MYSTERIOUS LIGHTS ON PLANET CERES

FROM:  NASA 

A cluster of mysterious bright spots on dwarf planet Ceres can be seen in this image, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft from an altitude of 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers). The image, with a resolution of 1,400 feet (410 meters) per pixel, was taken on June 9, 2015.  Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.

VIEWS OF CERES

 FROM:  NASA

These two views of Ceres were acquired by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on Feb. 12, 2015, from a distance of about 52,000 miles (83,000 kilometers) as the dwarf planet rotated. The images have been magnified from their original size. The Dawn spacecraft is due to arrive at Ceres on March 6, 2015. Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK, Inc., of Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The framing cameras were provided by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany, with significant contributions by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The visible and infrared mapping spectrometer was provided by the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, built by Selex ES, and is managed and operated by the Italian Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome. The gamma ray and neutron detector was built by Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, and is operated by the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.

NASA PLANS MISSION TO MARS IN 2030'S

FROM:  NASA 

NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s – goals outlined in the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and in the U.S. National Space Policy, also issued in 2010. Mars is a rich destination for scientific discovery and robotic and human exploration as we expand our presence into the solar system. Its formation and evolution are comparable to Earth, helping us learn more about our own planet’s history and future. Mars had conditions suitable for life in its past. Future exploration could uncover evidence of life, answering one of the fundamental mysteries of the cosmos: Does life exist beyond Earth? While robotic explorers have studied Mars for more than 40 years, NASA’s path for the human exploration of Mars begins in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts on the orbiting laboratory are helping us prove many of the technologies and communications systems needed for human missions to deep space, including Mars. The space station also advances our understanding of how the body changes in space and how to protect astronaut health. Our next step is deep space, where NASA will send a robotic mission to capture and redirect an asteroid to orbit the moon. Astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft will explore the asteroid in the 2020s, returning to Earth with samples. This experience in human spaceflight beyond low-Earth orbit will help NASA test new systems and capabilities, such as Solar Electric Propulsion, which we’ll need to send cargo as part of human missions to Mars. Beginning in FY 2018, NASA’s powerful Space Launch System rocket will enable these “proving ground” missions to test new capabilities. Human missions to Mars will rely on Orion and an evolved version of SLS that will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever flown. A fleet of robotic spacecraft and rovers already are on and around Mars, dramatically increasing our knowledge about the Red Planet and paving the way for future human explorers. The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover measured radiation on the way to Mars and is sending back radiation data from the surface. This data will help us plan how to protect the astronauts who will explore Mars. Future missions like the Mars 2020 rover, seeking signs of past life, also will demonstrate new technologies that could help astronauts survive on Mars. Engineers and scientists around the country are working hard to develop the technologies astronauts will use to one day live and work on Mars, and safely return home from the next giant leap for humanity. NASA also is a leader in a Global Exploration Roadmap, working with international partners and the U.S. commercial space industry on a coordinated expansion of human presence into the solar system, with human missions to the surface of Mars as the driving goal. NASA's Orion Flight Test and the Journey to Mars Image Credit: NASA.

HUBBLE LOOKS INTO SPACE AND FINDS IT INTERESTING

FROM:  NASA 

This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a variety of intriguing cosmic phenomena. Surrounded by bright stars, towards the upper middle of the frame we see a small young stellar object (YSO) known as SSTC2D J033038.2+303212. Located in the constellation of Perseus, this star is in the early stages of its life and is still forming into a fully-grown star. In this view from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys(ACS) it appears to have a murky chimney of material emanating outwards and downwards, framed by bright bursts of gas flowing from the star itself. This fledgling star is actually surrounded by a bright disk of material swirling around it as it forms — a disc that we see edge-on from our perspective. However, this small bright speck is dwarfed by its cosmic neighbor towards the bottom of the frame, a clump of bright, wispy gas swirling around as it appears to spew dark material out into space. The bright cloud is a reflection nebula known as [B77] 63, a cloud of interstellar gas that is reflecting light from the stars embedded within it. There are actually a number of bright stars within [B77] 63, most notably the emission-line star LkHA 326, and it nearby neighbor LZK 18. These stars are lighting up the surrounding gas and sculpting it into the wispy shape seen in this image. However, the most dramatic part of the image seems to be a dark stream of smoke piling outwards from [B77] 63 and its stars — a dark nebula called Dobashi 4173. Dark nebulae are incredibly dense clouds of pitch-dark material that obscure the patches of sky behind them, seemingly creating great rips and eerily empty chunks of sky. The stars speckled on top of this extreme blackness actually lie between us and Dobashi 4173. European Space Agency Credit: ESA/NASA

