1 of 12

Space News Update — March 11, 2013 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1:

Amplified Greenhouse Effect Shifts North's Growing Seasons

Story 2:

The Closest Star System Found in a Century

Story 3:

The First Taste of Mars

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

Space Calendar

NASA-TV Highlights

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

2 of 12

1. Amplified Greenhouse Effect Shifts North's Growing Seasons

Vegetation growth at Earth's northern latitudes increasingly resembles lusher latitudes to the south, according to

a NASA-funded study based on a 30-year record of land surface and newly improved satellite data sets.

An international team of university and NASA scientists examined the relationship between changes in surface

temperature and vegetation growth from 45 degrees north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. Results show

temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of

latitude farther south as recently as 1982.

"Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, Arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing,

the growing season is getting longer and plants are growing more," said Ranga Myneni of Boston University's

Department of Earth and Environment. "In the north's Arctic and boreal areas, the characteristics of the seasons

are changing, leading to great disruptions for plants and related ecosystems."

The study was published Sunday, March 10, in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Myneni and colleagues used satellite data to quantify vegetation changes at different latitudes from 1982 to

2011. Data used in this study came from NOAA's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR)

onboard a series of polar-orbiting satellites and NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer

(MODIS) instruments on the Terra and Aqua satellites.

As a result of enhanced warming and a longer growing season, large patches of vigorously productive

vegetation now span a third of the northern landscape, or more than 3.5 million square miles (9 million square

3 of 12

kilometers). That is an area about equal to the contiguous United States. This landscape resembles what was

found 250 to 430 miles (400 to 700 kilometers) to the south in 1982.

"It's like Winnipeg, Manitoba, moving to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in only 30 years," said co-author Compton

Tucker of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The Arctic's greenness is visible on the ground as an increasing abundance of tall shrubs and trees in locations

all over the circumpolar Arctic. Greening in the adjacent boreal areas is more pronounced in Eurasia than in

North America.

An amplified greenhouse effect is driving the changes, according to Myneni. Increased concentrations of heat-

trapping gasses, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane, cause Earth's surface, ocean and lower

atmosphere to warm. Warming reduces the extent of polar sea ice and snow cover, and, in turn, the darker ocean

and land surfaces absorb more solar energy, thus further heating the air above them.

"This sets in motion a cycle of positive reinforcement between warming and loss of sea ice and snow cover,

which we call the amplified greenhouse effect," Myneni said. "The greenhouse effect could be further amplified

in the future as soils in the north thaw, releasing potentially significant amounts of carbon dioxide and

methane."

To find out what is in store for future decades, the team analyzed 17 climate models. These models show that

increased temperatures in Arctic and boreal regions would be the equivalent of a 20-degree latitude shift by the

end of this century relative to a period of comparison from 1951-1980.

However, researchers say plant growth in the north may not continue on its current trajectory. The ramifications

of an amplified greenhouse effect, such as frequent forest fires, outbreak of pest infestations and summertime

droughts, may slow plant growth.

Also, warmer temperatures alone in the boreal zone do not guarantee more plant growth, which also depends on

the availability of water and sunlight.

"Satellite data identify areas in the boreal zone that are warmer and dryer and other areas that are warmer and

wetter," said co-author Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Only

the warmer and wetter areas support more growth."

"We found more plant growth in the boreal zone from 1982 to 1992 than from 1992 to 2011, because water

limitations were encountered in the later two decades of our study," said co-author Sangram Ganguly of the Bay

Area Environmental Research Institute and NASA Ames.

Data, results and computer codes from this study will be made available on NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), a

collaborative supercomputing facility at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. NEX is designed to bring

scientists together with data, models and computing resources to accelerate research and innovation and provide

transparency.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

4 of 12

2. The closest star system found in a century

A pair of newly discovered stars is the third-closest star system to

the Sun, according to a paper that will be published in

Astrophysical Journal Letters. The duo is the closest star system

discovered since 1916. The discovery was made by Kevin

Luhman, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at

Penn State University and a researcher in Penn State's Center for

Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds.

Both stars in the new binary system are "brown dwarfs," which are

stars that are too small in mass to ever become hot enough to

ignite hydrogen fusion. As a result, they are very cool and dim,

resembling a giant planet like Jupiter more than a bright star like

the Sun.

"The distance to this brown dwarf pair is 6.5 light years -- so close

that Earth's television transmissions from 2006 are now arriving

there," Luhman said. "It will be an excellent hunting ground for planets because it is very close to Earth, which

makes it a lot easier to see any planets orbiting either of the brown dwarfs." Since it is the third-closest star

system, in the distant future it might be one of the first destinations for manned expeditions outside our solar

system, Luhman said.

