Diagram of Comet 67P/C-G compared to terrestrial landmarks (ESA)
Pretty darn big, I’d say.
The illustration above shows the relative scale of the comet that ESA’s Rosetta and Philae spacecraft will explore “up-close and personal” later this year. And while it’s one thing to say that the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is about three by five kilometers in diameter, it’s quite another to see it in context with more familiar objects. Think about it — a comet as tall as Mt Fuji!
Artist’s impression (not to scale) of the Rosetta orbiter deploying the Philae lander to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Credit: ESA–C. Carreau/ATG medialab.
At the time of this writing Rosetta is 35 days out on approach to Comet 67P/C-G, at a distance of about 51,000 km (31,700 miles) and closing. Three “big burn” maneuvers have already been performed between May 7 and June 4 to adjust the spacecraft’s course toward the incoming comet, and after smaller ones on June 18 and July 2 there are a total of five more to go. See details of Rosetta’s burn maneuvers here.
Luckily the remaining burns are relatively small compared to the first three, with the final being very brief, so any data contamination by Rosetta’s own exhaust shouldn’t become an issue once the spacecraft has established orbit in August.
Launched in March 2004, ESA’s Rosetta mission will be the first to orbit and land a probe on a comet, observing its composition and behavior as it makes its close approach to the Sun in 2015. Click here to see where Rosetta is right now.
Note: While 3-5 km seems pretty big (especially when stood on end) comet nuclei can be much larger, 10 to 20 km in diameter up to the enormous 40+ km size of Hale-Bopp. As comets go, 67P/C-G is fairly average. (Except that, come August, it will be the only comet with an Earthly spacecraft in tow!)
NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman reacts mid-shave as fellow Expediton 40 crew member Alexander Gerst looks on. Wiseman and fellow NASA astronaut Steve Swanson both were shaved bald after the U.S. lost 1-0 to Germany in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Credit: NASA / YouTube (screenshot)
Lose a soccer game and lose your hair. That’s apparently the deal that American astronauts made on the International Space Station last week, as commander Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman both were shaved bald after the U.S. lost to Germany 1-0 June 26 in the FIFA World Cup. Gleefully wielding the shaver was Alexander Gerst, who happens to be from Germany.
Despite their busy science schedule, the astronauts have been enthusiastically following (and tweeting about!) the games. Not to mention they did a couple of improvised soccer matches in zero gravity, complete with awesome celebratory dances. You can check out all the video action below.
Artist's conception of Rosetta's target, 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which is losing two 5-ounce (150 millileter cups) of water every second while still 362 million miles (583 million kilometers) from the sun. The water vapor output will increase as the comet gets closer; these measurements were made on June 6, 2014. Credit: ESA
Feeling thirsty? If you could somehow capture the water vapor from Rosetta’s comet, you would have the equivalent of two water glasses every second. That’s more than scientists expected given that Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is still screaming into the inner solar system at more than double the distance from Mars to the Sun.
“We always knew we would see water vapor outgassing from the comet, but we were surprised at how early we detected it,” stated Sam Gulkis, the instrument’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
“At this rate, the comet would fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in about 100 days. But, as it gets closer to the Sun, the gas production rate will increase significantly. With Rosetta, we have an amazing vantage point to observe these changes up close and learn more about exactly why they happen.”
Comets are sometimes called “dirty snowballs” because they are collection of debris and ices. From their origin points in the outer solar system, occasionally one will be pushed towards the Sun.
Artist’s impression (not to scale) of the Rosetta orbiter deploying the Philae lander to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Credit: ESA–C. Carreau/ATG medialab.
As it gets closer, the ices bleed off and the comet develops an envelope of gases that eventually, with the Sun’s help, will turn into a tail. Some of the major “volatiles” include water, carbon monoxide, methanol and ammonia.
The observations were made on June 6 by an instrument called the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO), taken when the spacecraft was about 218,000 miles (350,000 km) away from its target. MIRO is trying to figure out the relative ratios of the ingredients of the coma, and will keep following along with the comet as it makes its closest approach to the sun in August 2015.
Rosetta, meanwhile, will get up close to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko by August and if all goes well, subsequently deploy a lander called Philae to check out the surface of the comet.
