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An artist's concept of MESSENGER orbiting Mercury. Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft successfully achieved orbit around Mercury at approximately 9 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 17.

This marks the first time a spacecraft has accomplished this engineering and scientific milestone at our solar system's innermost planet.

“This mission will continue to revolutionize our understanding of Mercury during the coming year,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who was at MESSENGER mission control at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., as engineers received telemetry data confirming orbit insertion.

“NASA science is rewriting text books. MESSENGER is a great example of how our scientists are innovating to push the envelope of human knowledge,” Bolden said.

At 9:10 p.m. EDT March 17, engineers Operations Center, received the anticipated radiometric signals confirming nominal burn shutdown and successful insertion of the MESSENGER probe into orbit around the planet Mercury.

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, rotated back to the Earth by 9:45 p.m. EDT, and started transmitting data.

Upon review of the data, the engineering and operations teams confirmed the burn executed nominally with all subsystems reporting a clean burn and no logged errors.

MESSENGER's main thruster fired for approximately 15 minutes at 8:45 p.m., slowing the spacecraft by 1,929 miles per hour and easing it into the planned orbit about Mercury. The rendezvous took place about 96 million miles from Earth.

“Achieving Mercury orbit was by far the biggest milestone since MESSENGER was launched more than six and a half years ago,” said Peter Bedini, MESSENGER project manager of the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). “This accomplishment is the fruit of a tremendous amount of labor on the part of the navigation, guidance-and-control, and mission operations teams, who shepherded the spacecraft through its 4.9-billion-mile journey.”

For the next several weeks, APL engineers will be focused on ensuring the spacecraft's systems are all working well in Mercury's harsh thermal environment.

Starting on March 23, the instruments will be turned on and checked out, and on April 4 the mission's primary science phase will begin.

“Despite its proximity to Earth, the planet Mercury has for decades been comparatively unexplored,” said Sean Solomon, MESSENGER principal investigator of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “For the first time in history, a scientific observatory is in orbit about our solar system's innermost planet. Mercury's secrets, and the implications they hold for the formation and evolution of Earth-like planets, are about to be revealed.”

APL designed and built the spacecraft. The lab manages and operates the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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A Jeep that had overturned during a single-vehicle crash on the morning of Friday, March 18, 2011, near Nice, Calif., is pictured after being set back on its wheels before being towed from the scene. Photo by Gary McAuley.

NICE, Calif. – Friday's rainy conditions and a possible case of driving under the influence of alcohol are believed to have contributed to a single-vehicle collision.

The crash involving the late model Jeep occurred shortly before 8:30 a.m. in the 3800 block of Lakeview Drive between Howard and Hudson, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Reports from the scene indicated the 18-year-old male driver was traveling westbound on Lakeview Drive at a speed too fast for conditions, hit the embankment and flipped the vehicle over onto its top.

Two Northshore Fire medic units and an engine, and two CHP units were reported to have responded.

The driver – who was not wearing his seat belt – was reported to have sustained moderate injuries, while his passenger, who was wearing his seat belt, was not injured.

The CHP said the driver was taken to Sutter Lakeside Hospital, where along with treatment he was expected to undergo a blood draw.

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Gerardo Castillo and Tammi Duran were arrested during a Lake County Sheriff's Narcotics Task Force operation on Tuesday, March 15, 2011. Lake County Jail photos.

CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – The Sheriff's Narcotics Task Force's service of a search warrant on Tuesday in Clearlake Oaks has resulted in two felony arrests, and the seizure of more than a pound of methamphetamine and more than $1,900 in currency for asset forfeiture.

Tuesday’s warrant service marked the first time in years that more than a pound of methamphetamine has been taken off the streets in a single seizure in Lake County, according to a report from Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office. It's minimum street value was set at more than $51,000.

On Friday, March 11, task force members secured a search warrant for a home located on New Long Valley Road in the Spring Valley area of Clearlake Oaks, Bauman said. The task force served the search warrant on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 15, with the assistance of a sheriff’s narcotics detection K-9 team.

Four suspects were located in different areas of the home and detained without incident, Bauman said. They included Gerardo Castillo, 45; Tammi Ileine Duran, 46; Wendy Marie Yudnich, 42; and 18-year-old Travis Frank Yudnich, all of Clearlake Oaks.

Bauman said Duran was found standing near a couch in the living room and Castillo was located in a kitchen. Wendy and Travis Yudnich were located in separate bedrooms.

Upon entering the home, narcotics detectives found a video surveillance system monitoring the property. Bauman said detectives also discovered they had interrupted a narcotics transaction in progress.

