Jet DECEMBER Propulsion 2006 Laboratory VOLUME 36 NUMBER 17 2006 INREVIEW By Mark Whalen JPL has once again closed out the year in style. Less than a month after the announcement that Mars Global Surveyor has likely finished its operat- ing career, the most productive Mars mission in history came through with the explosive news in December that its photographs have revealed bright new deposits in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment A gully as imaged by Mars Global Surveyor liquid water was involved in its genesis. through them sometime during the is shown at left in August 1999 and at right However, this observation and a similar in September 2005. The images show the light-toned flow in Terra Sirenum to- past seven years. southeast wall of an unnamed crater in the gether show that some gully sites are Centauri Montes region. No light-toned indeed changing today, providing tanta- In the meantime, the Laboratory con- deposit was present in August 1999, but lizing evidence there might be sources of appeared by February 2004. The new light- liquid water beneath the surface of Mars tinues its studies of the solar system toned flow, by itself, does not prove that right now. and beyond, with 15 spacecraft, two rovers, seven science instruments and three Earth observatories all meeting or exceeding their require- ments. Following are some highlights, chronologically, from 2006. Continued on page 2 2 niverse CONT'D U 2006INREVIEW A new image from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer completed MARCH a multi-wavelength, neon-col- Cassini found what may be evidence ored portrait of the enormous of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Cartwheel galaxy after a smaller Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn’s galaxy plunged through it, trigger- moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence ing ripples of sudden, brief star of liquid water so near the surface raises formation. The false-color com- many new questions about the mysteri- posite image shows the Cartwheel ous moon. “If we are right, we have sig- galaxy as seen by Galaxy Evolution nificantly broadened the diversity of solar Explorer in ultraviolet light (blue); system environments where we might the Hubble Space Telescope in possibly have conditions suitable for visible light (green); the Spitzer living organisms,” said Carolyn Porco, Space Telescope in infrared (red); Cassini imaging team leader. ... and the Chandra X-ray Observa- tory (purple). The Cartwheel is a A new mosaic of Mars’ Valles Marineris, monstrous 2.5 times the size of the the biggest canyon in the solar system, Milky Way. ... JANUARY merged hundreds of photos from Mars Odyssey, offering scientists and the The Stardust sample return public an online resource for exploring mission returned safely to Earth the entire canyon in detail. ... Jan. 15 when the capsule carrying cometary and interstellar particles successfully touched down at in the desert salt flats of the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range, delivering to the interna- tional science community material that has been unaltered since the formation of our solar system. A few days later, the science team observed thousands of impacts on the aerogel within the particle cap- ture cells. ... FEBRUARY Spitzer identified two huge “hypergiant” stars circled by monstrous disks of what might be planet-forming dust. The findings surprised astronomers because stars as big as these were thought to be inhospitable to planets. Dusty disks around stars may be signposts for present or future planetary systems. ... Studies released in February showed the loss of ice from Greenland doubled over the last 10 years, as its glaciers flowed faster into the ocean in response to a generally warmer climate, and the entire Antarctic ice sheet's mass has decreased significantly from 2002 to 2005. The Greenland studies used data from Canadian and European satellites, while the Antarctica study was based on data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace). ... 3 MAY niverse 2006INREVIEW APRIL U The Cassini-Huygens mission team was honored with an Aero- space Laurel award by the editors of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine. Aviation Week presented the award for the successful land- Spitzer snapped a picture of the bits and pieces making up ing of the European Space Agency’s Comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachmann 3, which broke apart on Huygens probe on Saturn’s moon its periodic journey around the sun. Spitzer’s infrared eyes were Titan, and for the science return and able to see the dusty comet bits lining the trail because the dust inspiring images from the Cassini is warmed by sunlight and glows at infrared wavelengths. Most of orbiter. ... the dust particles, specifically the millimeter-sized nuggets, had never been seen before. ... A globe-spanning constellation of six weather and climate research satel- Cassini observed icy jets and plumes indicating active geysers lites launched from Vandenberg