Tag Archives: NASA

U.S. government scientists go ‘rogue’ in defiance of Trump

national park in south dakota

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – Employees from more than a dozen U.S. government agencies have established a network of unofficial “rogue” Twitter feeds in defiance of what they see as attempts by President Donald Trump to muzzle federal climate change research and other science.

Seizing on Trump’s favorite mode of discourse, scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and other bureaus have privately launched Twitter accounts – borrowing names and logos of their agencies – to protest restrictions they view as censorship and provide unfettered platforms for information the new administration has curtailed.

“Can’t wait for President Trump to call us FAKE NEWS,” one anonymous National Park Service employee posted on the newly opened Twitter account @AltNatParkService. “You can take our official twitter, but you’ll never take our free time!”

The @RogueNASA account displayed an introductory disclaimer describing it as “The unofficial ‘Resistance’ team of NASA. Not an official NASA account.” It beckoned readers to follow its feed “for science and climate news and facts. REAL NEWS, REAL FACTS.”

The swift proliferation of such tweets by government rank-and-file followed internal directives several agencies involved in environmental issues have received since Trump’s inauguration requiring them to curb their dissemination of information to the public.

Last week, Interior Department staff were told to stop posting on Twitter after an employee re-tweeted posts about relatively low attendance at Trump’s swearing-in, and about how material on climate change and civil rights had disappeared from the official White House website.

Employees at the EPA and the departments of Interior, Agriculture and Health and Human Services have since confirmed seeing notices from the new administration either instructing them to remove web pages or limit how they communicate to the public, including through social media.

The restrictions have reinforced concerns that Trump, a climate change skeptic, is out to squelch federally backed research showing that emissions from fossil fuel combustion and other human activities are contributing to global warming.

The resistance movement gained steam on Tuesday when a series of climate change-related tweets were posted to the official Twitter account of Badlands National Park in South Dakota, administered under the Interior Department, but were soon deleted.

A Park Service official later said those tweets came from a former employee no longer authorized to use the official account and that the agency was being encouraged to use Twitter to post public safety and park information only, and to avoid national policy issues.

Within hours, unofficial “resistance” or “rogue” Twitter accounts began sprouting up, emblazoned with the government logos of the agencies where they worked, the list growing to at least 14 such sites by Wednesday afternoon.

An account dubbed @ungaggedEPA invited followers to visit its feeds of “ungagged news, links, tips and conversation that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is unable to tell you,” adding that it was “Not directly affiliated with @EPA.”

U.S. environmental employees were soon joined by similar “alternative” Twitter accounts originating from various science and health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Weather Service. Many of their messages carried Twitter hashtags #resist or #resistance.

An unofficial Badlands National Park account called @BadHombreNPS also emerged (a reference to one of Trump’s more memorable campaign remarks about Mexican immigrants) to post material that had been scrubbed from the official site earlier.

Because the Twitter feeds were set up and posted to anonymously as private accounts, they are beyond the control of the government.

(By Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Review of the life of John Glenn, first American to orbit Earth, dies at 95

Astronaut John Glenn gives the thumbs up as he rides in an open car with his wife Annie during a ticker tape parade down New York's "Canyon of Heroes" on lower Broadway in New York, U.S

By Will Dunham

(Reuters) – John Glenn, who became one of the 20th century’s greatest explorers as the first American to orbit Earth and later as the world’s oldest astronaut, and also had a long career as a U.S. senator, died in Ohio on Thursday at age 95.

Glenn, the last surviving member of the original seven American “Right Stuff” Mercury astronauts, died at the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University in Columbus, said Hank Wilson, a spokesman at the university’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs, which Glenn helped found.

Glenn was credited with reviving U.S. pride after the Soviet Union’s early domination of manned space exploration. His three laps around the world in the Friendship 7 capsule on Feb. 20, 1962, forged a powerful link between the former fighter pilot and the Kennedy-era quest to explore outer space as a “New Frontier.”

President Barack Obama, who in 2012 awarded Glenn the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said: “With John’s passing, our nation has lost an icon.”

U.S. President Barack Obama awards a 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom to astronaut and former U.S. Senator John Glenn during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, May 29, 2012.

