NASA Daily News Summary For Release: Jan. 18, 2000 Media Advisory m00-011 SUMMARY: No News Releases Today Video File for Jan. 18, 2000 ITEM 1 - CLOUDS COVER GREAT LAKES - SEAWIFS (GSFC) ITEM 2 - DUST DISK "RINGS" IN SPACE - (STSCI) ***************************** If NASA issues any news releases later today, we will e-mail summaries and Internet URLs to this list. Index of 2000 NASA News Releases: http://www.nasa.gov/releases/2000/index.html Index of 1999 NASA News Releases: http://www.nasa.gov/releases/1999/index.html ***************************** ITEM 1 - CLOUDS COVER GREAT LAKES - SEAWIFS (GSFC)-------TRT 1:09 Synopsis: Many residents near the Great Lakes are familiar with the term "lake effect snow." Seen from space, this phenomenon looks like a thick white blanket pulled over the surface of the water. NASA's Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View satellite, or SeaWiFS, collected the first of these images on April 13, 1999, the second on Dec. 21, 1999. These images were enhanced and rendered at the Scientific and Visualization Studio (SVS) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. As the visualization begins, the skies over the Great Lakes are clear. Then, as clouds thicken, notice how they appear to be pushed slightly off center, towards the eastern edge of the lakes. Here's what's happening: as cold, dry air blows off the high plains of Canada, it rushes over the lakes and soaks up moisture. That moisture condenses into clouds, which builds up and trails out like wool from a carding brush. The thin stripes of blue peeking out from the western edges of the lakes show the zone where those dry winds have not yet soaked up enough moisture to coalesce into clouds. Past the eastern borders of each lake, you'll see jumbled and tangled clouds above the ground. Over many of these areas, snow is falling as the now-lake-saturated air gives up its moisture. Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: David E. Steitz (Phone 202/358-1730). Contact at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD: Deanna Corridon (Phone 301/286-0041). ITEM 2 - DUST DISK "RINGS" IN SPACE - (STSCI)-------------TRT 1:30 The planetary dust disk around the star Beta Pictoris is dynamically "ringing like a bell," according to astronomers investigating these NASA Hubble Space Telescope images. The "clapper" is the gravitational wallop of a star that passed near Beta Pictoris some 100,000 years ago. The surprising findings, presented at the 195th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, show that a close encounter with a neighboring star can severely disrupt the evolution and appearance of thin disks, which are the nurseries of planetary systems. Similar fly-bys of our solar system long ago may have reshuffled the comets that now populate our Oort cloud and Kuiper belt. Discovered in 1983, the dust disk around the nearby star Beta Pictoris--long suspected to harbor a planetary system--has puzzled astronomers because it contains more dust grains than any other comparable system. Also, the dust spreads over a huge 65-billion- mile-diameter area. Yet, one side of the disk is 20 percent longer and thinner than the other side. Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Donald Savage (Phone 202/358-1547). Contact at Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD: Ray Villard (Phone 410/338-4707). ----------------------------- Unless otherwise noted, ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN. ANY CHANGES TO THE LINE-UP WILL APPEAR ON THE NASA VIDEO FILE ADVISORY ON THE WEB AT: ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/tv-advisory/nasa-tv.txt WE UPDATE THE ADVISORY THROUGHOUT THE DAY. The NASA Video File normally airs at noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m. and midnight Eastern Time. NASA Television is available on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0 megahertz, with audio on 6.8 megahertz. Refer general questions about the video file to NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Ray Castillo, 202/358-4555, or Elvia Thompson, 202/358-1696, elvia.thompson@hq.nasa.gov During Space Shuttle missions, the full NASA TV schedule will continue to be posted at: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/schedule.html For general information about NASA TV see: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/ ***************************** Contract Awards Contract awards are posted to the NASA Acquisition information Service Web site: http://procurement.nasa.gov/EPS/award.html ***************************** The NASA Daily News Summary is issued each business day at approximately 2 p.m. Eastern time. Members of the media who wish to subscribe or unsubscribe from this list, please send e-mail message to: Brian.Dunbar@hq.nasa.gov ***************************** end of daily news summary