We will broadcast live from various JPL sites at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m. Pacific time (1, 2, 3 and 4 p.m. Eastern time). Each segment will run for about 20 minutes. A chat box will appear alongside the video stream.

The live broadcasts will cover these topics/locations:

10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT and 17:00 UTC): Mars Rovers Exhibit
11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT and 18:00 UTC): JPL Mission Control
Noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT and 19:00 UTC): Robotics
1 p.m. PDT (4 p.m. EDT and 20:00 UTC): Mars Science Lab

On Twitter? You can follow what Open House visitors are saying on @NASAJPL, at http://www.twitter.com/NASAJPL . On May 15-16, use the hashtag #JPLOpen .

More Open House information is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/open-house.cfm.

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How do you recognize and encourage a young child fighting a battle against a life-threatening disease? A battle that is no less dangerous and harrowing? A battle where the outcome is as uncertain as the dangers faced by more well-known heroes?

You present that child with a Bead of Courage.

Jamie Newton, an employee of CIBER Inc., a support contractor at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., knows about Beads of Courage. His six-year-old daughter, Sydney, has been battling cancer for more than a year. During that time, Sydney has received more than 450 beads -

"There really is no way to fully explain how the past year has affected us all; affected our family," said Newton. "It's been a really tough year. Sydney has done everything she’s been asked to do and more."

Early this year, Newton developed the idea of asking NASA about the possibility of flying some very special beads for Beads of Courage Inc., of Tucson, Ariz., on one of the final

Space Beads of Courage
Beads of Courage is the organization that provides the Beads of Courage Program and other innovative, arts-in-medicine supportive care programs for children coping with serious illness, their families and the health care providers who care for them. Together, Beads of Courage and Newton developed the idea of sponsoring a contest for the best designs of a new bead of courage. These special beads of courage would highlight the role of the space program as space beads of courage.

Newton thought "nothing could be more encouraging to a child fighting cancer than to see a symbol of courage -- a bead -- actually flown to space by the very people who ride into orbit on the space shuttle. That act represents one of the most courageous things other human beings do for all of us."

The contest to design the space beads of courage ran from mid-March to mid-April and concluded with the selection of 17 bead designs. Realizing that only a handful of shuttle launches remained before the end of the shuttle program, Newton and Beads of Courage submitted a request to fly the beads to NASA. The Space Shuttle Program Office at Johnson Space Center in Houston approved the request to fly the beads as part of NASA's Official Flight Kit.

"It is a great honor to be a part of and support a wonderful organization like NASA," said Newton. "This opportunity to fly the Space Beads of Courage onboard space shuttle Atlantis will help children battling cancer and hopefully inspire them to be among the next generations of astronauts and engineers; making it possible for all of us to see what

"Since 2005, we have been working to transform the treatment experience for children coping with chronic, life threatening illness through our arts-in-medicine programs," explained Jean Baruch, founder of the Beads of Courage program. "We are honored to work with the NASA family on this worthy effort."

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"NASA has been asked to help with the first response to the spill, providing imagery and data that can detect the presence, extent, and concentration of oil," said Michael Goodman, program manager for natural disasters in the Earth Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "We also have longer-term work we have started in the basic research of oil in the ocean and its impacts on sensitive coastal ecosystems."

At NOAA's request, NASA sent the ER-2 outfitted with the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) and the Cirrus Digital Camera System to collect detailed images of the Gulf of Mexico and its threatened coastal wetlands. The camera system is supplied by NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

NASA pilots flew the ER-2 from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California to a temporary base of operations at Johnson Space Center's Ellington Field in Houston. Along the way, the plane collected data over the Gulf coast and the oil slick to support spill mapping and document the condition of coastal wetlands before oil landfall. The ER-2 made a second flight on May 10 and more flights are planned.

