President Obama and NASA Administrator Bolden Recognize Employees for Roles in Chilean Miner Rescue

President Barack Obama welcomed NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and a NASA team that assisted trapped Chilean miners to the Oval Office on Thursday for a ceremony that recognized Americans involved in the rescue.

After the White House event, Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver presented NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal to five agency employees who supported the rescue effort. The NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal is awarded for a significant, specific accomplishment or substantial improvement in operations, efficiency, service, financial savings, science, or technology that contributes to NASA's mission.

“We’re greatly honored by the president’s recognition of these extraordinary NASA employees who assisted the Chilean miners,” Bolden said. “I’m sure they would be the first to tell you they were just doing their jobs and nothing out of the ordinary, but the men and women of NASA do extraordinary things each and every day.”

The medal recipients are:

- Dr. Michael Duncan, deputy chief medical officer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and team leader
- Dr. Albert Holland, operational psychologist at Johnson
- Dr. James Polk, medical officer at Johnson
- Clint Cragg, principal engineer for the NASA Engineering and Safety Center at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
- Albert Condes, deputy associate administrator of the Office of International and Interagency Affairs at NASA Headquarters in Washington

The employees from Johnson and Langley traveled to Chile Aug. 30 - Sept. 5 and visited the mine after discussions between the Chilean government and Condes. The team consulted with a number of organizations in Chile, including the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Mining, the Chilean Navy and the Chilean Space Agency.

NASA provided technical advice to the Chilean government based on the agency's long experience in protecting humans in the hostile environment of space. NASA's initial support included recommendations on medical care, nutrition and psychological support. The request for later NASA support was broadened to include recommendations on the design of a Chilean vehicle used to extract the miners. Consultations continued between members of the NASA team and Chilean government officials until the miners were rescued.

Countdown to Comet Flyby Down to Nine Days

NASA's EPOXI mission continues to close in on its target, comet Hartley 2, at a rate of 12.5 kilometers (7.8 miles) per second. On Nov. 4 at about 10:01 a.m. EDT (7:01 a.m. PDT) the spacecraft will make its closest approach to the comet at a distance of about 700 kilometers (434 miles). It will be the fifth time that a comet has been imaged close-up and the first time in history that two comets have been imaged with the same instruments and same spatial resolution.

"Hartley 2 has already put on a great show with more than a few surprises for the mission's science team," said EPOXI principal investigator Mike A'Hearn from the University of Maryland, College Park. "We expect more of the unexpected during encounter."

Science observations of comet Hartley 2 began on Sept. 5. The imaging campaign is more than a tantalizing tease of things to come. It is providing EPOXI's science team the best extended view of a comet in history during its pass through the inner solar system. The observations will continue through the encounter phase of the mission.

The hours surrounding comet encounter will be especially challenging for the mission team as they are commanding a recycled spacecraft that was not designed for this comet flyby. The spacecraft was designed and employed successfully for NASA's Deep Impact encounter of comet Tempel 1 back on July 4, 2005. By recycling Deep Impact's already built, tested and in-flight spacecraft, the EPOXI mission provided savings on the order of 90% that of a hypothetical mission with similar goals, starting from the ground up.

"If we were starting from scratch we'd probably move some of the spacecraft's components to different locations," said Tim Larson, project manager for the EPOXI mission from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "But we’ve developed a creative way to work with what we have. This spacecraft, and mission team, have logged 3.2 billion miles over the past five years, and we are confident that we have a successful plan in place to give Hartley 2 a thorough look-see."

The mission's encounter phase begins the evening of Nov. 3, when the spacecraft is about 18 hours from the time of closest approach to the comet's nucleus. At that time the spacecraft will stop transmitting through its large high-gain antenna and reorient itself so its two visible-light and one infrared imager maintain lock on the comet for the next 24 hours-plus.

"When the encounter phase begins all images the spacecraft takes will be stored aboard its two computers," said Larson. "Soon after we fly past the comet at about 7 a.m. local time, we will be able to re-orient the spacecraft so that we maintain imaging lock on the comet nucleus while pointing our big high gain antenna at Earth."

At that point, the spacecraft will begin beaming down its cache of cometary close-ups while continuing to take new images. It is expected to take several hours for all the images held aboard spacecraft memory to be downliked.

"We will be waiting," said A'Hearn. "The images at closest approach won't get to Earth until many hours after the actual encounter due to the way we use memory on the spacecraft. We will get some early hints at how this nucleus differs from that of comet Tempel 1 based on five images that will get to Earth only about one hour after closest approach."

EPOXI is an extended mission that utilizes the already "in-flight" Deep Impact spacecraft to explore distinct celestial targets of opportunity. The name EPOXI itself is a combination of the names for the two extended mission components: the extrasolar planet observations, called Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the flyby of comet Hartley 2, called the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI). The spacecraft will continue to be referred to as "Deep Impact."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the EPOXI mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of Maryland, College Park, is home to the mission's principal investigator, Michael A'Hearn. Drake Deming of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is the science lead for the mission's extrasolar planet observations. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.

