Topic: California Institute of Technology of Pasadena

NASA’s Voyager 1 still feels “Tsunami Wave” as it travels in Interstellar Space

December 16, 2014 |

Written by Elizabeth Landau
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – The Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced three shock waves.

The most recent shock wave, first observed in February 2014, still appears to be going on.

One wave, previously reported, helped researchers determine that Voyager 1 had entered interstellar space.

The “tsunami wave” that NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft began experiencing earlier this year is still propagating outward, according to new results. It is the longest-lasting shock wave that researchers have seen in interstellar space.

This artist’s concept shows NASA’s Voyager spacecraft against a backdrop of stars. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA developing ECOSTRESS instrument to analyze plant reactions to heat and water stress

October 28, 2014 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – A new space-based instrument to study how effectively plants use water is being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. The instrument, called the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), will monitor one of the most basic processes in living plants: the loss of water through the tiny pores in leaves.

When people lose water through their pores, the process is called sweating. The related process in plants is known as transpiration. Because water that evaporates from soil around plants also affects the amount of water that plants can use, ECOSTRESS will measure combined evaporation and transpiration, known as evapotranspiration.

NASA’s ECOSTRESS will monitor how plants react to heat and water stress. (Wikimedia Commons)

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NASA study reveals the moon Titan may have formed earlier than it’s host, Saturn

June 26, 2014 |

Written by Preston Dyches and Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – A combined NASA and European Space Agency (ESA)-funded study has found firm evidence that nitrogen in the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan originated in conditions similar to the cold birthplace of the most ancient comets from the Oort cloud.

The finding rules out the possibility that Titan’s building blocks formed within the warm disk of material thought to have surrounded the infant planet Saturn during its formation.

New research on the nitrogen in Titan’s atmosphere indicates that the moon’s raw materials might have been locked up in ices that condensed before Saturn began its formation. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

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NASA Scientists link Industrial Soot to Abrupt Retreat of 19th Century Glaciers

September 5, 2013 |

Washington, D.C. – A NASA-led team of scientists has uncovered strong evidence that soot from a rapidly industrializing Europe caused the abrupt retreat of mountain glaciers in the European Alps that began in the 1860s, a period often thought of as the end of the Little Ice Age.

The research, published September 3rd in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may help resolve a longstanding scientific debate.

This photo from summer 2012 looking south into the Bernese Alps shows how air pollution in the Alps tends to be confined to lower altitudes, concentrating the deposition of soot and dust on the lower slopes. At center left in the picture, a glacier can be seen extending from a high-altitude snow field, above the pollution layer, down into the valley where its lower reach is bathed in pollutants. (Image credit: Peter Holy)

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