A 3-D image from the Rosetta spacecraft showing Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and its boulder-strewn 'neck' region. Also visible is an exposed cliff face and numerous crater-like depressions. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.
You always have a pair of those cardboard red-blue 3-D glasses by your desk, right? Well, grab them and take a look at this view of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, just out from the Rosetta mission team. It almost feels like you’re right there with the spacecraft.
Notice the cliffs (see the exposed layers there?), boulders and depressions. The 3-D image was created using two images (you can see the two images here at the ESA blog) They were both taken on 7 August 2014, from a distance of 104 kilometres through the orange filter of the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera. ESA says the two images are separated by 17 minutes and the exposure time is 138 milliseconds.
We’re total litterbugs. Here on Earth, and out in space. What are some strategies that have been developed to clean up all that junk in space and make it safer to explore?
Humans are great at lots of things. We’ve built amazing landmarks, great works of art, and have a legacy of unique cultures and languages spanning the globe…
We’re also great at not cleaning up after ourselves. As if the oceanic garbage patches weren’t enough, humans are actually filling space with junk too.
That’s okay, right? Space might be infinite, and if you average the amount of stuff we know about versus the amount of space, there’s barely anything out there at all. Space can handle all that junk, right? Right? Sure it can! Space is just fine. Don’t you worry for one second about space. Space is big. Sure it’d kill us in a heartbeat, but it’s got no feelings to hurt! It’s just space!
Now I’m going to encourage you to be a little selfish, as this actually a problem for us. I know, it’s hard to believe that somehow, with our baked-in levels of neglect, we’re creating a global problem for us and future generations. I feel like this our thing now. It’s what defines us. Our littering up of space might prevent humans from ever being able to escape our planet again.
Here’s the deal. In the decades that humans have been launching stuff into space, nobody ever thought too hard about what we should do about our rockets and satellites after we’re done with them. It’s not like you can ever fill up space.
Astronomers are currently tracking 19,000 individual objects larger than 5 cm, and there are likely more than 300,000 objects smaller than 1 cm. All this stuff sticks around and continues to orbit the Earth. Over time debris collides with more debris, creating smaller and smaller pieces of space junk.
Some scientists are concerned that we might reach a point where this junk forms an impenetrable shield of shrieking metal around the Earth, that would tear apart any spacecraft that tries to leave our planet. I like to call this the “Spacelitter Singularity”. It’s an unstoppable cascade of collisions and chaos that converts the area around the Earth into a relentless blender of progressively smaller and smaller high velocity projectiles. Which would be bad.
Image plot of space junk. Image credit: NASA
So, how do we avoid that? How can we minimize the amount of space junk we throw into orbit? And how can get rid of the garbage that’s already out there? For starters, anyone launching stuff into space needs to minimize the amount of debris they generate. Rockets should maneuver back into the atmosphere to burn up. Astronauts need to keep track of their tools and gloves.
Engineers would also need to plan out what will happen to their spacecraft at the end of their lives. Instead of letting them just die, mission controllers need to be able to maneuver spacecraft into a safer parking orbit, or alternately, back into the atmosphere.
Something will need to be done with the space junk that’s already out there, chopping itself into smaller and smaller pieces. One idea is to have a one-up, one-down policy rule for companies. For every spacecraft they launch, they collect and de-orbit another spacecraft in roughly the same orbit. Or we could create a special junk removal spacecraft.
Space Junk. Image credit: Jonas Bendiksen/Eurasianet.org
These would use efficient ion engines to track and dock with pieces of space junk, collecting them together. Once the spacecraft had collected enough material, or run out of fuel, it could be safely de-orbited, or possibly transform into garbage truck Voltron.
The most awesome idea I’ve come across is to build a space-based laser system that could target and fire on pieces of space debris as they go by. Small pieces would be vaporized, and larger objects would be slowed down as the vaporization would act as a decelerating thrust, lowering their orbit. That’s right, one solution is to build a real life game of Asteroids.
Once again, a lack of forethought has a created a problem that will trouble future generations. Getting into space in the first place is super hard, and cleaning it up is going to take more work than we ever thought.