THE 'BONANZA KING' AND MARS

FROM:  NASA

The pale rocks in the foreground of this fisheye image from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover include the "Bonanza King" target under consideration to become the fourth rock drilled by the Mars Science Laboratory mission.  No previous mission has collected sample material from the interior of rocks on Mars. Curiosity delivers the drilled rock powder into analytical laboratory instruments inside the rover. Curiosity's front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Hazcam), which has a very wide-angle lens, recorded this view on Aug. 14, 2014, during the 719th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars.  The view faces southward, looking down a ramp at the northeastern end of sandy-floored "Hidden Valley." Wheel tracks show where Curiosity drove into the valley, and back out again, earlier in August 2014.  The largest of the individual flat rocks in the foreground are a few inches (several centimeters) across.  For scale, the rover's left front wheel, visible at left, is 20 inches (0.5 meter) in diameter.  NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover and the rover's Navcam. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

A LOOK INTO DESTINY

FROM:  NASA 

This view in the International Space Station, photographed by an Expedition 40 crew member, shows how it looks inside the space station while the crew is asleep. The dots near the hatch point to a Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station in case the crew was to encounter an emergency. This view is looking into the Destiny Laboratory from Node 1 (Unity) with Node 2 (Harmony) in the background. Destiny is the primary research laboratory for U.S. payloads, supporting a wide range of experiments and studies. Image Credit: NASA.

CENTAURUS A WITH IT'S SUPER-MASSIVE BLACK HOLE CENTER

FROM:  NASA

Centaurus A is the fifth brightest galaxy in the sky -- making it an ideal target for amateur astronomers -- and is famous for the dust lane across its middle and a giant jet blasting away from the supermassive black hole at its center. Cen A is an active galaxy about 12 million light years from Earth.  This image is part of a "quartet of galaxies" collaboration of professional and amateur astronomers that combines optical data from amateur telescopes with data from the archives of NASA missions. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations.  Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Rolf Olsen; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

GALAXY SHOCK

FROM:  NASA 

Roguish runaway stars can have a big impact on their surroundings as they plunge through the Milky Way galaxy. Their high-speed encounters shock the galaxy, creating arcs, as seen in this newly released image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. In this case, the speedster star is known as Kappa Cassiopeiae, or HD 2905 to astronomers. It is a massive, hot supergiant moving at around 2.5 million mph relative to its neighbors (1,100 kilometers per second). But what really makes the star stand out in this image is the surrounding, streaky red glow of material in its path. Such structures are called bow shocks, and they can often be seen in front of the fastest, most massive stars in the galaxy. Bow shocks form where the magnetic fields and wind of particles flowing off a star collide with the diffuse, and usually invisible, gas and dust that fill the space between stars. How these shocks light up tells astronomers about the conditions around the star and in space. Slow-moving stars like our sun have bow shocks that are nearly invisible at all wavelengths of light, but fast stars like Kappa Cassiopeiae create shocks that can be seen by Spitzer’s infrared detectors.  Image Credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech

