from the ice grains contribute most of the mass found in Saturn's magnetosphere.

"One of the overarching scientific puzzles we are trying to understand is what happens to the gas and dust released from Enceladus, including how some of the gas is transformed to ionized plasma and is disseminated throughout the magnetosphere," said Gambosi.

On Oct. 31, the cameras and other optical remote sensing instruments will be front and center, imaging the fractures that slash across the moon's south polar region like stripes on a tiger.

These two flybys might augment findings from the most recent Enceladus flyby, which hint at possible changes associated with the icy moon. Cassini's Aug. 11 encounter with Enceladus showed temperatures over one of the tiger-stripe fractures were lower than those measured in earlier flybys. The fracture, called Damascus Sulcus, was about 160 to 167 Kelvin (minus 171 to minus 159 degrees Fahrenheit), below the 180 Kelvin (minus 136 degrees Fahrenheit) reported from a flyby in March of this year.

"We don't know yet if this is due to a real cooling of this tiger stripe, or to the fact that we were looking much closer, at a relatively small area, and might have missed the warmest spot," said John Spencer, Cassini scientist on the composite infrared spectrometer, at the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.

Results from Cassini's magnetometer instrument during the August flyby suggest a difference in the intensity of the plume compared to earlier encounters. Information from the next two flybys will help scientists understand these observations.

Four more Enceladus flybys are planned in the next two years, bringing the total number to seven during Cassini's extended mission, called the Cassini Equinox Mission. The next Enceladus doubleheader will be November 2 and 21, 2009.

The Enceladus geysers were discovered by Cassini in 2005. Since then, scientists have been intrigued about what powers them, because the moon is so tiny, roughly the width of Arizona at only 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter.

"The October doubleheader gives Cassini two more opportunities to hit the ball out of the park," said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "With high scores in geology, surface heat, watery plumes and magnetospheric effects, Enceladus could win the 'world championship' title this year!"

Scientists anticipate reporting results from the two flybys in November and early December.

Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since 2004. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

For images, videos and a mission blog on the flyby, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . More information on the Cassini mission is also available at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

Infrared Echoes Give NASA's Spitzer a Supernova Flashback

Hot spots near the shattered remains of an exploded star are echoing the blast's first moments, say scientists using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

Eli Dwek of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and Richard Arendt of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, say these echoes are powered by radiation from Cassiopeia A supernova shock wave that blew the star apart some 11,000 years ago.

"We're seeing the supernova's first flash," Dwek said.

Previously, other Spitzer researchers discovered hot spots near the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant and recognized the spots' importance as light echoes of the original blast. Dwek and Arendt used Spitzer data to probe this hot dust and pin down the cause of the echoes more precisely.

Six knots of silicate dust near the remnant show temperatures between -173 and -123 degrees Celsius (-280 and -190 degrees Fahrenheit). Although this might seem frigid by earthly standards, such temperatures are downright hot compared to typical interstellar dust.

Writing in the October 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, the scientists show that the only event that could make the grains this hot is the powerful and short-lived pulse of ultraviolet radiation and X-rays that heralded the death of the star. The flash was a hundred billion times brighter than the sun, but lasted only a day or so.

"They've identified the precise event during the demolition of the star that produces the echo we see," said Michael Werner, the project scientist for Spitzer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Light from the explosion reached Earth in the 17th century, but no one noticed. The Spitzer find gives astronomers a second chance to study the supernova as it unfolds.

Although the explosion originally escaped detection, its aftermath -- a hot, expanding gas cloud known as Cassiopeia A (Cas A, for short) -- is one of the best-studied supernova remnants. The blast zone lies 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia.

When a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, its core collapses into a superdense, city-sized object called a neutron star. As the neutron star forms, it stiffens and rebounds. This triggers a mammoth shock wave that blows the star's outer layers to smithereens. The exiting shock creates a high-energy flash that precedes the supernova's rise in visible light.