Artist's impression (from 2002) of Rosetta orbiting Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Credit: ESA, image by AOES Medialab
It’s no surprise that there is a lot of water in comets. The “dirty snowballs” (or dusty ice-balls, more accurately) are literally filled with the stuff, so much in fact it’s thought that comets played a major role in delivering water to Earth. But every comet is unique, and the more we learn about them the more we can understand the current state of our Solar System and piece together the history of our planet.
ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft is now entering the home stretch for its rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August. While it has already visually imaged the comet on a couple of occasions since waking from its hibernation, its instruments have now successfully identified water on 67P for the first time, from a distance of 360,000 km — about the distance between Earth and the Moon.
The detection comes via Rosetta’s Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter, or MIRO, instrument. The results were distributed this past weekend to users of the IAU’s Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams:
S. Gulkis, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, on behalf of the Microwave Instrument on Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) science team, reports that the (1_10)-(1_01) water line at 556.9 GHz was first detected in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko with the MIRO instrument aboard the Rosetta spacecraft on June 6.55, 2014 UT. The line area is 0.39 +/-0.06 K km/s with the line amplitude of 0.48 +/-0.06 K and the line width of 0.76 +/-0.12 km/s. At the time of the observations, the spacecraft to comet distance was ~360,000 km and the heliocentric distance of the comet was 3.93 AU. An initial estimate of the water production rate based on the measurements is that it lies between 0.5 x 10^25 molecules/s and 4 x 10^25 molecules/s.
Although recent images of 67P/C-G seem to show that the comet’s brightness has decreased over the past couple of months, it is still on its way toward the Sun and with that will come more warming and undoubtedly much more activity. These recent measurements by MIRO show that the comet’s water production rate is “within the range of models being used” by scientists to anticipate its behavior.
Rosetta image of Comet 67P/C-G on June 4, 2014, from a distance of 430,000 km. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
This August Rosetta will become the first spacecraft to establish orbit around a comet and, in November, deploy its Philae lander onto its surface. Together these robotic explorers will observe first-hand the changes in the comet as it makes its closest approach to the Sun in August 2015. It’s going to be a very exciting year ahead, so stay tuned for more!
Artist's conception of the Gaia telescope backdropped by a photograph of the Milky Way taken at the European Southern Observatory. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab; background: ESO/S. Brunier
Europe’s powerful Milky Way mapper is facing some problems as controllers ready the Gaia telescope for operations. It turns out that there is “stray light” bleeding into the telescope, which will affect how well it can see the stars around it. Also, the telescope optics are also not transmitting as efficiently as the design predicted.
Controllers emphasize the light problem would only affect the faintest visible stars, and that tests are ongoing to minimize the impact on the mission. Still, there will be some effect on how well Gaia can map the stars around it due to this issue.
“While there will likely be some loss relative to Gaia’s pre-launch performance predictions, we already know that the scientific return from the mission will still be immense, revolutionizing our understanding of the formation and evolution of our Milky Way galaxy and much else,” wrote the Gaia project team in a blog post.
Both of these problems have been known publicly since April, and the team has been working hard in recent months to pinpoint the cause. Of the two of them, it appears the team is having the most success with the optics transmission problems. They have traced the issue to water vapor in the telescope that freezes (no surprise since Gaia operates between -100 degrees Celsius and -150 Celsius, or -148 Fahrenheit and -238 Fahrenheit.)
Soyuz VS06, with Gaia space observatory, lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport, French Guiana, on 19 December 2013. (ESA–S. Corvaja)
The team turned on heaters on Gaia (on its mirrors and focal plane) to get rid of the ice before turning the temperature back down so the telescope can do its work. While some ice was anticipated (that’s why the heaters were there) there was more than expected. The spacecraft is also expected to equalize its internal pressure over time, sending out gases that again, could freeze and cause interference, so more of these “decontamination” procedures are expected.
The stray light problem is proving to be more stubborn. The light waves from sunlight and brighter sources of light in the sky are likely moving around the sunshield and bleeding into the telescope optics, which was unexpected (but the team is now trying to model and explain.)
