Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror

Engineers who designed the entry, descent and landing system for NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity candidly talk about the new landing system, and describe the challenges of Curiosity’s final moments before touchdown on Aug. 5, 2012, at 10:31pm PDT. (Landing takes place about 14 minutes earlier due to the communications delay.)

 


For more information about Curiosity visit the Mars Science Laboratory mission page.


Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.



NASA Releases Xbox360 Video Game: Mars Rover Landing

Mars Rover LandingIn collaboration with Microsoft Corp., a new outreach game was unveiled Monday to give the public a sense of the challenge and adventure of landing in a precise location on the surface. Called “Mars Rover Landing,” the game is an immersive experience for the Xbox 360 home entertainment console that allows users to take control of their own spacecraft and face the extreme challenges of landing a rover on Mars.


Curiosity Nears Daring Landing on Mars

NASA’s most advanced planetary rover is on a precise course for an early August landing beside a Martian mountain to begin two years of unprecedented scientific detective work. However, getting the Curiosity rover to the surface of Mars will not be easy.

Curiosity is scheduled to land at approximately 10:31 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5 (1:31 a.m. EDT on Aug. 6).

The Mars Science Laboratory mission is a precursor for future human missions to Mars. President Obama has set a challenge to reach the Red Planet in the 2030s.

For more information about Curiosity visit Science@NASA Headline News.

Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.

NES Update: July 16 – July 20

Professional Development Opportunity

Professional Development Web Seminar: Skeletal System: Human Physiology in Space

July 19, 2012 at 11 a.m. EDT
Obtain information about the effect microgravity has on the physiology of astronauts and learn about the countermeasures NASA uses to help overcome these effects when they return to Earth. This seminar provides instruction on how to integrate the Skeletal System: Human Physiology in Space lesson into your curriculum. There are two classroom activities in this lesson focusing on the effects of spaceflight on human physiology.


Fifth Moon Discovered Around Pluto

A team of astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has discovered another moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto.

They say the new moon, Pluto’s 5th, is likely irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. Provisionally designated S/2012 (134340) 1, it was detected in nine separate sets of images taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 on June 26, 27, 29, and July 7 and 9. The moon circles Pluto in a 58,000 mile-diameter orbit.

Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978 in observations made at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Hubble observations in 2006 uncovered two additional small moons, Nix and Hydra. In 2011 another moon, P4, was found in Hubble data.

In the years following the New Horizons Pluto flyby, astronomers plan to use Hubble’s planned successor, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, for follow-up observations. The Webb telescope’s infrared vision will be able to measure the surface chemistry of Pluto, its moons, and many other bodies that lie in the distant Kuiper Belt along with Pluto.

For more information about New Horizons and its mission to Pluto visit http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/13jul_pluto5/

Credit: Science News

NES Update: June 25 – June 29

Professional Development Opportunity

Professional Development Web Seminar: Graphing with MathTrax

June 26, 2012 at 8 p.m. EDT
Learn how to use a computer graphing tool to engage your students as they graph equations and data sets or experiment with physics simulations. Help students explore the relationship between math equations and their application in the real world with roller coaster and rocket launch simulators.
 
For more information and to register online, visit 


Professional Development Opportunity
Professional Development Web Seminar: Human Body: Space Adaptations
June 29, 2012 at 2 p.m. EDT
Space is a harsh environment. When an astronaut goes into space, his or her body immediately begins to change, causing the astronaut to feel and even look slightly different. During this seminar, you will get information about the effects of microgravity on astronauts. You also will be guided through three student activities, which provide a first-hand look at the effects of reduced gravity on bones, the fluid shifts in the body and the amount of oxygen needed to survive.


For more information and to register online, visit 

 http://learningcenter.nsta.org/products/symposia_seminars/NES2/webseminar27.aspx. 

NASA Explorer Schools' NASA Now Wins Emmy Award

Emmy StatueThe NASA Explorer School project was honored with an Emmy Award from the Lower Great Lakes Chapter of the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences on June 2, 2012. NASA Now, a weekly 5-7 minute video program is a classroom resource for teachers to show grades K-12 students what a scientist, engineer, or technician looks like, sounds like, and what kinds of work they do at NASA. Each week, students see real people putting science, technology, engineering and mathematics to work in the unique context of NASA careers, missions, research and facilities.


NASA Now received the prize for production excellence in the category of Informational/Instructional: Program/Series or Special.


View the NASA Now entries for the Emmy Award.

NASA Survey Counts Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

Observations from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer have led to the best assessment yet of our solar system’s population of potentially hazardous asteroids. The results reveal new information about the asteroids’ total numbers, origins and the possible dangers they may pose.

Potentially hazardous asteroids are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. The PHAs have the closest orbits to Earth’s. They come within about 8 million kilometers (5 million miles) of Earth and are big enough to survive passing through Earth’s atmosphere. PHAs could cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.

This story is a great extension to NASA Now: Primitive Asteroids: OSIRIS-REx, where Dr. Joseph Nuth discusses a mission to a near-Earth asteroid. This NASA Now program is available on the NES Virtual Campus.

To read more about potentially hazardous asteroids, visit https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20120516.html.