NASA : NASA Administrator Signs Agreements to Advance Agency's Journey to Mars .- Administrador de la NASA firma acuerdos con agencias como un avance de viaje a Marte

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido información de la Agencia Espacial NASA, sobre la firma de acuerdos con Agencias de otros países;  como un avance al próximo viaje hacia Marte, previsto en el 2020.

NASA, así nos informa: "Para avanzar en nuestro viaje a Marte a través de la continua cooperación internacional, administrador de la NASA Charles Bolden firmó acuerdos Martes, 16 de junio 2015 con Jean-Yves Le Gall, presidente de la agencia espacial francesa Centro Nacional de Estudios Espaciales, Francisco Marín Pérez, director general de el Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial de España, e Ignacio Azqueta Ortiz, director general del Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial....."

More information..............
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-administrator-signs-agreements-to-advance-agencys-journey-to-mars

NASA Administrator Signs Agreements to Advance Agency's Journey to Mars

To advance our journey to Mars through continued international cooperation, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden signed agreements Tuesday, June 16, 2015 with Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of the French space agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, Francisco Marín Pérez, director general of the Center for the Development of Industrial Technology of Spain, and Ignacio Azqueta Ortiz, director general of the National Institute for Aerospace Technology.

Credits: NASA

NASA agreements with Spain's Center for the Development of Industrial Technology and National Institute for Aerospace Technology continue operation of and coordination on the Remote Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) instrument suite and High Gain Antenna (HGA) subsystem currently on NASA's Mars Curiosity rover.

Credits: NASA

 

Spain will provide a suite of sensors for NASA's Mars InSight lander called Temperature and Wind on InSight (TWINS).

Credits: NASA

 

France's space agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, will provide the mast for the SuperCam component of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. Spain will equip the rover with a High Gain Antenna subsytem, Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument suite and calibration targets for the SuperCam.

Credits: NASA

 

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden signed agreements with two European partners to advance Mars exploration and our journey to the Red Planet during meetings Tuesday at the Paris Air Show.

Bolden and Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of the French space agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), signed an agreement for France to provide the mast for the SuperCam component of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover.

In terms of design, SuperCam is similar to the ChemCam on the Curiosity rover, which is currently traversing the surface of Mars. ChemCam analyzes rocks and soil to determine their compositions and identify samples for analysis by other instruments onboard Curiosity. SuperCam, however, will have significantly enhanced capabilities, equipped with four scientific instruments that will allow it to look for biosignatures – indicators of the past presence of life -- and identify samples for collection and possible return to Earth. 

“I’m delighted that our long time partners CNES will join us on the next step in our journey to Mars,” Bolden said, “We’re paving the way for humans to visit the Red Planet and working to answer one of the key questions for all humanity: has there ever been life elsewhere?”

Bolden also signed an agreement that extends cooperation with Spain on the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, the NASA InSight mission that will launch next year to study the core of Mars, and the Mars 2020 rover. Bolden and Francisco Marín Pérez, director general of the Center for the Development of Industrial Technology of Spain (CDTI), and Ignacio Azqueta Ortiz, director general of the National Institute for Aerospace Technology of Spain (INTA) finalized the agreement.

The NASA-CDTI-INTA agreement continues operation and coordination of the Remote Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) instrument suite and the High Gain Antenna (HGA) subsystem currently on the Curiosity rover. REMS provides important data on Mars’ weather, while the HGA provides an important communications link for transmitting data from the mission. Spain will provide the HGA subsytem for the Mars 2020 rover, as well.  For the InSight lander, Spain will provide a suite of sensors called Temperature and Wind on InSight (TWINS).

Through other agreements in development, Spain also will equip the Mars 2020 rover with a Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument suite and calibration targets for the SuperCam.

“NASA is proud to continue our strong collaboration with Spain that is already producing amazing results on Mars,” Bolden said. “We look forward to this next phase of our partnership and a wealth of data about Mars, the next destination for human exploration.”

