From JPL At Caltech: “Sifting Through the Atmospheres of Far-off Worlds”

May 09, 2013

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

“Gone are the days of being able to count the number of known planets on your fingers. Today, there are more than 800 confirmed exoplanets — planets that orbit stars beyond our sun — and more than 2,700 other candidates. What are these exotic planets made of? Unfortunately, you cannot stack them in a jar like marbles and take a closer look. Instead, researchers are coming up with advanced techniques for probing the planets’ makeup.

One breakthrough to come in recent years is direct imaging of exoplanets. Ground-based telescopes have begun taking infrared pictures of the planets posing near their stars in family portraits. But to astronomers, a picture is worth even more than a thousand words if its light can be broken apart into a rainbow of different wavelengths.

Those wishes are coming true as researchers are beginning to install infrared cameras on ground-based telescopes equipped with spectrographs. Spectrographs are instruments that spread an object’s light apart, revealing signatures of molecules. Project 1640, partly funded by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., recently accomplished this goal using the Palomar Observatory near San Diego.

‘In just one hour, we were able to get precise composition information about four planets around one overwhelmingly bright star’, said Gautam Vasisht of JPL, co-author of the new study appearing in the Astrophysical Journal. ‘The star is a hundred thousand times as bright as the planets, so we’ve developed ways to remove that starlight and isolate the extremely faint light of the planets.’

Along with ground-based infrared imaging, other strategies for combing through the atmospheres of giant planets are being actively pursued as well. For example, NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes monitor planets as they cross in front of their stars, and then disappear behind. NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will use a comparable strategy to study the atmospheres of planets only slightly larger than Earth.”

See the full article here.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although the facility has a Pasadena postal address, it is actually headquartered in the city of La Cañada Flintridge [1], on the northwest border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Laboratory’s primary function is the construction and operation of robotic planetary spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA’s Deep Space Network.

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From JPL at Caltech: “How to Target an Asteroid”

April 16, 2013
DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Like many of his colleagues at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., Shyam Bhaskaran is working a lot with asteroids these days. And also like many of his colleagues, the deep space navigator devotes a great deal of time to crafting, and contemplating, computer-generated 3-D models of these intriguing nomads of the solar system.

This spectacular image of comet Tempel 1 was taken 67 seconds after it obliterated Deep Impact’s impactor spacecraft. The image was taken by the high-resolution camera on the mission’s flyby craft. Scattered light from the collision saturated the camera’s detector, creating the bright splash seen here. Linear spokes of light radiate away from the impact site, while reflected sunlight illuminates most of the comet surface. The image reveals topographic features, including ridges, scalloped edges and possibly impact craters formed long ago. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

But while many of his coworkers are calculating asteroids’ past, present and future locations in the cosmos, zapping them with the world’s most massive radar dishes, or considering how to rendezvous and perhaps even gently nudge an asteroid into lunar orbit, Bhaskaran thinks about how to collide with one.

‘If you want to see below the surface of an asteroid, there’s no better way than smacking it hard,’ said Bhaskaran. ‘But it’s not that easy. Hitting an asteroid with a spacecraft traveling at hypervelocity is like shooting an arrow at a target on a speeding race car.’

The term hypervelocity usually refers to something traveling at very high speed — two miles per second (6,700 mph / 11,000 kilometers per hour) or above. Bhaskaran’s hypothetical impacts tend to be well above.

‘Most of the hypervelocity impact scenarios that I simulate have spacecraft/asteroid closure rates of around eight miles a second, 30,000 miles per hour [about 48,000 kilometers per hour],’ said Bhaskaran.

In the majority of our solar system, where yield signs and ‘right of way’ statutes have yet to find widespread support, hypervelocity impacts between objects happen all the time. But all that primordial violence usually goes unnoticed here on Earth, and almost never receives scientific scrutiny.

‘High-speed impacts on asteroids can tell you so many things that we want to know about asteroids,’ said Steve Chesley, a near-Earth object scientist at JPL. ‘They can tell you about their composition and their structural integrity — which is how they hold themselves together. These are things that are not only vital for scientific research on the origins of the solar system, but also for mission designers working on ways to potentially move asteroids, either for exploitation purposes or because they may be hazardous to Earth.’”

See the full article here.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although the facility has a Pasadena postal address, it is actually headquartered in the city of La Cañada Flintridge [1], on the northwest border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Laboratory’s primary function is the construction and operation of robotic planetary spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA’s Deep Space Network.