The star system is named "WISE J104915.57-531906" because it was discovered in a map of the entire sky

obtained by the NASA-funded Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite. It is only slightly farther

away than the second-closest star, Barnard's star, which was discovered 6.0 light years from the Sun in 1916.

The closest star system consists of Alpha Centauri, found to be a neighbor of the Sun in 1839 at 4.4 light years,

and the fainter Proxima Centauri, discovered in 1917 at 4.2 light years.

Edward (Ned) Wright, the principal investigator for the WISE satellite, said "One major goal when proposing

WISE was to find the closest stars to the Sun. WISE 1049-5319 is by far the closest star found to date using the

WISE data, and the close-up views of this binary system we can get with big telescopes like Gemini and the

future James Webb Space Telescope will tell us a lot about the low mass stars known as brown dwarfs." Wright

is the David Saxon Presidential Chair in Physics and a professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA.

Astronomers have long speculated about the possible presence of a distant, dim object orbiting the Sun, which

is sometimes called Nemesis. However, Luhman has concluded, "we can rule out that the new brown dwarf

system is such an object because it is moving across the sky much too fast to be in orbit around the Sun."

To discover the new star system, Luhman studied the images of the sky that the WISE satellite had obtained

during a 13-month period ending in 2011. During its mission, WISE observed each point in the sky 2 to 3 times.

"In these time-lapse images, I was able to tell that this system was moving very quickly across the sky -- which

was a big clue that it was probably very close to our solar system," Luhman said.

After noticing its rapid motion in the WISE images, Luhman went hunting for detections of the suspected

nearby star in older sky surveys. He found that it indeed was detected in images spanning from 1978 to 1999

from the Digitized Sky Survey, the Two Micron All-Sky Survey, and the Deep Near Infrared Survey of the

Southern Sky. "Based on how this star system was moving in the images from the WISE survey, I was able to

extrapolate back in time to predict where it should have been located in the older surveys and, sure enough, it

was there," Luhman said.

5 of 12

By combining the detections of the star system from the various surveys, Luhman was able to measure its

distance via parallax, which is the apparent shift of a star in the sky due to the Earth's orbit around the Sun. He

then used the Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachón in Chile to obtain a spectrum of it, which demonstrated

that it had a very cool temperature, and hence was a brown dwarf. "As an unexpected bonus, the sharp images

from Gemini also revealed that the object actually was not just one but a pair of brown dwarfs orbiting each

other," Luhman said.

"It was a lot of detective work," Luhman said. "There are billions of infrared points of light across the sky, and

the mystery is which one -- if any of them -- could be a star that is very close to our solar system."

Source: Eureka Alert Return to Contents

6 of 12

3. The First Taste of Mars

Posted By Bill Dunford, The Planetary Society…

We're all indebted to pioneers. Even Mars rovers stand on the robotic shoulders of the missions that went

before.

As the Curiosity team prepares to release the results of the first rock drill sample analysis, I thought it would be

interesting to go digging (sorry) through the raw images of the Viking landings when they were collecting their

first samples.

After centuries of speculation, in the 1970s the twin Viking landings made it possible for the first time to know

what it looks like to stand on the surface of Mars. The mission was also the first to successfully collect samples

and analyze them, right on the spot, with laboratories on board the landers. Until the Mars Phoenix lander

touched down decades later, no other spacecraft at Mars could do the same.

The pictures from these early operations show landscapes that have become to familiar to us. And, despite the

fact that they were using 70s technology in a fixed location instead of on a rover, there's a certain similarity

between these images and what we've been watching come down from Curiostity over the past few months.

Leaving Our Mark The Martian soil has been disturbed and the collector head is dusty after the Viking 1 mission collected some of the first-ever samples on another planet.

New Tools for a New World A few sols after landing at Chryse Planitia on Mars, the Viking 1 lander prepares to retrieve samples with its collector tool (right).

7 of 12

Viking mission scientists retrieved samples from the surface with the help of a long boom on each lander. These

could deliver material to a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, an X-ray flourescence spectrometer and a

suite of biology experiments inside the lander body.

Viking gave us the first measurements of the surface and atmosphere of Mars, but really made history by

landing the first probes to conduct tests in situ for life beyond Earth. The data they returned are still under

scrutiny and debate to this day. Between them, the Viking landers captured about 4,500 images, and they

continued operating years beyond their designed life span. The Viking 1 lander functioned until November of

1982.

What's more, the lessons learned and techniques pioneered by the Viking team provided today's rover handlers

with some of the foundation of their craft, and raised scientific questions we're still trying to answer. In fact,

more than once Curiosity has been called "Viking on wheels."

Source: The Planetary Society Return to Contents

Digging for Clues The surface sampler arm on the Viking 1 lander digs for samples at Chryse Planitia on Mars.