For more information about NASA’s Journey to Mars, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mars

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

-end-

Last Updated: June 23, 2015

Editor: Karen Northon

Tags:  InSight Mars Lander, Journey to Mars, Mars 2020 Rover, Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity)

 NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

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NASA: NASA Rover Finds Active, Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars .- NASA: Rover Encuentra activa antigua Química Orgánica en Marte

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la Agencia Espacial NASA, nos informa sobre el descubrimiento de una antigua química orgánica en Marte, su robot NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, ha medido un aumento de diez veces en metano, una sustancia química orgánica, en la atmósfera alrededor de él y detectado otras moléculas orgánicas en una muestra de roca-polvo recogido por el taladro del laboratorio robotizado...."Este aumento temporal de metano - bruscamente hacia arriba y luego hacia abajo - nos dice que debe haber alguna fuente relativamente localizada", dijo Sushil Atreya de la Universidad de Michigan, Ann Arbor, y equipo científico  del rover Curiosity. "Hay muchas fuentes posibles, biológicos o no biológicos, como la interacción del agua y roca.........".....Los investigadores utilizaron Análisis de las muestras a bordo de Curiosity en Marte (SAM) de laboratorio de una docena de veces en un período de 20 meses para olfatear el metano en la atmósfera. Durante dos de esos meses, a finales de 2013 y principios de 2014, cuatro mediciones promedio de siete partes por mil millones. Antes y después de eso, las lecturas promedio de sólo una décima parte de ese nivel.....Robot Curiosity también detectó diferentes productos químicos orgánicos en polvo marcianas perforados desde una roca apodada Cumberland, la primera detección definitiva de compuestos orgánicos en los materiales de la superficie de Marte. Estos compuestos orgánicos en Marte o bien podrían haberse formado en Marte o se han entregado a Marte por meteoritos......."

This image illustrates possible ways methane might be added to Mars' atmosphere (sources) and removed from the atmosphere (sinks). NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has detected fluctuations in methane concentration in the atmosphere, implying both types of activity occur on modern Mars.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SAM-GSFC/Univ. of Michigan

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Full image and caption

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory’s drill.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drilled into this rock target, "Cumberland," during the 279th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (May 19, 2013) and collected a powdered sample of material from the rock's interior.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

This graphic shows the Tunable Laser Spectrometer, one of the tools within the Sample Analysis at Mars laboratory on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. By measuring absorption of light at specific wavelengths, it measures concentrations of methane, carbon dioxide and water vapor in Mars' atmosphere.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

Feature Link: 

Full image and caption

This graphic shows tenfold spiking in the abundance of methane in the Martian atmosphere surrounding NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, as detected by a series of measurements made with the Tunable Laser Spectrometer instrument in the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars laboratory suite.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Feature Link: 

Full image and caption

Data graphed here are examples from the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory's detection of Martian organics in a sample of powder that the drill on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover collected from a rock target called "Cumberland."

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Feature Link: 

Full image and caption

This graphic offers comparisons between the amount of an organic chemical named chlorobenzene detected in the "Cumberland" rock sample and amounts of it in samples from three other Martian surface targets analyzed by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Feature Link: 

Full image and caption

This illustration portrays some of the reasons why finding organic chemicals on Mars is challenging. Whatever organic chemicals may be produced on Mars or delivered to Mars face several possible modes of being transformed or destroyed.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Feature Link: 

 

Full image and caption

"This temporary increase in methane -- sharply up and then back down -- tells us there must be some relatively localized source," said Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Curiosity rover science team. "There are many possible sources, biological or non-biological, such as interaction of water and rock."

Researchers used Curiosity’s onboard Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory a dozen times in a 20-month period to sniff methane in the atmosphere. During two of those months, in late 2013 and early 2014, four measurements averaged seven parts per billion. Before and after that, readings averaged only one-tenth that level.