Air CloudSat mission, whose spewing from Saturn’s moon Enceladus—an active, icy world Force Base April 14 on a five-year cloud-profiling radar is more with an unusually warm south pole—may have performed an mission. The Constellation Observing than 1,000 times more sensitive unusual trick for a planetary body. Research showed Enceladus System for Meteorology, Ionosphere than typical weather radar, was rolled over, literally, explaining why the moon’s hottest spot is at and Climate network (Cosmic) is ex- joined on its launch rocket by the south pole. pected to improve weather forecasts, Calipso (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar “It’s astound- monitor climate change and enhance and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite ing that Cassini space weather research. JPL de- Observations). The satellites found a region of signed Cosmic’s primary instru- will fly in formation in NASA’s current geologi- ment, a science global positioning “A-Train” constellation, which cal activity on an system receiver, based on its proven also includes NASA’s Aqua and icy moon that we BlackJack space receiver. “Cosmic Aura satellites and a French would expect to be is a prime example of transitioning satellite called Parasol. ... frigidly cold, espe- NASA remote sensing technology into cially down at this operational weather forecasting,” said moon's equivalent Tony Mannucci, supervisor of JPL’s of Antarctica,” Ionospheric and Atmospheric Remote said JPL planetary Sensing Group. ... scientist Bob Pap- palardo. ... Two satellites were launched April 28 from Vandenberg Air Force Base on missions to reveal the inner secrets of clouds and aerosols, tiny particles suspended in the air. JPL’s The first images from JUNE CloudSat revealed never- before-seen 3-D details University scientists using about clouds. “We’re seeing Global Positioning the atmosphere as we’ve System (GPS) software never seen it before,” said developed by JPL showed CloudSat Project Manager that GPS can determine, Deborah Vane. “We’re no within minutes, whether an longer looking at clouds earthquake is big enough like images on a flat piece to generate an ocean-wide of paper, but instead we’re tsunami. “This technique peering into the clouds and improves rapid estimates seeing their layered com- of the true size of great plexity.” ... earthquakes and advances real-time tsunami modeling capabilities,” said JPL geologist Frank Webb. ... 4 niverse A team led by Son Nghiem of the U JULY Polar Remote Sensing Group used JPL’s QuikScat satel- Scientists using space-based measure- lite to measure the extent and ments directly monitored and measured distribution of perennial and the complete cycle of water movement seasonal sea ice in the Arc- for an entire continent. Using data from tic. While the total area of all Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat), Arctic sea ice was stable in Gravity Recovery and Climate winter, the distribution of seasonal Experiment (Grace) and Tropi- and perennial sea ice changed sig- cal Rainfall Measuring Mission nificantly. “If the seasonal ice in the (TRMM), a JPL science team observed east Arctic Ocean were to be removed the seasonal cycling of water into and by summer melt, a vast ice-free out of South America. The findings are area would open up,” said Ng- significant because until now there had hiem. “Such an ice-free area been no direct way to monitor continen- would have profound impacts tal water balance. ... on the environment, as well as on marine transportation Tom May, manager of JPL’s Business and commerce.” ... Opportunities Office and Supplier Di- versity Program, was selected as one A NASA and university study of the year’s 50 influential minorities provided unique insights into the in business by the Minority Business and sources of pollutants in Earth’s atmo- Professional Network Inc. May, who re- sphere and how they are transported ceived the 2006 Award for Excellence and around the world. For the first time, researchers used simultaneous Leadership, was one of 50 people from observations of carbon monoxide and ozone from space to differenti- the federal, corporate and small business ate between ozone produced from human activity and from natural sector honored for their professional ex- sources. The observations were obtained from JPL’s Tropospheric cellence and strong leadership. ... Emission Spectrometer instrument onboard NASA’s Aura satellite. ... SEPTEMBER AUGUST A new image from Spitzer probed deep into the clouds of dust that permeate the Orion nebula and its surrounding regions. The strik- ing false-color picture showed pinkish swirls of dust speckled with stars, some of which are orbited by disks of planet-forming dust. Spitzer’s powerful infrared vision was able to unearth nearly 2,300 such planet-forming disks in the Orion cloud complex. ... The Galaxy Evolution Explorer surveyed more than 800 nearby elliptical galaxies of various sizes. An intriguing pattern emerged: the more massive, or bigger, the galaxy, the less likely it was to have young stars.