ORBITING CARBON OBSERVATORY SPACECRAFT TESTED IN THERMAL CHAMBER

FROM:  NASA 

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2 spacecraft is moved into a thermal vacuum chamber at Orbital Sciences Corporation's Satellite Manufacturing Facility in Gilbert, Ariz., for a series of environmental tests. The tests confirmed the integrity of the observatory's electrical connections and subjected the OCO-2 instrument and spacecraft to the extreme hot, cold and airless environment they will encounter once in orbit. The observatory's solar array panels were removed prior to the test. OCO-2 is NASA's first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide and is the latest mission in NASA's study of the global carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide is the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas and the principal human-produced driver of climate change. The mission will uniformly sample the atmosphere above Earth's land and ocean, collecting between 100,000 and 200,000 measurements of carbon dioxide concentration over Earth's sunlit hemisphere every day for at least two years. It will do so with the accuracy, resolution and coverage needed to provide the first complete picture of the regional-scale geographic distribution and seasonal variations of both human and natural sources of carbon dioxide emissions as well as the places where carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and stored. Image Credit: Orbital Sciences Corporation/NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA VIDEO: SPACE HABITATS OF THE FUTURE?

LADEE TAKES A LOOK

Artist’s concept of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft in orbit above the moon as dust scatters light during the lunar sunset.  Image Credit-NASA AMES- Dana Berry

FROM:  NASA 

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is ready to begin collecting science data about the moon.

On Nov. 20, the spacecraft successfully entered its planned orbit around the moon's equator -- a unique position allowing the small probe to make frequent passes from lunar day to lunar night. This will provide a full scope of the changes and processes occurring within the moon's tenuous atmosphere.

LADEE now orbits the moon about every two hours at an altitude of eight to 37 miles (12-60 kilometers) above the moon's surface. For about 100 days, the spacecraft will gather detailed information about the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere and determine whether dust is being lofted into the lunar sky.

"A thorough understanding of the characteristics of our lunar neighbor will help researchers understand other small bodies in the solar system, such as asteroids, Mercury, and the moons of outer planets," said Sarah Noble, LADEE program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Scientists also will be able to study the conditions in the atmosphere during lunar sunrise and sunset, where previous crewed and robotic missions detected a mysterious glow of rays and streamers reaching high into the lunar sky.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for – we are already seeing the shape of things to come,” said Rick Elphic, LADEE project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

On Nov. 20, flight controllers in the LADEE Mission Operations Center at Ames confirmed LADEE performed a crucial burn of its orbit control system to lower the spacecraft into its optimal position to enable science collection. Mission managers will continuously monitor the spacecraft's altitude and make adjustments as necessary.

"Due to the lumpiness of the moon's gravitational field, LADEE's orbit requires significant maintenance activity with maneuvers taking place as often as every three to five days, or as infrequently as once every two weeks," said Butler Hine, LADEE project manager at Ames. "LADEE will perform regular orbital maintenance maneuvers to keep the spacecraft’s altitude within a safe range above the surface that maximizes the science return."

In addition to science instruments, the spacecraft carried the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration, NASA's first high-data-rate laser communication system. It is designed to enable satellite communication at rates similar to those of high-speed fiber optic networks on Earth. The system was tested successfully during the commissioning phase of the mission, while LADEE was still at a higher altitude.

LADEE was launched Sept. 6 on a U.S. Air Force Minotaur V, an excess ballistic missile converted into a space launch vehicle and operated by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va. LADEE is the first spacecraft designed, developed, built, integrated and tested at Ames. It also was the first probe launched beyond Earth orbit from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia coast.
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington funds the LADEE mission. Ames manages the overall mission and serves as a base for mission operations and real-time control of the probe. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the science instruments and technology demonstration payload, the science operations center and overall mission support. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages LADEE within the Lunar Quest Program Office.

"MURRAY RIDGE"