Curiosity also detected different Martian organic chemicals in powder drilled from a rock dubbed Cumberland, the first definitive detection of organics in surface materials of Mars. These Martian organics could either have formed on Mars or been delivered to Mars by meteorites.

Organic molecules, which contain carbon and usually hydrogen, are chemical building blocks of life, although they can exist without the presence of life. Curiosity's findings from analyzing samples of atmosphere and rock powder do not reveal whether Mars has ever harbored living microbes, but the findings do shed light on a chemically active modern Mars and on favorable conditions for life on ancient Mars.

"We will keep working on the puzzles these findings present," said John Grotzinger, Curiosity project scientist of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (Caltech). "Can we learn more about the active chemistry causing such fluctuations in the amount of methane in the atmosphere? Can we choose rock targets where identifiable organics have been preserved?"

Researchers worked many months to determine whether any of the organic material detected in the Cumberland sample was truly Martian. Curiosity’s SAM lab detected in several samples some organic carbon compounds that were, in fact, transported from Earth inside the rover. However, extensive testing and analysis yielded confidence in the detection of Martian organics.

Identifying which specific Martian organics are in the rock is complicated by the presence of perchlorate minerals in Martian rocks and soils. When heated inside SAM, the perchlorates alter the structures of the organic compounds, so the identities of the Martian organics in the rock remain uncertain.

"This first confirmation of organic carbon in a rock on Mars holds much promise," said Curiosity participating scientist Roger Summons of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "Organics are important because they can tell us about the chemical pathways by which they were formed and preserved. In turn, this is informative about Earth-Mars differences and whether or not particular environments represented by Gale Crater sedimentary rocks were more or less favorable for accumulation of organic materials. The challenge now is to find other rocks on Mount Sharp that might have different and more extensive inventories of organic compounds."

Researchers also reported that Curiosity's taste of Martian water, bound into lakebed minerals in the Cumberland rock more than three billion years ago, indicates the planet lost much of its water before that lakebed formed and continued to lose large amounts after.

SAM analyzed hydrogen isotopes from water molecules that had been locked inside a rock sample for billions of years and were freed when SAM heated it, yielding information about the history of Martian water. The ratio of a heavier hydrogen isotope, deuterium, to the most common hydrogen isotope can provide a signature for comparison across different stages of a planet's history.

"It's really interesting that our measurements from Curiosity of gases extracted from ancient rocks can tell us about loss of water from Mars," said Paul Mahaffy, SAM principal investigator of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of a report published online this week by the journal Science

The ratio of deuterium to hydrogen has changed because the lighter hydrogen escapes from the upper atmosphere of Mars much more readily than heavier deuterium. In order to go back in time and see how the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio in Martian water changed over time, researchers can look at the ratio in water in the current atmosphere and water trapped in rocks at different times in the planet’s history.

Martian meteorites found on Earth also provide some information, but this record has gaps. No known Martian meteorites are even close to the same age as the rock studied on Mars, which formed about 3.9 billion to 4.6 billion years ago, according to Curiosity’s measurements.

The ratio that Curiosity found in the Cumberland sample is about one-half the ratio in water vapor in today's Martian atmosphere, suggesting much of the planet's water loss occurred since that rock formed. However, the measured ratio is about three times higher than the ratio in the original water supply of Mars, based on assumption that supply had a ratio similar to that measured in Earth's oceans. This suggests much of Mars' original water was lost before the rock formed.

Curiosity is one element of NASA's ongoing Mars research and preparation for a human mission to Mars in the 2030s. Caltech manages the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and JPL manages Curiosity rover science investigations for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The SAM investigation is led by Paul Mahaffy of Goddard. Two of SAM instruments key in these discoveries are the Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, developed at Goddard, and the Tunable Laser Spectrometer, developed at JPL.

The results of the Curiosity rover investigation into methane detection and the Martian organics in an ancient rock were discussed at a news briefing Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union's convention in San Francisco. The methane results are described in a paper published online this week in the journal Science by NASA scientist Chris Webster of JPL, and co-authors.

