Washington, U.S.A. —  NASA was named the best place to work in the federal government among large agencies in a survey released today by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit, non-partisan organization. This ranking, which reflects NASA’s highest results since this index was developed, makes clear that the agency’s work force is focused on carrying out the nation’s new and ambitious space program.

“The best workforce in the nation has made NASA the best place to work in federal government,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, who is accepting the award at a ceremony this morning in Washington, D.C. ”Our employees are carrying out the nation’s new strategic missions in space with heart-stopping landings on Mars, cutting-edge science and ground-breaking partnerships with American companies to resupplying the space station. They are truly leading in the innovation economy.”

The rankings are based on responses from nearly 700,000 federal workers. The Best Places to Work rankings are based on data from the Office of Personnel Management’s annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey conducted from April through June 2012 and additional survey data from nine agencies plus the Intelligence Community. This is the seventh edition of the Best Places to Work rankings since the first in 2003.

NASA’s Stennis Space Center was ranked second in the sub-agency component category.

During the past year, NASA’s employees continued to implement America’s ambitious space exploration program, landing the most sophisticated rover on the surface of Mars, carrying out the first-ever commercial mission to the International Space Station and advancing the systems needed to send humans deeper into space.

Just last week, NASA announced the next Mars rover mission and recently announced the first year-long crew stay on the International Space Station. As the agency continues developing the capabilities to explore the solar system and beyond, as well as understand our home planet and make life better here, workers with a wide range of skills and interests will be critical.

For more about NASA, visit: http://www.nasa.gov.

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NASA has renamed its newest Earth-observing satellite in honor of the late Verner E. Suomi, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin who is recognized widely as “the father of satellite meteorology.” The announcement was made Jan. 24 at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in New Orleans.

NASA launched the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, or NPP, on Oct. 28, 2011, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NPP was renamed Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, or Suomi NPP. The satellite is the first designed to collect critical data to improve short-term weather forecasts and increase understanding of long-term climate change.

“Verner Suomi’s many scientific and engineering contributions were fundamental to our current ability to learn about Earth’s weather and climate from space,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Suomi NPP not only will extend more than four decades of NASA satellite observations of our planet, it also will usher in a new era of climate change discovery and weather forecasting.”

The Suomi NPP mission is a bridge between NASA’s Earth Observing System satellites to the next-generation Joint Polar Satellite System, or JPSS, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program. JPSS is the civilian component of the former National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), which was reorganized by the Obama Administration in 2010.

“The new name now accurately describes the mission,” said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Division in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Suomi NPP will advance our scientific knowledge of Earth and improve the lives of Americans by enabling more accurate forecasts of weather, ocean conditions and the terrestrial biosphere. The mission is the product of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense, the private sector and academic researchers.”

Verner Suomi pioneered remote sensing of Earth from satellites in polar orbits a few hundred miles above the surface with Explorer 7 in 1959, and geostationary orbits thousands of miles high with ATS-1 in 1966.

He was best known for his invention of the “spin-scan” camera which enabled geostationary weather satellites to continuously image Earth, yielding the satellite pictures commonly used on television weather broadcasts. He also was involved in planning interplanetary spacecraft missions to Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Suomi spent nearly his entire career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where in 1965 he founded the university’s Space Science and Engineering Center with funding from NASA. The center is known for Earth-observing satellite research and development. In 1964, Suomi served as chief scientist of the U.S. Weather Bureau for one year. He received the National Medal of Science in 1977. He died in 1995 at the age of 79.

“It is fitting that such an important and innovative partnership pays tribute to a pioneer like Verner Suomi,” said Mary Kicza, assistant administrator for NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service. “Suomi NPP is an extremely important mission for NOAA. Its advanced instruments will improve our weather forecasts and understanding of the climate and pave the way for JPSS, our next generation of weather satellites.”

Suomi NPP currently is in its initial checkout phase before starting regular observations with all of its five instruments. Commissioning activities are expected to be completed by March. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Suomi NPP mission for the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The JPSS program provides the satellite ground system and NOAA provides operational support.

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NASA’s mission of discovery and exploration will be showcased in a custom-produced Internet music radio station that is crafted specifically to speak the language of tech-savvy young adults.

Third Rock – America’s Space Station launched with a New Rock/Indie/Alternative format on Monday, December 12. The station is being developed and operated at no cost to the government through a Space Act Agreement. Third Rock can be reached from NASA’s home page, www.nasa.gov, and will soon be available through NASA iPhone and Droid mobile applications.

