The first image from NASA's new geography trivia contest.
[/caption]
You can now test your knowledge of the world’s geography in a new trivia game on Twitter sponsored by NASA and the astronauts on board the International Space Station. It is kind of like our own “Where In the Universe Challenge” but strictly of images from Earth, and in this contest, there are even actual prizes. Astronaut Scott Kelly started the game this week, which is Geography Awareness Week. His vantage point is perfect for hosting the game, as where else can you get a better view of the various geographical features on our planet than from the International Space Station?
First of all, you have to be on Twitter, and follow Kelly: @StationCDRKelly. He’ll post a link to an image he took, and the first person to correctly identify the place depicted in his photos will win an autographed copy of the picture.
“Expanding our geography knowledge is essential to our economic well-being, our relationships with other nations and the environment,” Kelly said. “It helps us make sense of our world and allows us to make connections between people and places. Space exploration is a global endeavor, and the International Space Station is the result of these connections.”
The new trivia game is a way to engage the public in the activities of the ISS, and the pictures that Kelly, and other astronauts take from the station aren’t all just fun and games. “From the cupola, which is much like a bay window in a house, we are able to take pictures for many scientific reasons, but also to share with the public what we are learning about the planet on which we live,” Kelly said.
Kelly launched to the space station along with two Russian cosmonauts, Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka on Oct. 8. He is set to return to Earth March 16, 2011. The space station and its six crew members orbit the Earth more than a dozen times each day, traveling more than 320 km (200 miles) above Earth at 28,000 kph (17,500 mph).
Merapi Volcano on November 10, 2010, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Credit: NASA
[/caption]
For about three weeks, Indonesia’s Mount Merapi has been belching out lava, as well as ash and gas, clouding the atmosphere above. This satellite image, taken by NASA’s MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, shows the volcano now settling down and is the most cloud-free satellite view of the volcano that we’ve been able to see. Thick ash is still rising and the volcano is still considered to be erupting at dangerous levels. Merapi is one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, and this eruption has been the most violent since the 1870’s.
The dark brown streak down the southern face of the volcano is ash and other volcanic material deposited by a pyroclastic flow or lahar. The volcano has been blamed for 156 deaths and about 200,000 people had to evacuate. The ash also caused flights to be delayed or canceled.
See below for a thermal image of the lava flow.
The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the thermal signature of hot ash and rock and a glowing lava dome on Mount Merapi on Nov. 1, 2010. Credit: NASA.
As a very active volcano, Merapi poses a constant threat to thousands of people in Indonesia. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the thermal signature of hot ash and rock and a glowing lava dome. The thermal data is overlaid on a three-dimensional map of the volcano to show the approximate location of the flow. The three-dimensional data is from a global topographic model created using ASTER stereo observations.
For more information see NASA’s Earth Observatory website.
At best, the few extrasolar planets we have imaged directly are just points of light. But what can that light tell us about the planet? Maybe more than we thought. As you probably know the, Deep Impact spacecraft flew by comet Hartley 2 today, taking images from only 700 km away. But maneuvering to meet up with the comet is not the only job this spacecraft has been doing. The EPOXI mission also looked for ways to characterize extrasolar planets and the team made a discovery that should help identify distinctive information about extrasolar planets. How did they do it? By using the Deep Impact spacecraft to look at the planets in our very own solar system.
The spacecraft imaged the planetary bodies in our solar system — in particular the Earth, Mars and our Moon — (see here for movies of the Moon transiting Earth) and astronomer Lucy McFadden and UCLA graduate Carolyn Crow compared the reflected red, blue, and green light and grouped the planets according to the similarities they saw. The planets fall into very distinct regions on this plot, where the vertical direction indicates the relative amount of blue light, and the horizontal direction the relative amount of red light.
This suggests that when we do have the technology to gather light from individual exoplanets, astronomers could use color information to identify Earth-like worlds. “Eventually, as telescopes get bigger, there will be the light-gathering power to look at the colors of planets around other stars,” McFadden says. “Their colors will tell us which ones to study in more detail.”