A report on organics detection in the Cumberland rock by NASA scientist Caroline Freissinet, of Goddard, and co-authors, is pending publication.

For copies of the new Science papers about Mars methane and water, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/1cbk35X

For more information about Curiosity, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

and

 

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

Learn about NASA’s Journey to Mars at:

http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars/

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

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NASA : NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover Arrives at Martian Mountain

This image shows the old and new routes of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover and is composed of color strips taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This new route provides excellent access to many features in the Murray Formation. And it will eventually pass by the Murray Formation's namesake, Murray Buttes, previously considered to be the entry point to Mt. Sharp.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

 

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has reached the Red Planet's Mount Sharp, a Mount-Rainier-size mountain at the center of the vast Gale Crater and the rover mission's long-term prime destination.

"Curiosity now will begin a new chapter from an already outstanding introduction to the world," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "After a historic and innovative landing along with its successful science discoveries, the scientific sequel is upon us."

Curiosity’s trek up the mountain will begin with an examination of the mountain's lower slopes. The rover is starting this process at an entry point near an outcrop called Pahrump Hills, rather than continuing on to the previously-planned, further entry point known as Murray Buttes. Both entry points lay along a boundary where the southern base layer of the mountain meets crater-floor deposits washed down from the crater’s northern rim.

"It has been a long but historic journey to this Martian mountain,” said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The nature of the terrain at Pahrump Hills and just beyond it is a better place than Murray Buttes to learn about the significance of this contact. The exposures at the contact are better due to greater topographic relief."

Youtube Override: 

After 2 years and nearly 9 kilometers of driving, NASA’s Mars Curiosity has arrived at the base of Mount Sharp.

 

The decision to head uphill sooner, instead of continuing to Murray Buttes, also draws from improved understanding of the region’s geography provided by the rover’s examinations of several outcrops during the past year. Curiosity currently is positioned at the base of the mountain along a pale, distinctive geological feature called the Murray Formation. Compared to neighboring crater-floor terrain, the rock of the Murray Formation is softer and does not preserve impact scars, as well. As viewed from orbit, it is not as well-layered as other units at the base of Mount Sharp.

Curiosity made its first close-up study last month of two Murray Formation outcrops, both revealing notable differences from the terrain explored by Curiosity during the past year. The first outcrop, called Bonanza King, proved too unstable for drilling, but was examined by the rover’s instruments and determined to have high silicon content. A second outcrop, examined with the rover's telephoto Mast Camera, revealed a fine-grained, platy surface laced with sulfate-filled veins.

While some of these terrain differences are not apparent in observations made by NASA's Mars orbiters, the rover team still relies heavily on images taken by the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to plan Curiosity’s travel routes and locations for study.

For example, MRO images helped the rover team locate mesas that are over 60 feet (18 meters) tall in an area of terrain shortly beyond Pahrump Hills, which reveal an exposure of the Murray Formation uphill and toward the south. The team plans to use Curiosity's drill to acquire a sample from this site for analysis by instruments inside the rover. The site lies at the southern end of a valley Curiosity will enter this week from the north.

Though this valley has a sandy floor the length of two football fields, the team expects it will be an easier trek than the sandy-floored Hidden Valley, where last month Curiosity's wheels slipped too much for safe crossing.

› MSL - Senior Review Proposal, Science Sections

Curiosity reached its current location after its route was modified earlier this year in response to excessive wheel wear. In late 2013, the team realized a region of Martian terrain littered with sharp, embedded rocks was poking holes in four of the rover’s six wheels. This damage accelerated the rate of wear and tear beyond that for which the rover team had planned. In response, the team altered the rover’s route to a milder terrain, bringing the rover farther south, toward the base of Mount Sharp.