Perhaps it was more ice. The challenge is, there were no heaters placed into the thermal tent area that could be responsible for the issue, so the team at first considered moving the position of Gaia to have sunlight strike that area and melt the ice.
GAIA Telescope Array – Credit: ESA
Simulations showed no safety problems with the idea, but “there is currently no plan to do so,” the team wrote. That’s because some tests on ground equipment in European laboratories didn’t show any strong evidence for or against layers of ice interfering with the stray light. So there didn’t seem to be much point to doing the procedure.
So instead, the idea is to do “modified observing strategies” to collect the data and then tweaking the software on the spacecraft and on the ground to “best optimize the data we will collect,” Gaia managers wrote.
“The stray light is variable across Gaia’s focal plane and variable with time, and has a different effect on each of Gaia’s science instruments and the corresponding science goals. Thus, it is not easy to characterise its impact in a simple way,” they added. They predict, however, that a star at magnitude 20 (the limit of Gaia’s powers) would see its positional accuracy mapping reduced by about 50%, while stars that are brighter would have less impact.
A diagram of the Gaia telescope payload (largest size available). Credit: European Space Agency
“It is important to realize that for many of Gaia’s science goals, it is these relatively brighter stars and their much higher accuracy positions that are critical, and so it is good to see that they are essentially unaffected. Also, the total number of stars detected and measured will remain unchanged,” the managers added.
The team is also tracking a smaller issue with a system that is supposed to measure the angle of separation between the two telescopes of Gaia. It’s needed to measure how small changes in temperature affect the angle between the telescopes. While the system is just fine, the angle is varying more than expected, and more work will be needed to figure out what to do next.
But nevertheless, Gaia is just about ready to start a science session that will last about a month. The team expects to have a better handle on what the telescope is capable of, and how to work with these issues, after that time. Gaia operates about 1.5 million km (932,000 miles) away from Earth in a gravitationally stable point in space known as L2, so it’s a bit too far for a house call such as what we were used to with the Hubble Space Telescope.
Illustration of the ESA Planck Telescope in Earth orbit (Credit: ESA)
In 1964 the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) were founded, on February 29 and March 20 respectively, marking the beginning of Europe as a major space power and player in the new international venture to explore beyond our planet. A decade later these two entities merged to become ESA, and the rest, as it’s said, is history.
The video above commemorates ESA’s service to the cooperation and innovation of European nations in space, and indeed the entire world with many of the far-reaching exploration missions its member states have developed, launched and maintained. From advanced communications and observational satellites to its many missions exploring the worlds of the Solar System to capturing the light from the beginning of the Universe, ELDO, ESRO, and ESA have pushed the boundaries of science and technology in space for half a century… and are inspiring the next generation to continue exploring into the decades ahead. So happy anniversary, ESA — I can only imagine what we might be looking back on in another 50 years!
Source: ESA. See more key dates from ESA’s history here.
Artist's impression of the surface of Venus. Credit: ESA/AOES
Venus is definitely not a friendly planet for humanity. Soviet landers that arrived on the surface a few decades back were crushed pretty quickly. Its surface temperature is more than 842 degrees Fahrenheit (450 degrees Celsius) and the atmosphere is full of noxious gases.
But descending into this pressure-filled cooker is exactly what Venus Express is going to do shortly. The European Space Agency spacecraft will conclude eight years of orbital operations with an attempt to fall into the planet. The maneuvers are complicated, and there’s no guarantee they will go as planned, but ESA plans to make the plunge by the end of this year.
For the better part of a decade, Venus Express has been orbiting the planet every 24 hours, swinging in an elliptical orbit that ranges from 155 miles (250 kilometers ) to 41,010 miles (66,000 kilometers). But now the spacecraft is almost out of fuel, and will now be redirected for “experimental aerobreaking” to slow down through skimming the atmosphere.
The maneuvers will take place between June 18 and July 17, where controllers hope to gain some information about the planet’s magnetic field, solar wind, temperature and pressure.
“The campaign also provides the opportunity to develop and practice the critical operations techniques required for aerobraking, an experience that will be precious for the preparation of future planetary missions that may require it operationally,” stated Paolo Ferri, head of mission operations.