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From JPL at Caltech: “NASA-Funded Asteroid Tracking Sensor Passes Key Test”

April 15, 2013
Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673/ D.C. Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov/David.C.Agle@jpl.nasa.gov

J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

“An infrared sensor that could improve NASA’s future detecting and tracking of asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test.

The NEOCam sensor (right) is the lynchpin for the proposed Near Earth Object Camera, or NEOCam, space mission (left). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Teledyne

The test assessed performance of the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) in an environment that mimicked the temperatures and pressures of deep space. NEOCam is the cornerstone instrument for a proposed new space-based asteroid-hunting telescope. Details of the sensor’s design and capabilities are published in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Optical Engineering.

The sensor could be a vital component to inform plans for the agency’s recently announced initiative to develop the first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid closer to Earth for future exploration by astronauts.

‘This sensor represents one of many investments made by NASA’s Discovery Program and its Astrophysics Research and Analysis Program in innovative technologies to significantly improve future missions designed to protect Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids,’ said Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office in Washington.”

See the full article here.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although the facility has a Pasadena postal address, it is actually headquartered in the city of La Cañada Flintridge [1], on the northwest border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Laboratory’s primary function is the construction and operation of robotic planetary spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA’s Deep Space Network.

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From JPL at Caltech via NASA: “NASA Team Investigates Complex Chemistry at Titan”

04.03.13
Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

James Schalkwyk 650-604-2791
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
james.schalkwyk@nasa.gov

“A laboratory experiment at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., simulating the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan suggests complex organic chemistry that could eventually lead to the building blocks of life extends lower in the atmosphere than previously thought. The results now point out another region on the moon that could brew up prebiotic materials. The paper was published in Nature Communications this week.

Titan

‘Scientists previously thought that as we got closer to the surface of Titan, the moon’s atmospheric chemistry was basically inert and dull,’ said Murthy Gudipati, the paper’s lead author at JPL. ‘Our experiment shows that’s not true. The same kind of light that drives biological chemistry on Earth’s surface could also drive chemistry on Titan, even though Titan receives far less light from the sun and is much colder. Titan is not a sleeping giant in the lower atmosphere, but at least half awake in its chemical activity.’

Scientists have known since NASA’s Voyager mission flew by the Saturn system in the early 1980s that Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, has a thick, hazy atmosphere with hydrocarbons, including methane and ethane. These simple organic molecules can develop into smog-like, airborne molecules with carbon-nitrogen-hydrogen bonds, which astronomer Carl Sagan called tholins.

The formation of tholins in the atmosphere of Titan

Voyager

‘We’ve known that Titan’s upper atmosphere is hospitable to the formation of complex organic molecules,’ said co-author Mark Allen, principal investigator of the JPL Titan team that is a part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, headquartered at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. ‘Now we know that sunlight in the Titan lower atmosphere can kick-start more complex organic chemistry in liquids and solids rather than just in gases.’”

See the full article here.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although the facility has a Pasadena postal address, it is actually headquartered in the city of La Cañada Flintridge [1], on the northwest border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Laboratory’s primary function is the construction and operation of robotic planetary spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA’s Deep Space Network.

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From JPL at Caltech: “Mapping the Chemistry Needed for Life at Europa”

April 04, 2013
Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

“A new paper led by a NASA researcher shows that hydrogen peroxide is abundant across much of the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The authors argue that if the peroxide on the surface of Europa mixes into the ocean below, it could be an important energy supply for simple forms of life, if life were to exist there. The paper was published online recently in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

This color composite view combines violet, green, and infrared images of Jupiter’s intriguing moon, Europa, for a view of the moon in natural color (left) and in enhanced color designed to bring out subtle color differences in the surface (right). The bright white and bluish part of Europa’s surface is composed mostly of water ice, with very few non-ice materials. In contrast, the brownish mottled regions on the right side of the image may be covered by hydrated salts and an unknown red component. The yellowish mottled terrain on the left side of the image is caused by some other unknown component. Long, dark lines are fractures in the crust, some of which are more than 3,000 kilometers (1,850 miles) long. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

‘Life as we know it needs liquid water, elements like carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur, and it needs some form of chemical or light energy to get the business of life done,’ said Kevin Hand, the paper’s lead author, based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. ‘Europa has the liquid water and elements, and we think that compounds like peroxide might be an important part of the energy requirement. The availability of oxidants like peroxide on Earth was a critical part of the rise of complex, multicellular life.’