U.S. President Barack Obama awards a 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom to astronaut and former U.S. Senator John Glenn during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, May 29, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed

“When John Glenn blasted off from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas rocket in 1962, he lifted the hopes of a nation,” Obama said in a statement. “And when his Friendship 7 spacecraft splashed down a few hours later, the first American to orbit the Earth reminded us that with courage and a spirit of discovery there’s no limit to the heights we can reach together.”

President-elect Donald Trump said on Twitter the United States had lost “a great pioneer of air and space in John Glenn. He was a hero and inspired generations of future explorers.”

As the third of seven astronauts in NASA’s solo-flight Mercury program to venture into space, Glenn became more of a media fixture than the others and was known for his composure and willingness to promote the program.

Glenn’s astronaut career, as well as his record as a fighter pilot in World War Two and the Korean War, helped propel him to the U.S. Senate in 1974, where he represented his home state of Ohio for 24 years as a moderate Democrat.

His star was dimmed somewhat by a Senate investigation of several senators on whether special favors were done for a major campaign contributor. He was cleared of wrongdoing.

Glenn’s entry into history came in early 1962 when fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter bade him “Godspeed, John Glenn” just before the Ohio native was rocketed into space for a record-breaking trip that would last just under five hours.

Astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr., is pictured during the Mercury-Atlas 6 spaceflight becoming the first American to orbit Earth, February 20, 1962, in this handout photo taken by a camera onboard the spacecraft, provided by NASA.

Astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr., is pictured during the Mercury-Atlas 6 spaceflight becoming the first American to orbit Earth, February 20, 1962, in this handout photo taken by a camera onboard the spacecraft, provided by NASA. REUTERS/NASA/Handout

‘VIEW IS TREMENDOUS’

“Zero-G (gravity) and I feel fine,” was Glenn’s succinct assessment of weightlessness several minutes into his mission. “Oh, and that view is tremendous.”

After splashdown and recovery in the Atlantic, Glenn was treated as a hero, addressing a joint session of Congress and feted in a New York ticker-tape parade.

Glenn had been hospitalized since Nov. 25. He “died peacefully,” according to a statement from his family and Ohio State University. “He left this earth for the third time as a happy and fulfilled person,” the statement said.

“Glenn’s extraordinary courage, intellect, patriotism and humanity were the hallmarks of a life of greatness. His missions have helped make possible everything our space program has since achieved and the human missions to an asteroid and Mars that we are striving toward now,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.

Glenn’s experiences as a pioneer astronaut were chronicled in the book and movie “The Right Stuff,” along with the other Mercury pilots. The book’s author, Tom Wolfe, called Glenn “the last true national hero America has ever had.”

“I don’t think of myself that way,” Glenn told the New York Times in 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight. “I get up each day and have the same problems others have at my age. As far as trying to analyze all the attention I received, I will leave that to others.”

Glenn’s historic flight made him a favorite of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, who encouraged him to launch a political career that finally took off after a period as a businessman made him a millionaire.

HERO STATUS

Even before his Mercury flight, Glenn qualified for hero status, earning six Distinguished Flying Crosses and flying more than 150 missions in World War Two and the Korean War.

After Korea, Glenn became a test pilot, setting a transcontinental speed record from Los Angeles to New York in 1957.

The determination and single-mindedness that marked Glenn’s military and space career did not save him from misjudgments and defeat in politics. He lost his first bid for the Senate from Ohio in 1970, after abandoning a race in 1964 because of a head injury suffered in a fall.

He was elected in 1974 and was briefly considered as a running mate for Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter in 1980. But a ponderous address at the Democratic National Convention – people walked out – caused Carter to remark that Glenn was “the most boring man I ever met.”

Glenn sought the Democratic presidential nomination himself in 1984 but was quickly eliminated by eventual nominee Walter Mondale, Carter’s vice president. His failure was all the more stinging because he had been touted as an early front-runner.

In the Senate, Glenn was respected as a thoughtful moderate with expertise in defense and foreign policy. His luster was dulled, however, by a Senate investigation of the “Keating Five” – five senators suspected of doing favors for campaign contributor Charles Keating Jr. The panel eventually found Glenn did nothing improper or illegal.