No one is sure if the spacecraft will run out of fuel, or even if it survives, but if it does its orbit could be raised to do a few more scientific observations of the planet before going into the atmosphere forever.
Venus’ Express scientific treasure trove includes measuring hydrogen atom escape in the atmosphere, checking out the planet’s clouds and tracking the slowing rotation of the planet (which is happening for reasons that are not quite clear.) It also discovered an ozone layer on the planet.
Comet Jacques as imaged on March 18th, shortly after discovery. Credit: Efrain Morales Rivera.
A recently discovered comet is headed northward and is set to put on one of two fine performances for binocular observers in 2014 starting this week.
Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques was discovered on March 13th 2014 by Cristóvão Jacques, Eduardo Pimentel and João Ribeiro de Barros while observing from the Southern Observatory for Near Earth Asteroids Research (SONEAR) facility located near Oliveira, Brazil.
The comet was just about at +15th magnitude at the time of discovery as it glided across the southern hemisphere constellation of Centaurus.
While a majority of comet discoveries are destined to remain small and faint, Comet Jacques was immediately shown to be something special. Upon discovery of any new comet, the first task is to gain several observations hours or nights apart to accurately gauge its distance and orbit. Are astronomers looking at a small, garden variety comet close up, or a large, active one far away?
In the case of Comet Jacques, it was something in between: a comet about 1.22 Astronomical Units (A.U.s) distant at time of discovery. Comet Jacques is headed towards perihelion 0.66 A.U. from the Sun in early July and will pass 0.56 A.U. from Earth on August 28th. Follow up observations carried out using the iTelescope at Siding Spring Australia showed a slightly elongated coma about 2 arc minutes across shortly after discovery, and the comet has recently jumped up to magnitude +8 — ahead of the projected light curve — in just the past week.
The path of Comet Jacques, looking west from latitude 30 degree north 45 minutes after sunset. Credit: Starry Night.
We caught our first good look at Comet Jacques last night while setting up for the Virtual Star Party. While +10 magnitude or brighter is usually a pretty good rule of thumb for binocular visibility, we found that the comet was only apparent as a fuzzy smudge viewing it with a 8” Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope using averted vision at low power. Remember, the brightness of a comet is spread out over its apparent surface area, similar to viewing a diffuse nebula. Our first telescopic views of the ill-fated comet ISON as it breeched +10th magnitude were similar. Certainly, a nearby waxing crescent Moon in Gemini last night didn’t help.
How bright will Comet Jacques get? Current projections call for it to perhaps break naked eye visibility around +6th magnitude after June 1st and reach as bright as +4th magnitude in early July near perihelion. After its first evening act in May and June, Comet Jacques will reemerge in the dawn sky for northern hemisphere observers for Act 2 and trace a path northward paralleling the galactic plane through the star rich fields of Perseus, Cassiopeia, Cepheus and Cygnus in August and September of this year. If our luck holds out, Comet Jacques will remain above 6th magnitude until early September.
The path of Comet Jacques through the inner solar system. Credit: JPL solar system small body generator.
This comet also created a brief flurry of interest when it was revealed that it will pass just 0.085 AUs or 12,700,000 kilometers from Venus on July 13th, 2014. Though close, this is still 31 times the distance from Earth to the Moon. The only “eyes” that humanity has currently in operation around Venus is ESA’s Venus Express orbiter. During closest approach Comet Jacques will appear just over 3 degrees away from Venus as seen from our Earthly vantage point.
Another comet is also set to photobomb a planet, as Comet A1 Siding Spring passes a nominal distance of 0.0009 A.U.s or 135,000 kilometers from Mars this Fall on October 19th.
11 images of Comet Jacques stacked from May 3rd. Credit: Ian Griffin @IanGriffin.
The closest recorded passage of a comet near Earth was Comet D/1770 L1 Lexell in 1770, which passed us 0.015 A.U.s or 233 million kilometres distant.
