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Excerpts from JPL mission updates are provided as a public service as part |
Background screen credits: NGC 5775 - Imaged March 21/22, 2001 using the 16" Kitt Peak Visitors Center telescope as part of the Advanced Observing Program.
This year the Draconids could produce an outburst of hundreds of meteors per hour on October 8 with the best conditions just before dawn or in the early evening hours.
"Cassini performed back-to-back flybys of Saturn moons Tethys and Hyperion last weekend, coming closer than ever before to each of them. Tethys has a scarred, ancient surface, while Hyperion is a strange, spongy-looking body with dark-floored craters that speckle its surface."
For the latest mission status reports, visit Cassini Mission Status web page. The speed and location of the spacecraft along its flightpath can be viewed on the "Where is Cassini Now?" web page.
"We acquired 3835 spectra with the IR spectrometer from June 29 - July 14. We have analyzed a handful of them. At impact, the spectrometer's slit was positioned downrange of the impact site and we had programmed the instrument to take data as rapidly as possible to get the best time resolution."
For the latest mission status reports, visit http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact and http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/.
During life's busy schedule, it's tough keeping up with all that's in a day's work, so it's understandable that facts about comets Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt 2") and Tempel 1 get mixed up. Yet there are easy ways to differentiate between the two, or any other comets. Resembling human fingerprints, no two comets are exactly alike.
During a five-year period, NASA launched two missions, Stardust and Deep Impact, to explore two different comets for scientific studies. Both are short-period comets with orbits taking them between Jupiter and Mars, and were believed to be prime specimens of study due to their positions in their natural environments. It turns out that their histories, locations, sizes and shapes were found to be very different."
Stardust LPSC 2004 Abstracts
"Abstracts of the Stardust science results from the Comet Wild 2 encounter are now available here (Adobe Acrobat reader required): ftp://www.lpi.usra.edu/pub/outgoing/lpsc2004/full07.pdf"
For more information on the Stardust mission - the first ever comet sample return mission - please visit the Stardust home page.
Mars Global Surveyor Images - September 22-28, 2005
"The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available:
Information about how to submit requests is online at the new Mars Orbiter Camera Target Request Site, at http://www.msss.com/plan/intro"
Newly-released MOC images can be seen in the MOC Gallery, a web site maintained by Malin Space Science Systems, the company that built and operates MOC for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA.
Mars Global Surveyor has completed its eighth year orbiting the red planet. MGS reached Mars on 12 September 1997. The first MOC images were obtained on 15 September 1997.
Visit the MGS pages at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/index.html. There are over 200,000 images of Mars from the MGS, check out the newest MGS images of the surface of Mars.
Mars Odyssey Themis Images July 25-29, 2005
The Odyssey data are available through a new online access system established by the Planetary Data System at: http://starbrite.jpl.nasa.gov/pds/"
Visit the Mars Odyssey Mission page.
"Spirit is healthy and has provided a spectacular view from the top of "Husband Hill." The rover has acquired numerous panoramas from both the navigation camera and panoramic camera. Spirit took coordinated observations with the panoramic camera and the miniature thermal emission spectrometer, and observed the moons Phobos and Deimos at night. Spirit has reached the true summit, which is in the eastern portion of the nearly level hilltop crest that Spirit reached in late August. Plans are to drive to a good imaging location. From the new location, Spirit will acquire a panorama of the plains and valleys below."
Opportunity Status: Approaching 'Erebus' - sol 586-591, Sept 22, 2005
"Opportunity is healthy and continuing its drive toward "Erebus Crater." Images taken this week show the interior of the crater. Plans for the next few sols are to get closer to the crater's edge and do extensive imaging. The team is also planning to use the tools on the robotic arm to examine a dark area of outcrop located on the way to the edge of the crater."
Visit the Mars Exploration Rover page.
"Three cameras on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter worked as expected in a test pointing them at the moon and stars on Sept. 8."
More information about the mission is available online at http://www.nasa.gov/mro.
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