Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Bill Patzert, who has a knack for explaining climatology to the masses, explains what went wrong for the foothills on Wednesday night. more ›

A bear that wandered onto NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory campus up in the hills of La Cañada Flintridge has joined Twitter so that he could apologize for scaring everyone and explain his true mission: he wanted to go to Mars. more ›

Vesta is coming into focus. Scientists working with The Dawn mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena have created a new, Twilight Zone-looking video showing the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta as "the spacecraft approaches this unexplored world in the main asteroid belt," reports NASA. more ›

Up to four acres (based on varying reports) are in flames in La Cañada-Flintridge as Los Angeles County fire crews on the scene work to contain the situation near the Jet Propulsion Laboratory after receiving the call from the 4800 block of Oak Grove just after 12:30 p.m. on Monday, reports CBS Local. According to authorities, the blaze is travelling uphill burning light brush and grass as a "fuel-driven fire." more ›

NASA's Pasadena-based (Caltech) Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) left us all a little gift this week -- the first batch of data and images collected by an infrared satellite that captured the most detailed scan of the whole sky. more ›

For one weekend each year, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena opens its doors to the public for a massive open house. This year's theme was "Worlds Beyond," and the event took place May 15 and 16. more ›

The airspace over Europe is slowly re-opening, and flights have begun to resume operations to and from destinations such as London, Paris, Zurich, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt, with 22 local flights scheduled to and from LAX today. The plume of volcanic ash drifting across the continent from its source at Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano continues to hold the world in its thrall and at its mercy. more ›

The plume of volcanic ash drifting through European airspace continues to keep air travel on hold, including more flights today departing and arriving at Los Angeles International Airport. NASA has released several images of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano showing the scope of the natural disaster as captured by the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, which communicates with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) here in Los Angeles. more ›

The Station Fire continues to rage under the blazing sun and on tough terrain. Evacuations of Big Tujunga Canyon have been ordered for the "Western portion of the fire just north of Mt Luken" according to the CalFireNews Twitter feed. Currently the following areas are also under mandatory evacuation notice, per KNX1070:

Evening Canyon Dr., Bay Tree Rd., Briartree Dr., Summit Crest Dr., Bramblewood Rd., Alder Ridge Dr., Catherwood Drive., Greenridge Dr., Forest Green Dr. Ridge Court, and Starlight Crest Drive. more ›

Blogger Dave Bullock went on an impromptu photo shoot last night, first heading to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), then up the hills of La Cañada towards the Station Fire that continues to burn today with essentially no containment. He shared with us these images from the scene. The Station Fire is expected to remain burning through the week, as hundreds of firefighters work on rugged terrain that has not burned in decades.
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If they can send men to the moon, then they can surely help bitch-thirsy Los Angeles save some water in drought times and beyond. A three-year agreement between the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena and the Los Angeles Department of Power & Water will bring automatic sensors to various projects. One example, explains the Pasadena Star News: "DWP maintains a network of sprinklers to keep the dust under control when winds pick up. To help reduce dust, the DWP and its team of contractors are installing a computer-controlled network of sprinklers currently covering more than 14 square miles of the lake bed. But the system consumes significant amounts of water." Other sensor projects include snow pack monitoring in the Sierras and solar power on roofs within the city. more ›

A radar on the belly of a airplane flying above the Southern California region is taking in detailed data for scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab so they can study faults' shifting, straining in relation to seismic energy. "The data from this project could help scientists figure out where the risk of earthquake activity is highest, though the data will never be so specific as to predict a day, location and magnitude of a quake, explained the LA Times. “This will help us with the five- to 10-year time horizons,” Donnellan said. “We can see hot spot maps and ... figure out where to target our retrofitting,” said Andrea Donnellan, a JPL geophysicist. more ›

As LAist has mentioned in the past, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Annual Open House is one of the best free events in town. This year, kids and adults alike enjoyed exhibits, demonstrations, 3-D Mars photos, dancing robots and more. Plus, it's not every day you get to ask a rocket scientist a question! more ›

Early this morning, NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) attempted to launch into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County, but as it took off, the payload fairing failed to separate from the vehicle during ascent. sending it flying back to earth into the ocean near Antarctica. The $270 million two-year project, headed by the folks at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, would have studied the entire planet's atmospheric carbon dioxide, looking to find where green house gases are released into and pulled from the air. more ›

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"Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars," said Jim Whiteway of the The Phoenix mission. "We'll be looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground." So far, data shows that the snow vaporizes before it hits the ground, but earlier this year in another development, water ice was found on the planet. NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena is responsible for the mission's project management. LAist was there for the landing of the Mars Phoenix Lander. more ›

"The bottom line is that we're definitely going to be living in a warmer Southern California," said Bill Patzert, a NASA Jet Propulsion Lab climatologist and oceanographer who co-authored a study that examined Los Angeles' daily temperature data for a hundred year period. more ›

Earlier today, our friends at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Univ. of Arizona confirmed that the Phoenix Mars Lander has found water ice on the surface of the red planet. The confirmation came yesterday after some further experiments on Martian soil located where the lander has made home for itself on the Martian arctic. Scientists were said to have popped open the champagne in celebration according to coverage of today's press conference on the matter. The official countdown 'til life is found has now officially started. more ›

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This just in from the Mars Phoenix Lander's Twitter at 5:15 p.m.: "Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!" It was just two days ago that media outlets were reporting that there were no signs of water yet. more ›

Within two hours of landing on planet Earth's neighbor, the Phoenix Mars Lander began sending images to NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena on Sunday evening. The current temperatures on Mars is a frigid high of -22 degrees and a low of -112. To see photos from JPL on Sunday, LAist was there to cover it. more ›

Early Sunday evening, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena did it. In a "picture perfect" landing, the Phoenix Mars Lander made it to the northern plains of Mars in the latest of attempts to explore and understand the red planet. This specific mission is to look for signs of habitability, whether present or past (see LAist's previous entry from the day of). more ›

Update: "The Phoenix has landed, the Phoenix has landed. Welcome to the northern plains of Mars!" exclaimed EDL Communications Lead Richard Kornfeld. Another woman standing there watching was wow-ed: "That touchdown was phenomenal." It feels like being a room full of lottery winners -- everyone cheered, hugged and then someone broke out candy Mars Bars. The room's silence is now abuzz with chatter, some reporters are high-fiving, and cameramen are surrounding NASA experts for comments. more ›

Each year, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena opens its doors to the community for a two-day open house. Prior to this year, I had never heard of the event. On a recent Sunday morning, a scientist friend whisked me off to JPL at the last moment. Armed solely with my RAZR phone camera, I tried to capture the sights as best I could. The JPL website described the open house as: This popular... more ›

(now imagine this with two suns) China grabbed some headlines the other day showing off their robotic moon probe, but since we’ve already got a couple roving away on another planet, our friends at the Jet Propulsion Labs have been looking into some other things. Like finding planets that orbit around twin stars, called binary systems. The new findings from the Spitzer Space Telescope suggest planets are just as likely to be found around... more ›