FY 2006 Year in Review
In January 2006, NASA launched its spacecraft, New Horizons, to the
Agency’s first mission to Pluto, Pluto’s moon Charon, and the Kuiper
Belt. The National Academy of Sciences ranked the exploration of
Pluto-Charon and the Kuiper Belt among the highest priorities for solar
system exploration. Different from the inner, rocky planets (like
Earth) or the outer gas giants, Pluto is a dwarf type of planet known
as an "ice dwarf," commonly found in the Kuiper Belt region billions of
miles from the sun. Exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is like
conducting an archeological dig into the history of the outer solar
system, a place where we can peek into the ancient era of planetary
formation.
After a 2.88 billion mile round-trip journey, the
Stardust mission returned cometary and interstellar dust particles back
to Earth. Since the returned material has been unaltered since the
formation of our solar system, scientists believe these dust particles
will help provide answers to fundamental questions about comets and the
origins of the solar system.
The Cassini spacecraft may have
found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in
Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. This discovery,
along with the presence of escaping internal heat and very few (if any)
impact craters in the South Polar Region, shows that Enceladus is
geologically active today.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
(MRO) began its inspection of the red planet in fine detail. The
orbiter carries six scientific instruments for examining the surface,
atmosphere, and subsurface of Mars in unprecedented detail from low
orbit. NASA expects to get several times more data about Mars from MRO
than from all previous Martian missions combined. MRO’s high-data-rate
communications system relays information between Mars surface missions
and Earth. The data regarding the history and distribution of Mars'
water will improve understanding of planetary climate change and
whether Mars ever supported life. The MRO also continued to evaluate
potential landing sites for future missions.
On Mars, the
rover Opportunity reached the rim of a hole in the Martian surface
wider and deeper than any it had previously visited. The crater, known
as "Victoria," is approximately one-half mile wide and 230 feet deep.
Initial images from the rover's first overlook after a 21-month journey
to "Victoria Crater" show rugged walls with layers of exposed rock and
a floor blanketed with dunes. The layers of rock offer information
about the environmental conditions long ago. The MRO recorded images
of the rover at the site.
During hurricane season, NASA
airborne and orbiting science instruments contributed a great deal of
information. NASA satellites provide critical detail in determining if
and when hurricane formation is occurring. NASA provides researchers
and forecasters with space-based observations, data assimilation, and
computer climate modeling. NASA-sponsored measurements and modeling of
global sea surface temperature, precipitation, winds, and sea surface
height have also improved understanding of El Niño and La Niña events,
which respectively tend to suppress and enhance Atlantic and Gulf
hurricane development.
NASA’s current hurricane-related
products from orbiting science instruments include data from the
Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on the Aqua satellite; the
Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI)
on the Aura satellite; the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua and Terra satellites; the
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite; the Total Ozone
Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS); and the Ocean Color Time-Series Project.
In addition, researchers investigated tropical storms and hurricanes in
the eastern and mid-Atlantic Ocean regions, including those threatening
Senegal and the Cape Verde Islands.
On April 28, 2006, the
CloudSat and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite
Observation (CALIPSO) satellites were launched into space from
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The CALIPSO and CloudSat are
a pair of Earth-observing satellites designed to study clouds from
orbit. CloudSat is an experimental satellite using radar to detect
clouds and aerosols from space. CALIPSO is equipped to examine the role
that clouds and airborne particles play in regulating Earth's weather,
climate, and air quality. The satellites are the latest spacecraft to
join NASA's "A-Train" constellation of environmental satellites.
Just
30 seconds after radar activation, CloudSat obtained its first image—a
slice of the atmosphere of a warm storm front over the North Sea
approaching Greenland. Unlike other satellite observations, the
CloudSat radar image simultaneously showed the storm's clouds and
precipitation—front's warm air rising over colder air with
precipitation below.
The first-ever millimeter wavelength
radar, CloudSat's Cloud-Profiling radar is more than 1,000 times more
sensitive than typical weather radar with the ability to distinguish
between cloud particles and precipitation. Its measurements have
offered new insights into the manner in which fresh water is created
from water vapor and how much of this water falls to the surface as
rain and snow.
CALIPSO returned never-before-seen images of
clouds and aerosols—tiny particles suspended in the air—revealing how
clouds and aerosols form, evolve, and interact with the atmosphere. In
early June, CALIPSO took its first images: a major lava dome collapse
at the Soufriere Hills Volcano on the island of Montserrat. The dome
had collapsed on May 20, sending ash clouds 55,000 feet into the sky.
