Sets at 12:17 a.m. on the 1st and about 10:12 p.m. by month's end. Pluto is visible in the late evening but is best viewed when it is highest in the sky toward the southwest. Pluto is in the constellation of Sagittarius shining at magnitude 14.2.

(From west to east)

• Julia is in the constellation of Pegasus.
• Iris is at opposition on the 29th in the constellation of Aries.
• Pallas is at opposition on the 28th in the constellation of Eridanus.
• Massalia is in the constellation of Orion.
• Flora is in the constellation of Gemini.

• Information about the Minor Planets can be found at the Minor Planet Observer website.

JPL Latest News

Large Solar Storm Sparks Global Aurora and Doubles Radiation Levels on the Martian Surface
September 29, 2017

Full Article & Images

"An unexpectedly strong blast from the Sun hit Mars this month, observed by NASA missions in orbit and on the surface.

"NASA's distributed set of science missions is in the right place to detect activity on the Sun and examine the effects of such solar events at Mars as never possible before," said MAVEN Program Scientist Elsayed Talaat, program scientist at NASA Headquarters, Washington, for NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, mission.

The solar event on Sept. 11, 2017 sparked a global aurora at Mars more than 25 times brighter than any previously seen by the MAVEN orbiter, which has been studying the Martian atmosphere's interaction with the solar wind since 2014."

"Read the latest news and discoveries from JPL's dozens of active space missions exploring Earth, the solar system and worlds beyond."

Past, Present, Future and Proposed JPL Missions - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions.

Full Article & Images

"Scientists on NASA's Juno mission have observed massive amounts of energy swirling over Jupiter's polar regions that contribute to the giant planet's powerful auroras - only not in ways the researchers expected.

Examining data collected by the ultraviolet spectrograph and energetic-particle detector instruments aboard the Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft, a team led by Barry Mauk of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, observed signatures of powerful electric potentials, aligned with Jupiter's magnetic field, that accelerate electrons toward the Jovian atmosphere at energies up to 400,000 electron volts. This is 10 to 30 times higher than the largest auroral potentials observed at Earth, where only several thousands of volts are typically needed to generate the most intense auroras -- known as discrete auroras -- the dazzling, twisting, snake-like northern and southern lights seen in places like Alaska and Canada, northern Europe, and many other northern and southern polar regions."

NASA's JunoCam website can be visited at:

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam

More information on the Juno mission is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/juno

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno
http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

Full Article & Images

"A thrilling epoch in the exploration of our solar system came to a close today, as NASA's Cassini spacecraft made a fateful plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn, ending its 13-year tour of the ringed planet.

"This is the final chapter of an amazing mission, but it's also a new beginning," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Cassini's discovery of ocean worlds at Titan and Enceladus changed everything, shaking our views to the core about surprising places to search for potential life beyond Earth.""

Raw images are available at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/index.cfm.

More information about Cassini is available at the following sites:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

Cassini Imaging Team - Archives from Dec. 2015 and earlier.

Full Article & Images

"The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features, approved names of 14 surface features on Pluto in August 2017. The names were proposed by NASA's New Horizons team following the first reconnaissance of Pluto and its moons by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015."

New Horizons gallery

Find New Horizons in the iTunes App Store here.

Full Article & Images

"Ten years ago, NASA's Dawn spacecraft set sail for the two most massive bodies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter: giant asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres. The mission was designed to deliver new knowledge about these small but intricate worlds, which hold clues to the formation of planets in our solar system." A gallery of images can be found online.

"After more than 10 years in operation, the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft impacted the surface of Mercury on April 30, 2015, at a speed of more than 3.91 kilometers per second (8,750 miles per hour), marking the end of operations for the hugely successful Mercury orbiter. At the MESSENGER Nears End of Operations media and public event, scientists and engineers discussed the mission's accomplishments, providing the top 10 scientific discoveries, as well as the technological innovations that grew out of the mission."

The MESSENGER app is available for download from iTunes.

Full Article & Images

"An unexpectedly strong blast from the Sun hit Mars this month, observed by NASA missions in orbit and on the surface.

