National Aeronautics and Space Administration




The James Webb Space Telescope will look far back in cosmic time to study the origins of the universe.  But that doesn’t mean the observatory will turn a blind eye to the planets. Yesterday, at a conference at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore,  noted planetary astronomer Heidi Hammel gave us a quick tour of the solar system from Webb’s (future) point of view.

UPDATE: A webcast video of Hammel’s talk is now available on the STScI website.

The conference, Frontier Science Opportunities with the James Webb Space Telescope (June 6-8), is all about what Webb can and will do once it makes it into space. It’ll be a while: As Matt Mountain, director of STSciI, mentioned in his opening remarks to the conference, Webb won’t see the cold of space, some 1 million miles from Earth, until at least 2017.

Hammel is known to be a great speaker, and she didn’t disappoint. First she took Mercury, Venus, and Earth out of the lineup. Her Powerpoint slides?

Mercury? No.

Venus? No.

Earth? No.



Webb’s orbit and the size and shape of its sunshield leave these planets in an “exclusion zone” hidden from the observatory’s view. (Its planned orbital perch is a point called L2, opposite from Earth with respect to the sun.) Ok, fine. What about Mars?

Yes. According to a March 9, 2010 White Paper about Webb and the solar system, the observatory could measure a number of important things in Mars’ atmosphere, like dust and carbon dioxide gas, that affect its climate.

Hammel speculated that Webb’s infrared eyes could help solve the mysterious nature of methane releases observed on Mars. Where does the methane come from? Webb might help us figure it out.

Jupiter? Saturn? Yes, yes. There is much Webb could learn about the atmospheres of these giant gas planets — which are, by the way, the best nearby examples we have of the scores of giant gaseous exoplanets being discovered in other solar systems.

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon? Yes. Webb could add a decade of observations of Titan’s surface and atmosphere to the work of the Cassini orbiter, and during a time in Titan’s seasonal cycle not yet explored in the infrared band, according to the White Paper.

Uranus and Neptune? An enthusiastic thumbs up from Hammel to the idea of studying these cool, distant bodies with the Webb’s infrared camera and spectrographs. She cited several scientific puzzles that Webb might help solve, including shifts in the wavelengths of light emitted by Uranus as the planet rotates and Neptune’s inexplicably warm polar region.

In general, Hammel said, “Neptune’s atmosphere is so dynamic, and little is known.” Anything Webb contributes will be helpful.

Last but not least, the region beyond Neptune, realm of Pluto and the other icy dwarf planets, is also fair game for Webb.  As the White Paper explains:

“Beyond Neptune, a class of cold, large bodies that include Pluto, Triton and Eris exhibits surface deposits of nitrogen, methane, and other molecules that are poorly observed from the ground, but for which JWST might provide spectral mapping at high sensitivity and spatial resolution difficult to match with the current generation of ground-based observatories.”

And comets, too. At least comets slow enough for Webb to track.

There has been much public hand wringing lately over growth in the Webb budget and slips in the launch date. But in the scientific community, two generations eagerly await the lofting of the giant Webb observatory into orbit. Many of them are up at STScI today sharing their plans.

“There’s a lot of great science that’s going to come out of this and I’m really looking forward to it,” Hammel said. “There is a wide range of interesting planetary phenomena observable by JWST, especially in the outer solar system.”

This NASA video goes into detail about planet studies — here and elsewhere in the universe — and the James Webb Space Telescope:



_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

TUESDAY January 18: Read about Sample Analysis at Mars, the largest instrument on NASA’s next Mars rover, the Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity.” SAM was built and tested right here at Goddard Space Flight Center. “It has been a long haul getting to this point,” said Paul Mahaffy, the scientist in charge of SAM. “We’ve taken a set of experiments that would occupy a good portion of a room on Earth and put them into that box the size of a microwave oven.”

Amino acids in space: A wider range of asteroids were capable of creating the kind of amino acids used by life on Earth, according to new NASA research.

WEDNESDAY January 19: On this day in 2006, the New Horizons mission launched from Cape Canaveral, beginning its nine-year trek toward Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. The first spacecraft to visit Pluto, New Horizons was the first in NASA’s New Frontiers program of medium-class planetary missions. The spacecraft is now more than halfway to its target. Only 1634 days until closest approach to Pluto!

Prime contest: NASA has opened online voting for the agency’s OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Award student video contest. The public is invited to vote for their favorite videos, made by students in grades three through eight, developed to help educate America’s youth about the benefits of NASA’s technologies.