A Finger to the Wind The meteorology boom on the Viking 1 lander lifted wind direction, wind velocity and temperature sensors into the Martian air..

8 of 12

The Night Sky

Source: Sky & Telescope Return to Contents

Monday, March 11

It being March, bright Sirius is highest in the south

on the meridian after dark. Sirius is the closest naked-

eye star that's ever visible from mid-northern latitudes

(aside from the Sun). It's only 8.6 light-years away.

Using binoculars, look below Sirius by almost a

binocular field-of-view for a dimly glowing patch

among the stars. This is the open star cluster M41,

2,200 light-years away.

New Moon (exact at 3:51 p.m. Eastern Daylight

Time).

Tuesday, March 12

Look very low in the west about 30 minutes after

sunset for the thin waxing crescent Moon, not much

more than 24 hours old, as shown at right. As seen

from North America, Comet PanSTARRS is now left

of the Moon by two or three finger-widths at arm's

length. It's a hazy "star" with a thin, upward pointing

tail only about 1° long. Bring binoculars for a better

view.

And think photo opportunity! Use a long or zoomed-

out lens, and put your camera on a tripod because with

a long lens in twilight, exposures won't be short.

Experiment with a variety of exposures.

Wednesday, March 13

Comet PanSTARRS is now below the thickening

crescent Moon 30 to 45 minutes after sunset, by about a

fist-width at arm's length.

Thursday, March 14

The place to look for PanSTARRS now is two fists

below the crescent Moon in twilight and perhaps a bit

to the right.

Friday, March 15

Look high above the Moon after dark for the

Pleiades. Upper left of the Pleiades shines bright

Jupiter with Aldebaran to its left, as shown here.

As soon as it gets dark now, the Big Dipper has

climbed as high in the northeast as Cassiopeia has sunk

in the northwest.

9 of 12

ISS Sighting Opportunities For Denver:

SATELLITE LOCAL DURATION MAX ELEV APPROACH DEPARTURE

DATE/TIME (MIN) (DEG) (DEG-DIR) (DEG-DIR)

ISS Tue Mar 12/06:09 AM 1 11 10 above SSE 11 above ESE

ISS Wed Mar 13/06:52 AM 1 61 11 above SW 20 above SW

ISS Thu Mar 14/06:02 AM 3 30 11 above SSW 27 above ESE

ISS Fri Mar 15/05:13 AM 2 16 15 above SE 13 above ESE

ISS Fri Mar 15/06:47 AM 3 49 10 above WSW

48 above NNW

Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time)

March 12, Tuesday

10 a.m. - ISS Expedition 34 In-Flight Event with CNN’s ―Newsroom‖ Program - JSC (Public and Media

Channels)

1 p.m. - NASA News Conference on Curiosity Rover Mars Rock Analysis - HQ (All Channels)

March 13, Wednesday

5:10 p.m. - ISS Expedition 34/35 Change of Command Ceremony (Ford hands over ISS command to Hadfield)

- JSC (All Channels)

March 14, Thursday

4:45 p.m. - ISS Expedition 34 Farewells and Hatch Closure Coverage (hatch closure scheduled at 5:15 p.m.

ET) - JSC (All Channels)

8:15 p.m. - ISS Expedition 34/Soyuz TMA-06M Undocking Coverage (undocking scheduled at 8:30 p.m. ET) -

JSC (All Channels)

10:45 p.m. - ISS Expedition 34/Soyuz TMA-06M Deorbit Burn and Landing Coverage (Deorbit burn scheduled

at 11:04 p.m. ET, landing near Arkalyk, Kazakhstan scheduled at 11:57 p.m. ET) - JSC (All Channels)

March 15, Friday

2 a.m., 2 p.m. - Video File of the ISS Expedition 34/Soyuz TMA-06M Landing and Post-Landing Activities -

HQ (All Channels)

1:40 p.m. - ISS Expedition 35 VIP Event for the Canadian Space Agency (Portions will be in French) -

JSC(Public and Media Channels)

3 p.m. - Interpreted Replay of the ISS Expedition 35 VIP Event for the Canadian Space Agency – JSC(Public

and Media Channels)

Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents

10 of 12

Space Calendar

Mar 11 - Cassini, Orbital Trim Maneuver #344 (OTM-344)

Mar 11 - Asteroid 4690 Strasbourg Closest Approach To Earth (1.137 AU)

Mar 11 - Asteroid 426 Hippo Closest Approach To Earth (1.639 AU)

Mar 12 - Asteroid 29 Amphitrite At Opposition (9.0 Magnitude)

Mar 12 - Asteroid 1103 Sequoia Closest Approach To Earth (1.208 AU)

Mar 13 - Asteroid 3476 Dongguan Occults HIP 19810 (6.3 Magnitude Star)