FROM:  NASA 

This scene shows the "Murray Ridge" portion of the western rim of Endeavour Crater on Mars. The ridge is the NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's work area for the rover's sixth Martian winter. The ridge rises about 130 feet (40 meters) above the surrounding plain, between "Solander Point" at the north end of the ridge and "Cape Tribulation," beyond Murray Ridge to the south. This view does not show the entire ridge. The visible ridge line is about 10 meters (33 feet) above the rover's location when the component images were taken. The scene sweeps from east to south. The planar rocks in the foreground at the base of the hill are part of a layer of rocks laid down around the margins of the crater rim. At this location, Opportunity is sitting at the contact between the Meridiani Planum sandstone plains and the rocks of the Endeavour Crater rim. On the upper left, the view is directed about 22 kilometers (14 miles) across the center of Endeavour crater to the eastern rim. Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004 and has been investigating parts of Endeavour's western rim since August 2011. The scene combines several images taken by the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during the 3,446th Martian day, or sol, of the mission's work on Mars (Oct. 3, 2013) and the following three sols. On Sol 3451 (Oct. 8, 2013), Opportunity began climbing the ridge. The slope offers outcrops that contain clay minerals detected from orbit and also gives the rover a northward tilt that provides a solar-energy advantage during the Martian southern hemisphere's autumn and winter. The rover team chose to call this feature Murray Ridge in tribute to Bruce Murray (1931-2013), an influential advocate for planetary exploration who was a member of the science teams for NASA's earliest missions to Mars and later served as director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena. This view is presented in approximately true color, merging exposures taken through three of the Pancam's color filters, centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near-infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

THE NEW PLUG-AND-PLAY APPROACH TO BUILDING A SPACECRAFT

LADEE Spacecraft.  Photo Credit:  NASA 

FROM:  NASA

On Friday, Sept. 6, NASA is scheduled to launch a small satellite mission, called the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), which will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about its atmosphere and the role of dust in the lunar sky.

LADEE is the first spacecraft designed, developed, built, integrated and tested at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Using a Modular Common Spacecraft Bus architecture, also developed by Ames, LADEE will demonstrate how to build a first class spacecraft at reduced cost. The LADEE spacecraft makes use of general purpose spacecraft modules that allow for a plug-and-play approach to manufacturing and assembly. This approach along with commercial off-the-shelf products allows mission designers to develop, assemble and test multiple spacecraft modules at the same time – essentially giving them the versatility to get the biggest bang for NASA's buck.

“LADEE’s common bus is an innovative concept that brings NASA a step closer to multi-use designs and assembly line production, while moving away from custom design,” said Ames Director S. Pete Worden. "This mission will put the common bus design to the test. This same common bus can be used on future missions to explore other destinations, including voyages to orbit and land on the moon, low-Earth orbit, and near-Earth objects."

The space agency has adopted a “more with less” approach to robotic missions. It also is about using NASA’s small satellite missions to test cutting-edge space technologies for rapid development. These technology demonstrations allow NASA the opportunities to test in space emerging science and engineering technologies, and economical commercial off-the-shelf technologies on a smaller scale. These demonstrations also help researchers better understand how hardware will survive the harsh radiation, temperature and vacuum conditions encountered in space. All while being faster, more efficient and less expensive than traditional missions.
Findings could reap untold benefits for science and industry here on Earth. Rapid technology developments will allow future NASA missions to pursue bolder and more sophisticated science, enable safe and rewarding human missions beyond low-Earth orbit and enable entirely new approaches to U.S. space operations.
“NASA is looking for affordable ways to launch often and inexpensively,” said David Korsmeyer, Director of Engineering at NASA Ames.  “We can use off-the-shelf components because customized components are expensive to continually develop and improve. If these systems work successfully, NASA will be looking for other commercial technologies to use for space exploration.”

Instead of building increasingly large and complex exploratory missions, these low-cost accelerated missions could open the door for creativity, clever problem solving, and inspired missions with simple goals. Mission planners expect the next decade could see amazing developments as NASA continues to fund missions using this innovative concept.

“Simplicity was not a necessary aspect of this mission, but is clearly a driver for successful missions,” said Butler Hine, LADEE project manager at Ames. “The important thing is to maximize the success per dollar.”

NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington funds the LADEE mission. In addition to designing the spacecraft, Ames manages the overall mission, operates the spacecraft, and hosts the project scientist. Goddard manages the science instruments and technology demonstration payload, the science operations center and provides overall mission support. Wallops is responsible for launch vehicle integration, launch services and operations. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages LADEE within the Lunar Quest Program Office.