In
FY06, analysis of NASA data showed that Arctic perennial sea ice, which
normally survives the summer melt season and remains year-round, shrank
abruptly by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005. According to researchers,
the loss of perennial ice in the East Arctic Ocean neared 50 percent
during that time as some of the ice moved from the East Arctic to the
West. Researchers have long suggested that the icy surface of the
Arctic's waters is retreating due to a warming climate. Sea ice
functions as an indicator of changing water, air, and sea surface
temperatures, and is important to the continued well-being of Arctic
mammals such as polar bears. A research team that used NASA's QuikScat
satellite to measure the extent and distribution of perennial and
seasonal sea ice in the Arctic discovered that, while the total area of
all the Arctic sea ice was stable in winter, the distribution of
seasonal and perennial sea ice experienced significant changes.
In
the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of the massive ice sheets
covering both Greenland and Antarctica, NASA scientists confirmed that
climate warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth's
largest storehouses of ice and snow. The survey showed a net loss of
ice from the combined polar ice sheets between 1992 and 2002 and a
corresponding rise in sea level. The survey provided the first
documentation of the extensive thinning of the West Antarctic ice
shelves, an increase in snowfall in the interior of Greenland, and
thinning at the edges. All these phenomena are indicators of a warming
climate previously predicted by computer models.
NASA continued
to monitor the polar ice sheets with the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation
Satellite (ICESat), which uses a laser beam three times a year to
measure the elevation of ice sheets with unprecedented accuracy.
Scientists used ICESat data to develop Digital Elevation
Models—three-dimensional high-resolution images of ice sheets in
Greenland and Antarctica. ICESat’s view of changes in the ice sheets
provide information critical to understanding how the Earth's changing
ice cover affects sea level.
NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations
Observatory (STEREO) mission lifted off at night in October 2006 from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. With spacecraft on opposite sides of
the Earth, STEREO provided three-dimensional mapping of the structure
of solar storms as material leaves the sun and flows around the
planet. STEREO also compiled data on coronal mass ejections
(CMEs)—solar storms that travel at nearly 1 million mph and can knock
out power on Earth. The nearly identical twin observatories provided
perspectives critical to improving understanding of space weather and
its impact on astronauts and Earth systems.
Dr. John C. Mather
of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center received the 2006 Nobel Prize for
Physics for his work that helped cement the Big Bang theory of the
universe and deepened our understanding of the origin of stars and
galaxies. This work was based on data form NASA’s Cosmic Background
Explorer (COBE) satellite. Dr. Mather is the first NASA civil servant
to receive a Nobel Prize.
Using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory
and the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists developed direct proof for
the existence of dark matter. Hubble also found evidence of the
existence of dark energy for most of the universe’s history. These
results provided new insights into gravity and the structure and growth
of the universe.
NASA used the unique capabilities of the Hubble
Space Telescope for a new class of scientific observations of the
Earth's moon. Hubble's resolution and sensitivity to ultraviolet light
have allowed the telescope to search for important oxygen-bearing
minerals on the moon. Since the moon does not have a breathable
atmosphere, minerals such as ilmenite (titanium and iron oxide) may be
critical for a sustained human lunar presence as a potential source of
oxygen for breathing or to power rockets. The new Hubble observations
are the first high-resolution ultraviolet images ever acquired of the
moon, providing scientists with a new tool to study mineral variations
within the lunar crust. As NASA plans future expeditions to the moon,
such data, in combination with other measurements, will help target the
best sites for robotic and human missions.
NASA's Spitzer Space
Telescope made the first measurements of the day and night temperatures
of a planet outside our solar system. The infrared observatory
revealed that a Jupiter-like giant gas planet circling very close to
its sun is always as hot as fire on one side while potentially as cold
as ice on the other. The temperature difference between the day and
night sides of the planet provides information about how energy flows
in the planet's atmosphere. The finding represents the first time any
kind of variation has been seen across the surface of an extrasolar
planet.
NASA researchers using the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft developed a method of seeing through the
Sun to the star's far side. Because the Sun's far side faces away from
the Earth, it is not directly observable by traditional techniques.
This new method allows more reliable advance warning of magnetic storms
brewing on the far side that could rotate with the Sun and threaten the
Earth by disrupting satellites, radio communications, power grids, and
other technological systems. Many of these storms originate in groups
of sunspots—active regions with high concentration of magnetic fields.
Active regions situated on the near side of the sun can be observed
directly; however, previous methods provided no information about
active regions developing on the far side of the sun. SOHO’s insight
into any large active regions on the far side of the sun greatly
improved forecasting of potential magnetic storms.