Missing in action: NASA science solves the mystery of the missing galaxies.

On View: The new Goddard View newsletter is available, featuring the SOHO birthday, Webb Telescope model builders, and Goddard Web Producer Holly Zell’s Halloween and Christmas hijinks.





THURSDAY January 20: The NASA Earth Observatory Picture of the Day is an orbital portrait of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, captured by NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite.

Glorious: Get ready for NASA’s next major earth science mission to launch: Glory.



_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

Download a transcript of this video.


The Goddard community began the process of saying good-bye to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument with an open house event. SAM will soon be off to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to be installed on the Mars Science Laboratory rover “Curiosity.” If all goes according to plan, the Mini Cooper-sized robot will blast off to Mars in 2011 and land in August 2012.

SAM contains a suite of three instruments that will search for compounds of the element carbon, including methane, that are associated with life and explore ways in which they are generated and destroyed on Mars. The instruments, developed by an international team, all came together at Goddard and underwent rigorous testing. Goddard people will play a key role in operating and supporting SAM when it reaches the Red Planet and starts roving.

So long, SAM! Safe journey.



_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

MONDAY October 4: On this day in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. Meanwhile, engineers and scientists with the Naval Research Laboratory in the U.S. continued to work on Project Vanguard, which boosted the satellite Vanguard 3 into orbit on March 17, 1958.

Just like the real thing: NASA Earth Observatory features the work of Goddard’s Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) global simulation project.

Hot solar science: The four Cluster spacecraft scrutinize how protons are heated in the solar wind.

Chemistry on ice: Goddard’s Mark Loeffler and Reggie Hudson discover that ice chemistry on Jupiter’s giant moon Europa is more lively than we thought.

And the winners are. . . NASA Blueshift announces the winners of the cosmic beachball contests. And the Weekly Awesomeness Round Up features Optimus Prime, alien views of our solar system, and other highlights from the previous week.


TUESDAY October 5: Why does the Red Planet’s atmosphere bleed into space? The MAVEN mission will find out. And a new Goddard video explains the whole thing. And if you’re still curious, see the new video about how NASA makes sure its spacecraft designs are top notch.

Blowing in the wind: NASA’s “A-Train” satellites will search for 770 million tons of dust blown into the air from the Sahara Desert.

See Hartley glow: The Hubble Space Telescope snaps an image of Comet 103P/Hartley 2 to help scientists plan for the November 4 flyby of the comet by NASA’s Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI) spacecraft.

WEDNESDAY October 6: The wobble of Saturn’s moon Enceladus may keep it warm.

So long and thanks for all the data: The WMAP mission concludes its observations of the cosmic microwave background.

Arctic retreat: NASA’s Aqua satellite confirms that Arctic sea ice retreated to its third-lowest extent in the satellite record on September 29. A new video shows all.

CERN special: On NASA Blueshift, former Goddard intern Faith Tucker visits the Conseil European pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN) — home of the Large Hadron Collider.



THURSDAY October 7: Fox 2 news St. Louis airs a segment about the Webb Telescope. Jim Pontius from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center explains.

FRIDAY October 8: The Webb Telescope’s high-tech accordion sun shield passes its latest tests.

Pass the packing tape: The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument is almost ready to ship to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to be attached to the Mars Science Laboratory rover bound for the Red Planet.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

MONDAY September 6: Blueshift’s Weekly Awesomeness Round Up highlights Stephen Colbert’s astronaut encounter, an image from an Indian radio telescope, America’s top chef in orbit, and other astronomical-scientific tidbits of the previous week.

TUESDAY September 7: Sensors on Terra and Aqua satellites spot fires for a new United Nations website.


WEDNESDAY September 8: LROC Image of the Day: the moon seen from the east.

It’s a blast: Sunspot 1108 erupts!

GRIPping tale: On the What On Earth blog, Q&A with Dryden Flight Research Center DC-8 pilot Dick Ewers and the GRIP mission.

Bug attack: Satellite data reveals beetle’s deadly attack.

Special delivery: The Canadian Space Agency ships a test unit of the Fine Guidance Sensor for the James Webb Space Telescope to Goddard.


THURSDAY September 9: Planets torn apart by solar tides! And what the Christian Science Monitor had to say.

Hail and farewell: On this day in 1975, Viking 2 blasted off for Mars.