TILT ROTOR AIRCRAFT FOR COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

FROM: NASA

Now Minute: Engineering Design: Tilt Rotors, Aircraft of the Future

Meet Carl Russell, a research aerospace engineer who is working on developing new innovations for air travel. Russell discusses how tilt rotors work, including a demonstration on how rotors use Bernoulli’s Principle to generate lift.

SPACEX DRAGON DELIVERS RESEARCH BACK TO EARTH

FROM: NASA
SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft Returns Critical NASA Science to Earth

WASHINGTON -- A Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft successfully completed the company's second cargo flight to the International Space Station on Tuesday, March 26, with a 12:36 p.m. EDT splashdown in the Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles west of Baja California, Mexico.

"The scientific research delivered and being returned by Dragon enables advances in every aspect of NASA's diverse space station science portfolio, including human research, biology and physical sciences," said Julie Robinson, International Space Station Program scientist. "There are more than 200 active investigations underway aboard our orbiting laboratory in space. The scientific community has eagerly awaited the return of today's Dragon to see what new insights the returned samples and investigations it carries will unveil."

Science being conducted aboard the space station includes research on physical and biological processes that cannot be done anywhere else, applied research to improve lives on Earth, and exploration research to help humans move safely beyond Earth orbit.

A boat will take the Dragon capsule to a port near Los Angeles, where it will be prepared for a return journey to SpaceX's test facility in McGregor, Texas, for processing. Some cargo will be removed at the port in California and returned to NASA within 48 hours. This includes a freezer packed with research samples collected in the space station's unique microgravity environment. The remainder of the cargo will be returned to Texas with the capsule.

Dragon is the only space station resupply spacecraft able to return a significant amount of cargo to Earth. The spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on March 1, carrying about 1,268 pounds (575 kilograms) of supplies and investigations. It returned about 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms) of science samples, equipment and education activities.

Investigations included among the returned cargo could aid in food production during future long-duration space missions and enhance crop production on Earth. Others could help in the development of more efficient solar cells, detergents and semiconductor-based electronics.

Among the returned investigations was the Coarsening in Solid-Liquid Mixtures (CSLM-3) experiment, which also launched to space aboard this Dragon. CLSM-3 studies how crystals known as dendrites form as a metal alloy becomes solid. The research could help engineers develop stronger materials for use in automobile, aircraft and spacecraft parts.

Dragon also is returning several human research samples that will help scientists continue to examine how the human body reacts to long-term spaceflight. The results will have implications for future space exploration and direct benefits here on Earth.

The mission was the second of at least 12 cargo resupply trips SpaceX plans to make to the space station through 2016 under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract.

SpaceX is one of two companies to build and test new cargo spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is the other company participating in COTS. A demonstration flight of Orbital's Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft to the station is planned for later this year.

NASA initiatives such as COTS and the agency's Commercial Crew Program are helping develop a robust U.S. commercial space transportation industry with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station and low Earth orbit. In addition to cargo flights, NASA's commercial space partners are making progress toward a launch of astronauts from U.S. soil in the next few years.

While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop and advance these commercial spaceflight capabilities, the agency also is developing the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS and Orion will expand human presence beyond low Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration in the solar system.

THE DEAD STAR

FROM: NASA
Sizzling Remains of a Dead Star
This new view of the historical supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, located 11,000 light-years away, was taken by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. Blue indicates the highest energy X-ray light, where NuSTAR has made the first resolved image ever of this source. Red and green show the lower end of NuSTAR's energy range, which overlaps with NASA's high-resolution Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Light from the stellar explosion that created Cassiopeia A is thought to have reached Earth about 300 years ago, after traveling 11,000 years to get here. While the star is long dead, its remains are still bursting with action. The outer blue ring is where the shock wave from the supernova blast is slamming into surrounding material, whipping particles up to within a fraction of a percent of the speed of light. NuSTAR observations should help solve the riddle of how these particles are accelerated to such high energies

X-ray light with energies between 10 and 20 kiloelectron volts are blue; X-rays of 8 to 10 kiloelectron volts are green; and X-rays of 4.5 to 5.5 kiloelectron volts are red.