Astronaut Doug Wheelock 'Checks In' From Space Station, Kicking Off NASA Partnership With Foursquare

NASA astronaut and International Space Station Commander Doug Wheelock became the first person to "check in" from space Oct. 22 using the mobile social networking application Foursquare. Wheelock's check in to the International Space Station launched a partnership between NASA and Foursquare to connect its users to the space agency, enabling them to explore the universe and discover Earth.

Foursquare users "check in" to venues wherever they go, using the service to find friends nearby, get helpful tips about the places they're visiting, and be challenged and rewarded for experiencing new things.

"Check-ins from around the world have been cool, but this blew my mind! We're psyched to partner with NASA to help users explore the space program and the universe," said Dennis Crowley, chief executive officer and co-founder of Foursquare.

When Wheelock checked in to the International Space Station venue using Foursquare's mobile site aboard the orbiting laboratory, he received a message that revealed a new Foursquare badge.

"You are now 220 miles above Earth traveling at 17,500 mph and unlocked the NASA Explorer Badge! Show this badge and get a free scoop of astronaut ice cream."

When Wheelock completes his mission and returns to Earth at the end of November, the NASA Explorer badge will be available for Foursquare users to earn.

The partnership also features a completely customized homepage for NASA where the agency will provide official tips and information about the nation's space program in locations throughout the United States.

NASA's work ranges from proving flight technologies to creating capabilities for sustainable human and robotic exploration to exploring Earth, the solar system and the universe beyond to developing critical enabling technologies such as the space shuttle and conducting science in orbit aboard the International Space Station. Through this partnership, when Foursquare users check in to NASA sites, they will discover interesting things that happen at each of the agency's locations.

Wheelock launched to the space station as a flight engineer for the Expedition 24 crew on June 15. On Sept. 22, he assumed command of the orbiting laboratory and Expedition 25. During his time in space, he and astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson conducted three spacewalks to replace a faulty cooling pump module on the station's backbone, known as the truss. Additionally, the Expedition 24 and 25 crew members continue work on more than 100 microgravity experiments in human research, biology and biotechnology, physical and materials sciences, technology development, and Earth and space sciences.

Launch Director: "We're in Great Shape Out at the Pad"

Space Shuttle Program managers cleared space shuttle Discovery for launch Nov. 1 following an extensive review of the spacecraft and its payload. Speaking to reporters after the executive-level Flight Readiness Review at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials said Discovery is prepared for its mission, STS-133.

That is the last scheduled flight for the agency's oldest active shuttle. "We're in great shape out at the pad," Launch Director Mike Leinbach said. The countdown is scheduled to start at 3 p.m. Friday, about a day after the six astronauts of Discovery arrive at Kennedy.

A set of seals was replaced over the weekend in extensive work that was completed before it could threaten the scheduled launch date. "It's a huge testament to the team doing the work," said NASA Mission Management Team Chairman Mike Moses.

Fire-Breathing Storm Systems

Pyrocumulonimbus is the fire-breathing dragon of clouds.

A cumulonimbus without the "pyre" part is imposing enough -- a massive, anvil-shaped tower of power reaching five miles (8 km) high, hurling thunderbolts, wind and rain.

Add smoke and fire to the mix and you have pyrocumulonimbus, an explosive storm cloud actually created by the smoke and heat from fire, and which can ravage tens of thousands of acres. And in the process, "pyroCb" storms funnel their smoke like a chimney into Earth's stratosphere, with lingering ill effects.

Global Impact

Researchers believe these intense storms may be the source of what previously was believed to have been volcanic particles in the stratosphere. They also suggest pyroCbs happen more often than thought, and say they're responsible for a huge volume of pollutants trapped in the upper atmosphere.

"An individual pyroCb can inject particles into the lower stratosphere as high as 10 miles," says Dr. Glenn K. Yue, an atmospheric scientist at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

Yue is one of eight authors of a paper on pyrocumulonimbus in the September 2010 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) titled "The Untold Story of Pyrocumulonimbus."

The paper reevaluates previous data to conclude that many stratospheric pollution events erroneously have been attributed to particles from volcanic eruptions.

Three "mystery cloud phenomena" were cited as examples that were actually the result of pyrocumulonimbus storms, including one initially attributed to the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. The plume thought to have been from Pinatubo was, it turns out, from a pyrocumulonimbus storm in Canada.

One reason for the misinterpretation, Yue said, is that scientists believed nothing less energetic than a volcanic eruption could penetrate Earth's "tropopause" in so short a period of time. The tropopause is the barrier between the lower atmosphere and stratosphere.

"At the time, the thinking was that it was unlikely," said Yue.

SAGE II Data

Yue reevaluated data he'd analyzed years earlier from NASA Langley's SAGE II instrument on the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite. SAGE II was launched in 1984 and turned off in 2005.

"Our paper also shows that pyroCbs happen more often than people realize," Yue added. In 2002, for example, various sensing instruments detected 17 distinct pyrocumulonimbus events in North America alone.

Humans have been responsible for many pyrocumulonimbus storms, says Mike Fromm, lead author on the BAMS paper.

