- Email: [email protected]
Calipso data now available
Hubble observations were combined with
These research results were presented at the 209th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, WA, by Richard Massey and Nick Scoville (from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA). Richard Massey commented that "It's reassuring how well our map confirms the standard theories for structure formation". He called dark matter the 'scaffolding' inside of which stars and galaxies have been assembled over billions of years.
multicolour data from powerful ground-based telescopes, Europe's Very Large Telescope in Chile, Japan's Subaru telescope in Hawaii, the US's Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico, as well as ESA's orbiting XMMNewton X-ray telescope.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. Science operations using Hubble are conducted by The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington. For more information and images about this research, visit: www.nasa. gov/hubble or http ://hubble.site.org/news/ 2007/01
Researchers created the map using Hubble's largest survey of the universe to date, namely the Cosmic Evolution Survey otherwise known as COSMOS. The survey covers an area of sky nine times the area of the Earth's Moon. This allows for the large-scale filamentary structure of dark matter to be evident. To add 3-D distance information, the
I 0
I 1000
I 500
I 1500
I 2000
I 2500
I 3000
I 3500
I 4000
I 4500
I 5000
Distance along track (km)
532 nm Total Attenuated Backscatter Polar Stratospheric Clouds: 24 July 2006.
Calipso Data
Calipso is a joint NASA-CNES mission [see SRT166, pp. 6-7 (2006)]. Calipso's payload
Now Available
includes an active backscattering lidar measuring atmosphere vertical profiles (CALIOP), a passive infrared imaging radiometer (IIR), and a wide field camera operating in the visible (WFC). Calipso data are available through:
C
NES and NASA have announced that, as from 8 December 2006, Calipso data are available to the world-wide science community. Calipso (Cloud-Aerosol
Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation), which was launched on 28 April 2006, provides new insights into the role of clouds and atmospheric aerosols in regulating the Earth's weather and climate and on air quality.
33
• NASA Langley Research Center http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/PRODOCS/ Calipso/table_Calipso.html
what you would expect to see if the material were carried by flowing water. They have finger-like branches at the downhill end and [are] easily diverted around small obstacles".
at
• The French thematic Pole ICARE, specialized in aerosols, clouds, radiation and water cycle at http://www-icare.univ-lille 1.fr
The atmosphere of Mars is so thin and the temperature so cold that liquid water cannot persist at the surface. It would rapidly evaporate or freeze. However, it has been suggested that water could remain liquid long enough, after breaking out from an underground source, to carry debris downslope before totally freezing. The two fresh deposits are each several hundred metres long. The light tone of the deposits could be from surface frost continuously replenished by ice within the body of the deposit. Another possibility is of a salty crust, which would be a sign salts in solution had been concentrated as a consequence of evaporation. If the deposits had resulted from dry dust slipping down the slope, the debris would probably be dark judging by the dark tones of dust that freshly disturbed by rover tracks, dust devils and new impact craters on Mars.
Calipso is already being used for the calibration of other instruments in orbit (notably, PARASOL and MODIS, part of NASA's 'A-Train' satellite constellation) which assess the altitude of clouds by indirect methods. Calipso is also providing the first global views of total cloud coverage at different levels, obtained by ice/water discrimination (50 posters and 30 communications using Calipso data were presented at the most recent AGU meeting in 2006). The picture below is indicative of Calipso's amazing capacity to show the horizontal extent (over about 3000 km) of polar stratospheric clouds, their altitude (up to nearly 30 km) and their variability, all important data as these clouds play a major role in the evolution of the ozone hole.
Mars Global Surveyor has discovered
For general information about Calipso, visit the websites: http://smsc.cnes.fr/Calipso/ and http://www-Calipso.larc, nasa.gov/.
tens of thousands of gullies on slopes inside craters and other depressions on Mars. Most gullies are at latitudes of 30 ° or higher. Sightings of the gullies was first reported in 2000. To look for changes that might indicate present-day flow of water, the camera team repeatedly imaged hundreds of the sites. One pair of images showed a gully that appeared after mid-2002. That site was on a sand dune, and the gully-cutting process was the first to reveal newly deposited material apparently carried by fluids after earlier imaging of the same gullies.