BACK TO SPACE

He took a leading role in seeking to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, especially to Pakistan. He was the author of a law that forced the United States to impose sanctions on India and Pakistan in 1998 after both countries conducted nuclear tests.

He also was a staunch advocate of a strong military and took a keen interest in strategic issues. He retired from the Senate in 1999.

Thirty-six years after his maiden space voyage, Glenn became America’s first geriatric astronaut on Oct. 29, 1998. He was 77 when he blasted off as a mission specialist aboard the shuttle Discovery. He saw it as a blow to the stereotyping of the elderly.

 

STS-95 crewmember, astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn poses for his official NASA photo taken April 14, 1998.

STS-95 crewmember, astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn poses for his official NASA photo taken April 14, 1998. Courtesy NASA/Handout via REUTERS

“Maybe prior to this flight, we were looked at as old geezers who ought to get out of the way,” Glenn said after his nine-day shuttle mission. “Just because you’re up in years some doesn’t mean you don’t have hopes and dreams and aspirations just as much as younger people do.”

John Herschel Glenn Jr. was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio.

In his latter years, he was an adjunct professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.

He had a knee replacement operation in 2011 and heart surgery in 2014.

Glenn is survived by his wife of 73 years, his childhood sweetheart, Annie Castor. They had two children, David and Lyn.

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington; Additional reporting by Irene Klotz in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney)

Former U.S. astronaut, Senator John Glenn dies in Ohio at 95

Senator John Glenn speaks with reporters, with his Daughter Lyn Glenn, during the christening ceremony for the USNS John Glenn at the General Dynamics NASSCO Shipyard in San Diego, California

By Will Dunham

(Reuters) – John Glenn, who became one of the 20th century’s greatest heroes as the first American to orbit Earth and later as the world’s oldest astronaut, in addition to a long career as a U.S. senator, died on Thursday at age of 95, Ohio’s governor said.

Glenn was the last surviving member of the original seven “Right Stuff” Mercury astronauts.

“John Glenn is, and always will be, Ohio’s ultimate hometown hero, and his passing today is an occasion for all of us to grieve,” Ohio Governor John Kasich said in a statement.

Glenn was credited with reviving U.S. pride after the Soviet Union’s early domination of manned space exploration. His three laps around the world in the Friendship 7 capsule on Feb. 20, 1962, forged a powerful link between the former fighter pilot and the Kennedy-era quest to explore outer space as a “New Frontier.”

As the third of seven astronauts in NASA’s solo-flight Mercury program to venture into space, Glenn became more of a media fixture than any of the others and was known for his composure and willingness to promote the program.

Glenn’s astronaut career, as well as his record as a fighter pilot in World War Two and the Korean War, helped propel him to the U.S. Senate in 1974, where he represented his home state of Ohio for 24 years as a moderate Democrat.

But his star was dimmed somewhat by a Senate investigation of several senators on whether special favors were done for a major campaign contributor. He was cleared of wrongdoing.

Glenn’s entry into history came in early 1961 when fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter bade him “Godspeed, John Glenn” just before the Ohio native was rocketed into space for a record-breaking trip that would last just under five hours.

“Zero-G (gravity) and I feel fine,” was Glenn’s succinct assessment of weightlessness several minutes into his mission. “… Oh, and that view is tremendous.”

After splashdown and recovery in the Atlantic, Glenn was treated as a hero, addressing a joint session of Congress and being feted in a New York ticker-tape parade.

His experiences as a pioneer astronaut were chronicled in the book and movie “The Right Stuff,” along with the other Mercury pilots. The book’s author, Tom Wolfe, called Glenn “the last true national hero America has ever had.”

“I don’t think of myself that way,” Glenn told the New York Times in 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight. “I get up each day and have the same problems others have at my age. As far as trying to analyze all the attention I received, I will leave that to others.”

Glenn’s historic flight made him a favorite of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert, who encouraged him to launch a political career that finally took off after a period as a businessman made him a millionaire.

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott)

Super Moon To grace Earth’s Skies in coming days

The super moon appears in the sky in Cairo, Egypt, in this file photo taken October 17, 2016.