Mar 13 - Asteroid 2009 SC15 Near-Earth Flyby (0.081 AU)

Mar 14 - [Mar 05] Comet 279P/La Sagra At Opposition (4.003 AU)

Mar 14 - Asteroid 2005 ES70 Near-Earth Flyby (0.057 AU)

Mar 14 - Asteroid 100267 JAXA Closest Approach To Earth (1.468 AU)

Mar 15 - [Mar 08] Soyuz TMA-06M Returns To Earth (International Space Station)

Mar 15 - Asteroid 12104 Chesley Closest Approach To Earth (2.044 AU)

Mar 15 - Asteroid 21811 Burroughs Closest Approach To Earth (2.060 AU)

Mar 15 - Asteroid 1024 Hale Closest Approach To Earth (2.537 AU)

Mar 15 - 40th Anniversary (1973), San Juan Capistrano Meteorite Fall

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

The San Juan Capistrano chondrite fell on 15 March 1973; two specimens with a total mass of 56g were recovered. The largest piece, 50.5g, penetrated the aluminum sheeting roof of a carport in a mobile-home park and was picked up on the carport floor several hours later. The second smaller fragment, 5.5g was discovered about one month after the fall in the gutter of the carport roof.

11 of 12

Food for Thought

Lessons from a Space Dummy

Before a man could head into space, the Russians felt a mannequin needed to get

there first.

It was on this day (March 9) in 1961 that Ivan Ivanovich — the mannequin, or space

dummy — made his first flight in a Sputnik. He then took another turn in space later

that month before being placed into storage for decades. United States businessman

(and failed presidential candidate) Ross Perot bought him at auction in the 1990s, and

lent him to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. He’s on display there

today.

Universe Today caught up with Cathleen Lewis, the museum’s curator of

international space programs and spacesuits in the division of space history. She

explained that the mannequin was actually designed and built by three organizations:

- Zvezda (aka JSC Zvezda and RD&PE Zvezda), a firm known for high-altitude suits and spacesuits;

- The Institute for Bio-Medical Problems, which performed aerospace medicine research;

- The Moscow Institute for Prosthetics, which built the mannequin using specifications from the first two

groups.

Here are some of the lessons the Russians learned from Ivan Ivanovich’s flight, according to Lewis:

- What the environment is like inside the spacecraft. While the Soviets had already sent dogs and other

animals into space in that time, Lewis said they were sent up in their own self-contained canisters. The chest

cavity of Ivan included accelerator and angular rate changes to see what gravity changes he was experiencing.

He also measured the level of radiation. Notably, Ivan actually went up twice before the first man in space (Yuri

Gagarin), but the reasons are still unclear. ―One assumes that because they did do it twice, they weren’t satisfied

with the result the first time,‖ Lewis said. ―But there were not a lot of modifications [between flights], so it

might have been a testing failure or ambiguity in the results.‖

- The communications network. During the early years of the space program, the Americans had a number of

ground and ship stations scattered around the world. These stations allowed constant, but not completely

continuous, contact with the astronauts. The Soviets had a much smaller network, and wanted to know exactly

when the cosmonauts would be audible to ground control. The solution? Recorded singing. ―They were

broadcasting a song, a folk song from the spacecraft,‖ she said. The song had an unintended consequence: those

listening in from other countries thought there was an actual cosmonaut on board, leading to rumors that other

cosmonauts died before Gagarin’s flight, she said.

- Limited public outreach. In the closed Soviet society of the time, public broadcasts of missions generally

happened after the fact. Engineers had to figure out how not to alarm the locals if Ivanovich ended up falling

nearby a populated area and officials could not retrieve him first. They therefore wrote the word ―mannequin‖

on Ivan to make sure people understood what was going on. It turned out the precaution was never needed,

though. ―He was more on target than Gagarin,‖ Lewis said.

Source: Universe Today Return to Contents

12 of 12

Space Image of the Week

Sakurajima Volcano with Lightning

Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Rietze (Alien Landscapes on Planet Earth)

Explanation: Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? Pictured above, the Sakurajima

volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting in early January. Magma bubbles so hot they glow shoot away

as liquid rock bursts through the Earth's surface from below. The above image is particularly notable, however,

for the lightning bolts caught near the volcano's summit. Why lightning occurs even in common thunderstorms

remains a topic of research, and the cause of volcanic lightning is even less clear. Surely, lightning bolts help

quench areas of opposite but separated electric charges. One hypothesis holds that catapulting magma bubbles

or volcanic ash are themselves electrically charged, and by their motion create these separated areas.

Other volcanic lightning episodes may be facilitated by charge-inducing collisions in volcanic dust. Lightning is

usually occurring somewhere on Earth, typically over 40 times each second.

Source: APOD Return to Contents