"The wheels issue contributed to taking the rover farther south sooner than planned, but it is not a factor in the science-driven decision to start ascending here rather than continuing to Murray Buttes first," said Jennifer Trosper, Curiosity Deputy Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "We have been driving hard for many months to reach the entry point to Mount Sharp," Trosper said. "Now that we've made it, we'll be adjusting the operations style from a priority on driving to a priority on conducting the investigations needed at each layer of the mountain."

After landing inside Gale Crater in August 2012, Curiosity fulfilled in its first year of operations its major science goal of determining whether Mars ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. Clay-bearing sedimentary rocks on the crater floor, in an area called Yellowknife Bay, yielded evidence of a lakebed environment billions of years ago that offered fresh water, all of the key elemental ingredients for life, and a chemical source of energy for microbes.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project continues to use Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. The destinations on Mount Sharp offer a series of geological layers that recorded different chapters in the environmental evolution of Mars.

The Mars Exploration Rover Project is one element of NASA's ongoing preparation for a human mission to the Red Planet in the 2030s. JPL built Curiosity and manages the project and MRO for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about Curiosity, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

and

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

Information about MRO activities is available online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO

Follow the Curiosity rover mission on social media at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

and

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
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NASA : NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover Marks First Martian Year with Mission Successes

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover captures a selfie to mark a full Martian year -- 687 Earth days -- spent exploring the Red Planet.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

 Feature Link: 

 

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover will complete a Martian year -- 687 Earth days -- on June 24, having accomplished the mission's main goal of determining whether Mars once offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

One of Curiosity's first major findings after landing on the Red Planet in August 2012 was an ancient riverbed at its landing site. Nearby, at an area known as Yellowknife Bay, the mission met its main goal of determining whether the Martian Gale Crater ever was habitable for simple life forms. The answer, a historic "yes," came from two mudstone slabs that the rover sampled with its drill. Analysis of these samples revealed the site was once a lakebed with mild water, the essential elemental ingredients for life, and a type of chemical energy source used by some microbes on Earth. If Mars had living organisms, this would have been a good home for them. 

Youtube Override: 

Curiosity Rover Report: Mars rover completes its first Martian year.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL

Other important findings during the first Martian year include:

-- Assessing natural radiation levels both during the flight to Mars and on the Martian surface provides guidance for designing the protection needed for human missions to Mars.

-- Measurements of heavy-versus-light variants of elements in the Martian atmosphere indicate that much of Mars' early atmosphere disappeared by processes favoring loss of lighter atoms, such as from the top of the atmosphere. Other measurements found that the atmosphere holds very little, if any, methane, a gas that can be produced biologically.

-- The first determinations of the age of a rock on Mars and how long a rock has been exposed to harmful radiation provide prospects for learning when water flowed and for assessing degradation rates of organic compounds in rocks and soils.

Curiosity paused in driving this spring to drill and collect a sample from a sandstone site called Windjana. The rover currently is carrying some of the rock-powder sample collected at the site for follow-up analysis.

"Windjana has more magnetite than previous samples we've analyzed," said David Blake, principal investigator for Curiosity's Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.  "A key question is whether this magnetite is a component of the original basalt or resulted from later processes, such as would happen in water-soaked basaltic sediments. The answer is important to our understanding of habitability and the nature of the early-Mars environment."

This map shows in red the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the "Bradbury Landing" location where it landed in August 2012 (blue star at upper right) to nearly the completion of its first Martian year. The white line shows the planned route ahead.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

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Preliminary indications are that the rock contains a more diverse mix of clay minerals than was found in the mission's only previously drilled rocks, the mudstone targets at Yellowknife Bay. Windjana also contains an unexpectedly high amount of the mineral orthoclase, This is a potassium-rich feldspar that is one of the most abundant minerals in Earth's crust that had never before been definitively detected on Mars.

This finding implies that some rocks on the Gale Crater rim, from which the Windjana sandstones are thought to have been derived, may have experienced complex geological processing, such as multiple episodes of melting.

