This Week at NASA…
One of the International Space Station’s most prominent scientific experiments has
produced its first results.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is a state-of-the-art cosmic ray particle physics detector located
on the exterior of the orbiting laboratory.
MIT’s Sam Ting, AMS principal investigator, spoke from a science conference in Switzerland
where the results were announced.
“Are you reporting today that you think you’ve seen the first evidence of dark matter?”
“Our evidence supports that this is a dark matter, but cannot rule out that the origin
comes from pulsars but because we will be on the space station for the lifetime of the
space station, we should be able to solve this problem.”
Scientists hope that by measuring cosmic rays, AMS will provide new data about the formation
of the Universe, antimatter, and evidence of the mysterious dark matter believed to
make up most of the Universe.
“Space Station is a really nice platform, well suited for this instrument.
It allows for a long, long duration of observation time, which is important to this instrument.
This is a good a good indication of some of the results that are going to come from Space
Station in the future.”
The Materials on International Space Station Experiment,
or MISSE, is a multi-generational study conducted on station.
A suitcase-like structure filled with various coin-shaped samples of materials is mounted,
like the AMS, outside the station – exposing the materials to space and the Sun's unfiltered
ultraviolet radiation.
Examination of the returned samples has helped qualify a variety of materials for space flight
– including the white protective thermal control coating used on the SpaceX Dragon
spacecraft and the coating used to protect the cooling fins of the Curiosity Mars rover’s
power unit.
And, at the Langley Research Center, scientists and engineers are preparing the Stratospheric
Aerosol and Gas Experiment, or SAGE-3 Earth observing science instrument for its trip
to the International Space Station.
Due for delivery to the ISS by SpaceX late next year or early 20-15, SAGE-3 will help
scientists better understand the Earth’s atmosphere by gathering long-term measurements
of ozone, aerosols and other gases.
The International Space Station, the world’s only laboratory in microgravity, is home to
more than 150 scientific experiments and studies.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found the farthest supernova of the Ia type used by
scientists to measure cosmic distances.
Supernova UDS10Wil, nicknamed SN Wilson after American President Woodrow Wilson, exploded
more than 10 billion years ago.
SN Wilson and its consistent level of brightness will serve as a reference point by which astronomers
can measure the expansion of the Universe and better understand the dark energy accelerating
that expansion.
This animated series of still images captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows
the parachute that helped safely land the Curiosity Mars rover last August changing
shape in response to wind on the Martian surface.
Still attached to the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's back shell, the parachute is
about 165 feet long.
The images were captured by MRO’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera.
The month of April is all about Earth here at NASA.
The ‘Earth Month’ section of nasa.gov is full of the latest news, events, and interactive
material -- including a Google Plus Hangout on sea level rise, classic images of Earth,
and feature stories about NASA’s ongoing mission to help understand and sustain our
home planet.
NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer or LADEE spacecraft is undergoing
final checks and testing in preparation for its scheduled launch late this year.
Built at the Ames Research Center, the spacecraft will be the first to collect extensive amounts
of data about the Moon's extremely thin atmosphere.
“We’re pretty excited.
There’s a lot of work that went into this for the team.
It’s really nice to see the spacecraft operate as you expect it to in the environmental testing,
so I can tell the team is all excited about getting it to the range and getting a chance
to launch it.”
The data collected by LADEE will help prepare future robotic and human missions to the lunar
surface.
Members of the media were invited inside the Johnson Space Center’s Chamber A, the world's
largest thermal-vacuum chamber, to check out upgrades being made to prepare the 400,000
cubic foot facility for testing of the agency's James Webb Space Telescope.
Scheduled for launch in 2018, JWST, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope is designed
to enable scientists to see farther back into history than ever before.
Forty years ago on April 5, 1973, the Pioneer 11 spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral
to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter and Saturn and eventually,
the far reaches of the solar system and heliosphere.
It was the first probe to encounter and take close-up pictures of Saturn and the second
to fly through the asteroid belt and past Jupiter.
During its flyby of the gas giant on December 2nd, 1974, Pioneer 11 obtained dramatic images
of the Great Red Spot and made the first observation of the planet’s immense polar regions.
Its 22-and-a-half year mission officially ended when communication with Pioneer 11 was
lost in the fall of 1995.
And that’s This Week @NASA.
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