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"Here's some of the stories trending This
Week at NASA!"

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The Global Precipitation Measurement, or GPM
mission's Core Observatory launched from Japan's

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Tanegashima Space Center on February 27, Eastern
Standard Time.

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The joint NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency effort uses the Core Observatory as

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the anchor of the first coordinated network
of international satellites, providing near

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real-time observations of rain and snowfall
around the globe.

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Data from the Core Observatory will be the
measuring stick by which observations from

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partner satellites are combined into unified
data sets, to study climate change, freshwater

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resources, and natural hazards such as floods,
droughts, and hurricanes.

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NASA and the California Department of Water
Resources briefed the media at an event in

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Sacramento on plans to use the agency's Earth
observing satellites and airborne remote sensing

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assets to help California better manage water
resources and respond to its severe drought.

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In January, following two straight years of
drought conditions, Governor Jerry Brown declared

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a Drought State of Emergency in California.

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NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from land,
air and space and shares the data with the

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global community to better understand and
protect our home planet.

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The mishap investigation board that conducted
the independent investigation into the cause

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of the water leak inside astronaut Luca Parmitano's
helmet during last July's spacewalk outside

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the International Space Station, has documented
its findings in a formal report.

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Although the board and the ISS program team
uncovered evidence of particulate contamination

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clogging holes in the spacesuit's fan pump
separator, a root cause of the contamination

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could not be determined.

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However, the ISS program investigation team
will continue to search for the root cause.

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A mock-up of NASA's Orion spacecraft recently
arrived at Langley Research Center in preparation

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for future testing at the Landing and Impact
Research Facility.

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Testing will give engineers insight into how
the capsule performs under a variety of water

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landing conditions.

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This Fall, Orion is scheduled to complete
its first mission, Exploration Flight Test-1,

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with a splashdown landing in the Pacific Ocean.

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Data from NASA's Kepler mission verifies there
are 715 new planets outside our solar system

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-- nearly doubling the collection of known
planets in our galaxy.

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After studying two years' worth of data, researchers
found that planetary systems with multiple,

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small planets in flat, circular orbits, like
those found in our inner solar system, are

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common in the Milky Way.

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This discovery marks a significant increase
in the number of known small-sized planets

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more akin to Earth than previously identified
exoplanets, which are planets outside our

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solar system.

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Kepler's total tally of confirmed planets
discovered now stands at 961.

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This composite image captured by the Hubble
Space Telescope is of a supernova explosion

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in the galaxy, M82.

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Some 11-point-five million light-years from
Earth, the supernova, designated SN 2014J,

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is the closest of its type discovered in the
past 42 years.

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It was discovered on January 21 of this year
and the Hubble photo was taken ten days later

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as the supernova approached its peak brightness.

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And that's what's up ... This Week at NASA.