We have developed a simple, fast, and flexible technique to measure optical scattering spectra of individual metallic nanoparticles. The particles are placed in an evanescent field produced by total internal reflection of light from a halogen lamp in a glass prism. The light scattered by individual particles is collected using a conventional microscope and is spectrally analyzed by a nitrogen-cooled charge-coupled-device array coupled to a spectrometer. This technique is employed to measure the effect of particle diameter on the dephasing time of the particle plasmon resonance in gold nanoparticles. We also demonstrate the use of this technique for measurements in liquids, which is important for the potential application of particle plasmons in chemical or biological nanosensors

[1] The NASA Discovery Moon Mineralogy Mapper imaging spectrometer was selected to pursue a wide range of science objectives requiring measurement of composition at fine spatial scales over the full lunar surface. To pursue these objectives, a broad spectral range imaging spectrometer with high uniformity and high signal-to-noise ratio capable of measuring compositionally diagnostic spectral absorption features from a wide variety of known and possible lunar materials was required. For this purpose the Moon Mineralogy Mapper imaging spectrometer was designed and developed that measures the spectral range from 430 to 3000 nm with 10 nm spectral sampling through a 24 degree field of view with 0.7 milliradian spatial sampling. The instrument has a signal-to-noise ratio of greater than 400 for the specified equatorial reference radiance and greater than 100 for the polar reference radiance. The spectral cross-track uniformity is >90% and spectral instantaneous field-of-view uniformity is >90%. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper was launched on Chandrayaan-1 on the 22nd of October. On the 18th of November 2008 the Moon Mineralogy Mapper was turned on and collected a first light data set within 24 h. During this early checkout period and throughout the mission the spacecraft thermal environment and orbital parameters varied more than expected and placed operational and data quality constraints on the measurements. On the 29th of August 2009, spacecraft communication was lost. Over the course of the flight mission 1542 downlinked data sets were acquired that provide coverage of more than 95% of the lunar surface. An end-to-end science data calibration system was developed and all measurements have been passed through this system and delivered to the Planetary Data System (PDS.NASA.GOV). An extensive effort has been undertaken by the science team to validate the Moon Mineralogy Mapper science measurements in the context of the mission objectives. A focused spectral, radiometric, spatial, and uniformity validation effort has been pursued

The Isotope Magnet Experiment (ISOMAX), a balloon-borne superconducting magnet spectrometer, was designed to measure the isotopic composition of the light isotopes (3 Z 8) of cosmic radiation up to 4 GeV nucleon À1 with a mass resolution of better than 0.25 amu by using the velocity versus rigidity technique. To achieve this stringent mass resolution, ISOMAX was composed of three major detector systems: a magnetic rigidity spectrometer with a precision drift chamber tracker in conjunction with a three-layer time-of-flight system, and two silica-aerogel Cerenkov counters for velocity determination. A special emphasis of the ISOMAX program was the accurate measurement of radioactive 10 Be with respect to its stable neighbor isotope 9 Be, which provides important constraints on the age of cosmic rays in the Galaxy. ISOMAX had its first balloon flight on 1998 August 4-5 from Lynn Lake, Manitoba, Canada. Thirteen hours of data were recorded during this flight at a residual atmosphere of less than 5 g cm À2 . The isotopic ratio at the top of the atmosphere for 10 Be/ 9 Be was measured to be 0:195 AE 0:036 (statistical) AE 0:039 (systematic) between 0.26 and 1.03 GeV nucleon À1 and 0:317 AE 0:109 (statistical) AE 0:042 (systematic) between 1.13 and 2.03 GeV nucleon À1 . This is the first measurement of its kind above 1 GeV nucleon À1 . ISOMAX results tend to be higher than predictions from current propagation models. In addition to the beryllium results, we report the isotopic ratios of neighboring lithium and boron in the energy range of the time-of-flight system (up to $1 GeV nucleon À1 ). The lithium and boron ratios agree well with existing data and model predictions at similar energies.

We report abundances of elements from 26 Fe to 34 Se in the cosmic radiation measured during fifty days of exposure of the Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder (TIGER) balloon-borne instrument. These observations add support to the concept that the bulk of cosmic-ray acceleration takes place in OB associations, and they further support cosmicray acceleration models in which elements present in interstellar grains are accelerated preferentially compared with those found in interstellar gas.

Abstract. The Airborne Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (AirMSPI) is an eight-band (355, 380, 445, 470, 555, 660, 865, 935 nm) pushbroom camera, measuring polarization in the 470, 660, and 865 nm bands, mounted on a gimbal to acquire multiangular observations over a ±67° along-track range. The instrument has been flying aboard the NASA ER-2 high altitude aircraft since October 2010. AirMSPI employs a photoelastic modulator-based polarimetric imaging technique to enable accurate measurements of the degree and angle of linear polarization in addition to spectral intensity. A description of the AirMSPI instrument and ground data processing approach is presented. Example images of clear, hazy, and cloudy scenes over the Pacific Ocean and California land targets obtained during flights between 2010 and 2012 are shown, and quantitative interpretations of the data using vector radiative transfer theory and scene models are provided to highlight the instrument's capabilities for determining aerosol and cloud microphysical properties and cloud 3-D spatial distributions. Sensitivity to parameters such as aerosol particle size distribution, ocean surface wind speed and direction, cloud-top and cloud-base height, and cloud droplet size is discussed. AirMSPI represents a major step toward realization of the type of imaging polarimeter envisioned to fly on NASA's Aerosol-Cloud-Ecosystem (ACE) mission in the next decade.