The worst fire in Colorado history was set by a forestry officer "and within 24 hours there was a pyrocumulonimbus storm," says Fromm, a meteorologist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Whipped by the storm it had sparked, the 2002 fire swept across 138,000 acres (558.5 sq km) in four counties, drove more than 5,000 from their homes and killed six people.

Whether human actions influence pyrocumulonimbus activity enough to significantly impact the global climate is an open question. Human activity is believed to cause climate warming that leads to more wildfires.

"It's a compelling story line. We don't know enough now to say if there's enough supporting evidence of that," says Fromm.

"There's lots of fairly convincing evidence that under a warming climate, there are forest areas of Siberia and Canada that will be under more heat stress than before. And it's reasonable to think that there will be more fires."

The Comet Cometh: Hartley 2 Visible in Night Sky

Backyard stargazers with a telescope or binoculars and a clear night's sky can now inspect the comet that in a little over two weeks will become only the fifth in history to be imaged close up. Comet Hartley 2 will come within 17.7 million kilometers (11 million miles) of Earth this Wed., Oct. 20 at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT). NASA's EPOXI mission will come within 700 kilometers (435 miles) of Hartley 2 on Nov. 4.

"On October 20, the comet will be the closest it has ever been since it was discovered in 1986 by Australian astronomer Malcolm Hartley," said Don Yeomans, head of NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. and a member of the EPOXI science team. "It's unusual for a comet to approach this close. It is nice of Mother Nature to give us a preview before we see Hartley 2 in all its cometary glory with some great close-up images less than two weeks later."

Comet Hartley 2, also known as 103P/Hartley 2, is a relatively small, but very active periodic comet that orbits the sun once every 6.5 years. From dark, pristine skies in the Northern Hemisphere, the comet should be visible with binoculars as a fuzzy object in the constellation Auriga, passing south of the bright star Capella. Viewing of Hartley 2 from high ambient light locations including urban areas may be more difficult.

In the early morning hours of Oct. 20, the optimal dark sky window for mid-latitude northern observers is under two hours in length. This dark interval will occur between the time when the nearly-full moon sets at about 4:50 a.m. (local time) and when the morning twilight begins at about 6:35 a.m.

By October 22, the comet will have passed through the constellation Auriga. It will continue its journey across the night sky in the direction of the constellation Gemini.

EPOXI is an extended mission that utilizes the already "in-flight" Deep Impact spacecraft to explore distinct celestial targets of opportunity. The name EPOXI itself is a combination of the names for the two extended mission components: the extrasolar planet observations, called Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the flyby of comet Hartley 2, called the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI). The spacecraft will continue to be referred to as "Deep Impact."

JPL manages the EPOXI mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of Maryland, College Park, is home to the mission's principal investigator, Michael A'Hearn. Drake Deming of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is the science lead for the mission's extrasolar planet observations. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.

It's Raining Pieces of Halley's Comet!

The most famous of all comets, Comet Halley is noted for producing spectacular displays when it passes near Earth on its 76-year trip around the sun. However, you don't have to wait until 2061 to see a piece of the comet -- you can do it this very week!

Halley's Comet leaves bits of itself behind -- in the form of small conglomerates of dust and ice called meteoroids -- as it moves in its orbit, which the Earth approaches in early May and mid-October. When it does, it collides with these bits of ice and dust, producing a meteor shower as the particles ablate -- or burn up -- many miles above our heads. The May shower is called the Eta Aquarids, as the meteors appear to come from the constellation Aquarius. The October shower has meteors that appear to come from the well-known constellation of Orion the Hunter, hence the name: Orionids.

Orionids move very fast, at a speed of 147,300 miles per hour. At such an enormous speed, the meteors don't last long, burning up very high in the atmosphere. Last year, the NASA allsky cameras at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and in Chickamauga, Ga., recorded 43 definite Orionid meteors. Most of these appeared at an altitude of 68 miles and completely burned up by the time they were 60 miles above the ground, seen in the graph at right.

Even though the peak isn't until October 21, the shower is going on now. The NASA camera systems saw their first Orionid on Oct. 15. Unfortunately, the light from the nearly full moon will wash out the fainter meteors, so expect to see fewer than the 30-per-hour rate you might see under completely dark skies.

The good news is that watching Orionids is easy. Go out into a clear, dark sky after 11 p.m. at night -- your local time -- and lie on a sleeping bag or lawn chair. Look straight up. After a few minutes, your eyes will become dark-adapted, you'll start to see meteors. Any of these that appear to come from Orion will be an Orionid, and therefore represent a piece of Halley's Comet doing its death dive into our atmosphere.

Most folks would consider seeing one or two of these a fair exchange for an hour or so of time. :)

Below is a video of the bright Orionid meteor streaking over Western Ontario on Oct. 17, 2010. The bright object to the left side of the screen is the waxing gibbous moon:

President Obama to Host White House Science Fair

Today, President Obama will host the White House Science Fair celebrating the winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions. The White House Science Fair fulfills a commitment the President made at the launch of his Educate to Innovate campaign in November 2009 to move American students from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math achievement over the next decade.

