Jet Propulsion Laboratory

About: Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a facility organization based out in La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Mars Exploration Program & Telescope. The organization has 8801 authors who have published 14333 publications receiving 548163 citations. The organization is also known as: JPL & NASA JPL.

Low Energy Transfer to the Moon

Abstract: In 1991, the Japanese Hiten mission used a low energy transfer with a ballistic capture at the Moon which required less ΔV than a standard Hohmann transfer. In this paper, we apply the dynamical systems techniques developed in our earlier work to reproduce systematically a Hiten-like mission. We approximate the Sun—Earth—Moon-spacecraft 4-body system as two 3-body systems. Using the invariant manifold structures of the Lagrange points of the 3-body systems, we are able to construct low energy transfer trajectories from the Earth which execute ballistic capture at the Moon. The techniques used in the design and construction of this trajectory may be applied in many situations.

Observed changes in top-of-the-atmosphere radiation and upper-ocean heating consistent within uncertainty

Abstract: Global climate change results from a small yet persistent imbalance between the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth and the thermal radiation emitted back to space. A revised analysis of measured changes in the net radiation imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, and the ocean heat content to a depth of 1,800 m, suggests that these two sets of observations are consistent within error margins.

Great magnetic storms

Abstract: The five largest magnetic storms that occurred between 1971 to 1986 are studied to determine their solar and interplanetary causes. All of the events are found to be associated with high speed solar wind streams led by collisionless shocks. The high speed streams are clearly related to identifiable solar flares. It is found that: (1) it is the extreme values of the southward interplanetary magnetic fields rather than solar wind speeds that are the primary causes of great magnetic storms, (2) shocked and draped sheath fields preceding the driver gas (magnetic cloud) are at least as effective in causing the onset of great magnetic storms (3 of 5 events) as the strong fields within the driver gas itself, and (3) precursor southward fields ahead of the high speed streams allow the shock compression mechanism (item 2) to be particularly geoeffective.

The intense starburst HDF 850.1 in a galaxy overdensity at z ≈ 5.2 in the Hubble Deep Field

Abstract: The Hubble Deep Field provides one of the deepest multiwavelength views of the distant Universe and has led to the detection of thousands of galaxies seen throughout cosmic time1. An early map of the Hubble Deep Field at a wavelength of 850 micrometres, which is sensitive to dust emission powered by star formation, revealed the brightest source in the field, dubbed HDF 850.1 (ref. 2). For more than a decade, and despite significant efforts, no counterpart was found at shorter wavelengths, and it was not possible to determine its redshift, size or mass3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Here we report a redshift of z = 5.183 for HDF 850.1, from a millimetre-wave molecular line scan. This places HDF 850.1 in a galaxy overdensity at z ≈ 5.2, corresponding to a cosmic age of only 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang. This redshift is significantly higher than earlier estimates3, 4, 6, 8 and higher than those of most of the hundreds of submillimetre-bright galaxies identified so far. The source has a star-formation rate of 850 solar masses per year and is spatially resolved on scales of 5 kiloparsecs, with an implied dynamical mass of about 1.3 × 1011 solar masses, a significant fraction of which is present in the form of molecular gas. Despite our accurate determination of redshift and position, a counterpart emitting starlight remains elusive