On the plot, the planets cluster into groups based on similarities in the wavelengths of sunlight that their surfaces and atmospheres reflect. The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn huddle in one corner, Uranus and Neptune in a different one. The rocky inner planets Mars, Venus, and Mercury cluster off in their own corner of “color space.”
But Earth really stands out, and its uniqueness comes from two factors. One is the scattering of blue light by the atmosphere, called Rayleigh scattering, after the English scientist who discovered it. The second reason Earth stands out in color is because it does not absorb a lot of infrared light. That’s because our atmosphere is low in infrared-absorbing gases like methane and ammonia, compared to the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn.
“It is Earth’s atmosphere that dominates the colors of Earth,” Crow says. “It’s the scattering of light in the ultraviolet and the absence of absorption in the infrared.”
So, this filtering approach could provide a preliminary look at exoplanet surfaces and atmospheres, giving us an inkling of whether the planet is rocky or a gas planet, or what kind of atmosphere it has.
EPOXI is a combination of the names for the two extended mission components for the Deep Impact spacecraft: the first part of the acronym comes from EPOCh, (Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization) and the flyby of comet Hartley 2 is called the Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI).
Fire scars in Australia are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 5 crewmember on the International Space Station (ISS). Bright orange fire scars show up the underlying dune sand in the Simpson Desert, Credit: NASA
The International Space Station has been orbiting the Earth every day for over 10 years, and the astronauts all say their favorite pastime is looking at the Earth. During the past 10 years, the crews have taken some great pictures of our planet, and these images provide a unique look at our world. These are just a few of the spectacular views of Earth from the space station.
Visible satellite image of the October 26, 2010 superstorm taken at 5:32pm EDT. Image credit: NASA/GSFC.
[/caption]
Yowza! – Here’s a satellite image of a storm of record-breaking proportions. On October 26, 2010, the strongest storm ever recorded in the Midwest spawned 24 tornadoes, 282 reports of damaging winds, violent thunderstorms, and torrential rains. The mega-storm reached peak intensity late yesterday afternoon over Minnesota, resulting in the lowest barometric pressure readings ever recorded in the continental United States (except for from hurricanes and nor’easters affecting the Atlantic seaboard.) The storm continues today (Oct. 27) with more tornado watches posted for Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, a blizzard warning for North Dakota, high wind warnings for most of the upper Midwest, and near-hurricane force winds on Lake Superior.
Read more about this super-storm on Weather Underground, but see below for what extremely low air pressure means.
Air pressure is one of the most important factors which determines what the weather is like. A mass of low pressure is an area of air that is rising. As it rises, it expands and cools. Cooler air cannot hold as much water as warmer air, so as the air rises the water will condense and form clouds. This is why an area of low pressure will often be accompanied by clouds and rain — which is what occurred on October 26 — lots of clouds and lots of rain and even snow.
But winds were even a bigger factor in this superstorm. Our atmosphere really doesn’t like big differences in air pressure, so where areas of low pressure meet up with areas of high pressure, winds blow in an attempt to combat the differences in the air pressure. The larger the difference in pressure the stronger the winds will blow. So, the extreme low pressure readings yesterday meant the winds were really howling — and they were. In my neighborhood in Illinois, we had a fairly study flagpole get bent from the winds. But that was nothing compared to the hurricane-like winds other places experienced: for example, Grand Marais, Minnesota — near the Great Lakes and near the area of the lowest air pressure readings — had sustained winds of 43 mph gusting to 59 mph, lasting for over 7 hours. Today, that region is still getting pummeled by winds and snow.
You can see the link to Weather Underground above to see what other weather extremes were experienced during this storm.
Oct. 13, 2010: Trapped miner Victor Segovia reaches the surface to become the 15th to be rescued from the San Jose mine in Copiapo. Source: Reuters
[/caption]
The world has been transfixed by the rescue of 33 miners trapped nearly a kilometer (about a half a mile) underground in the San Jose mine near Copiapo, Chile. Seeing the men emerge from their 69-day-long ordeal has been emotional for everyone involved, as well as for those of us just watching from afar. But were it not for NASA, the rescue might not be going as smoothly and trouble-free as, thankfully, it has. NASA’s expertise in long duration space missions – which are similar in many respects to what the miners endured – as well as the space agency’s knowledge in specialized engineering and training for emergencies has been invaluable during the rescue operations. NASA provided suggestions regarding the rescue cages that were specially-designed to pull the trapped miners out of the narrow shaft that was drilled to rescue them, and also is providing on-site expert advice on medical, nutritional and behavioral health issues.