RATS! Two Goddard scientists head for the Arizona desert to test technology and procedures for exploring other planets.

Southern sizzle: MODIS Image of the Day shows fires in Brazil.

Gold record: the first Webb Telescope mirror gets its final reflective coating.


FRIDAY September 10: New video profiles Goddard astrobiologist Geronimo Villanueva.

River of sorrow: NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day shows the swollen Indus River and flooded fields from orbit.

Say what? The What On Earth bloggers have posted an Earth-related mystery sound. Well, THAT narrows it down! See if you can guess what it is.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

Hey kids — got a science report due on the solar system? Do I have a video for you: a guided tour of the inner rocky planets by Goddard’s James Garvin.

Chief Scientist of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Dr. Jim Garvin, takes us on a journey of Earth, the moon, and our neighboring planets. Why does space matter? Why is exploring the inner solar system so crucial? Where will humans venture to next? In this video lecture, Dr. Garvin answers these questions and discusses NASA’s past, present, and future of discovery on our nearest neighbors in the solar system.

Click the image above to see the entire 55-minute presentation on Blip TV. This version, compressed to play in a continues clip, is a little grainy. That short-changes you a bit on the fantastic computer simulations and images packed into Garvin’s talk. You have the option of watching the presentation in six higher-resolution YouTube clips (below). Or you could download the high-res files from Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio site.

Garvin covers Mercury, Venus, the moon, asteroids, Earth (a wee bit), and then Mars (quite a bit). He covers the detailed history of what we’ve done and what we still want to do. Garvin scores big points with his enormous energy and enthusiasm, deep knowledge of the subject (he’s a planetary scientist), and a humorous touch.

Check it out if you want an update from the bleeding edge of NASA planetary science from a true insider. It’s watchable and packed with interesting science/tech tidbits.

If you have a fast Internet connection, set the video segments below to play back at 720p for the maximum High Def data blast.


















_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

SUNDAY AUGUST 22: Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and other classics, was born this day 100 years ago in Waukegan, Illinois.

The rockets came like drums, beating in the night. The rockets came like locusts, swarming and settling in blooms of rosy smoke. And from the rockets ran men with hammers in their hands to beat the strange world into a shape that was familiar to the eye, to bludgeon away all the strangeness, their mouths fringed with nails so they resembled steel-toothed carnivores, spitting them into their swift hands as they hammered up frame cottages and scuttled over roofs with shingles to blot out the eerie stars, and fit green shades to pull against the night.




MONDAY AUGUST 23: The MODIS Image of the Day shows a plankton bloom off Greenland.

Planet pulverizers: A research team including Goddard’s Marc Kuchner finds evidence of planet-destroying collisions in another star system!

Dog days of summer: On What On Earth, bloggers Patrick Lynch and Adam Voiland of NASA’s Earth Science News Team discuss the warm and erratic summer weather.

Better luck next time: On this day in 1961, Ranger 1 launched. When the experimental satellite separated from its Agena booster stage it went into a low Earth orbit and began tumbling. The satellite re-entered Earth’s atmosphere a week later, on August 30, 1961

Awesomely: Featured in Blueshift’s Weekly Awesomeness Round Up: solar sail, sunspots, special shuttle launch, space colonies, and other highlights in space science and astronomy.



TUESDAY AUGUST 24: Goddard marks the 5-year anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe:  The Scientific Visualization Studio provides a satellite-eye view of the tempest. See a Katrina Flickr gallery by Public Affairs photo maven Rebecca Roth. Meanwhile, gogblog asks Goddard researcher Siegfried Schubert how supercomputers are improving hurricane forecasting. And Discovery News blogger Michael Reilly comments on the Goddard satellite visualization about Katrina.

This year’s model: Here’s how to build a life-size mock-up of the James Webb Space Telescope.


WEDNESDAY AUGUST 25: Satellite imagery featured today: dust storms in Afghanistan and Pakistan and how satellites can help archeologists preserve hidden cultural treasures.

Koji says: Take a tour of the international observatory on the island of La Palma with NASA Blueshift blogger Koji Mukai.

Hail to the chief. . . of the Goddard Astrochemistry Laboratory, Jason Dworkin, in a new video profile.

Go Spitzer! On this day in 2003, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) launched into orbit. One of the quartet of NASA Great Observatories, SIRTF was renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope and continues to push the frontiers of space-based astronomy.


THURSDAY AUGUST 26: Earth Observatory spotlights satellite view of fires raging in South America.