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – The largest, brightest full moon in nearly seven decades will be on display in the coming days, promising Earth-bound sky-watchers a celestial “supermoon” spectacle.

The full moon will come nearer to Earth than at any time since 1948, astronomers said. At closest approach, which occurs at 6:23 a.m. EST on Monday, the moon will pass within 216,486 miles (348,400 km) of Earth’s surface, about 22,000 miles (35,400 km) closer than average, they added.

The moon’s distance from Earth varies because it is in an egg-shaped, not circular, orbit around the planet.

If skies are clear, the upcoming full moon will appear up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than usual, making it what is called a supermoon, according to NASA. A supermoon occurs when the timing of a full moon overlaps with the point in the moon’s 28-day orbit that is closest to Earth. About every 14th full moon is a supermoon, said University of Wisconsin astronomer Jim Lattis.

People watch as a supermoon rises over Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, October 16, 2016.

People watch as a supermoon rises over Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, October 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

The next time a full moon comes as close to Earth will be in 2034.

“If you could stack up full moons next to each other, there is clearly a difference,” Lattis said, but to a casual observer it is going to look very similar to a regular full moon.

Weather permitting, sky-watchers in North America and locations east of the International Dateline will have a better view on Sunday night since the moon will set less than three hours after closest approach on Monday.

“The difference in distance from one night to the next will be very subtle, so if it’s cloudy on Sunday, go out on Monday. Any time after sunset should be fine,” Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Will Dunham)

Hubble spots evidence of water plumes on Jupiter’s moon Europa

A composite image shows suspected plumes of water vapor erupting at the seven o'clock position off the limb of Jupiter's moon Europa in a NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture taken January 26, 2014 and released September 26, 2016.

By Irene Klotz

(Reuters) – Astronomers on Monday said they have spotted evidence of water vapor plumes rising from Jupiter’s moon Europa, a finding that might make it easier to learn whether life exists in the warm, salty ocean hidden beneath its icy surface.

The apparent plumes detected by the Hubble Space Telescope shoot about 125 miles (200 km) above Europa’s surface before, presumably, raining material back down onto the moon’s surface, NASA said.

Europa, considered one of the most promising candidates for life in the solar system beyond Earth, boasts a global ocean with twice as much water as in all of Earth’s seas hidden under a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness.

While drilling through the ice to test ocean water for signs of life would be a daunting task, sampling water from the plumes might be a simpler project.

“If the plumes are real, it potentially gives us easier access to the ocean below … without needing to drill into miles of ice,” said lead researcher Williams Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Europa is about 1,900 miles (3,100 km) in diameter, slightly smaller than Earth’s moon. Among Jupiter’s four largest moons, Europa is the second closest to the biggest planet in the solar system.

The telescope observed the plumes three times in 2014, mostly around Europa’s southern polar region, scientists told a conference call with reporters.

On Earth, life is found everywhere where there is water, energy and nutrients, so scientists have a special interest in places elsewhere in the solar system, like Europa, with similar characteristics, said Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s astrophysics division.

The findings, which will be published in The Astrophysical Journal, follow an initial Hubble sighting of a water vapor plume over Europa’s south pole in December 2012.

Scientists got their first hint that bright, icy Europa, which is crisscrossed by dark bands and ridges, contains an underground ocean from NASA’s twin Voyager probes, which flew by Jupiter in 1979.

The follow-on Galileo spacecraft, which circled around and through Jupiter’s system from 1995 to 2003, detected a magnetic field that likely was triggered by a salty, global ocean beneath Europa’s surface.

Two more missions are in development to visit Europa.

A NASA spacecraft, targeted for launch in the mid-2020s, would make more than 40 close flybys of the moon and possibly sample material in any plumes shooting out from its surface.

Jupiter has 67 known moons, plus many smaller ones that have not yet been named.

(Reporting by Irene Klotz in Guadalajara, Mexico; Editing by Will Dunham)

NASA asteroid probe may find clues to origins of life on Earth

Artist rendering of NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is seen in an undated handout image

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – A U.S. space probe was cleared for launch on Thursday to collect and return samples from an asteroid in hopes of learning more about the origins of life on Earth and perhaps elsewhere in the solar system, NASA said on Tuesday.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket was scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to dispatch the robot explorer Osiris-Rex on a seven-year mission.

