Topic: Cornell University

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover is on the move again heading toward Rock Layers

June 8, 2013 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is trekking to a new study area still many weeks away. Soon the rover will celebrate its 10th Anniversary of leaving Earth.

The destination, called “Solander Point,” offers Opportunity access to a much taller stack of geological layering than the area where the rover has worked for the past 20 months, called “Cape York.” Both areas are raised segments of the western rim of Endeavour Crater, which is about 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter.

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its panoramic camera (Pancam) to acquire this view of “Solander Point” during the mission’s 3,325th Martian day, or sol (June 1st, 2013). (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.)

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NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft data suggests Wild Weather for Saturn’s Moon Titan this Summer

May 23, 2013 |

Written by Jia-Rui C. Cook
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Saturn’s moon Titan might be in for some wild weather as it heads into its spring and summer, if two new models are correct. Scientists think that as the seasons change in Titan’s northern hemisphere, waves could ripple across the moon’s hydrocarbon seas, and hurricanes could begin to swirl over these areas, too.

The model predicting waves tries to explain data from the moon obtained so far by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Both models help mission team members plan when and where to look for unusual atmospheric disturbances as Titan summer approaches.

Ligeia Mare, shown in here in data obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, is the second largest known body of liquid on Saturn’s moon Titan. It is filled with liquid hydrocarbons, such as ethane and methane, and is one of the many seas and lakes that bejewel Titan’s north polar region. Cassini has yet to observe waves on Ligeia Mare and will look again during its next encounter on May 23rd, 2013. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell)

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NASA’s Mars Rover Opportunity investigates Rock changed by Water

May 18, 2013 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is driving to a new study area after a dramatic finish to 20 months on “Cape York” with examination of a rock intensely altered by water.

The fractured rock, called “Esperance,” provides evidence about a wet ancient environment possibly favorable for life. The mission’s principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, said, “Esperance was so important, we committed several weeks to getting this one measurement of it, even though we knew the clock was ticking.”

The pale rock in the upper center of this image, about the size of a human forearm, includes a target called “Esperance,” which was inspected by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Data from the rover’s alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) indicate that Esperance’s composition is higher in aluminum and silica, and lower in calcium and iron, than other rocks Opportunity has examined in more than nine years on Mars. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.)

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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft sees Meteors crash into Saturn’s Rings

April 27, 2013 |

Written by Jia-Rui C. Cook
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of small meteoroids breaking into streams of rubble and crashing into Saturn’s rings.

These observations make Saturn’s rings the only location besides Earth, the moon and Jupiter where scientists and amateur astronomers have been able to observe impacts as they occur. Studying the impact rate of meteoroids from outside the Saturnian system helps scientists understand how different planet systems in our solar system formed.

Five images of Saturn’s rings, taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft between 2009 and 2012, show clouds of material ejected from impacts of small objects into the rings. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Cornell)

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NASA’s Kepler space telescope discovers White Dwarf bending light of nearby Star

April 7, 2013 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Kepler space telescope has witnessed the effects of a dead star bending the light of its companion star. The findings are among the first detections of this phenomenon — a result of Einstein’s general theory of relativity — in binary, or double, star systems.

The dead star, called a white dwarf, is the burnt-out core of what used to be a star like our sun. It is locked in an orbiting dance with its partner, a small “red dwarf” star. While the tiny white dwarf is physically smaller than the red dwarf, it is more massive.

This artist’s concept depicts a dense, dead star called a white dwarf crossing in front of a small, red star. The white dwarf’s gravity is so great it bends and magnifies light from the red star. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft data suggests there maybe Ice on the Lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan

January 12, 2013 |

Written by Jia-Rui Cook
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – It’s not exactly icing on a cake, but it could be icing on a lake. A new paper by scientists on NASA’s Cassini mission finds that blocks of hydrocarbon ice might decorate the surface of existing lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbon on Saturn’s moon Titan.

The presence of ice floes might explain some of the mixed readings Cassini has seen in the reflectivity of the surfaces of lakes on Titan.

This artist’s concept envisions what hydrocarbon ice forming on a liquid hydrocarbon sea of Saturn’s moon Titan might look like. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS)

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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to take first images of Saturn’s Transit of Venus from deep space

December 21, 2012 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – Last June, astronomers urged sky watchers to observe the transit of Venus. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, they said. The black disk of the second planet wouldn’t crawl across the face of the sun again for more than 100 years.

In fact, it’s happening again this week–not on Earth, but Saturn.

“On Friday, December 21st, there will be a transit of Venus visible from Saturn, and we will be watching it using  the Cassini spacecraft,” says Phil Nicholson, a Cassini science team member from Cornell University. “This will be the first time a transit of Venus has been observed from deep space.”

A transit of Venus seen from Earth on June 6th, 2012. (Photo credit: Bum-Suk Yeom of Daejeon, South Korea)

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NASA’s Opportunity Rover completes examination of Matijevic Hill on the rim of Mars’ Endeavour Crater

December 10, 2012 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – The latest work assignment for NASA’s long-lived Mars rover Opportunity is a further examination of an area where the robot just completed a walkabout.

“If you are a geologist studying a site like this, one of the first things you do is walk the outcrop, and that’s what we’ve done with Opportunity,” said Steve Squyres, the mission’s principal investigator at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during a reconnaissance circuit around an area of interest called “Matijevic Hill” on the rim of a large crater. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

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NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity takes photos of small Spherical Objects on an outcrop along the rim of Endeavour Crater

September 15, 2012 |

Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s long-lived rover Opportunity has returned an image of the Martian surface that is puzzling researchers.

Spherical objects concentrated at an outcrop Opportunity reached last week differ in several ways from iron-rich spherules nicknamed “blueberries” the rover found at its landing site in early 2004 and at many other locations to date.

Small spherical objects fill the field in this mosaic combining four images from the Microscopic Imager on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./ USGS/Modesto Junior College)

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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft changes orbit angle to get view of Saturn’s Rings

July 10, 2012 |

Written by Jia-Rui C. Cook
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – It’s been nearly two years since NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has had views like these of Saturn’s glorious rings. These views are possible again because Cassini has changed the angle at which it orbits Saturn and regularly passes above and below Saturn’s equatorial plane.

Steeply inclined orbits around the Saturn system also allow scientists to get better views of the poles and atmosphere of Saturn and its moons.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has recently resumed the kind of orbits that allow for spectacular views of Saturn’s rings. This view, from Cassini’s imaging camera, shows the outer A ring and the F ring. The wide gap in the image is the Encke gap, where you see not only the embedded moon Pan but also several kinky, dusty ringlets. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

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