SoCal Minds

Big 3 push foward with city, feds on major LA power plan

From USC, UCLA & JPL

It quietly has cooked along and many more milestones must be passed before it realizes its promise. But what makes more smarts than putting some of the city's smartest folks together to find smarter ways to tap  the best available technology to conserve power at some of the smartest but biggest energy-consuming spots in Los Angeles? The Trojans, Bruins and researchers in La Canada, of course, not only are among this metropolis' biggest employers, they also are some of the biggest customers for the city's Department of Water and Power. Which is why DWP and the trio, with the help of the feds, have committed to creating a Smart Grid project -- an ambitious, complex effort to save energy as soon as the many expectable bureaucratic hurdles to the plan can be overcome allowing the actual work to get under way. The DWP overseers just blessed the project, which still needs the OK by the City Council. A Trojan official calls the effort one of the most challenging and rewarding he has worked on in his career.

USC, UCLA, JPL advance Smart Grid program with LA DWP

On tap: a JPL open house, a big plant sale, a kids' fest

From Caltech, JPL, the Hungtington & JACCC

Just a quick note for those who are fans of rocket science and more, there's a special chance to see the innards of an internationally renowned research center as the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducts a weekend open house up in LaCanada-Flintridge. The free program, with many of the scientists and engineers scheduled to be on hand, carries a cautionary note about the common sense stuff that the public isn't supposed to drag along when they're guests at the facility, including booze, drugs weapons and skateboards. Guess it's a sign of the times. Meantime, this could be a bright, sunny weekend for those backyard fans, whether they take pleasure in seeing California landscapes or getting into the dirt and creating them by buying some of the thousands of rare, unusual plants at the 36th annual sale at the gardens in San Marino. And for those who can't resist and want to celebrate the kawai kodomo, well, it should be pretty perfect for the 27th annual Children's Day fest in Little Tokyo.

   

Flashes of new ideas, findings of distant planets

From UCSB, Caltech & JPL

Crank up the Gustav Holst and put away that horoscope. The star-gazing crowd has lots of news zinging around about celestial objects. In Santa Barbara, scientists say they've made some head-spinning observations, finding nine new planets and seeing two of them orbiting in the opposite direction of their host star -- that finding, combined with some other recent research upsets conventional thinking about how planets form. The nine new planets, giant and gaseous, are called 'Hot Jupiters' and are termed 'exoplanets' because they're outside our solar system but within the galaxy and a mere 1,000 light years away. Over in Pasadena, they're hailing the use of relatively small, ground-based telescopes to capture images of three, gas giant planets, which previously had been sighted only with two of the globe's biggest star-viewing instruments. And they're also excited in LaCanada by the capture by NASA's Cassini spacecraft of an incidence of lightening flashing on Saturn, which they've zapped into a special-effects video presentation.

In Santa Barbara, findings that upset planetary theories

In Pasadena, how relatively small, ground-based scopes got snappy planetary views

Woohoo, here's what a lightening storm on Saturn looks like

Embedded video from
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology

Glimpsed in heavens: new planet, galactic clouds

From UCSB & JPL / Caltech

Trans-Atlantic cooperation, particularly between Europeans and sky-gazers in Santa Barbara and Pasadena, has helped provide yet more information about what's out there in the vastness of space. Some 1,500 light years away, for example, scientists say they have found a temperate planet circling a far-off star similar to our Sun. Based on the observations of more than 60 astronomers scattered around the Earth, including in Southern California, the experts say the planet they have sighted is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium with probable masses of rock and water under high pressure -- in short, something akin to what's believed to be like our solar system's planets Jupiter and Saturn. Meantime, a European-led effort to map the relic radiation left after the Big Bang that is believed to have created the universe 13.7 billion years ago has produced an image of tendrils of what may be the coldest stuff in the galaxy, a swirling cloud of dust and gases. 

Photo: Galactic web of cold dust / ESA, HFI Consortium, IRAS

Global observations lead to finding of far-off, Jupiter-like planet

European-led expedition sights web of cold dust

Gravity's tugs tell of Titan's icy, rocky interior

From JPL & Caltech

With remarkable long-distance precision, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has swooped over Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and provided a glimpse into what the space object is made of and why. It turns out that Titan's mostly ice and rock, with a slurpy, frozen middle studded with rocks and ice and rock mixed throughout. That finding, based on gravitational studies conducted by Cassini, differentiates Titan in its development, say, from that of the Earth or Ganymede, Jupiter's icy moon, which is split into more distinctive ice and rock layers. Further work will need to be done to determine if Titan, as some experts theorize, has an ocean beneath its surface.