The AVIRIS team led by Robert Green of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is measuring how the water absorbs and reflects light in order to map the location and concentration of oil, which separates into a widespread, thin sheen and smaller thick patches. Satellites can document the overall extent of the oil but cannot distinguish between the sheen and thick patches. While the sheen represents most of the area of the slick, the majority of the oil is concentrated in the thicker part. AVIRIS should be able to identify the thicker parts, helping oil spill responders know where to deploy oil-skimming boats and absorbent booms.

Researchers also plan to measure changes in vegetation along the coastline and assess where and how oil may be affecting marshes, swamps, bayous, and beaches that are difficult to survey on the ground. The combination of satellite and airborne imagery will assist NOAA in forecasting the trajectory of the oil and in documenting changes in the ecosystem.

From the outset of the spill on April 20, NASA has provided satellite images to federal agencies from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites; the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on Terra; and the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) and Hyperion instruments on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite. All of these observations have been funneled to the Hazards Data Distribution System operated by the USGS.

With its very wide field of view, MODIS provides a big-picture of the oil spill and its evolution roughly twice per day. The Hyperion, ALI, and ASTER instruments observe over much smaller areas in finer detail but less often (every 2-5 days).

Other NASA satellite and airborne instruments are collecting observations of the spill to advance basic research and to explore future remote-sensing capabilities. From space, the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) on Terra and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on Aqua as well as the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) on the joint NASA-France CALIPSO satellite are collecting data.

Another NASA research aircraft, the King Air B-200 from Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., was previously scheduled to fly to California this week but changed its flight plan to collect data over the area of the oil spill. It completed its first flight over the spill on May 10.

The High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) onboard the plane uses pulses of laser light to locate and identify particles in the environment. Led by Chris Hostetler of Langley, HSRL provides measurements similar to those from the CALIOP instrument on CALIPSO. Data from these space-based and airborne lidars will be used to investigate the thickness of the oil spill below the surface of the water and evaluate the impacts of dispersants used to break up the oil.

"Although NASA's primary expertise is in using remote-sensing instruments to conduct basic research on the entire Earth system, our observations can be used for societal benefit in response to natural and technological disasters like this oil spill," said Goodman.

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This missing matter -- which is different from dark matter -- is composed of baryons, the particles, such as protons and electrons, that are found on the Earth, in stars, gas, galaxies, and so on. A variety of measurements of distant gas clouds and galaxies have provided a good estimate of the amount of this "normal matter" present when the universe was only a few billion years old. However, an inventory of the much older, nearby universe has turned up only about half as much normal matter, an embarrassingly large shortfall.

The mystery then is where does this missing matter reside in the nearby universe? This latest work supports predictions that it is mostly found in a web of hot, diffuse gas known as the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM). Scientists think the WHIM is material left over after the formation of galaxies, which was later enriched by elements blown out of galaxies.

"Evidence for the WHIM is really difficult to find because this stuff is so diffuse and easy to see right through," said Taotao Fang of the University of California at Irvine and lead author of the latest study. "This differs from many areas of astronomy where we struggle to see through obscuring material."

To look for the WHIM, the researchers examined X-ray observations of a rapidly growing supermassive black hole known as an active galactic nucleus, or AGN. This AGN, which is about two billion light years away, generates immense amounts of X-ray light as it pulls matter inwards.

Lying along the line of sight to this AGN, at a distance of about 400 million light years, is the so-called Sculptor Wall. This "wall", which is a large diffuse structure stretching across tens of millions of light years, contains thousands of galaxies and potentially a significant reservoir of the WHIM if the theoretical simulations are correct. The WHIM in the wall should absorb some of the X-rays from the AGN as they make their journey across intergalactic space to Earth.

Using new data from Chandra and previous observations with both Chandra and XMM-Newton, absorption of X-rays by oxygen atoms in the WHIM has clearly been detected by Fang and his colleagues. The characteristics of the absorption are consistent with the distance of the Sculptor Wall as well as the predicted temperature and density of the WHIM.

This result gives scientists confidence that the WHIM will also be found in other large-scale structures.

