NASA, NSIDC to Hold Media Teleconference on Arctic Sea Ice Record Low

J.D. Harrington

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-5241

j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

 

Maria-Jose Vinas

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

301-614-5883

mj.vinas@nasa.gov

GREENBELT, Md. -- The extent of the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean has shrunk. According to scientists from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., the amount is the smallest size ever observed in the three decades since consistent satellite observations of the polar cap began.

NASA and NSIDC scientists will host a media teleconference at 3 p.m. EDT, today, to discuss this new record low for summertime Arctic sea ice cover.

The extent of Arctic sea ice on Aug. 26, as measured by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager on the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program spacecraft and analyzed by NASA and NSIDC scientists, was 1.58 million square miles (4.10 million square kilometers), or 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) below the Sept. 18, 2007, daily extent of 1.61 million square miles (4.17 million square kilometers).

The sea ice cap naturally grows during the cold Arctic winters and shrinks when temperatures climb in the spring and summer. But over the last three decades, satellites have observed a 13 percent decline per decade in the minimum summertime extent of the sea ice. The thickness of the sea ice cover also continues to decline.

"The persistent loss of perennial ice cover -- ice that survives the melt season -- led to this year's record summertime retreat," said Joey Comiso, senior research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Unlike 2007, temperatures were not unusually warm in the Arctic this summer."

The new record was reached before the end of the melt season in the Arctic, which usually takes place in mid- to late-September. Scientists expect to see an even larger loss of sea ice in the coming weeks.

"In 2007, it was actually much warmer," Comiso said. "We are losing the thick component of the ice cover. And if you lose the thick component of the ice cover, the ice in the summer becomes very vulnerable."

"By itself it's just a number, and occasionally records are going to get set," NSIDC research scientist Walt Meier said about the new record. "But in the context of what's happened in the last several years and throughout the satellite record, it's an indication that the Arctic sea ice cover is fundamentally changing."

The panelists for the briefing are:

-- Joey Comiso, senior research scientist, Goddard

-- Walt Meier, research scientist, NSDIC

To participate in the teleconference and obtain dial-in information, reporters must contact Maria-Jose Vinas at mj.vinas@nasa.gov or Natasha Vizcarra at natasha.vizcarra@nsidc.org by 3 p.m. EDT today.

For more information and supporting images, go to http://go.nasa.gov/PmOyHo.

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NASA Selects Space And Earth Science Data Analysis Contract

Steve Cole

Headquarters, Washington                                   

202-358-0918

stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

 

Cynthia M. O'Carroll                                        

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

301-286-4787

cynthia.m.ocarroll@nasa.gov

 

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected ADNET Systems Inc. of Rockville, Md., to provide a broad range of services to support Earth and space science research and development at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

This is a cost-plus fixed-fee contract with a total estimated value of $249 million, which includes one base year and four one-year options to extend performance. The basic period of performance is from October 1, 2012 - September 30, 2013.

The contractor will provide a broad range of services, including data operations, information system technologies, engineering, and education and public outreach for Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate. The primary work will be performed at Goddard.

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

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Media Invited to NASA Airborne Hurricane Mission Media Day

Steve Cole

Headquarters, Washington     

202-358-0918

stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

 

Rob Gutro

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

301-286-4044

robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov

WASHINGTON -- NASA is preparing to send unmanned scientific aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean to study tropical cyclones and the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensification. Reporters are invited to view NASA's Global Hawks and tour the mission control center at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., beginning at 9:30 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, Sept. 19.

The Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) is a five-year mission that will use two NASA Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with instruments to survey the overall environment of the storms and peer into the inner core of hurricanes to study their structure and processes. HS3 flights are scheduled to begin in early September and continue into October.

Reporters will meet HS3 scientists and pilots and learn about NASA's efforts to better understand these powerful storms. Reporters also will meet with scientists working on another NASA Earth science flight mission using a laser to map forests and see Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket under development at Wallops.

To participate in the media day activities, reporters should contact Keith Koehler at keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov. Registration deadline for reporters who are non-U.S. citizens is Aug. 24 at 4 p.m. EDT; U.S. citizens must register before Sept. 14.

For more information on the HS3 mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/hs3.

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Briefing to Celebrate 40 Years of Continuous Earth Observations

Steve Cole

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-0918

stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

WASHINGTON -- NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. EDT, Monday, July 23, to highlight the accomplishments of the world's longest-running Earth-observing satellite program -- Landsat. The briefing will be held at the Newseum at 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, and feature extensive imagery of our changing planet and local U.S. landscapes.

In cooperation with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and its science agency, USGS, NASA launched the first Landsat satellite July 23, 1972. The resulting 40-year archive of Earth observations from the Landsat fleet forms an impartial, comprehensive, and easily accessed register of human and natural changes on the land. This information supports the improvement of human and environmental health, biodiversity, energy and water management, urban planning, disaster recovery and crop monitoring.