United Launch Alliance is a partnership of Lockheed-Martin and Boeing.

Osiris-Rex is headed to a 1,640-foot (500-meter) wide asteroid named Bennu, which circles the sun in roughly the same orbit as Earth. Scientists estimate there is a one-in-800 chance that Bennu might actually hit Earth 166 years from now.

Heating from the sun gently pushes the asteroid, and charting its path is among the goals of the $1 billion mission. The U.S. space agency also hopes Osiris-Rex will demonstrate the advanced imaging and mapping techniques needed for future science missions and for upcoming commercial asteroid-mining expeditions.

Osiris-Rex is expected to reach Bennu in August 2018 and begin a two-year study of its physical features and chemical composition. The solar-powered spacecraft will then fly to Bennu’s surface and extend a robot arm to collect at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of what scientists hope will be carbon-rich material.

“We’re going to asteroid Bennu because it’s a time capsule from the earliest stages of solar system formation, back when our planetary system was spread across as dust grains in a swirling cloud around our growing protostar,” lead researcher Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona told a prelaunch news conference on Tuesday.

Inside the developing solar system, small rocky bodies were beginning to form, many of them studded with water ice and organic materials, which are key compounds that may have made Earth habitable or even given life its start, Lauretta said.

If all goes as planned, the capsule containing samples from Bennu will be jettisoned from the returning Osiris-Rex spacecraft on Sept. 24, 2023, for a parachute descent and landing at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range.

Osiris-Rex is the latest in a series of missions to asteroids that began with the 1991 flyby of asteroid Gaspra by NASA’s Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft. Japan’s Hayabusa 1 probe managed to return a few tiny grains of asteroid Itokawa to Earth in 2010, the first asteroid sample return mission. A follow-on mission, Hayabusa 2, is underway.

The Osiris-Rex launch was set for between 7:05 p.m. and 9:05 p.m. on Thursday (2305 to 0105 GMT on Friday).

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Will Dunham)

Great Red Spot Storm heating Jupiter’s atmosphere

Jupiter's most distinctive feature - a giant red spot, is seen in this April 21, 2014, REUTERS/NASA, ESA,

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – Scientists have long wondered why Jupiter’s upper atmosphere has temperatures similar to those of Earth, even though the biggest planet in the solar system is five times farther away from the sun.

The answer may be The Great Red Spot, an enormous storm big enough to swallow three Earths that has been raging on Jupiter for at least three centuries, a study showed on Wednesday.

Using an infrared telescope at Hawaii’s Mauna Kea Observatory, scientists discovered that the upper atmosphere above the Great Red Spot – the largest storm in the solar system – is hundreds of degrees hotter than anywhere else on the planet.

It could be a coincidence or a major clue, said Boston University physicist James O’Donoghue, lead scientist of the study published in the journal Nature.

The storm spans 13,670 miles by 7,456 miles (22,000 km by 12,000 km) and is located in Jupiter’s lower atmosphere. The top of its clouds reach altitudes of about 31 miles (50 km).

By a process of elimination, the newly found hot spot must be heated from below, the study concluded.

The finding provides a strong link between Jupiter’s upper and lower atmosphere, though the exact process by which heat is transferred remains unknown. The most-likely energy source is acoustic waves that provide heat from below, the study said.

Scientists also are unsure why the storm is brick red, nor why it has changed color over time. In a 1900 report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, scientists described the oval storm as salmon pink. Recent images from the Hubble Space Telescope show it has become orange tinged and more circular.

Like a hurricane on Earth, the Spot’s center is relatively calm, but farther out winds reach 270 mph to 425 mph (430 kph to 680 kph). Because there is no land on Jupiter, which is made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the storm can never make landfall and dissipate.

“The Great Red Spot is like a wheel that’s wedged between two conveyor belts running in opposite directions,” said planetary scientist Glenn Orton, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

“One is adding momentum to it at the top, and another is adding momentum at the bottom. Together, they feed the vortex and essentially keep it alive.”