Several previous claimed detections of the hot component of the WHIM have been controversial because the detections had been made with only one X-ray telescope and the statistical significance of many of the results had been questioned.

"Having good detections of the WHIM with two different telescopes is really a big deal," said co-author David Buote, also from the University of California at Irvine. "This gives us a lot of confidence that we have truly found this missing matter."

In addition to having corroborating data from both Chandra and XMM- Newton, the new study also removes another uncertainty from previous claims. Because the distance of the Sculptor Wall is already known, the statistical significance of the absorption detection is greatly enhanced over previous "blind" searches. These earlier searches attempted to find the WHIM by observing bright AGN at random directions on the sky, in the hope that their line of sight intersects a previously undiscovered large-scale structure.

Confirmed detections of the WHIM have been made difficult because of its extremely low density. Using observations and simulations, scientists calculate the WHIM has a density equivalent to only 6 protons per cubic meter. For comparison, the interstellar medium -- the very diffuse gas in between stars in our galaxy -- typically has about a million hydrogen atoms per cubic meter.

"Evidence for the WHIM has even been much harder to find than evidence for dark matter, which is invisible and can only be detected indirectly," said Fang.

There have been important detections of possible WHIM in the nearby Universe with relatively low temperatures of about 100,000 degrees using ultraviolet observations and relatively high temperature WHIM of about 10 million degrees using observations of X-ray emission in galaxy clusters. However, these are expected to account for only a relatively small fraction of the WHIM. The X-ray absorption studies reported here probe temperatures of about a million degrees where most of the WHIM is predicted to be found.

These results appear in the May 10th issue of The Astrophysical Journal. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

More information, including images and other multimedia, can be found at:

"What we believe happened in this area is a lot like what creates polished river rocks on Earth," said Alice Le Gall, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the lead author of the study, which used the Cassini radar instrument. "Bouncing downstream smoothes out the edges of rocks."

As foothill residents know in southern California and other areas, sudden rains can trigger mudslides and flooding at the mountainous fringes of desert areas. Those flows can pick up boulders and debris and tumble them downstream. On Titan, the flows appear to have occurred periodically for eons, on a catastrophic scale. The process on Titan, however, involves rain made of liquid methane and ethane, rather than Earth's water rain. Titan's rocks are believed to be made primarily of water ice frozen into a hard mass about minus 180 degrees Celsius (minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit), rather than Earth's mineral rocks.

Earth-like river rocks have already been observed on Titan at the landing site of the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, near the equator in the borderland between the Adiri and Shangri-la regions. The landing site also showed signs of flash flooding that deposited cobblestones about 2 to 20 centimeters (1 to 8 inches) in diameter.

But the spidery channels in this southern lowland part of Xanadu looked brighter to Cassini's radar instrument than the Huygens landing area. In fact, the channels, which were scanned by Cassini in May 2008, are among the brightest features ever seen on Titan by the radar instrument.

In a paper now available online in the journal Icarus, Le Gall and colleagues concluded that the most plausible explanation for the extreme brightness of the Xanadu channels was a collection of transparent spherical sediments, packed more tightly together than the cobblestones at the Huygens landing site. The effect would be similar to bejeweling an area with light-catching rhinestones.

The spheres appear to be made of water ice – possibly doped with ammonia – that would look bright to the microwaves used by Cassini's radar. Spheres are good at sending light back in the direction it came from. This property has actually led manufacturers to use plastic spheres in reflective paints and tape, Le Gall said.

Xanadu may be an especially good gem grinder because of its broad expanse and gentle southward slope. Flows could have traveled long distances there and tumbled the chunks for hundreds of kilometers (miles). The subtle work to shape them into spheres could have come from fine grit rubbing against the rocks in the flowing methane. Or, ice may be malleable in Titan's cold temperatures, deforming plastically during the collisions rather than fracturing. The flows that transported these icy spheres probably traveled around 1 meter per second (2 mph).