FRIDAY AUGUST 27: On this day in 1962, Mariner 2 left for Venus, to become the first spaceship from Earth to visit another planet.

Space rocks: NASA and U2 released a commemorative video highlighting a year’s worth of collaboration in space and on the Irish rock band’s 360 Degree tour.

I, Robonaut! NASA’s humanoid astronaut buddy is being prepared for its history making launch to the International Space Station on STS-133.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

MONDAY AUGUST 9: NASA Earth Observatory has a new blog: Elegant Figures. . . EO’s lead data visualizer, Robert Simmon, will write about how he makes data and information clear and beautiful.

frozen fall: The Aqua satellite watches as nearly 97 square miles of ice breaks off Greenland’s Petermann Glacier.

blueshift’s gotchu: NASA Blueshift’s Weekly Awesomeness Round Up spotlights the Hubble Gotchu Guy media frenzy, the wild week of storm sun headlines, and the cover story in the September 2010 Astronomy magazine about the James Webb Space Telescope by Goddard science writer Frank Reddy.



TUESDAY AUGUST 10: NASA image release highlights a majestic spiral galaxy captured gloriously by the Hubble Space Telescope.

solar turmoil: The Solar Dynamics Observatory YouTube page spotlights a video of turmoil on the sun’s surface in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths.

apollo’s scout: On this day in 1966, NASA launched Lunar Orbiter 1 to scout the moon’s surface for Surveyor and Apollo landing sites.



WEDNESDAY AUGUST 11: On the NASA Blueshift blog, Goddard intern Faith Tucker writes about the dinosaur-astronomy connection.

the roaming stones: Goddard science writer Liz Zubritsky profiles the daring NASA interns who stalked mysterious wandering stones in Death Valley this summer.

water bear cowboy: Geeked On Goddard profiles one of the Death Valley interns, Kris Schwebler, and his research on tiny “water bears” and how they survive drying, hard vacuum, and radiation.



THURSDAY AUGUST 12: In a new video profile, meet astrobiologist Joe Nuth who says scientists are just like everyone else, but a little nerdier.






shocking! The Fermi Telescope discovers that a supernova’s little cousin can emit gamma rays. The press release includes a slick video visualizing a white dwarf star sucking gas off its neighbor and flaring into a nova.

nova hunters: Meanwhile, Geeked On Goddard profiles the duo of dedicated amateur astronomers in Japan who first alerted the world to the gamma ray nova.

night time at goddard: In the latest issue of Goddard View, read about Milky J’s appearance, the recent Space Shuttle crew visit, and Goddard’s Edward Cheung, the newly dubbed Knight of the Royal Order of the Netherlands Lion.

yes, there IS an echo in here: 50 years ago today, NASA launched Echo 1, the first passive communications satellite.

total recon: Also on this day, five years ago, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched.

contrails away! In the What On Earth blog, NASA Langley Research Center’s Lin Chambers writes about contrails formed by rocket exhaust plumes.




FRIDAY AUGUST 13: The Earth Science Picture of the Day features a spectacular sunset sequence by Oregon photographer Randall Scholten.

russian fires: NASA’s Terra Satellite Sees Intense Fires and Smoke Over Western Russia.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

MONDAY JULY 12: Washington Post weather blogger Andrew Freedman writes about a recent glacier retreat in NASA eyeballs glacial melt in Greenland. . . .  NASA Earth science storyteller Mike Carlowicz explained the science last week.

DEAD WEIGHT: Engineers at Goddard simulate the heavy load of instruments James Web Space Telescope will carry into deep space.

AWESOMENESS: NASA Blueshift‘s Weekly Awesomeness Roundup covers Hubble fireworks, renegade planets, a mind-blowing physics experiment in Germany, and other USDA Choice Scientific Beef of the week.

MARS ROCKS! Goddard’s Sciences and Exploration Directorate Chief Scientist James Garvin gives you a guided tour of Martian geology on WorldWideTelescope. Here’s the article in The Universe Today.

RABBIT HOLE: The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter unveils “rabbit holes” on the moon.

THREE’S A CHARM: On this day in 1961, NASA launched the Tiros 3 satellite. . . In 1960, Tiros 1 had taken the first-ever image of Earth from orbit. . . . Tiros stands for Television and InfraRed Observation Satellite, designed to test experimental television techniques and infrared equipment.

DUST-UP: A Space.com story about effects of lunar dust on equipment quotes Goddard planetary scientist William Farrell.