Evidence for a flash associated with this "shock breakout" existed only in computer simulations until January 9, 2008. That's when NASA's Swift satellite detected a 5-minute-long X-ray pulse from galaxy NGC 2770. A few days later, a new supernova -- designated SN 2008D -- appeared in the galaxy.

The infrared echoes from Cas A arise from dust clouds about 160 light-years farther away than the remnant. The supernova's initial radiation pulse expands through space at the speed of light, then encounters the clouds and heats their dust grains. The dust, in turn, re-radiates the energy at infrared wavelengths.

The breakout radiation took 160 years to reach the clouds and, once heated, the dust's infrared energy had to make up the same distance. This extra travel time results in a 320-year offset between the supernova's initial outward-moving flash and arrival of the dust's infrared echo at Earth. The researchers plan to use the echoes to paint an intimate portrait of the explosion, the star and the immediate environment.

When light from the Cas A supernova first reached Earth in the late 1600s, no one reported seeing a new star. On August 16, 1680, the English astronomer John Flamsteed might have seen the supernova without recognizing it. He recorded a faint naked-eye star near the position of Cas A, but none exists there now.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information about Spitzer is at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

NASA Selects Science Teams for Astrobiology Institute

NASA has awarded five-year grants, averaging $7 million each, to 10 research teams from across the country, including two from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, to study the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The interdisciplinary teams will become new members of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, located at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Teams from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu; Arizona State University in Tempe; the Carnegie Institution of Washington; Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pa.; the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta; and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., have been selected as members. Teams from Ames and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., also have been selected.

"The research of these new teams reflects the increasing maturity of astrobiology," said NASA Astrobiology Institute Director Carl Pilcher of Ames. "They are focused on fundamental questions of life in the universe, but their work has implications for all of science. The research of these teams, together with that of the four continuing institute teams, will bridge the basic science of astrobiology to NASA's current and planned space exploration missions."

The first of two JPL teams will be devoted to an interdisciplinary investigation of chemistry on Saturn's moon Titan. The team will focus on Titan's physical environment to provide a basis for understanding the chemistry of early Earth, which was the precursor for life. The second JPL team will investigate the habitability of icy worlds, such as Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus, and Jupiter's moon Europa. They also will investigate how life could be detected in such environments and begin to define related instrumentation for future missions.

The University of Hawaii will investigate the origin, history, and distribution of water and its relation to life in the universe.

Arizona State University will develop new, more refined criteria to guide the search for life by characterizing life's elemental requirements. This will be developed by a "follow the elements" strategy for investigating habitability in extraterrestrial environments.

Carnegie Institution of Washington will conduct a wide range of research. They will focus on life's chemical and physical evolution, from the interstellar medium, through planetary systems, to the emergence and detection of life.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will conduct a multifaceted, highly integrated, program of interdisciplinary research on setting the stage for life. This will focus on the origins of relevant molecules and habitable environments, and on the processes by which chemical evolution leads to life.

Pennsylvania State University will develop novel approaches to detecting and characterizing life. Investigations will include indicators or signatures of life in mission-relevant ecosystems and ancient rocks, and evaluating the potential for these signatures in extraterrestrial settings.

The Georgia Institute of Technology will pursue the scientific goal of rewinding the tape of life to before the last universal common ancestor of all living organisms. This could shed light on the nature of protein synthesis by the earliest living systems.

Ames will conduct a program of integrative, mission-enabling research to investigate the creation and distribution of early habitable environments in emerging planetary systems. Goddard will evaluate the possible role of organic material from space in the origin of life on Earth, and advance understanding of organics on other worlds.

"The new teams provide a superb foundation for the institute as it enters its second decade," said Jim Green, Planetary Science Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "They bring together the many disciplines necessary for a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to studying life in the universe."

The new members join four continuing teams led by Montana State University in Bozeman, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

For more information about the NASA Astrobiology Institute, its new teams, and NASA's astrobiology program, visit http://astrobiology.nasa.gov .