Now on to Act 1. May finds Comet Jacques spending most of the month in the long rambling constellation of Monoceros. Currently moving just under 2 degrees a day, Comet Jacques crosses the celestial equator northward this week on May 8th. You’ll note its high orbital inclination of 156.4 degrees as it speeds northward. Comet Jacques has a long orbital period gauged at over 30,000 years — the last time Comet Jacques visited the inner solar system, our ancestors had the Last Glacial Maximum period to look forward to.
The projected light curve of comet Jacques with recent observations. Credit: Seiichi Yoshida/aerith.net.
Comet Jacques is currently the brightest comet “with a bullet,” edging out the +9th magnitude comets C/2012 K1 PanSTARRS gilding through Canes Venatici and comet C/2012 X1 LINEAR, currently residing in the constellation of Aquila the Eagle. A great place to keep up with current observations of comets is the Comet Observation Database. We’re also pinging the IAU Minor Planet Center’s quick look page for new discoveries daily.
Here are some highlights to watch out for as Comet Jacques heads towards perihelion. Passages within one degree — twice the size of the Full Moon — near stars brighter than +5th magnitude are noted unless mentioned otherwise:
The celestial path of Comet Jacques from May 3rd through June 1st. Credit: Starry Night.
May 8th: Passes the +4.1 magnitude star Delta Monocerotis and crosses north of the celestial equator.
May 10th: Passes planetary nebula NGC 2346.
May 11th: Passes briefly into Canis Minor before reentering the constellation Monoceros.
May 14th: Full Moon occurs, marking the start of a favorable two week period of moonless evenings soon after.
May 24th: Passes the +4.8 magnitude star 17 Monocerotis.
May 28th: New Moon occurs, marking the return of the Moon to early evening skies.
May 29th: Passes the +4.7 magnitude star 15 Monocerotis.
May 30th: Passes the Christmas tree cluster. Photo op!
May 31st: The waxing crescent Moon passes less than 8 degrees from Comet Jacques.
June 1st: Comet Jacques reaches naked eye visibility?
June 6th: Crosses into the constellation Gemini.
June 11th: Crosses into the constellation Taurus.
June 13th: Full Moon occurs.
June 14th: Crosses the galactic plane.
June 21st: Passes into the field of view of SOHO’s LASCO C3 camera.
June 27th: New Moon occurs.
July 2nd: Reaches perihelion at 0.6638 A.U. from the Sun.
July 8th: Crosses north of the ecliptic plane.
July 13th: Passes 0.085 A.U. from Venus.
August 28th: Passes 0.56 A.U. from Earth.
And thus, Comet Jacques joins the parade of fine binocular comets in the 2014 night sky, as the stage is set for Act 2 this fall. And keep in mind, the next “big one” could grace our skies at anytime… more to come!
The images are pouring in. While most of North America slept this AM, Australians were treated to the very first solar eclipse of 2014 earlier today. And while this particular eclipse was a partial one only from the Australian continent, it still offered observers a fine view of an often elusive natural spectacle.
The partial eclipse as seen from Adelaide. Credit: Michael Drew (@MichaelDrew1234)
Although rain and clouds frustrated attempts to view the eclipse from much of southern Australia, clouds parted long enough in Queensland to the east and areas around Perth to the west to offer observers a fine view. Many eclipse watchers on the Australian east coast had the additional bonus of catching the setting Sun during the eclipse.
A quick screen shot from ESA’s Proba-2 spacecraft during one of the three passes of the solar eclipse. Credit: ESA/Proba-2.
We wrote about the prospects for catching this bizarre eclipse previously. The eclipse was a rare, non-central annular with one limit only, meaning the antumbra or inner core of the Moon’s shadow just grazed the edge of the planet over Antarctica. We haven’t yet heard if anyone witnessed it from the southern polar continent, though two year round research stations were located near the path of annularity. The European Space Agency operates Concordia Station nearby as part of its Human Spaceflight Activities program and they were aware of the upcoming event. We’ll keep you updated if reports or images surface!
The eclipse seen through clouds. Photographer David Herne also noted that while he used his D3100 DSLR for the shot, his homemade pinhole camera offered fine views as well! Credit: David Herne(@AunaEridu)/Perth Western Australia.