The starry background picture is from the Digitized Sky Survey.


Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DSS

 

PHOTOS FROM MARS

FROM: NASA

Opportunity at 'Copper Cliff,' Sol 3153, Stereo View

This 180-degree, stereo mosaic of images from the navigation camera on the NASA Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows terrain near the rover during the 3,153rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (Dec. 6, 2012). West is at the center, south at the left edge, north at the right edge. The view appears in three dimensions when viewed through red-blue glasses with the red lens on the left.

Opportunity had driven about 7 feet (2.2 meters) westward earlier on Sol 3153 to get close to the outcrop called "Copper Cliff," which is in the center of this scene. The location is on the east-central portion of "Matijevic Hill" on the "Cape York" segment of the western rim of Endeavour Crater.

The view is presented as a cylindrical-perspective projection.
Credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech

Panoramic View From Near 'Point Lake' in Gale Crater, Sol 106

This panorama is a mosaic of images taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on the NASA Mars rover Curiosity during the 106th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Nov. 22, 2012). The rover was near a location called "Point Lake" for an overlook of a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay" which is in the left third of this scene, in the middle distance.

The image spans 360 degrees, with south at the center. It has been white-balanced to show what the rocks and soils in it would look like if they were on Earth.

Image Credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech-Malin Space Science Systems

SECOND ANNUAL WHITE HOUSE SCIENCE FAIR INCLUDES NASA OFFICIALS

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

“WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and other senior
agency officials joined President Obama in honoring student science
fair winners from across the country at the second annual White House
Science Fair today in the East Wing of the White House. The event
highlighted student achievement and excellence in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.

In November 2009, the president announced his "Educate to Innovate"
campaign and emphasized the importance of encouraging students to
pursue STEM studies and careers. NASA has developed a wide variety of
education programs that use the inherent excitement of space
exploration and science to inspire students and generate interest in
STEM.

"Programs like this science fair help students develop critical skills
and get hands-on experience that will serve them and our nation well
in the future," Bolden said. "These talented students are tomorrow's
science leaders, and their skills will be critical to helping us make
an American economy built to last."

Joining Bolden at the event were NASA's Associate Administrator for
Education Leland Melvin and Associate Administrator for Science John
Grunsfeld. Both Melvin and Grunsfeld also are veteran space shuttle
astronauts who frequently use their flight experiences as catalysts
for engaging students' interest in space and science. NASA Chief
Technologist, Mason Peck, NASA Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati, and
Paul Hertz, chief scientist for the agency's Science Mission
Directorate, also attended the fair and met with student honorees.

Among the winning science experiments displayed at the White House
today were two that related directly to NASA's mission, including
entries from a girls' rocket team and a FIRST Robotics alliance.

The "Young Women Rocketing to Nationals" team featured Janet and Ana
Karen Nieto of Presidio, Texas, who are members of the Presidio High
School Rocketry Team that competed as a national finalist in the Team
America Rocketry Challenge in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Gwynelle Condino,
a 7th grade student at Lucy Franco Middle School in Presidio, is the
team's leader this year.

"A Winning Robotics Alliance, with Astronauts Cheering Them On" team
was comprised of John Drake of Schaumburg, Ill., Sean Murphy of
Atascadero, Calif., and Eric Bakan of San Jose, Calif. They
represented the winning alliance of the 2011 FIRST Robotics
Competition Championship and were mentored by engineers at NASA's
Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

Two other NASA-related education programs also were represented at
today's event.

Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE),
is a hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science and
education program where students, teachers and scientists worldwide
collaborate on investigations of the environment and the Earth
system. Participants work in close partnership with NASA and other
federal agencies.

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) was launched in
June 2010 by the National Center for Earth and Space Science
Education, in partnership with NanoRacks, LLC. Student teams in
grades 5-12 propose microgravity experiments for flight in a research
minilab that may be flown to the International Space Station. SSEP is
enabled through a space act agreement as part of the International
Space Station's use as a National Laboratory.”