The White House Science Fair kicks off a week that culminates with the USA Science and Engineering Festival on the National Mall and in 50 satellite locations, poised to engage more than a million people nationwide.

At the White House Science Fair, President Obama will view exhibits of winning student projects, ranging from breakthrough basic research to new inventions, and will deliver remarks congratulating these students on their diligence, desire to tackle hard problems, and drive to invent and discover.

President Obama has identified STEM education as necessary for laying the new foundation for America’s future prosperity and has made it a priority as part of the Administration’s $4 billion Race to the Top (RTT) competition. States were encouraged to develop a comprehensive strategy to improve achievement in STEM subjects, to partner with local institutions and to broaden participation of women and underrepresented minorities.

Showcasing his commitment to inspire young people to excel in math and science, President Obama will appear in the Dec. 8, 2010, episode of Discovery Channel’s MythBusters, a television show that uses science to determine the truth behind urban legends. MythBusters has approximately 13 million viewers a week and is very popular with 9-14 year olds. The show will also be included in the Science Channel’s commercial-free kids STEM television block as part of Educate to Innovate.

More than 850 corporations, trade associations, federal agencies, colleges and universities and 300 K-12 schools will come together Oct. 23-24, 2010, in downtown Washington to host one of the country's largest science and engineering festivals. With over 1,500 interactive exhibits, 75 stage shows and 50 satellite events in 25 states, this festival is poised to reach over a million people nationwide.

Among the exhibits at the White House Science Fair is one from the winners of the Inspire Award, the most prestigious award at the 2010 FIRST Tech Challenge, honoring the team that performs well in all categories and deemed as the most desirable alliance partner by their peers. The NASA Robotics Alliance Project supports participation in the FIRST Robotics Competition by providing grants to high school teams, as well as sponsoring FIRST regional competitions. The winning team was the Rock n’ Roll Robots, composed of all Girl Scoutsers, and represented by Catherine Wooten, Taylor Halsey and Salia Wilson, all from Los Angeles, Calif.

Winners from broad range of NASA-sponsored or affiliated STEM competitions will participate in the festivals, including those from the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award, to create new products using technology; Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, for middle school students; FIRST Lego League, for elementary students to create LEGO-based robots; Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, for using local data; PBS Design Squad, for students who design and build new inventions with recyclable materials and the Team America Rocketry Challenge.

NASA Selects Astronaut Leland D. Melvin to Lead Office of Education

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Tuesday the selection of Leland D. Melvin as the agency's new associate administrator for education, effective immediately. He succeeds James L. Stofan, who had served in an acting capacity since the spring.

Since April 2010, Melvin has been assigned to the Office of Education at Headquarters leading the Education Design Team. His job was to develop a strategy to improve NASA's education offerings and to assist the agency in establishing goals, structures, processes and evaluation techniques to implement a sustainable and innovative science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education program. He also served as the partnership development manager for the agency's new Summer of Innovation education initiative, aimed at engaging middle school students in STEM activities during the summer break.

"I am delighted to have Leland lead the Office of Education at a time when engaging more students in STEM-related studies and careers is so critical -- not only to NASA but to our nation," Bolden said. "With his dedication and passion, I know we will have a bright future in education under his leadership."

"I also want to thank Jim Stofan for the outstanding job he has done leading the Office of Education since April," Bolden added. "He launched several key new education programs during his tenure and will continue to be a valued asset as he resumes his previous role as deputy associate administrator."

As associate administrator, Melvin will be responsible for the development and implementation of the agency's education programs that strengthen student involvement and public awareness about NASA's scientific goals and missions.

"My passion for education was inspired by my parents, who were both middle school teachers," Melvin said. "I witnessed the direct impact that educators can have in a community and on an individual's destiny. NASA's people, programs and resources are unparalleled. Our unique assets are poised to engage students, to captivate their imagination and to encourage their pursuit of STEM-related studies that are so vital to their future. This is an exciting challenge and I am ready to work with Administrator Bolden, my colleagues at NASA, our partners, and students across the country to usher in a new era of opportunity to inspire that next generation of explorers."

Melvin joined NASA in 1989 as an aerospace research engineer at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. He joined the astronaut corps in 1998 and has served as a mission specialist on two space shuttle missions: STS-122 in 2008 and STS-129 in 2009. He has logged more than 565 hours in space. In 2003, Melvin co-managed the former Educator Astronaut Program, which recruited teachers to become fully-trained astronauts in an effort to connect space exploration with students across the country.

Melvin earned a bachelor of science in chemistry from the University of Richmond, where he also excelled as a wide receiver for the Spiders’ football team. He was drafted into the National Football League by the Detroit Lions in 1986 and also spent time with the Dallas Cowboys and the Toronto Argonauts. After injuries sidelined his football career, he returned to academia and earned his master’s degree in materials science engineering from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

His recreational interests include photography, piano, reading, music, cycling, tennis, and snowboarding. He also loves walking his dogs, Jake and Scout.

NASA's Hubble Captures First Images of Aftermath of Possible Asteroid Collision

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured the first snapshots of a suspected asteroid collision. The images show a bizarre X-shaped object at the head of a comet-like trail of material.