“NASA constantly is looking for new and innovative ways to engage the public and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,” said David Weaver, associate administrator for the Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We have led the way in innovative uses of new media and this is another example of how the agency is taking advantage of these important communication tools.”

NASA is collaborating with Houston-based RFC Media to launch the station.

“Today’s 4G audience craves new music and enjoys finding it,” said Pat Fant, RFC Media co-founder and chief operating officer. ”We’ve pulled out the best songs and the deepest tracks from a full spectrum of rock artists across many styles and decades. NASA features and news items are embedded throughout the programming alongside greetings by celebrity artists.”

Third Rock also will help partner companies fill high-tech job openings in the engineering, science, and IT fields. In addition to the NASA Web Portal, the station will be available online in the future at the radio tab of Apple’s iTunes and other sites.

“No one knows more about discovering new rock than NASA,” said Cruze, RFC Media co-founder and president. ”Exciting new music is being discovered online through specialty sites, like Third Rock-America’s Space Station, where listeners will hear about great new artists way before their friends hear of them.”

To listen to Third Rock, visit: http://www.rfcmedia.com/thirdrockradio/ 

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The Drake equation is a probability law which estimates the abundance of intelligent life in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. It is quite simple in appearance, and anyone can play with the variables in order to make their own personal estimate.

The variables encountered in the equation include the proportion of intelligent to non-intelligent life; the proportion of stars which would be capable of sustaining life in their environment to those who cannot; the number of planets a star is probable to have existing in this habitable zone, if the star were to harbour planets.

Although the scientific results of this equation are in great debate, it was developed by Prof. Frank Drake in order to open discussion on the topic for the famous meeting at the Green Bank radio observatory in 1961.

Current estimates ranging from the opinions of pessimists to optimists, are of the order of it being next to impossible to communicate with other lifeforms in our Galaxy, to a possible ten different alien civilisations who are currently in the same positions as us with appropiate technology who could be trying to communicate with us and others like us.

Hence the popularity of the SETI project (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). The equation brings many interesting topics to light such as how long intelligent civilisations may continue on living, with most estimates being of short duration. One hypothesise is that once nuclear power is developed by a civilisation, they will quickly destroy themselves through their new technology.

To date there have been 684 confirmed planets discovered orbiting a total number of 474 stars other than our Sun. With thousands more proposed from the Kepler mission awaiting comfirmation. More recently the Kepler mission has discovered the first planet known to be orbiting two stars.

The techniques involved in detecting these extra-solar (i.e. orbiting other stars than our Sun) objects favor the discovery of larger, more massive planets which have a more visible influence on their parent star. The techniques follow principles as simple as; does the parent star wobble?

If so, by how much and then knowing the distance to the parent star we can calculate the mass of the orbiting planet and orbital period, which in turn would give us the distance between the parent star and planet, using Kepler’s third law. This technique follows the principles of astrometry (basically astronomical geometry).

Then from analyzing the richness of the chemical environment of such systems through spectroscopy it is possible to say if at least one component of this system would be capable of sustaining life. Unfortunately, due to the large number of complexities which arise in the observational and analysis stages no one can say for sure if these planets are currently harbours of life.

However, all is not lost as we know already that our solar system contains life on a small out of the way planet amicably called Earth. So would it be possible for other lumps of rock in our Galaxy to host complex biological species? It is of popular opinion that yes, it is possible but due to the harsh environments in which they may exist they may not of had the possibility to evolve beyond microbial stages of evolution.

For example, if we ignore Mars for a minute and concentrate on the more probable hosts, the Gaililean satelites orbiting our local failed star Jupiter or Saturn’s Titan are good bets. It was initially thought that light was a neccessary ingredient for life to come into being. That was until the discovery of strange looking creatures living in the depths of our deepest darkest oceans close to hydrothermal vents.

This would lead a reasonable mind to believe that Europa, Ganymede or Titan may be hosts to such creatures thanks to their water ice crusts encasing their volcanic prone H2O oceans. How could we detect such life? Well as we know from studies of biological creatures back home we create a chemical diversity in our atmosphere which wouldn’t exist if we did not.

So we could look for gases such as methane trapped in ice crystals such as Clathrate Hydrates on the surface of these near by objects, with techniques such as infra-red reflection spectroscopy.

An exo-planet nicknamed ‘Snow White’ has been found to have a partially water ice surface with a possible light methane atmosphere. So in conclusion, no life has been currently detected aside from on planet Earth and it will prove difficult to find, but, we are off to a good start.

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