“What we brought to the table for the Chileans was our experience in behavior health support, not only in terms of the confinement and entrapment for that period of time but also what the miners and the families could experience once the miner had been rescued,” said Dr. Michael Duncan, who led the team of NASA experts who traveled to Chile, in answer to a question posed by Universe Today during a web chat. “In working with our astronauts and their families we prepare them beforehand and we support them during the mission and we support them after the astronaut returns. And I think our expertise in those areas was very helpful for the Chilean doctors and psychologists.”
Among NASA’s suggestions were an increased supplement of Vitamin D to normalize sleep patterns and developing an organized daily routine that includes exercise.
NASA also helped with diet suggestions which would help their well being during their entrapment, as well as making sure the miners would be well enough and trim enough to ride in the rescue capsule.
Indeed, the miners have emerged looking healthy and several have bounded out from the capsule, running to hug family and friends or greet the cheering crowd.
When the Chilean engineers decided a capsule was the best way to rescue 33 trapped miners, the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) provided about 75 recommendations, said Clinton Cragg, principal engineer at NESC, in an interview on WAVY.com. Most of those design elements found their way into the 4-meter (13 foot) 420 kg (926-pound) capsule dubbed “Phoenix.”
With the cramped, one-at-a-time ride taking 20 minutes or more, the miners are monitored by video on the way up for any sign of distress or panic. They have oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from unfamiliar daylight and sweaters for the huge temperature differences from the heat of underground to the chilling cold in the high altitude Atacama Desert in Chile.
Satellite image of the San Jose Mine area where the miners were trapped. NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using Earth Observer-1 satellite.
“The Chileans had a very limited set of requirements that they had given their own engineers with regards to how to design this cage, and that was primarily length, diameter, and weight,” said Duncan. “Looking at the video of the cage, some of these things they’ve certainly incorporated into their design.”
In an image from video, rescuer Manuel Gonzalez Pavez reaches the 33 miners in the collapsed mine. Source: AP
Now that the miners are safe, Duncan said each will be observed for any medical conditions that they may have developed. “Of course, we’re looking for things like skin infections or infections of the sinuses or the lungs,” he said during the web chat. “Something that they may have acquired due to exposure to the warm, humid and dusty conditions in the mine.”
In regards to the psychological health of the miners, Duncan said doctors and psychologists have been working with the miners and their families in an effort to educate them on these types of issues and the sudden celebrity that the miners now find themselves in, and they hope to try to prevent any future psychological issues from occurring.
The NASA team assisting the Chilean rescue included two medical doctors, Duncan and J.D Polk; psychologist Al Holland and Cragg.
“I am proud of the people of this agency who were able to bring the experience of spaceflight down to Earth when it was needed most,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden in a statement. “As the drama of this rescue continues to unfold before us, we pray for the safe return of each and every miner.”
A new NASA image of Earth, by Robert Simmon and Marit Jentoft-Nilsen, based on MODIS data.
[/caption]
Despite recent news of potential habitable exoplanets and amazing images of Mars and the Saturn system returned from visiting spacecraft, the ol’ home planet is still about the most gorgeous-looking planetary body out there. We first saw it as a whole “blue marble” when the Apollo astronauts sent back pictures while circling the Moon, and it has been said that the original “Blue Marble” image taken by the Apollo 17 crew has been one of the most viewed and most influential images ever. But truth be told, that “Blue Marble” really wasn’t all that blue (see the original below). However, this new look at the home world shows how prevalent water really is. This composite image is based largely on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.
It sure is pretty.