In January, astronomers began using Hubble to track the object for five months. They thought they had witnessed a fresh asteroid collision, but were surprised to learn the collision occurred in early 2009.

"We expected the debris field to expand dramatically, like shrapnel flying from a hand grenade," said astronomer David Jewitt of the University of California in Los Angeles, who is a leader of the Hubble observations. "But what happened was quite the opposite. We found that the object is expanding very, very slowly."

The peculiar object, dubbed P/2010 A2, was found cruising around the asteroid belt, a reservoir of millions of rocky bodies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is estimated modest-sized asteroids smash into each other about once a year. When the objects collide, they inject dust into interplanetary space. But until now, astronomers have relied on models to make predictions about the frequency of these collisions and the amount of dust produced.

Catching colliding asteroids is difficult because large impacts are rare while small ones, such as the one that produced P/2010 A2, are exceedingly faint. The two asteroids that make up P/2010 A2 were unknown before the collision because they were too faint to be noticed. The collision itself was unobservable because of the asteroids' position in relation to the sun. About 10 or 11 months later, in January 2010, the Lincoln Near-Earth Research (LINEAR) Program Sky Survey spotted the comet-like tail produced by the collision. But only Hubble discerned the X pattern, offering unequivocal evidence that something stranger than a comet outgassing had occurred.

Although the Hubble images give compelling evidence for an asteroid collision, Jewitt says he still does not have enough information to rule out other explanations for the peculiar object. In one such scenario, a small asteroid's rotation increases from solar radiation and loses mass, forming the comet-like tail.

"These observations are important because we need to know where the dust in the solar system comes from, and how much of it comes from colliding asteroids as opposed to 'outgassing' comets," Jewitt said. "We also can apply this knowledge to the dusty debris disks around other stars, because these are thought to be produced by collisions between unseen bodies in the disks. Knowing how the dust was produced will yield clues about those invisible bodies."

The Hubble images, taken from January to May 2010 with the telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, reveal a point-like object about 400 feet wide, with a long, flowing dust tail behind a never-before-seen X pattern. Particle sizes in the tail are estimated to vary from about 1/25th of an inch to an inch in diameter.

The 400-foot-wide object in the Hubble image is the remnant of a slightly larger precursor body. Astronomers think a smaller rock, perhaps 10 to 15 feet wide, slammed into the larger one. The pair probably collided at high speed, about 11,000 mph, which smashed and vaporized the small asteroid and stripped material from the larger one. Jewitt estimates that the violent encounter happened in February or March 2009 and was as powerful as the detonation of a small atomic bomb.

Sunlight radiation then swept the debris behind the remnant asteroid, forming a comet-like tail. The tail contains enough dust to make a ball 65 feet wide, most of it blown out of the bigger body by the impact-caused explosion. The science journal Nature will publish the findings in the Oct. 14 issue.

"Once again, Hubble has revealed unexpected phenomena occurring in our celestial 'back yard," said Eric Smith, Hubble Program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Though it's often Hubble's deep observations of the universe or beautiful images of glowing nebulae in our galaxy that make headlines, observations like this of objects in our own solar system remind us how much exploration we still have to do locally."

Astronomers do not have a good explanation for the X shape. The crisscrossed filaments at the head of the tail suggest that the colliding asteroids were not perfectly symmetrical. Material ejected from the impact, therefore, did not make a symmetrical pattern, a bit like the ragged splash made by throwing a rock into a lake. Larger particles in the X disperse very slowly and give this structure its longevity.

Astronomers plan to use Hubble again next year to view the object. Jewitt and his colleagues hope to see how far the dust has been swept back by the sun's radiation and how the mysterious X-shaped structure has evolved.

NASA Provides Assistance to Trapped Chilean Miners

After 10 weeks in a dark, hot purgatory 2,000 feet underground, the first of 33 trapped miners were hoisted to freedom early Wednesday, Oct. 13, a rescue marking the beginning of the end of a drama that captivated people worldwide. As they emerged, the miners jubilantly embracing wives, children and rescuers and looked remarkably composed after languishing for 69 days in the depths of a mine that easily could have been their tomb.

On Aug. 5, the San José copper and gold mine near the northern town of Copiapó, Chile, collapsed, trapping 33 miners about a half mile underground. The Chilean government spoke with the United States Department of State to request NASA's technical advice related to the agency's life sciences research activities.

On Aug. 31, a NASA team of experts arrived in Santiago as part of NASA's commitment to provide U.S. assistance. NASA's assistance is only a small contribution to the Chilean government's overall rescue effort. On Sept. 1, the team began three days’ worth of meetings in Copiapó.

The NASA team includes two medical doctors, a psychologist and an engineer. Dr. Michael Duncan, deputy chief medical officer in NASA's Space Life Sciences Directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, led the team. The other team members are physician J.D. Polk, psychologist Al Holland and engineer Clint Cragg.

NASA's long experience in training and planning for emergencies in human spaceflight and its protection of humans in the hostile environment of space may have some direct benefits that can be useful to the rescue. Environments may very well be different, but human response both in physiology and behavioral responses to emergencies is quite similar. Some of the results acquired through NASA's research may be applicable to the trapped miners.