But the storm may not be alive much longer. It has been shrinking for the last 100 years, Orton said.

More information is expected from NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which arrived at Jupiter on July 4.

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Alan Crosby)

NASA’s New mission; improving good security in West Africa

ourists take pictures of a NASA sign at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida

By Nellie Peyton

DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A drive by NASA to stream climate data to West African nations using its earth-observing satellites could boost crop production in a region hit hard by climate change, experts say.

NASA last week launched a hub in Niger’s capital Niamey that will use space-based observations to improve food security and better manage natural disasters, said Dan Irwin, manager of the SERVIR project, named after the Spanish word meaning “to serve”.

The project, which will cover Burkina Faso, Ghana, Senegal and Niger, is one of four regional hubs worldwide, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“The model is demand driven,” said Irwin, who describes SERVIR’s vision as “connecting space to village”. NASA performed a study in the region two years ago and found that governments either did not have good data, or were not using it, he added.

The Sahel is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change, where rising temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall are wreaking havoc on farmers, disrupting food production, and fuelling widespread hunger and malnutrition.

“The whole livelihood along the Sahel depends on a few main crops, namely millet and sorghum,” U.N. World Food Program analyst Matthieu Tockert told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“These crops are highly dependent on rainfall, so any data that allows for proper forecasts is key,” Tockert said.

Farmers in Senegal say that traditional methods of predicting the weather are no longer reliable. A program launched last month by the country’s aviation and meteorology agency aims to solve the problem by sending texts to farmers.

“There is an immediate need to connect available science and technology to development solutions in West Africa,” said Alex Deprez, director of USAID’s West Africa regional office.

In East Africa, SERVIR scientists have since 2008 built a system to track water in streams and rivers and predict when and where droughts or floods will occur, and created maps that show which land is the most fertile, and which areas risk erosion.

SERVIR could adopt similar programmes in West Africa, but the first step will be to identify the region’s most pressing needs, with a priority on improving food security, Irwin said.

(Reporting by Nellie Peyton, Editing by Kieran Guilbert and Katie Nguyen.)

NASA’s Juno spacecraft loops into orbit around Jupiter

Jupiter

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – NASA’s Juno spacecraft capped a five-year journey to Jupiter late Monday with a do-or-die engine burn to sling itself into orbit, setting the stage for a 20-month dance around the biggest planet in the solar system to learn how and where it formed.

“We’re there. We’re in orbit. We conquered Jupiter,” lead mission scientist Scott Bolton, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, told reporters on Tuesday. “Now the fun begins.”

Juno will spend the next three months getting into position to begin studying what lies beneath Jupiter’s thick clouds and mapping the planet’s gargantuan magnetic fields.

Flying in egg-shaped orbits, each one lasting 14 days, Juno also will look for evidence that Jupiter has a dense inner core and measure how much water is in the atmosphere, a key yardstick for figuring out how far away from the sun the gas giant formed.

Jupiter’s origins, in turn, affected the development and position of the rest of the planets, including Earth and its fortuitous location conducive to the evolution of life.

“The question I’ve had my whole life that I’m hoping we get an answer to is ‘How’d we get here?’ That’s really pretty fundamental to me,” Bolton said.

Jupiter orbits five times farther from the sun than Earth, but it may have started out elsewhere and migrated, jostling its smaller sibling planets as it moved.

Jupiter’s immense gravity also diverts many asteroids and comets from potentially catastrophic collisions with Earth and the rest of the inner solar system.

Launched from Florida nearly five years ago, Juno needed to be precisely positioned, ignite its main engine at exactly the right time and keep it firing for 35 minutes to become only the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter.

If anything had gone even slightly awry, Juno would have sailed helplessly past Jupiter, unable to complete a $1 billion mission.

The risky maneuver began as planned at 11:18 p.m. EDT as Juno soared through the vacuum of space at more than 160,000 mph (257,500 kph).

NASA expects Juno to be in position for its first close-up images of Jupiter on Aug. 27, the same day its science instruments are turned on for a test run.

Only one other spacecraft, Galileo, has ever circled Jupiter, which is itself orbited by 67 known moons. Bolton said Juno is likely to discover even more.