Cassini satellite gives glimpse of history, makeup of Saturn moon 

Warmer ocean found to speed glaciers' melting

From UCI & JPL

It's not only axiomatic but also factual now that what happens to the glacial mass under the water matters as much as what the eye can behold in the lesser part of the iceberg that juts above, especially, researchers now say, when it comes to melting, cooling and global warming. Teams from Irvine and LaCanada report that they have found that Greenland glaciers melt 100 times faster at their submerged end points than they do on their exposed surfaces. This factor, building on earlier work by others on warm water surging into the fjords surrounding the Greenland ice sheet, helps explain what's happening with one of the globe's great frozen masses. Scientists theorize that, as part of global warming, the Greenland ice -- second only to Antarctica's deep freeze and covering an area almost as large as Mexico -- is melting much faster than believed and contributing to significant rises in ocean levels that could swamp some coastal areas around the planet.

Photo: West Greenland glacier / courtesy Michele Koppes, University of British Columbia

How global warming's affecting Greenland ice conditions, as seen from Irvine

Warming oceans' role in Greenland ice melt, as reported in LaCanada

Golden State draining key groundwater supplies

From UCI & JPL

How are Californians like rural, poor Indians? Well, we're both doing our darndest to drain precious underground water supplies that are slow to replenish, researchers say. They say that, based on powerful satellite imagery, they have found that aquifers in the Central Valley have been depleted of the equivalent amount of water that could fill Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the U.S. That's bad news because the Central Valley is not only the breadbasket for the state and nation, it combines with the Sierra, of course, to serve as California's key watershed. But a long drought and sketchy water use -- for unsustainable growth and agriculture -- is pulling excessive supplies out, and this big problem is only likely to worsen. That's because state officials have capped water supplies headed for the area where the biggest aquifer drainage also was occurring -- the San Joaquin basin area; this, in turn, only will force farmers to pull out more groundwater for irrigation. Researchers only recently had found similar groundwater woes in northern India, employing satellite data -- and JPL was a partner in the California findings.

Central Valley aquifers show losses sufficient to fill Lake Mead

Satellites play key role in understanding ground water drain

Curious About 'Curiosity,' the Next Mars Rover?

From JPL

Can't get enough information on either Mars or its exploration? A principal engineer from the research lab will give two free, public chats on Thursday and Friday on Mars landing methods and what's next in that field. The next rover mission, dubbed Curiosity, is scheduled for 2012 and will feature a different way of getting the exploratory craft to the planet's surface: a skycrane. How did space experts decide on this new approach? The Thursday program will be at the JPL facility in LaCanada and will be webcast and archived; Friday's program will be in Pasadena.

Illustration: artist concept of Mars science lab  /  NASA/JPL-Caltech

Free Public Previews of Plans for Next Mars Rover Mission 

Click Here for More Information on Rover Preview Programs and to See Webcast 

Super Camera Blinks Off After Hubble Rescue

From JPL

A grand piano-sized super camera that turned "Hubble Trouble" from a national joke and potential  disaster to a milestone of astronomy and space exploration will be decommissioned soon. But not before it records one final "pretty" and eye-popping picture of a planetary nebula. The research folks still are shaking their heads in recounting the beleaguered beginnings of the Hubble Space Telescope mission. But in Pasadena they're also expressing considerable pride at the high-tech tinkering that averted a costly black-eye for the U.S. space program. And now, years after making those amazing adjustments, under great duress and potential embarrassment, it's time to move on to the next-next generation of exploratory devices.

       Planetary nebula Kohoutek 4-55 as seen by Hubble super camera / NASA-ESA-JPL

Hubble Double: How Device Rescued Troubled Mission

A Last Hot Shot for Giant Space Camera

Rover Will Come Over, If Kids Pick Its New Name

From JPL

No, Stephen Colbert isn't in the running in this space naming contest. But if you have kids who might want to cast a vote to dub the next Mars lander for JPL, well, the race is on. More than 9,000 students already wrote name-proposing essays and a list of nominees has been culled to the final choices, for which online votes will be taken this week from youngsters. 

Rover Artist Concept: NASA /JPL-Caltech

What Will the Next Mars Rover Be Named?

Kids Vote Here for Fave Rover Name