NASA Cameras Spot Meteors From Obscure Shower

It's a strange-sounding name for a constellation, coming from the Greco-Roman word for giraffe, or "camel leopard". The October Camelopardalids are a collection of faint stars that have no mythology associated with them -- in fact, they didn't begin to appear on star charts until the 17th century.

Even experienced amateur astronomers are hard-pressed to find the constellation in the night sky. But in early October, it comes to prominence in the minds of meteor scientists as they wrestle with the mystery of this shower of meteors, which appears to radiate from the giraffe's innards.

The October Camelopardalids are not terribly spectacular, with only a handful of bright meteors seen on the night of Oct. 5. It may have been first noticed back in 1902, but definite confirmation had to wait until Oct. 2005, when meteor cameras videotaped 12 meteors belonging to the shower. Moving at a speed of 105,000 miles per hour, Camelopardalids ablate, or burn up, somewhere around 61 miles altitude, according to observations from the NASA allsky meteor cameras on the night of Oct. 5, 2010.

So they aren't spectacular. Their speed is calculated. Their "burn up" altitudes and orbits are known. So what's the mystery?

Camelopardalids have orbits -- see diagram at right -- which indicates that they come from a long period comet, like Halley's Comet. But the Camelopardalids don't come from Halley, nor from any of the other comets that have been discovered.

Hence the mystery: somewhere out there is -- or was -- a comet that passes close to Earth which has eluded detection. These tiny, millimeter size bits of ice leaving pale streaks of light in the heavens are our only clues about a comet of a mile, maybe more, in diameter.

This is why astronomers keep looking at the Camelopardalids meteors. They hope that measuring more orbits may eventually help determine the orbit of the comet, enabling us to finally locate and track this shadowy visitor to Earth's neighborhood.

NASA Mission to Asteroid Gets Help From Hubble

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of the large asteroid Vesta that will help refine plans for the Dawn spacecraft's rendezvous with Vesta in July 2011.

Scientists have constructed a video from the images that will help improve pointing instructions for Dawn as it is placed in a polar orbit around Vesta. Analyses of Hubble images revealed a pole orientation, or tilt, of approximately four degrees more to the asteroid's east than scientists previously thought.

This means the change of seasons between the southern and northern hemispheres of Vesta may take place about a month later than previously expected while Dawn is orbiting the asteroid. The result is a change in the pattern of sunlight expected to illuminate the asteroid. Dawn needs solar illumination for imaging and some mapping activities.

"While Vesta is the brightest asteroid in the sky, its small size makes it difficult to image from Earth," said Jian-Yang Li, a scientist participating in the Dawn mission from the University of Maryland in College Park. "The new Hubble images give Dawn scientists a better sense of how Vesta is spinning, because our new views are 90 degrees different from our previous images. It's like having a street-level view and adding a view from an airplane overhead."

The recent images were obtained by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 in February. The images complemented previous ones of Vesta taken from ground-based telescopes and Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 between 1983 and 2007. Li and his colleagues looked at 216 new images -- and a total of 446 Hubble images overall -- to clarify how Vesta was spinning. The journal Icarus recently published the report online.

"The new results give us food for thought as we make our way toward Vesta," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Because our goal is to take pictures of the entire surface and measure the elevation of features over most of the surface to an accuracy of about 33 feet, or the height of a three-story building, we need to pay close attention to the solar illumination. It looks as if Vesta is going to have a late northern spring next year, or at least later than we planned."

Launched in September 2007, Dawn will leave Vesta to encounter the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. Vesta and Ceres are the most massive objects in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists study these celestial bodies as examples of the building blocks of terrestrial planets like Earth. Dawn is approximately 216 million kilometers (134 million miles) away from Vesta. Next summer, the spacecraft will make its own measurements of Vesta's rotating surface and allow mission managers to pin down its axis of spin.

"Vesta was discovered just over 200 years ago, and we are excited now to be on the threshold of exploring it from orbit," said Bob Mase, Dawn's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We planned this mission to accommodate our imprecise knowledge of Vesta. Ours is a journey of discovery and, with our ability to adapt, we are looking forward to collecting excellent science data at our target."

The Dawn mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. Several international space organizations are part of the mission team.

Three New Station Crew associates Launch from Kazakhstan

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Kaleri launched in their Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Thursday at 7:10 p.m. EDT (Friday, Kazakhstan time) beginning a two-day journey to the International Space Station.

Less than 10 minutes after launch, their spacecraft reached orbit and its antennas and solar arrays were deployed.

The trio will dock to the Poisk module Saturday at 8:02 p.m. completing the Expedition 25 crew. Kelly, Skripochka and Kaleri will begin a five-month tour of duty aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Welcoming them aboard will be current station residents, Expedition 25 Commander Doug Wheelock and Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Shannon Walker. Wheelock, Yurchikhin and Walker arrived June 17 aboard their Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft.

'A-Train' Satellites seek out for 770 Million Tons of Powder in the Air

Using data from several research satellites, scientists will spend the next three years trying to understand the climate impacts of about 770 million tons of dust carried into the atmosphere every year from the Sahara Desert.

