New Scientific Findings about the Moon and Mars to be Featured Tomorrow at NASA

NASA will hold a pair of science briefings tomorrow (Thursday) to debut new findings about the Moon and Mars.

• 2:00 pm EDT, NASA Headquarters. Briefing on findings from international and national lunar probes, especially the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, a NASA instrument on India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. This event will be shown on NASA Television.
• 3:00 pm EDT (noon PDT), JPL. Briefing on new findings from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This is audio only. To listen to the audio, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio.

In other space science news, the Messenger spacecraft is poised to make its third and final loop around Mercury on September 29. The pass will provide a “gravity assist” to the spacecraft, positioning it to enter orbit around Mercury in 2011. This will be the first spacecraft to orbit that planet, which is closest to the Sun.