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Written by: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Published: 16 February 2025

Three months after its launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the agency’s Europa Clipper has another 1.6 billion miles to go before it reaches Jupiter’s orbit in 2030 to take close-up images of the icy moon Europa with science cameras.

Meanwhile, a set of cameras serving a different purpose is snapping photos in the space between Earth and Jupiter.

Called star trackers, the two imagers look for stars and use them like a compass to help mission controllers know the exact orientation of the spacecraft — information critical for pointing telecommunications antennas toward Earth and sending data back and forth smoothly.

In early December, the pair of star trackers (formally known as the stellar reference units) captured and transmitted Europa Clipper’s first imagery of space.

The picture, composed of three shots, shows tiny pinpricks of light from stars 150 to 300 light-years away. The starfield represents only about 0.1% of the full sky around the spacecraft, but by mapping the stars in just that small slice of sky, the orbiter is able to determine where it is pointed and orient itself correctly.

The starfield includes the four brightest stars — Gienah, Algorab, Kraz, and Alchiba — of the constellation Corvus, which is Latin for “crow,” a bird in Greek mythology that was associated with Apollo.

Hardware checkout

Besides being interesting to stargazers, the photos signal the successful checkout of the star trackers. The spacecraft checkout phase has been going on since Europa Clipper launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Oct. 14, 2024.

“The star trackers are engineering hardware and are always taking images, which are processed on board,” said Joanie Noonan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who leads the mission’s guidance, navigation and control operations. “We usually don’t downlink photos from the trackers, but we did in this case because it’s a really good way to make sure the hardware — including the cameras and their lenses — made it safely through launch.”

Pointing the spacecraft correctly is not about navigation, which is a separate operation. But orientation using the star trackers is critical for telecommunications as well as for the science operations of the mission.

Engineers need to know where the science instruments are pointed. That includes the sophisticated Europa Imaging System, or EIS, which will collect images that will help scientists map and examine the moon’s mysterious fractures, ridges, and valleys. For at least the next three years, EIS has its protective covers closed.

Europa Clipper carries nine science instruments, plus the telecommunications equipment that will be used for a gravity science investigation. During the mission’s 49 flybys of Europa, the suite will gather data that will tell scientists if the icy moon and its internal ocean have the conditions to harbor life.

The spacecraft already is 53 million miles (85 million kilometers) from Earth, zipping along at 17 miles per second relative to the Sun, and soon will fly by Mars. On March 1, engineers will steer the craft in a loop around the Red Planet, using its gravity to gain speed.

More about Europa Clipper

Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Find more information about Europa Clipper here: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper/.

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Written by: Elizabeth Larson

Published: 15 February 2025

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said it is investigating the discovery of human remains in a remote area of the county earlier this week.

The agency said that at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday it received a call regarding the discovery of skeletal human remains in the Mendocino National Forest just north of Lucerne.

Sheriff’s spokesperson Lauren Berlinn said the Major Crimes Unit and the Coroners Unit, along with the U.S. Forest Service, responded to the scene.

The sheriff’s office is actively working with Lake County’s forensic pathologist and is sending the remains to the California Department of Justice for analysis to determine the identity of the decedent and the cause of death, Berlinn said.

Berlinn said an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death is being conducted, with more information expected to be released as the investigation continues.

Over the course of the past several years, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office as well as sheriff’s offices in Humboldt and Mendocino counties have been assisted in such investigations by technological breakthroughs in forensic analysis, in particular DNA technology.

In 2021, technology company Parabon Nanolabs assisted the Lake County Sheriff’s Office in identifying a murder victim from 1976.

In May, a Lake County cold case involving skeletal human remains found in 1979 along the Hopland Grade was solved thanks to a combination of detective work and DNA analysis conducted by Texas-based Othram, a company that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy.

Othram also assisted the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office identify human remains in a nearly 40-year-old missing person’s case.