As predicted, another solar observing sentinel in low Earth orbit did indeed witness the eclipse. ESA’s Proba-2 spacecraft caught the eclipse on three passes in this amazing raw animation from its SWAP-2 camera. The final third pass goes by extremely quick –these are measured in minutes from Proba-2’s swift vantage point – but the Sun looks well nigh to greater than 95% eclipsed by the Moon as it flies by.
The partial solar eclipse as seen from Adelaide, Australia. Credit: Silveryway.
There’s no word as of yet if the joint NASA/JAXA mission Hinode caught the eclipse as well, but we’ll keep you posted!
UPDATE: Courtesy of the European Space Agency and the Royal Observatory of Belgium, we now give you the full YouTube timelapse of the eclipse courtesy of Proba-2:
You’ll note that Proba-2 caught the partial phases on four separate passes… we also checked the sequence frame by frame, and although it looks like Proba-2 “may” have seen an annular – or even total – eclipse from space, it looks like it did so between captures!
This eclipse is one of two solar eclipses and four eclipses total for 2014. An interesting discussion occurred leading up to this eclipse as to the minimum number of eclipses that can occur in a year, which is four. If, however, you exclude faint lunar penumbrals, that number does indeed drop to two, both of which must be solar, which occurs in 2016. This also sparked a lively debate as to the naming of such a year on Twitter, with everything from a “Dwarf Eclipse Year” to “Nano Eclipse Cycle” and “Spurious Eclipse Year” being proposed. We liked the suitably esoteric and ready tweet-able term “declipsy” ourselves… thanks for the proposals and the lively discussion!
Cue Jaws music… a “shark fin” sunset eclipse. Credit: Geoffrey Wyatt/The Virtual Telescope Project.The partially-eclipsed Sun sinks into the west as seen from Brisbane, Australia on April 29, 2014. Credit and copyright: Teale Britstra.Partial solar eclipse in Adelaide, South Australia on April 29, 2014. Credit and copyright: Silveryway on Flickr.
Thanks also to all who sent in pics. We’ll be updating this post as more come in… and although eclipse season 1 of 2 may be over for now, 2014 still has another total lunar eclipse and a good partial solar in October, both visible from North America.
…And we’re only three years out and have just two more total solar eclipses to go until the historic total solar eclipse of August 21st, 2017…
Let the countdown begin!
UPDATE: Missed out on the solar eclipse today? Hey so did we, it happens to the best of us… luckily, YOU can now relive the all of the excitement of the eclipse courtesy of the folks from the Virtual Telescope Project in YouTube Splendor:
And finally: got pics of the partial solar eclipse that you took today and you want to share with the world? Put ’em up on Universe Today’s Flickr community and let us know!
The Zambezi River in Namibia floods the Caprivi plain in this picture captured from Sentinel-1A. The satellite was not only noted for its high resolution of the flood, but its ability to send the image quickly -- it was downloaded only two hours after it was acquired. Credit: European Space Agency
After dodging space debris and living to tell the tale, Sentinel-1A is now being put through its paces for its primary mission: to beam back pictures of the Earth as quickly as possible, to provide officials with the information they need during natural disasters or weather events.
The picture above gives a taste of what the European satellite will do when it’s fully commissioned. The picture of flooding in Namibia was downloaded only two hours after acquisition and then made available generally less than an hour after that, the European Space Agency said. Not only that, believe it or not — the view was socked in by cloud when the image was taken.
“Sentinel-1A’s ability to ‘see’ through cloud and rain and in pitch darkness make it particularly useful for monitoring floods and for offering images for emergency response,” the European Space Agency stated. “In fact, this area of the Caprivi plain was shrouded in thick cloud when the satellite acquired the image on 13 April.”
The satellite can also monitor long-term but serious weather events such as climate change, as the picture below of Pine Island Glacier shows.
The northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula as seen from Sentinel-1 on April 13, 2014. Credit: ESA
“As well as monitoring glaciers, Sentinel-1A is poised to generate timely maps of sea-ice conditions, particularly for the increasingly busy Arctic waters,” ESA stated. “Images from its advanced radar can be used to distinguish clearly between the thinner more navigable first-year ice and the hazardous, much thicker multiyear ice to help assure safe year-round navigation in polar waters.”
