NASA Hosts Briefing on New Observations of Interstellar Matter

WASHINGTON — NASA will host a Science Update at 1 p.m. EST, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, to discuss new analysis from NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft of material from outside our solar system and the interstellar boundary region that surrounds our home in space.

The interstellar boundary region shields our solar system from most of the dangerous galactic cosmic radiation that otherwise would enter the solar system from interstellar space.

The briefing will take place at NASA Headquarters in the James E. Webb Auditorium, located at 300 E St. SW, Washington, and will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

Briefing panelists are:

— David McComas, IBEX principal investigator and assistant vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio

— Priscilla Frisch, senior scientist, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago

– – Eberhard Moebius, professor, Space Science Center and Department of Physics University of New Hampshire and currently visiting professor at the Space Science and Applications Group Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M.

— Seth Redfield, assistant professor, Astronomy Department, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.

Reporters unable to attend may ask questions from participating NASA centers or by telephone. To participate by phone, reporters must contact Dwayne Brown at 202-358-1726 or dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov by 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 31.

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about NASA’s IBEX mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ibex