If you have any information related to this latest investigation in Lake County, contact the Sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit via the tipline at 707-262-4088.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, and on Bluesky, @erlarson.bsky.social. Find Lake County News on the following platforms: Facebook, @LakeCoNews; X, @LakeCoNews; Threads, @lakeconews, and on Bluesky, @lakeconews.bsky.social.

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Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS

Published: 15 February 2025

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced the recent capture, collar and release of 12 gray wolves in northern California.

There are now more satellite-collared wolves in California than ever before, which is expected to improve understanding and management of the species in the state.

“The captures exceeded our expectations and will enhance our ability to monitor our wolf population both for conservation and recovery and also to help mitigate conflict with livestock,” said Axel Hunnicutt, statewide gray wolf coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, or CDFW.

Capture operations occurred from Jan. 14 through the end of that month across Siskiyou, Lassen, Plumas and Sierra counties.

With the aid of contracted aircraft and a capture crew, wolves from the Whaleback, Harvey and Beyem Seyo packs were captured.

In addition to fitting each wolf with a satellite collar, biologists recorded body measurement and collected biological samples, including DNA and blood.

Those samples allow CDFW to monitor wolves for diseases and to determine the relatedness of individuals and packs. The wolves were released at their capture locations.

“Having multiple collars in each of these packs, especially those on younger wolves, will not only aid current studies looking at diet and land-use preferences, but also will provide data on when and where they disperse when leaving their packs,” Hunnicutt said.

Of the 12 collared wolves, seven were female and five were male:

• Five were captured from the Beyem Seyo pack in Sierra County, including one that had been previously collared;
• Five were captured from the Harvey pack in Lassen County, including one that had been previously collared;
• Two were captured from the Whaleback pack in Siskiyou County.

“The recent collaring of 12 of California’s wolves will allow the wildlife agency to more carefully monitor these endangered animals and help the public better understand what this magnificent species is all about,” said Amaroq Weiss, a senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Wolf recovery in our state is still in its infancy and more information is always welcome.”

Satellite-collaring gray wolves is an important management and research tool to help monitor populations, understand landscape use patterns and minimize livestock conflicts.

The collars do not provide real-time data. Instead, the collars collect wolf locations several times daily and periodically transmit those locations to CDFW.

The battery life of the satellite collars is about two to three years. They are programmed to drop off the animal before the battery is depleted.

CDFW is currently aware of seven wolf packs in California. While nine packs were reported in the fall of 2024, wolf packs can be fluid. For example, the Beyem Seyo and Antelope packs recently merged.

More information about California’s wolves can be found on CDFW’s gray wolf web page.

In other recent gray wolf developments:

• CDFW scientists identified two new wolf packs at the end of 2024, the Diamond pack in eastern Plumas and southern Lassen counties and the Ice Cave pack near Lassen Volcanic National Park.
• Wolves in the Yowlumni pack in Tulare County are infected with sarcoptic mange, a skin disease caused by parasitic mites. Mange infections cause itchy skin lesions and hair loss. Some wolves only experience mild mange signs and can clear the infection and survive. Other wolves, however, may experience severe disease characterized by extensive hair loss, secondary bacterial infections, emaciation and eventually death. Mange has occurred in other gray wolf populations across North America. CDFW continues to monitor the pack and is consulting with experts from other states where mange occurs in wolf populations. The mange infections are believed to be limited to the Yowlumni pack as none of the recently captured and collared wolves in northern California showed signs of disease.
• The California Wolf Project (CAWP), a collaboration between CDFW and UC Berkeley’s Rausser College of Natural Resources, has just released its 2024 Annual Report. The project is investigating wolf habitat use, diet, relationships with other wildlife and wolf-livestock conflict.
• In April, CDFW anticipates issuing its first annual report on the status of gray wolves in California. The annual report will complement the Quarterly Wolf News and Updates regularly e-mailed and posted to CDFW’s gray wolf web page.