According to the NASA Earth Observatory website, Earth’s water content is about 1.39 billion cubic kilometers (331 million cubic miles), with the bulk of it, about 96.5%, being in the global oceans. As for the rest, approximately 1.7% is stored in the polar icecaps, glaciers, and permanent snow, and another 1.7% is stored in groundwater, lakes, rivers, streams, and soil. Only a thousandth of 1% of the water on Earth exists as water vapor in the atmosphere.
Here’s the original “Blue Marble,” the view of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is Madagascar. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast.
The original 'Blue Marble' taken by Apollo 17. Credit: NASA
Those lucky enough to have gone to space have come back with a changed perspective and reverence for the planet Earth. Unlike the time of the first space explorers, we now have video and still cameras streaming back images from space, and we can get an inkling of what Earth must look like up there from orbit . The International Space Station orbits the Earth, completing one trip around the globe every 92 minutes. Cruising along at 27,700 km (17,200 miles) per hour, the astronauts experience 15 or 16 sunrises and -sets every day. This sequence of time-lapse photographs reveals the views from roughly half an orbit of the International Space Station, beginning with sunrise over Northern Europe to sunset southeast of Australia, on April 12, 2010. Visible is the visiting space shuttle Discovery, during the STS-131 mission. Continue reading “Sunrise to Sunset: Time-Lapse View from the ISS”
Hurricane Earl on Sept. 2, 2010 as seen by NASA's Terra Satellite. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team
[/caption]
NASA scientists, instruments and spacecraft are busy studying Hurricane Earl from both the air and space, and an unmanned aircraft actually flew inside the giant storm. Above is a satellite image from NASA’s Terra satellite, and below is an image taken by one of the astronauts on board the International Space Station, Doug Wheelock. Three NASA aircraft carrying 15 instruments have been flying above, below and into Earl as part the new Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes mission, or GRIP, which GRIP is designed to help improve our understanding of how hurricanes such as Earl form and intensify rapidly.
See below for a couple of NASA websites where you can see real-time data about Hurricane Earl.
Hurricane Earl as seen from the ISS, taken by astronaut Doug Wheelock. Credit: NASA
The Global Hawk is an unmanned aerial vehicle, and it made its first-ever flight over a hurricane on Sept. 2, and here’s the image of Earl as seen the morning of Sept. 2 from a high-definition camera aboard the aircraft.
NASA's Global Hawk in the Eye of Hurricane Earl on September 2, 2010. Credit: NASA
The photo show’s Hurricane Earl’s eye, and was taken from the HDVis camera on the underside of the Global Hawk aircraft at 13:05 UTC (9:05 a.m. EDT) on Sept. 2. The Global Hawk captured this photo from an altitude of 60,000 ft. (about 11.4 miles high). Here are some more hurricane photos.
Hurricane Earl's eye, as measured by NASA's HAMSR intrument on Sept. 2, 2010. credit: NASA-JPL/Data SIC/NOAA/U.S. Navy/NGA/GEBCO/Google
Among the instruments participating in GRIP is the High-Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer, or HAMSR. The instrument is able to show the 3-D distribution of temperature, water vapor and cloud liquid water in the atmosphere.
Earl’s eye is visible as the blue-green circular area in the center of the image, surrounded by orange-red. The eye is colored blue-green because the instrument is seeing the ocean surface, which appears cool to the instrument. The surrounding clouds appear warm because they shield the cooler ocean surface from view. Just north of the ring of clouds is a deep blue arch, which represents a burst of convection (intense thunderstorms). The pink crosses in the image represent lightning in the area, as measured by a lightning network. Ice particles and heavy precipitation in the convective storm cell cause it to appear cold.
The early evolution of Hurricane Earl is shown in this pair of images from JPL's APR-2 instrument. Credit: NASA/JPL
A second GRIP instrument is the Airborne Precipitation Radar (APR-2), a dual-frequency weather radar that is taking 3-D images of precipitation aboard NASA’s DC-8 aircraft. APR-2 is being used to help scientists understand the processes at work in hurricanes by looking at the vertical structure of the storms.