"It's been really hard for a long time for people to understand why Xanadu is so bright," said Steve Wall, a radar team member at JPL. "You might not expect these kinds of geometries in a natural setting, but we believe this can explain the enigma."

The radar team plans to continue looking for other instances of small, smooth spheres in nature to increase their confidence about the explanation. They also said more study is needed on the mechanical properties of water ice at such cold temperatures.

"Here is yet another example of Titan as a world with Earth-like processes," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL. "As the seasons change on Titan, maybe we'll get a chance to see methane flow through some of the river channels."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit

No spacesuit or rocket ship is required -- all visitors need to do is go to http://www.moonzoo.org and be among the first to see the lunar surface in unprecedented detail. New high-resolution images, taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), offer exciting clues to unveil or reveal the history of the moon and our solar system.

“We need Web users around the world to help us interpret these stunning new images of the lunar surface,” said Chris Lintott of Oxford University and chair of the Citizen Science Alliance. “If you only spend five minutes on the site counting craters you’ll be making a valuable contribution to science and, who knows, you might run across a Russian spacecraft.”

Scientists are particularly interested in knowing how many craters appear in a particular region of the moon in order to determine the age and depth of the lunar surface (regolith). Fresh craters left by recent impacts provide clues about the potential risks from meteor strikes on the moon and on Earth.

“We hope to address key questions about the impact bombardment history of the moon and discover sites of geological interest that have never been seen before,” said Katherine Joy of the Lunar and Planetary Institute and a Moon Zoo science team member.

NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) scientists are contributing to the Moon Zoo efforts by providing science expertise. NLSI is also providing educational content and supporting outreach goals of the project.

“The NASA Lunar Science Institute is very excited to be involved with Moon Zoo and support lunar citizen science,” said David Morrison, NLSI director. “Science and public outreach are cornerstones of our Institute; Moon Zoo will contribute to the accomplishment of important science, while being a major step forward in participatory exploration.”

The Moon Zoo Web site is a citizen science project developed by the Citizen Science Alliance, a group of research organizations and museums, and builds on the team's success with Galaxy Zoo, which has involved more than 250,000 people in astronomical research.

“The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Science Office is excited to see LRO data being used for citizen science projects,” said Rich Vondrak, LRO project scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “The Moon Zoo project provides an opportunity for everyone to participate in analysis of images from the LRO Camera and to make a significant contribution to scientific knowledge about the moon.”

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. and the LROC instruments are based out of Arizona State University in Tempe, Az. The NASA Lunar Science Institute is based out of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

Related Links:

› More about Moon Zoo
› More about the Citizen Science Alliance
› More about the NASA Lunar Science Institute
› More about LROC

Juniper grew up in Chicago, Illinois, Del Mar, California, and Quito, Ecuador. She recevied a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University, and then went to build theme parks with Universal Studios and Warner Brothers in Japan and Spain (while samba dancing by night). Juniper's next adventure was working at NASA's Dryden Flight Research center with experimental aircraft, test pilots, and scientists.

However, Juniper's main passion was for human spaceflight, so she next earned a master's of science in aerospace engineering and bioastronautics from CU-Boulder. She worked in various private human spaceflight companies before coming to Johnson Space Center. Her current position has her scuba diving with astronauts, flying on the parabolic aircraft, developing space suits, bouncing on treadmills, and testing out new components of the International Space Station from an EVA perspective. By night, she performs with two Houston fire troupes, Zion's Flame and Luminosity.

A fluent Spanish-speaking Latina with immigrant parents, Juniper also loves encouraging kids - especially girls and minorities - to pursue technology fields. She volunteers as a mentor to middle and high school students in math, science, and engineering through the Society of Hispanic Engineers, and several Houston programs. She likes showing kids how cool and easy it is to be a geek, and how achievable it is to work at places like NASA, where you get to do cool stuff like NEEMO!

Juniper's primary role on NEEMO 14 will be as a support diver for the aquanauts as they collect data regarding the effects of suit design on their performance in reduced-gravity environments (like those on the moon or Mars).

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