The paper, co-authored by Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, analyzed data in the near-infrared range of light from Europa, using the Keck II Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, over four nights in September 2011. The highest concentration of peroxide found was on the side of Europa that always leads in its orbit around Jupiter, with a peroxide abundance of 0.12 percent relative to water. (For perspective, this is roughly 20 times more diluted than the hydrogen peroxide mixture available at drug stores.) The concentration of peroxide in Europa’s ice then drops off to nearly zero on the hemisphere of Europa that faces backward in its orbit.”

See the full article here.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although the facility has a Pasadena postal address, it is actually headquartered in the city of La Cañada Flintridge [1], on the northwest border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Laboratory’s primary function is the construction and operation of robotic planetary spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA’s Deep Space Network.

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From JPL at Caltech: “Supercomputer Helps Planck Mission Expose Ancient Light”

Whitney Clavin
March 21, 2013

“Like archeologists carefully digging for fossils, scientists with the [ESA] Planck mission are sifting through cosmic clutter to find the most ancient light in the universe.

The Planck space telescope has created the most precise sky map ever made of the oldest light known, harking back to the dawn of time. This light, called the cosmic microwave background, has traveled 13.8 billion years to reach us. It is so faint that Planck observes every point on the sky an average of 1,000 times to pick up its glow…

The Planck view of Cosmic Background Radiation

… Complicating matters further is “noise” from the Planck detectors that must be taken into account.

That’s where a supercomputer helps out. Supercomputers are the fastest computers in the world, performing massive amounts of calculations in a short amount of time.

‘So far, Planck has made about a trillion observations of a billion points on the sky, said Julian Borrill of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif. ‘Understanding this sheer volume of data requires a state-of-the-art supercomputer.’

Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant contributions from NASA. Under a unique agreement between NASA and the Department of Energy, Planck scientists have been guaranteed access to the supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The bulk of the computations for this data release were performed on the Cray XE6 system, called the Hopper. This computer makes more than a quintillion calculations per second, placing it among the fastest in the world.

Noise must be understood, and corrected for, at each of the billion points observed repeatedly by Plank as it continuously sweeps across the sky. The supercomputer accomplishes this by running simulations of how Planck would observe the entire sky under different conditions, allowing the team to identify and isolate the noise.

Another challenge is carefully teasing apart the signal of the relic radiation from the material lying in the foreground. It’s a big mess, as some astronomers might say, but one that a supercomputer can handle.

The computations needed for Planck’s current data release required more than 10 million processor-hours on the Hopper computer. Fortunately, the Planck analysis codes run on tens of thousands of processors in the supercomputer at once, so this only took a few weeks.

Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA. NASA’s Planck Project Office is based at JPL. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, contributed mission-enabling technology for both of Planck’s science instruments. European, Canadian and U.S. Planck scientists work together to analyze the Planck data.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although the facility has a Pasadena postal address, it is actually headquartered in the city of La Cañada Flintridge [1], on the northwest border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Laboratory’s primary function is the construction and operation of robotic planetary spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA’s Deep Space Network.

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From NASA Spitzer: “Unmasking a Hidden Glow – NASA’S Spitzer Sees Light Of Lonesome Stars “

Spitzer

“A new study using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope suggests a cause for the mysterious glow of infrared light seen across the entire sky. It comes from isolated stars beyond the edges of galaxies. These stars are thought to have once belonged to the galaxies before violent galaxy mergers stripped them away into the relatively empty space outside of their former homes.

No credits

This [above] image shows a mysterious, background infrared glow captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Using Spitzer, researchers were able to detect this background glow, which spreads across the whole sky, by masking out light from galaxies and other known sources of light (the masks are the gray, blotchy marks).

No credits

‘The infrared background glow in our sky has been a huge mystery,’ said Asantha Cooray of the University of California at Irvine, lead author of the new research published in the journal Nature. ‘We have new evidence this light is from the stars that linger between galaxies. Individually, the stars are too faint to be seen, but we think we are seeing their collective glow.’ The findings disagree with another theory explaining the same background infrared light observed by Spitzer. A group led by Alexander “Sasha” Kashlinsky of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., proposed in June this light, which appears in Spitzer images as a blotchy pattern, is coming from the very first stars and galaxies.

In the new study, Cooray and colleagues looked at data from a larger portion of the sky, called the Bootes field, covering an arc equivalent to 50 full Earth moons. These observations were not as sensitive as those from the Kashlinsky group’s studies, but the larger scale allowed researchers to analyze better the pattern of the background infrared light.