Flowing W a t e r on Mars [From NASA press release, 6 December 2006] Photographs from the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor have revealed bright new deposits in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past seven years. "These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars" said Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. These new findings heighten the debate about the potential for microbial life on Mars. Michael Malin (of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego), Principal Investigator of the camera team, commented "The shapes of these deposits are
These fresh deposits suggest that at some places and times on present-day Mars, liquid water is emerging from beneath the ground and briefly flowing down the slopes. This possibility raises questions about how the water would stay melted below ground, how widespread it might be, and whether there's a
34
These research results were presented at the 209th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, WA, by Richard Massey and Nick Scoville (from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA). Richard Massey commented that "It's reassuring how well our map confirms the standard theories for structure formation". He called dark matter the 'scaffolding' inside of which stars and galaxies have been assembled over billions of years.
multicolour data from powerful ground-based telescopes, Europe's Very Large Telescope in Chile, Japan's Subaru telescope in Hawaii, the US's Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico, as well as ESA's orbiting XMMNewton X-ray telescope.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. Science operations using Hubble are conducted by The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington. For more information and images about this research, visit: www.nasa. gov/hubble or http ://hubble.site.org/news/ 2007/01
Researchers created the map using Hubble's largest survey of the universe to date, namely the Cosmic Evolution Survey otherwise known as COSMOS. The survey covers an area of sky nine times the area of the Earth's Moon. This allows for the large-scale filamentary structure of dark matter to be evident. To add 3-D distance information, the
I 0
I 1000
I 500
I 1500
I 2000
I 2500
I 3000
I 3500
I 4000
I 4500
I 5000
Distance along track (km)
532 nm Total Attenuated Backscatter Polar Stratospheric Clouds: 24 July 2006.
Calipso Data
Calipso is a joint NASA-CNES mission [see SRT166, pp. 6-7 (2006)]. Calipso's payload
Now Available
includes an active backscattering lidar measuring atmosphere vertical profiles (CALIOP), a passive infrared imaging radiometer (IIR), and a wide field camera operating in the visible (WFC). Calipso data are available through:
C
NES and NASA have announced that, as from 8 December 2006, Calipso data are available to the world-wide science community. Calipso (Cloud-Aerosol
Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation), which was launched on 28 April 2006, provides new insights into the role of clouds and atmospheric aerosols in regulating the Earth's weather and climate and on air quality.
33
• NASA Langley Research Center http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/PRODOCS/ Calipso/table_Calipso.html
what you would expect to see if the material were carried by flowing water. They have finger-like branches at the downhill end and [are] easily diverted around small obstacles".
at
• The French thematic Pole ICARE, specialized in aerosols, clouds, radiation and water cycle at http://www-icare.univ-lille 1.fr
The atmosphere of Mars is so thin and the temperature so cold that liquid water cannot persist at the surface. It would rapidly evaporate or freeze. However, it has been suggested that water could remain liquid long enough, after breaking out from an underground source, to carry debris downslope before totally freezing. The two fresh deposits are each several hundred metres long. The light tone of the deposits could be from surface frost continuously replenished by ice within the body of the deposit. Another possibility is of a salty crust, which would be a sign salts in solution had been concentrated as a consequence of evaporation. If the deposits had resulted from dry dust slipping down the slope, the debris would probably be dark judging by the dark tones of dust that freshly disturbed by rover tracks, dust devils and new impact craters on Mars.
Calipso is already being used for the calibration of other instruments in orbit (notably, PARASOL and MODIS, part of NASA's 'A-Train' satellite constellation) which assess the altitude of clouds by indirect methods. Calipso is also providing the first global views of total cloud coverage at different levels, obtained by ice/water discrimination (50 posters and 30 communications using Calipso data were presented at the most recent AGU meeting in 2006). The picture below is indicative of Calipso's amazing capacity to show the horizontal extent (over about 3000 km) of polar stratospheric clouds, their altitude (up to nearly 30 km) and their variability, all important data as these clouds play a major role in the evolution of the ozone hole.
Mars Global Surveyor has discovered
For general information about Calipso, visit the websites: http://smsc.cnes.fr/Calipso/ and http://www-Calipso.larc, nasa.gov/.
tens of thousands of gullies on slopes inside craters and other depressions on Mars. Most gullies are at latitudes of 30 ° or higher. Sightings of the gullies was first reported in 2000. To look for changes that might indicate present-day flow of water, the camera team repeatedly imaged hundreds of the sites. One pair of images showed a gully that appeared after mid-2002. That site was on a sand dune, and the gully-cutting process was the first to reveal newly deposited material apparently carried by fluids after earlier imaging of the same gullies.
Flowing W a t e r on Mars [From NASA press release, 6 December 2006] Photographs from the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor have revealed bright new deposits in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past seven years. "These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars" said Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. These new findings heighten the debate about the potential for microbial life on Mars. Michael Malin (of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego), Principal Investigator of the camera team, commented "The shapes of these deposits are
These fresh deposits suggest that at some places and times on present-day Mars, liquid water is emerging from beneath the ground and briefly flowing down the slopes. This possibility raises questions about how the water would stay melted below ground, how widespread it might be, and whether there's a
34