He said the couch Duran was standing near was searched and beneath one of the cushions detectives located a plastic bag containing approximately one ounce of methamphetamine. A search of Duran’s purse and two make up cases found on the same couch revealed several other baggies containing methamphetamine, $400 in currency, and narcotics paraphernalia.

Narcotics detectives continued to search the residence and located a plastic bucket concealed in a fireplace, Bauman said. An inspection of the bucket’s contents revealed a large plastic bag containing a full pound of methamphetamine and two smaller bags containing over an ounce each of methamphetamine.

He said the bucket also contained a digital scale, cutting agents, smoking pipes, and other evidence of controlled substance sales and use. In a master bedroom, detectives located narcotics paraphernalia, live shotgun ammunition and more than $1,500 in currency.

All four suspects were initially arrested and transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility, Bauman said. Subsequent to booking, further investigation revealed that Castillo was in fact in the midst of selling an ounce of methamphetamine to Duran when narcotics detectives entered the home.

He said narcotics detectives also determined that Wendy and Johnny Yudnich were not directly involved in the sales transaction or the possession of methamphetamine and they were released with no pending charges.

Castillo was booked for possession of a controlled substance for sale, possession of narcotics paraphernalia and being a felon in possession of live ammunition. Bauman said Castillo remained in the custody of the sheriff Friday with an enhanced bail of $150,000.

Duran was booked for possession of a controlled substance for sale, possession of narcotics paraphernalia, and being under the influence of a controlled substance, Bauman said.

The $1,900 in currency collected from the scene was seized for asset forfeiture as the suspected profit of narcotics trafficking, he said.

The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force's anonymous tip line is 707-263-3663.

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A week after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit Japan, causing widespread destruction and seriously damaging a Japanese nuclear reactor, Gov. Jerry Brown and other officials on both the state and federal levels sought to quell public concerns over impacts of radiation from the deteriorating reactors.

“As this very tragic situation in Japan unfolds, I want Californians to know that we are closely monitoring any potential impact on our state. I also want to emphasize that there is no threat to the people of California due to radiation in Japan,” said Brown.

The assurances came on Friday, the same day that the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy issued a joint statement reporting that no radiation levels of concern have reached the United States by the U.S. Government's extensive network of radiation monitors.

However, as part of that report, the agencies acknowledged that a monitoring system in Sacramento that feeds into the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s International Monitoring System detected miniscule quantities of the radioactive isotope xenon-133. The origin was determined to be consistent with a release from the Fukushima reactors in Northern Japan.

The levels detected were approximately 0.1 disintegrations per second per cubic meter of air, which results in a dose rate approximately one-millionth of the dose rate that a person normally receives from rocks, bricks, the sun and other natural background sources, according to the report.

EPA and the Department of Energy reported that Xenon-133 is a radioactive noble gas produced during nuclear fission that poses no concern at the detected level.

The Sacramento detection validated a similar reading taken Wednesday and Thursday in Washington state. Officials said the readings remain consistent with their expectations since the onset of this situation in Japan.

Following the explosion of the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine in 1986 – the worst nuclear accident in world history – air monitoring in the United States also picked up trace amounts of radioactive particles, less than one thousandth of the estimated annual dose from natural sources for a typical person, based on the EPA and Department of Energy statement.

On Friday, Gov. Brown and the interim director of the California Department of Public Health, Dr. Howard Backer, assured Californians that public health and safety do not face any threat from radiation released at nuclear facilities in Japan this week.

“The California Department of Public Health and our Emergency Management Agency are in constant contact with the federal agencies responsible for monitoring radiation levels in California, and we will tell the public if any precautions become necessary. However, there is no cause for alarm,” Brown said.

Backer said the Department of Public Health takes the situation in Japan seriously, and is monitoring it very closely. “As both President Obama and Governor Brown have stated, there is no threat to California, and so people should not be taking precautionary health measures.”

He said potassium iodide is only appropriate for much higher levels of radiation that may be generated within close proximity to a nuclear source. “Using potassium iodide when inappropriate can result in significant side effects.”

The Lake County Air Quality Management District said there is no radiation monitoring taking place locally.

However, this week the EPA’s Radiation Emergency Response Team and EPA Region 9 reported that they were working with the California Air Resources Board and selected local air districts to enhance radiation monitoring capabilities in California should it become necessary to deploy additional samplers.

In California, fixed EPA RadNet stations are located in Anaheim, Bakersfield, Eureka, Fresno, Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, the agency reported.

The EPA said air pollution control districts in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Mendocino County and the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District were contacted for their permission to set up additional temporary monitors if needed.

Californians with questions about radiation exposure can contact the California Department of Public Health’s Emergency Operations information line at 916-341-3947.

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