Some Saharan dust falls back to Earth before it leaves Africa. Some of it streams out over the Atlantic Ocean or Mediterranean Sea, carried on the wind as far away as South America and the southeastern U.S. All of it has an as-yet unmeasured impact on Earth's energy budget and the climate by reflecting sunlight back into space.

"The people who build climate models make some assumptions about dust and its impact on the climate," said Dr. Sundar Christopher, a professor of atmospheric science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Christopher will use a $500,000 grant from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission, developed and managed by NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

CALIPSO is an Earth observing satellite that provides new insight into the role that clouds and atmospheric aerosols play in air quality, weather and climate. Christopher will use both CALIPSO and Aqua satellite data in his research.

Aqua was the first member launched of a group of satellites termed the Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train, a group of satellites that travel in line, one behind the other, along the same track, as they orbit Earth. Combining the information from several instruments gives a more complete answer to many questions about Earth's atmosphere than would be possible from any single satellite observation taken by itself.

NASA's WMAP Project Completes Satellite Operations

After nine years of scanning the sky, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) space mission has concluded its observations of the cosmic microwave background, the oldest light in the universe. The spacecraft has not only given scientists their best look at this remnant glow, but also established the scientific model that describes the history and structure of the universe.

"WMAP has opened a window into the earliest universe that we could scarcely imagine a generation ago," said Gary Hinshaw, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who manages the mission. "The team is still busy analyzing the complete nine-year set of data, which the scientific community eagerly awaits."

WMAP was designed to provide a more detailed look at subtle temperature differences in the cosmic microwave background that were first detected in 1992 by NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE). The WMAP team has answered many longstanding questions about the universe's age and composition. WMAP acquired its final science data on Aug. 20. On Sept. 8, the satellite fired its thrusters, left its working orbit, and entered into a permanent parking orbit around the sun.

"We launched this mission in 2001, accomplished far more than our initial science objectives, and now the time has come for a responsible conclusion to the satellite's operations," said Charles Bennett, WMAP's principal investigator at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

WMAP detects a signal that is the remnant afterglow of the hot young universe, a pattern frozen in place when the cosmos was only 380,000 years old. As the universe expanded over the next 13 billion years, this light lost energy and stretched into increasingly longer wavelengths. Today, it is detectable as microwaves.

WMAP is in the Guinness Book of World Records for "most accurate measure of the age of the universe." The mission established that the cosmos is 13.75 billion years old, with a degree of error of one percent.

WMAP also showed that normal atoms make up only 4.6 percent of today's cosmos, and it verified that most of the universe consists of two entities scientists don't yet understand.

Dark matter, which makes up 23 percent of the universe, is a material that has yet to be detected in the laboratory. Dark energy is a gravitationally repulsive entity which may be a feature of the vacuum itself. WMAP confirmed its existence and determined that it fills 72 percent of the cosmos.

Another important WMAP breakthrough involves a hypothesized cosmic "growth spurt" called inflation. For decades, cosmologists have suggested that the universe went through an extremely rapid growth phase within the first trillionth of a second it existed. WMAP's observations support the notion that inflation did occur, and its detailed measurements now rule out several well-studied inflation scenarios while providing new support for others.

"It never ceases to amaze me that we can make a measurement that can distinguish between what may or may not have happened in the first trillionth of a second of the universe," says Bennett.

WMAP was the first spacecraft to use the gravitational balance point known as Earth-Sun L2 as its observing station. The location is about 930,000 miles or (1.5 million km) away.

"WMAP gave definitive measurements of the fundamental parameters of the universe," said Jaya Bapayee, WMAP program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Scientists will use this information for years to come in their quest to better understand the universe."

Launched as MAP on June 30, 2001, the spacecraft was later renamed WMAP to honor David T. Wilkinson, a Princeton University cosmologist and a founding team member who died in September 2002.

MAVEN Mission to Investigate How Sun Steals Martian Atmosphere

The Red Planet bleeds. Not blood, but its atmosphere, slowly trickling away to space. The culprit is our sun, which is using its own breath, the solar wind, and its radiation to rob Mars of its air. The crime may have condemned the planet's surface, once apparently promising for life, to a cold and sterile existence.

Features on Mars resembling dry riverbeds, and the discovery of minerals that form in the presence of water, indicate that Mars once had a thicker atmosphere and was warm enough for liquid water to flow on the surface. However, somehow that thick atmosphere got lost in space. It appears Mars has been cold and dry for billions of years, with an atmosphere so thin, any liquid water on the surface quickly boils away while the sun's ultraviolet radiation scours the ground.

Such harsh conditions are the end of the road for known forms of life. Although it's possible that martian life went underground, where liquid water may still exist and radiation can't reach.

The lead suspect for the theft is the sun, and its favorite M.O. may be the solar wind. All planets in our solar system are constantly blasted by the solar wind, a thin stream of electrically charged gas that continuously blows from the sun's surface into space. On Earth, our planet's global magnetic field shields our atmosphere by diverting most of the solar wind around it. The solar wind’s electrically charged particles, ions and electrons, have difficulty crossing magnetic fields.