During the briefing, NASA and USGS will announce the 10 most significant images from the Landsat record, the U.S. regions selected for the "My American Landscape" contest showing local environmental changes, and the top five Landsat "Earth As Art" images selected in an online poll.

The panelists for the briefing are:

-- Anne Castle, assistant secretary for water and science, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington

-- Waleed Abdalati, chief scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington

-- Jeff Masek, NASA Landsat project scientist, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

-- Tom Loveland, USGS senior scientist, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, Sioux Falls, S.D.

-- Jim Irons, Landsat Data Continuity Mission project scientist, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

-- Roger Auch, research geographer, EROS Center, Sioux Falls, S.D.

Media may ask questions of the panelists during the briefing. Media wanting to attend the briefing must send their name, affiliation and telephone number to Steve Cole at stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov no later than 4 p.m. EDT, July 20. Reporters unable to attend the briefing in person can ask questions during the event via Twitter using the hashtag #asknasa. NASA Television and the agency's Web site will provide live briefing coverage.

For information on receiving NASA TV, go to http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/digital.html.

For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

The Landsat program is jointly managed by NASA and DOI/USGS. NASA is preparing to launch the next Landsat satellite in February 2013. For more information about the Landsat program, visit http://www.nasa.gov/landsat and http://landsat.usgs.gov.

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Hubble, Swift Detect First-Ever Changes In An Exoplanet Atmosphere

J. D. Harrington

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-5241

j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

 

Lynn Chandler

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

301-286-2806

lynn.chandler-1@nasa.gov

WASHINGTON -- An international team of astronomers using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made an unparalleled observation, detecting significant changes in the atmosphere of a planet located beyond our solar system.

The scientists conclude the atmospheric variations occurred in response to a powerful eruption on the planet's host star, an event observed by NASA's Swift satellite.

"The multiwavelength coverage by Hubble and Swift has given us an unprecedented view of the interaction between a flare on an active star and the atmosphere of a giant planet," said lead researcher Alain Lecavelier des Etangs at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics (IAP), part of the French National Scientific Research Center located at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris.

The exoplanet is HD 189733b, a gas giant similar to Jupiter, but about 14 percent larger and more massive. The planet circles its star at a distance of only 3 million miles, or about 30 times closer than Earth's distance from the sun, and completes an orbit every 2.2 days. Its star, named HD 189733A, is about 80 percent the size and mass of our sun.

Astronomers classify the planet as a "hot Jupiter." Previous Hubble observations show that the planet's deep atmosphere reaches a temperature of about 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit (1,030 C).

HD 189733b periodically passes across, or transits, its parent star, and these events give astronomers an opportunity to probe its atmosphere and environment. In a previous study, a group led by Lecavelier des Etangs used Hubble to show that hydrogen gas was escaping from the planet's upper atmosphere. The finding made HD 189733b only the second-known "evaporating" exoplanet at the time.

The system is just 63 light-years away, so close that its star can be seen with binoculars near the famous Dumbbell Nebula. This makes HD 189733b an ideal target for studying the processes that drive atmospheric escape.

"Astronomers have been debating the details of atmospheric evaporation for years, and studying HD 189733b is our best opportunity for understanding the process," said Vincent Bourrier, a doctoral student at IAP and a team member on the new study.

When HD 189733b transits its star, some of the star's light passes through the planet's atmosphere. This interaction imprints information on the composition and motion of the planet's atmosphere into the star's light.

In April 2010, the researchers observed a single transit using Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), but they detected no trace of the planet's atmosphere. Follow-up STIS observations in September 2011 showed a surprising reversal, with striking evidence that a plume of gas was streaming away from the exoplanet.

The researchers determined that at least 1,000 tons of gas was leaving the planet's atmosphere every second. The hydrogen atoms were racing away at speeds greater than 300,000 mph. The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Because X-rays and extreme ultraviolet starlight heat the planet's atmosphere and likely drive its escape, the team also monitored the star with Swift's X-ray Telescope (XRT). On Sept. 7, 2011, just eight hours before Hubble was scheduled to observe the transit, Swift was monitoring the star when it unleashed a powerful flare. It brightened by 3.6 times in X-rays, a spike occurring atop emission levels that already were greater than the sun's.

"The planet's close proximity to the star means it was struck by a blast of X-rays tens of thousands of times stronger than the Earth suffers even during an X-class solar flare, the strongest category," said co-author Peter Wheatley, a physicist at the University of Warwick in England.

After accounting for the planet's enormous size, the team notes that HD 189733b encountered about 3 million times as many X-rays as Earth receives from a solar flare at the threshold of the X class.

Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. Swift is operated in collaboration with several U.S. institutions and partners in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Japan. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages both missions.

For images and video related to this finding, visit http://go.nasa.gov/Osbvfi.

 

For more information about Swift, visit http://www.nasa.gov/swift.

 

For more information about Hubble, visit http://www.nasa.gov/hubble.

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