TUESDAY JULY 13: What, ANOTHER fabulous Hubble Space Telescope image of a cosmic star factory? This one’s in the constellation Puppis, the poop deck of Jason’s fabled ship Argo from Greek mythology.

GRAB A SHOVEL: In today’s Systems Engineering Seminar, Warren Mitchell, Syed Hasan, and Jason Laing of the Goddard Flight Dynamics Facility recalled the drama of supporting the Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-130) mission and the launch and operation of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) during the worst snowstorm in memory. Rani Gran’s account of Goddard’s Snowpocalyse adventure provides details.

MUMMA’s THE WORD: A video profile of astrobiologist Michael Mumma talks about the origin and evolution of life in the universe. . . . SAM I AM: And don’t miss the series of video profiles of Goddard researchers working on the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument package that will allow the Mars Science Laboratory rover to search for life signs.

OCEAN BLOOMS: The MODIS Image of the Day team posts a mighty fine satellite portrait of phytoplankton blooming in the North Sea.

TURN, TURN, TURN: A video made of GOES-13 satellite imagery tracks two weeks in the rip-roaring life of Hurricane Alex.




WEDNESDAY JULY 14: NASA’s Swift observatory is temporarily blinded by the X–ray flash triggered by the explosion of a massive star morphing into a new black hole. . . . ME TOO! Gogblog profiles Phil Evans, the British investigator who uncovered the X-ray flash. . . . FAST WORK: PSU and gogblog post the story 10:58 am; Science NOW posts a “ScienceShot” news brief at 4:24 pm by astro-writer extraordinaire Ken Croswell. . . . LISTEN: “How a bright star fooled a top observatory into thinking it was unreal,” according to BBC Five Live presenter Dotun Adebayo. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: The University of Leicester, where Phil Evans works, posts its own release on the blinding blast.

RED PLANET RENDEZVOUS: Forty-five years ago today, the Mariner 4 space probe flew within 6,118 miles of Mars after an 8-month journey. . . . MARINER 4 was the first spacecraft to take close-up pictures of another planet.

NEW TREND: Goddard Tech Trends releases its summer issue, featuring blacker-than-black nanotechnology and other innovations brewing at Goddard.

GULF OIL SPILL: NASA’s Aqua satellite scans the Gulf oil spill in a natural-color image.




THURSDAY JULY 15: The late Dr. Timothy Hawarden receives a posthumous NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal for developing innovative cooling techniques for infrared space telescopes — including the coming James Webb orbiting observatory.

SUPER-HUBBLE: Is it a planet? Is it a comet? No — it’s . . . . ANOTHER mind-numbingly interesting Hubble Space Telescope exoplanet discovery!

ORDER UP: According to a report in eWeek.com, Dell Inc. will sell Goddard’s NASA Center for Climate Simulation souped-up servers in a contract worth up to $5.1 million dollars . . . . The new servers will double NCCS’s computational capacity to more than 300 trillion calculations per second.

RUN THAT BY ME AGAIN: “The extreme tail loading and unloading observed at Mercury implies that the relative intensity of substorms must be much larger than at Earth.” Find out what Goddard space physicist James A. Slavin is talking about in a web feature about recent discoveries by the MESSENGER spacecraft.

ECLIPSE PORTRAIT: Like most earthlings, you probably didn’t make it to Easter Island to see the solar eclipse on Sunday July 11. But here’s something you would not have been able to see even from Easter Island: a combined space-and-surface view of the eclipse, created by Goddard media specialist and sun worshipper Steele Hill.

PLANKTON ON PARADE: The What On Earth blog posts the last of four dispatches from guest writer Karen Romano Young on the ICESCAPE expedition, “Plankton On Parade.”




FRIDAY JULY 16: Today in 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off at 09:32:00 am EDT from Launch Complex 39-A Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first manned landing on the moon.

WoE OF THE WEEK: The What On Earth bloggers post the latest NASA Earth Buzz, with the top recent Earth science stories and the answer to the “What on Earth is THAT?” image quiz from last week. . . . ANSWER: soot particles from a wildfire.

WARM DATA: NASA’s Earth Observatory posts a global temperature anomaly map comparing readings for July 4–11, 2010, to the same dates from 2000 to 2008. Land surface temps come courtesy of the MODIS instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.