Seven other U.S. space probes have sailed past the gas giant on brief reconnaissance missions before heading elsewhere in the solar system.

The risks to the spacecraft are not over. Juno will fly in highly elliptical orbits that will pass within 3,000 miles (4,800 km) of the tops of Jupiter’s clouds and inside the planet’s powerful radiation belts.

Juno’s computers and sensitive science instruments are housed in a 400-pound (180-kg) titanium vault for protection. But during its 37 orbits around Jupiter, Juno will be exposed to the equivalent of 100 million dental X-rays, said Bill McAlpine, radiation control manager for the mission.

The spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, is expected to last for 20 months. On its final orbit, Juno will dive into Jupiter’s atmosphere, where it will be crushed and vaporized.

Like Galileo, which circled Jupiter for eight years before crashing into the planet in 2003, Juno’s demise is designed to prevent any hitchhiking microbes from Earth from inadvertently contaminating Jupiter’s ocean-bearing moon Europa, a target of future study for extraterrestrial life.

(Editing by Kim Coghill and Andrew Heavens)

NASA’s Juno spacecraft poised for one-shot try to orbit Jupiter

NASA's Juno spacecraft obtained this color view at a distance of 6.8 million miles (10.9 million kilometers) from Jupiter

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – A NASA spacecraft was poised for a one-shot attempt to slip into Jupiter’s orbit on Monday for the start of a 20-month-long dance around the solar system’s largest planet to learn how and where it formed.

Flight controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, were preparing for a long night as the Juno probe streaked closer toward Jupiter at 200 times the speed of sound in the empty vacuum of space.

Confirmation of whether Juno, the only solar-powered spacecraft ever dispatched to the outer solar system, had successfully placed itself into polar orbit around Jupiter was not expected until 11:53 p.m. EDT on Monday (0353 GMT on Tuesday).

Launched from Florida nearly five years ago, Juno must be precisely positioned, ignite its main engine at exactly the right time and keep it burning for 35 minutes to shed enough speed so it can be captured by Jupiter’s gravity.

If anything goes even slightly awry, Juno will sail helplessly past Jupiter, unable to complete a $1 billion mission to peer through the planet’s thick atmosphere and map its gargantuan magnetic field.

Scientists are particularly interested in learning how much water Jupiter contains, which is key to determining where in the solar system it formed. Jupiter’s origins, in turn, affected the development and position of the rest of the planets, including Earth and its fortuitous location conducive to the evolution of life.

The immense gravity exerted by Jupiter’s sheer size – packing 2-1/2 times the mass of all the other planets combined – is thought to have helped shield Earth from bombardment by comets and asteroids.

“We are learning about nature, how Jupiter formed and what that tells us about our history and where we came from,” Juno lead scientist Scott Bolton, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, told reporters.

‘MUSICAL NOTES’

Only one other spacecraft, Galileo, has ever circled Jupiter, which is five times farther away from the sun than Earth and is itself orbited by 67 known moons. Seven other U.S. space probes have sailed past the gas giant on brief reconnaissance missions before heading elsewhere in the solar system.

Ground control teams will monitor Juno’s progress during its do-or-die engine burn by listening for a series of radio signals.

“They really are musical notes. Based on what musical note is sent, we will know how something is doing,” Bolton said.

The risks to Juno will not end once it arrives in orbit. The probe will fly in highly elliptical, egg-shaped orbits that pass within 3,000 miles (4,800 km) of the tops of Jupiter’s clouds and inside the planet’s powerful radiation belts.

Juno’s sensitive science instruments are housed in a 400-pound (180-kg) titanium vault for protection. But during its 37 orbits around Jupiter, Juno will be exposed to the equivalent of 100 million dental X-rays, said Bill McAlpine, radiation control manager for the mission.

The spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, is expected to last for 20 months. On its final orbit, Juno will dive into Jupiter’s atmosphere, where it will be crushed and vaporized.

Like Galileo, which circled Jupiter for eight years before crashing into the planet in 2003, Juno’s demise is designed to prevent any hitchhiking microbes from Earth from inadvertently contaminating Jupiter’s ocean-bearing moon Europa, a target of future study for extraterrestrial life.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Peter Cooney)