The two APR-2 hurricane images above show the early evolution of Hurricane Earl from a rather disorganized storm (left) to a better developed hurricane with a more distinct and smaller eye and sharper eyewall (right). The data, taken during southbound passes over Earl’s eye on Aug. 29 and 30, respectively, are essentially vertical slices of the storm. They correspond to the intensity of precipitation seen by the radar along the DC-8’s flight track. Intense convective precipitation (shown in shades of red and pink) was observed on both sides of the hurricane’s eye. The eye is indicated by the dark region near the middle of the images. The yellow-green-colored regions indicate areas of lighter precipitation. The white lines near the bottom are the ocean surface.
Near-real-time images from HAMSR and APR-2 are being displayed on NASA’s TC-IDEAS website at . The website is a near-real-time tropical cyclone data resource and it integrates data from satellites, models and direct measurements from many sources, to help researchers quickly locate information about current and recent oceanic and atmospheric conditions. The composite images and data are updated every hour and are displayed using a Google Earth plug-in. With a few mouse clicks, users can manipulate data and overlay multiple data sets to provide insights on storms that aren’t possible by looking at single data sets alone.
The progress of NASA’s GRIP aircraft can be followed in near-real-time when they are flying at this website. “Click to start RTMM Classic” will download a KML file that displays in Google Earth.
NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation (ICESat) mission is now on ice, so to speak, or perhaps we should say, it ultimately became an inferno. The satellite was intentionally deorbited and burned up in the atmosphere on August 30, after completing a very productive seven-year scientific stint in orbit. And talk about the ultimate high-stakes, high-adventure, hands-on student project: students at the University of Colorado Boulder conducted the final maneuvers to send the spacecraft to its fiery death.
ICESat’s science mission ended in February 2010 when its primary instrument failed. NASA lowered the satellite’s orbit this summer and then decommissioned the spacecraft in preparation for re-entry. The satellite largely burned up, (NASA calculated that no more than 90 kg (200 pounds) of the ICESat’s original 900 kg (2,000 pounds) would survive re-entry) with pieces of debris falling into the Barents Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean north of Norway and Russia.
Originally a slated for 3 year mission, it continued for seven years and 15 laser-operations campaigns. While the GLAS instrument failed, the spacecraft itself remained in operating condition, so NASA could fire its thrusters to lower its orbit. This began in June, and reduced the lowest point of the spacecraft’s orbit to 125 miles (200 km) above Earth’s surface. The orbit then naturally decayed, but the final maneuvering was controlled by a group of students from the University of Colorado, working at the school’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). They sent it successfully plummeting through Earth’s atmosphere at just the right moment so that the satellite’s remains would land in the chilly – and uninhabited — seas north of Norway and Russia.
“They ran calculations to determine where the spacecraft was located,” said Darrin Osborne, flight director for ICESat.
The student operators provide a lower cost to NASA, and CU students at LASP receive hands-on training and experience that helps position them for a future in space-related careers.
“It’s amazing for an undergraduate like me to get hands-on experience controlling multimillion-dollar NASA satellites,” said third-year aerospace engineering sciences student Katelynn Finn, quoted in an article in The Register. ICESat orbital image. Credit: NASA
ICESat was launched in January, 2003, and was the first mission of its kind, designed to study Earth’s polar regions with a space-based laser altimeter called the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System, or GLAS. ICESat has helped in our understanding of ice sheet and sea ice dynamic, leading to scientific advances in measuring changes in the mass of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, polar sea ice thickness, vegetation-canopy heights, and the heights of clouds and aerosols. Using ICESat data, scientists identified a network of lakes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. ICESat introduced new capabilities, technology and methods such as the measurement of sea ice freeboard – or the amount of ice and snow that protrudes above the ocean surface – for estimating sea ice thickness.
A final eulogy for the satellite was offered by NASA’s Earth Science Mission Operations office: “The ICESat mission operations team is commended for its exceptional performance, working tirelessly for the past eleven years (four years of preparation and seven years of operations), overcoming several obstacles in the early years of the mission, and closing out the mission with a flawless series of orbital maneuvers before final decommissioning. The positive control maintained over the mission right to the end shows the quality and effort that went into designing, building, qualifying, launching, and operating a tremendously successful mission such as ICESat.”