HOT LINKS: The Physics Today website offers a feature story about NASA’s A-Train of satellites, Touring the atmosphere aboard the A-Train, by Tristan S. L’Ecuyer and Jonathan H. Jiang. “A convoy of satellites orbiting Earth measures cloud properties, greenhouse gas concentrations, and more to provide a multifaceted perspective on the processes that affect climate.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center.

SUNDAY JULY 4: On this day in 1997, the inexpensive Mars Pathfinder (costing only $267 million) bounced on its air bags to the surface of the Red Planet.


MONDAY JULY 5: While the rest of us were on a federal holiday, seeking shelter from the brain-melting heat wave, the NASA Blueshift team posts their Weekly Awesomeness Roundup, with blogolicious multimedia tidbits from NASA, astronomy, and science at large. . . . GOGBLOG’S FAVE: How do 7th graders sketch/describe scientists before and after a visit to Fermilab? Is it: “Mommy, I’m afraid, can we go home now?” Find out the surprising answer for yourself!



TUESDAY JULY 6: NASA fires off a special Hubble Space Telescope image of star cluster NGC 3603 reminiscent of a July 4 fireworks air burst. Thanks, Wide Field Camera 3 — an instrument developed jointly by the Hubble program at Goddard Space Flight Center, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation

KEEPIN’ IT GREEN: At an event hosted by the Green Building Council, the Maryland Department of Environment presents Goddard Space Flight Center with a Maryland Green Registry Leadership Award for continuing efforts to reduce GSFC’s environmental footprint — including reducing the amount of waste it produces by 25 percent.

GOOD DAY SUNSHINE: The SDOMission2009 YouTube channel posts a new video, Seeing A Star In A New Light, highlighting the head-explodingly cool images of the sun captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

WEDNESDAY JULY 7: A web feature by NASA Earth Science News Team reporter Patrick Lynch details the upcoming field campaign by NASA aircraft and satellites to study hurricanes: the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) mission. Goddard researchers Scott Braun and Gerry Heymsfield and other members of the GRiP science team will use the new data to figure out what spins up killer storms.

THURSDAY JULY 8: What on Earth spotlights other NASA bloggers who cover earth science, including {ahem} gogblog . . . . READY FOR TAKE-OFF: Today’s featured post: Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Tony Freeman writes on the Big Fat Planet blog about NASA’s aerial armada of research aircraft. . . . NASA: spaceships, airships, and more.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team posts its featured image — a snapshot of the Apollo 16 landing site lit by a high-noon sun. . . . TAKE THAT, FAKE MOON LANDING CONSPIRACISTS: Shining brightly are the package of scientific instruments that astronauts left at the site as well as the radioisotope-powered electric generator that powered them for years after we left the moon.

TEMPLE VIEW: NASA Blueshift blogger Maggie Masetti recalls her trip to ancient ruins at Mexico’s Chichen Itza and the lunar eclipse she witnessed there.


FRIDAY JULY 9: Bright-eyed and bushy tailed Goddard sun scientists Alex Young and Holly Gilbert give press interviews starting at {{shudder}} 6:00 a.m. to preview the July 11 total solar eclipse. Here is Holly being interviewed on a Tampa TV show. . . . and this clip of Alex talking about the eclipse. (Sorry, in both cases, you will have to watch a short commercial message first.)

HOW’S THE VIEW? The June 2010 Goddard View is available, with the NASA Center for Climate Simulation Discover supercomputer gracing the cover.

ITS A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE? What On Earth blogger Adam Voiland posts the first-ever What On Earth Is THAT? guess-what-this-image-is recurring contest blog feature thingie. Guess correctly and win a free suborbital Virgin Galactic flight with Paris Hilton. Guess correctly and win the undying admiration of a NASA science blogger.

THE GOLDEN ARCHES: New Solar Dynamics Observatory video shows glowing star stuff arcing along loops in the sun’s magnetic field.

SATURDAY JULY 10: On this day in 1962, Telstar 1 — the first privately funded satellite — was launched. AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories paid the bill.
HOT LINKS-O-THE WEEK: In Outside Goddard, Elizabeth M. Jarrell offers short profiles of current and former Goddard people and the interesting lives they lead outside the gates. When Bob Met Alice profiles “newlyweds Bob Wigand, 85, and Mary Alice, 86, thank Goddard for giving them a common background.

I CAN SEE YOUR BIG FAT PLANET FROM HERE: Don’t miss Goddard’s Flickr album of Earth. Pretty pix and animations of the home planet.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center.