"It's too early for conclusions, but we expect the results to help us connect what we learned at Yellowknife Bay to what we'll learn at Mount Sharp," said John Grotzinger, Curiosity Project Scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "Windjana is still within an area where a river flowed. We see signs of a complex history of interaction between water and rock."

Curiosity departed Windjana in mid-May and is advancing westward. It has covered about nine-tenths of a mile (1.5 kilometers) in 23 driving days and brought the mission's odometer tally up to 4.9 miles (7.9 kilometers). 

Since wheel damage prompted a slow-down in driving late in 2013, the mission team has adjusted routes and driving methods to reduce the rate of damage.

For example, the mission team revised the planned route to future destinations on the lower slope of an area called Mount Sharp, where scientists expect geological layering will yield answers about ancient environments. Before Curiosity landed, scientists anticipated that the rover would need to reach Mount Sharp to meet the goal of determining whether the ancient environment was favorable for life. They found an answer much closer to the landing site. The findings so far have raised the bar for the work ahead. At Mount Sharp, the mission team will seek evidence not only of habitability, but also of how environments evolved and what conditions favored preservation of clues to whether life existed there.

The entry gate to the mountain is a gap in a band of dunes edging the mountain's northern flank that is approximately 2.4 miles (3.9 kilometers) ahead of the rover's current location. The new path will take Curiosity across sandy patches as well as rockier ground. Terrain mapping with use of imaging from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enables the charting of safer, though longer, routes.

The team expects its will need to continually adapt to the threats posed by the terrain to the rover's wheels but does not expect this will be a determining factor in the length of Curiosity's operational life.

"We are getting in some long drives using what we have learned," said Jim Erickson, Curiosity Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "When you're exploring another planet, you expect surprises.  The sharp, embedded rocks were a bad surprise. Yellowknife Bay was a good surprise."

JPL manages NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, and built the project's Curiosity rover.

For more information about Curiosity, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

and

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

You can follow the mission on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

and on Twitter at:

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

ayabaca@Hotmail.com

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NASA : NASA Highlights Mars, Ozone Hole, and the Sun at American Geophysical Union

NASA Highlights Mars, Ozone Hole, Sun at AGU

NASA researchers will present new findings on a wide range of Earth and space science topics next week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

The meeting will take place Dec. 9-13 at the Moscone Convention Center, 747 Howard St., in San Francisco. Media registration for the event is open.

The briefings will be streamed for registered journalists on the AGU press conference Web page. They will not be carried on NASA Television.

› Read full NASA media advisory

NASA Highlights Mars, Ozone Hole, and the Sun at American Geophysical Union

NASA researchers will present new findings on a wide range of Earth and space science topics next week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

The meeting will take place Dec. 9-13 at the Moscone Convention Center, 747 Howard St., in San Francisco. Media registration for the event is open.

The briefings will be streamed for registered journalists on the AGU press conference Web page. They will not be carried on NASA Television.

NASA's media briefings during the meeting will feature topics such as the latest discoveries from Mars and Saturn's moon Titan, prospects for the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, Comet ISON, and close-up views of the sun from a NASA spacecraft launched this year. In addition, NASA scientists and their colleagues who use NASA research capabilities will present noteworthy findings during scientific sessions that are open to registered journalists.

On Monday, Dec. 9. reporters at the meeting are invited to an interview opportunity with NASA's two top scientists: Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan and the agency's associate administrator for science, John Grunsfeld. The event will take place at 6:30 p.m. PST at the NASA Booth in the AGU Exhibit Hall, Moscone Center North.

At 9 a.m. PST Dec. 9, AGU will host a briefing on new findings from NASA's Mars Curiosity rover. A NASA media teleconference will follow this briefing at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) to discuss the new results from the Radiation Assessment Detector on Curiosity.

For a complete list of NASA-related news briefings at the meeting, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/agu

The website contains detailed information about how reporters may participate in the briefings, either at the convention center or remotely. Information about NASA presentations will be updated on the website throughout the week.

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail,com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!