This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

News from Mars and a JPL-NASA Project Launches LEGOs into Space

This week's JPL roundup also includes a news conference set to live stream Thursday, which promises to reveal new information from Mars, and recent images of the asteroid Vesta.

News From Mars

NASA will host a news briefing at 11 a.m. Thursday regarding "a significiant new Mars science finding."

According to a press release issued by , the new finding "is based on observations" from the Mars Orbiter, which has been circling Mars and collecting data since 2006. The orbiter is managed by JPL. The news briefing will air live on NASA TV and also be streamed with live chat available at http://www.ustream/tv/nasajpl2.

Find out what's happening in La Cañada Flintridgewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Juno Launch Twitter

NASA has invited 150 lucky Twitter followers to a two-day launch Tweetup culminating in the expected liftoff of the Juno spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. NASA randomly selected the Twitter attendees from more than 1,200 online applicants.

Find out what's happening in La Cañada Flintridgewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But don't worry if you weren't chosen. Beginning at 7:30 a.m. PDT Thursday, NASA will broadcast a portion of the Tweetup that will include talks with scientists and members of the Juno team. Watch the Tweetup at NASA TV.  To follow Tweetup participants as they experience the prelaunch events on Twitter, join up with Juno Tweetup Twitter. Follow the Juno mission on Twitter.

Juno's launch window opens at 8:34 a.m. PDT Friday and can be watched on NASA TV.

To learn more about Juno and the mission to Jupiter, go to NASA's Juno website.

Juno to Carry Galileo to Jupiter

Juno will also host three LEGO figurines: Galileo Galilei, Roman god Jupiter, and his wife Juno will travel on the spacecraft as part of a NASA-JPL outreach project created to inspire kids to explore space, science, and technology.

NASA has also placed a plaque honoring Galileo, who made several important discoveries about Jupiter, including the 1610 discovery of Jupiter's four moons, aboard Juno. The Italian Space Agency provided the plaque which includes an image of Galileo and a passage he wrote in 1610 about the planet. To view the plaque and learn more, visit NASA's Juno website.

 Giant Asteroid Image Revealed

After travelling for nearly four years and racking up 1.7 billion miles, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, the first to ever orbit an object in the main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, has sent back to Earth a full-frame image of the giant asteroid Vesta.

Vesta is approximately 114 million miles away from Earth and is the brightest object in the asteroid belt as visible from Earth. It is thought to be the source of a number of meteorites that fall to our home planet. NASA believes Dawn was captured by Vesta’s gravity and began to orbit the asteroid on July 15.

The Dawn team unveiled the first full-frame image of Vesta on July 24, taken from a distance of 3,200 mile from the asteroid. As the asteroid spins on its axis once every 5 hours and 20 minutes, Dawn’s cameras can capture images from all the way around Vesta as it orbits the asteroid.

In a press release from JPL, Chris Russel, Dawn’s principal investigator at UCLA, said, "We have been calling Vesta the smallest terrestrial planet. The latest imagery provides much justification for our expectations. They show that a variety of processes were once at work on the surface of Vesta and provide extensive evidence for Vesta's planetary aspirations."

To see Vesta images from Dawn, click over to NASA's multimedia webpage. For information on the Dawn spacecraft and its mission, visit NASA’s Dawn webpage.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?