"Mars can't protect itself from the solar wind because it no longer has a shield, the planet's global magnetic field is dead," said Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado, Boulder. Jakosky is the Principal Investigator for NASA's MAVEN mission, which will investigate what is responsible for the loss of the martian atmosphere. NASA selected the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) on September 15, 2008.

Mars lost its global magnetic field in its youth billions of years ago. Once its planet-wide magnetic field disappeared, Mars' atmosphere was exposed to the solar wind and most of it could have been gradually stripped away. "Fossil" magnetic fields remaining in ancient surfaces and other local areas on Mars don't provide enough coverage to shield much of the atmosphere from the solar wind.

Although the solar wind might be the primary method, like an accomplished burglar, the sun’s emissions can steal the martian atmosphere in many ways. However, most follow a basic M.O., the solar wind and the sun’s ultraviolet radiation turns the uncharged atoms and molecules in Mars' upper atmosphere into electrically charged particles (ions). Once electrically charged, electric fields generated by the solar wind carry them away. The electric field is produced by the motion of the charged, electrically conducting solar wind across the interplanetary, solar-produced magnetic field, the same dynamic generators use to produce electrical power.

An exception to this dominant M.O. are atoms and molecules that have enough speed from solar heating to simply run away, they remain electrically neutral, but become hot enough to escape Mars' gravity. Also, solar extreme ultraviolet radiation can be absorbed by molecules, breaking them into their constituent atoms and giving each atom enough energy that it might be able to escape from the planet.

There are other suspects. Mars has more than 20 ancient craters larger than 600 miles across, scars from giant impacts by asteroids the size of small moons. This bombardment could have blasted large amounts of the martian atmosphere into space. However, huge martian volcanoes that erupted after the impacts, like Olympus Mons, could have replenished the martian atmosphere by venting massive amounts of gas from the planet's interior.

It's possible that the hijacked martian air was an organized crime, with both impacts and the solar wind contributing. Without the protection of its magnetic shield, any replacement martian atmosphere that may have issued from volcanic eruptions eventually would also have been stripped away by the solar wind.

Earlier Mars spacecraft missions have caught glimpses of the heist. For example, flows of ions from Mars' upper atmosphere have been seen by both NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft.

"Previous observations gave us 'proof of the crime' but only provided tantalizing hints at how the sun pulls it off — the various ways Mars can lose its atmosphere to solar activity," said Joseph Grebowsky of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "MAVEN will examine all known ways the sun is currently swiping the Martian atmosphere, and may discover new ones as well. It will also watch how the loss changes as solar activity changes over a year. Linking different loss rates to changes in solar activity will let us go back in time to estimate how quickly solar activity eroded the Martian atmosphere as the sun evolved." Grebowsky is the Project Scientist for MAVEN.

As the martian atmosphere thinned, the planet got drier as well, because water vapor in the atmosphere was also lost to space, and because any remaining water froze out as the temperatures dropped when the atmosphere disappeared. MAVEN can discover how much water has been lost to space by measuring hydrogen isotope ratios.

Isotopes are heavier versions of an element. For example, deuterium is a heavy version of hydrogen. Normally, two atoms of hydrogen join to an oxygen atom to make a water molecule, but sometimes the heavy and rare, deuterium takes a hydrogen atom's place.

On Mars, hydrogen escapes faster because it is lighter than deuterium. Since the lighter version escapes more often, over time, the martian atmosphere has less and less hydrogen compared to the amount of deuterium remaining. The martian atmosphere therefore becomes richer and richer in deuterium.

The MAVEN team will measure the amount of hydrogen compared to the amount of deuterium in Mars' upper atmosphere, which is the planet's present-day hydrogen to deuterium (H/D) ratio. They will compare it to the ratio Mars had when it was young -- the original H/D ratio. The original ratio is estimated from observations of the H/D ratio in comets and asteroids, which are believed to be pristine, "fossil" remnants of our solar system's formation.

Comparing the present and original H/D ratios will allow the team to calculate how much hydrogen, and therefore water, has been lost over Mars' lifetime. For example, if the team discovers the martian atmosphere is ten times richer in deuterium today, the planet's original quantity of water must have been at least ten times greater than that seen today.

MAVEN will also help determine how much martian atmosphere has been lost over time by measuring the isotope ratios of other elements in the air, such as nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon.

MAVEN is scheduled for launch between November 18 and December 7, 2013. If it is launched November 18, it will arrive at Mars on September 16, 2014 for its year-long mission.

MAVEN is part of NASA's Mars Scout program, funded by NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. The University of Colorado will coordinate the science team and science operations. NASA Goddard will manage the project and provide mission systems engineering, mission design, and safety and mission assurance. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will navigate the spacecraft, provide the Deep Space Network, and an Electra telecommunications relay package. Instruments on the spacecraft will be provided by the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and NASA Goddard, with the Centre d’Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France, providing the sensor for one instrument. Lockheed Martin Corp., Bethesda, Md., will develop the spacecraft, conduct assembly, test and launch operations, and provide mission operations at their Littleton, Colorado facility.