"NASA's distributed set of science missions is in the right place to detect activity on the Sun and examine the effects of such solar events at Mars as never possible before," said Elsayed Talaat, program scientist for MAVEN at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The solar event on Sept. 11, 2017 sparked a global aurora at Mars more than 25 times brighter than any previously seen by the MAVEN orbiter, which has been studying the Martian atmosphere’s interaction with the solar wind since 2014."

Full Article & Images

"The science team has been waiting quite a long time for this moment. Back in late March, nearly 180 Mars-days ago and when Curiosity was investigating the last stretches of the Bagnold Dunes before continuing towards Vera Rubin Ridge, Curiosity's scoop gathered a sample called "Ogunquit Beach." In order to quantitatively determine the mineral assemblage present in this sample of a sand dune, Curiosity would have to deliver the sample to the CheMin X-ray diffractometer instrument. However, because of the ongoing troubles with the arm's drill feed, Curiosity has been stuck with Ogunquit Beach in "storage" and unable to deliver the sample to CheMin - until this weekend! Tomorrow, at around 7:30am PDT, Curiosity will be given the "all clear" to deliver Ogunquit Beach to CheMin. Throughout the weekend, CheMin will analyze this sample, precisely measuring diffraction data for deriving its mineral assemblage, and will send the data back to Earth. The science team is very excited to be crossing this milestone, and we can't wait to compare Ogunquit Beach to the other measurements of the Bagnold Dunes acquired over the last few years."

To follow the Mars Curiosity rover and NASA on Foursquare, visit: http://www.foursquare.com/MarsCuriosity and http://www.foursquare.com/NASA

For information about NASA's partnership with Foursquare, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/connect/foursquare.html.

  Mars Rover Landing - Free for the Xbox 360 (requires Kinect)

Landing sites

Full Article & Image

"This month, movements of the planets will put Mars almost directly behind the sun, from Earth's perspective, causing curtailed communications between Earth and Mars.

NASA will refrain from sending commands to America's three Mars orbiters and two Mars rovers during the period from July 22 to Aug. 1.

"Out of caution, we won't talk to our Mars assets during that period because we expect significant degradation in the communication link, and we don't want to take a chance that one of our spacecraft would act on a corrupted command," said Chad Edwards, manager of the Mars Relay Network Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California."

MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER HIRISE IMAGES
All of the HiRISE images are archived here.

Full Article and Images

"Scientists taking a new look at older data from NASA's longest-operating Mars orbiter have discovered evidence of significant hydration near the Martian equator -- a mysterious signature in a region of the Red Planet where planetary scientists figure ice shouldn't exist.

Jack Wilson, a post-doctoral researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, led a team that reprocessed data collected from 2002 to 2009 by the neutron spectrometer instrument on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. In bringing the lower-resolution compositional data into sharper focus, the scientists spotted unexpectedly high amounts of hydrogen -- which at high latitudes is a sign of buried water ice -- around sections of the Martian equator.

An accessible supply of water ice near the equator would be of interest in planning astronaut exploration of Mars. The amount of delivered mass needed for human exploration could be greatly reduced by using Martian natural resources for a water supply and as raw material for producing hydrogen fuel."

Daily Mars Odyssey THEMIS Images
Can be found at the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) website.

The Odyssey data are available through a new online access system established by the Planetary Data System.

Full Article and Images

"When it lands on Mars in November of 2018, NASA's InSight lander will be carrying several science instruments -- along with hundreds of thousands of names from members of the public.

In 2015, nearly 827,000 people signed up to add their names to a silicon microchip onboard the robotic spacecraft. NASA is now adding a second microchip, giving the public another chance to send their names to Mars.

New submissions will be accepted through Nov. 1, 2017, at the following link:

https://mars.nasa.gov/syn/insight

"Mars continues to excite space enthusiasts of all ages," said Bruce Banerdt, the InSight mission's principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "This opportunity lets them become a part of the spacecraft that will study the inside of the Red Planet."

This fly-your-name opportunity comes with "frequent flier" points reflecting an individual's personal participation in NASA's exploration of Mars. These points span multiple missions and multiple decades. Participants who sent their names on the previous InSight opportunity in 2015 can download a "boarding pass" and see their "frequent flier" miles.

As part of this frequent flier program, a chip carrying the names of 1.38 million people also flew aboard the first flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft in 2014. NASA is building Orion to carry astronauts to deep space destinations that will enable future missions to Mars."