‘We looked at the Bootes field with Spitzer for 250 hours,’ said co-author Daniel Stern of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. ‘Studying the faint infrared background was one of the core goals of our survey, and we carefully designed the observations in order to directly address the important, challenging question of what causes the background glow.’

The team concluded the light pattern of the infrared glow is not consistent with theories and computer simulations of the first stars and galaxies. Researchers say the glow is too bright to be from the first galaxies, which are thought not to have been as large or as numerous as the galaxies we see around us today. Instead, the scientists propose a new theory to explain the blotchy light, based on theories of ‘intracluster’ or ‘intrahalo’ starlight.

‘A light bulb went off when reading some research papers predicting the existence of diffuse stars,’ Cooray said. ‘They could explain what we are seeing with Spitzer.’

To be contnued…

See the full articles here, and here.

The Spitzer Space Telescope is a NASA mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology and part of NASA’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center.

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From NASA Webb: “Behind The Webb”

What is the best way to do this? To my mind, the James Webb Space Telescope is the most important thing going on at NASA.

From NASA:

“The Webb will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

Webb is an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is managing the development effort. The prime contractor is Northrop Grumman; the Space Telescope Science Institute will operate Webb after launch.

There will be four science instruments on Webb: the Near InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), the Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec), the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), and the Fine Guidance Sensor/ Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (FGS-NIRISS). Webb’s instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range. It will be sensitive to light from 0.6 to 27 micrometers in wavelength.”

So, this is a really big deal. And, if you visit the NASA Webb web site(s), you can find just tons of information about Webb. Buried in all of this and among other videos, including a YouTube channel is a series, “Behind the Webb”. The problem is that these “Behind the Webb” videos, I think some 15 in all, are a chaotic mess. I have protested this situation at the James Webb site. Until they get it sorted out – if, that is, they get it sorted out- if you have any interest in the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA, and Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology, it is worth your time and effort to ferret this stuff out.

Here is just one example:

Now, was that not cool?

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From JPL/CalTech: “Researchers Develop New Amp to Study the Universe”

July 17, 2012
Priscilla Vega-JPL, Deborah Williams-Hedges-Cal Tech

“Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, both in Pasadena, have developed a new type of amplifier for boosting electrical signals. The device can be used for everything from studying stars, galaxies and black holes to exploring the quantum world and developing quantum computers.

The new amplifier consists of a superconducting material (niobium titanium nitride) coiled into a double spiral 16 millimeters in diameter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

‘This amplifier will redefine what it is possible to measure,’ said Jonas Zmuidzinas, chief technologist at JPL, who is Caltech’s Merle Kingsley Professor of Physics and a member of the research team.

One of the key features of the new amplifier is that it incorporates superconductors-materials that allow an electric current to flow with zero resistance when lowered to certain temperatures. For their amplifier, the researchers are using titanium nitride and niobium titanium nitride, which have just the right properties to allow the pump signal to amplify the weak signal.”

See the full article here.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although the facility has a Pasadena postal address, it is actually headquartered in the city of La Cañada Flintridge [1], on the northwest border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Laboratory’s primary function is the construction and operation of robotic planetary spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA’s Deep Space Network.

From NASA JPL at Caltech: “First Flight Instrument Delivered for James Webb Space Telescope”

“The first of four instruments to fly aboard NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) has been delivered to NASA. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) will allow scientists to study cold and distant objects in greater detail than ever before.

The MIRI Cleanroom Huddle: Although it appears that these six contamination control engineers are in a huddle around the James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (or MIRI), they are conducting a receiving inspection. Engineers from the European Space Agency are wearing blue hoods, and engineers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center are wearing the white hoods. As part of the standard receiving inspection, they are looking for the tiniest traces of dust or contamination which would have to be remedied because cleanliness is a priority for such a sensitive instrument; MIRI passed its inspection review. Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

MIRI arrived at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. on May 29. It has been undergoing inspection before being integrated into Webb’s science instrument payload known as the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM).

Assembled at and shipped from the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom, MIRI was developed by a consortium of 10 European institutions and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and delivered by the European Space Agency.

George Rieke, MIRI science team lead at the University of Arizona, Tucson, noted, ‘MIRI is the first Webb instrument to be delivered, the result of teamwork in the U.S. and internationally.’”

See the full article here.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although the facility has a Pasadena postal address, it is actually headquartered in the city of La Cañada Flintridge [1], on the northwest border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Laboratory’s primary function is the construction and operation of robotic planetary spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA’s Deep Space Network.