Monk and Tiger sharing their meal by Wojtek Kalka

iguana by Alper Mandalik

Mars Odyssey neutron data: 2. Search for buried excess water ice deposits at nonpolar latitudes on Mars by William C. Feldman, Asmin Pathare, Sylvestre Maurice, Thomas H. Prettyman, David J. Lawrence, Ralph E. Milliken, Bryan J. Travis

Global maps of hydrogen abundance near the surface of Mars, interpreted as the mass percent of water-equivalent hydrogen (WEH) have been generated from measurements of neutron leakage fluxes from Mars. Although these data provide an unambiguous indicator of the presence of WEH, quantitative details of its magnitude and burial depth depend on the model of the host regolith that is used to interpret the data. Previous models assumed a spatially uniform surface cover layer having a one-to-two mass percent of WEH and thickness D covering a semi-infinite ice-rich deposit. These assumptions allowed the derivation of the relative proportions of ice and regolith in the lower layer, which had been used to create global maps of WEH in the near surface. In this paper we develop a new method that determines, from the Mars Odyssey Neutron Spectrometer (MONS) data, a self-consistent model of the WEH content of both the upper and lower layers as well as the thickness (D) of the upper layer. The results of our model suggest that large areas at nonpolar latitudes may contain water ice deposits that have abundances that are larger than can be held by normal pore volumes. These deposits are buried less than about 1 m below the surface and may represent buried water ice or high concentrations of hydrous minerals. Intriguingly, the most definitive MONS evidence at intermediate latitudes for excess ground ice corresponds to a region of Arcadia Planitia within which High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) has observed fresh icy craters.

Fear me! by Gabe Farnsworth

leaves by Vicky Dens

It’s nice to have some help around the house by Kevin Currie

cwnl:

NASA Telescope Discovers 26 Alien Planets Around 11 Different Stars

Credit: NASA Ames/UC Santa Cruz

Image: This artist’s concept shows an overhead view of the orbital position of the planets in systems with multiple transiting planets discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission, and announced on Jan. 26, 2012. All the colored planets have been verified. The planet candidates shown in grey have not yet been verified.

NASA’s prolific planet-hunting spacecraft has hit the jackpot again, discovering 11 new planetary systems with 26 confirmed alien planets among them.

The findings nearly double the number of bona fide planets found outside our solar system by the Kepler space observatory.

“Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky,” Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. “Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits.”

The newly detected worlds vary in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter; 15 of the 26 planets fall between Earth and Neptune in size. While all of the planets tightly orbit their parent stars, more research will be required to determine which worlds are rocky like Earth, and which have thick, gaseous atmospheres like Neptune, the scientists said.

Blue Marble

A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed ‘Suomi NPP’ on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.
Suomi NPP is NASA’s next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.
Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.