What do you think? How should we clean up space to make it safe for future generations of space faring humans? Tell us in the comments below.
And if you like what you see, come check out our Patreon page and find out how you can get these videos early while helping us bring you more great content!
Center section of the "pathfinder" (test) backplane of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is hoisted into place in the assembly stand in NASA Goddard's giant cleanroom. Engineers will practice mirror installations over the next several months. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
The central piece of the “pathfinder” backplane that will hold all the mirrors for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has arrived at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland for critical assembly testing on vital parts of the mammoth telescope.
The pathfinder backplane arrived at Goddard in July and has now been hoisted in place onto a huge assembly stand inside Goddard’s giant cleanroom where many key elements of JWST are being assembled and tested ahead of the launch scheduled for October 2018.
The absolutely essential task of JWST’s backplane is to hold the telescopes 18 segment, 21-foot-diameter primary mirror nearly motionless while floating in the utterly frigid space environment, thereby enabling the telescope to peer out into deep space for precise science gathering measurements never before possible.
Over the next several months, engineers will practice installing two spare primary mirror segments and one spare secondary mirror onto the center part of the backplane.
JWST pathfinder backplane has arrived here at NASA Goddard clean room.
JWST is being assembled here inside the world’s largest clean room at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Primary mirror segments stored in silver colored containers at top left. Technicians practice mirror installation on test piece of backplane (known as the BSTA or Backplane Stability Test Article) at center, 3 hexagonals. Pathfinder backplane has been hoisted into telescope assembly bays at right. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
The purpose is to gain invaluable experience practicing the delicate procedures required to precisely install the hexagonal shaped mirrors onto the actual flight backplane unit after it arrives.
The telescopes primary and secondary flight mirrors have already arrived at Goddard.
The mirrors must remained precisely aligned in space in order for JWST to successfully carry out science investigations. While operating at extraordinarily cold temperatures between -406 and -343 degrees Fahrenheit the backplane must not move more than 38 nanometers, approximately 1/1,000 the diameter of a human hair.
The backplane and every other component must function and unfold perfectly and to precise tolerances in space because JWST has not been designed for servicing or repairs by astronaut crews voyaging beyond low-Earth orbit into deep space, William Ochs, Associate Director for JWST at NASA Goddard told me in an interview during a visit to JWST at Goddard.
Watch this video showing movement of the pathfinder backplane into the Goddard cleanroom.
Video Caption: This is a time-lapse video of the center section of the ‘pathfinder’ backplane for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope being moved into the clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
The actual flight backplane is comprised of three segments – the main central segment and a pair of outer wing-like parts which will be folded over into launch configuration inside the payload fairing of the Ariane V ECA booster rocket. The telescope will launch from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana in 2018.
Both the backplane flight unit and the pathfinder unit, which consists only of the center part, are being assembled and tested by prime contractor Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California.
Gold coated flight spare of a JWST primary mirror segment made of beryllium and used for test operations inside the NASA Goddard clean room. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
The test unit was then loaded into a C-5, flown to the U.S. Air Force’s Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and unloaded for transport by trailer truck to NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, Maryland.
JWST is the successor to the 24 year old Hubble Space Telescope and will become the most powerful telescope ever sent to space.
Webb is designed to look at the first light of the Universe and will be able to peer back in time to when the first stars and first galaxies were forming.
A comparison of the primary mirror used by Hubble and the primary mirror array used by the James Webb Space Telescope. Photo Credit: NASA
The Webb Telescope is a joint international collaborative project between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
NASA has overall responsibility and Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for JWST.
Read my story about the recent unfurling test of JWST’s sunshade – here.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news.
The Webb telescope backplane “pathfinder” or practice-model was unloaded from a C-5 aircraft at the U.S. Air Force’s Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Image Credit: NASA/Desiree Stover Artist’s concept of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with Sunshield at bottom. Credit: NASA/ESA
A still from the "Our Curiosity" video by Jeff Marlow/Caltech. Via @MarsCuriosity
In honor of the 2nd anniversary of the Curiosity rover reaching Mars, Caltech has put out a wonderful new video about the plucky little rover that has captured the hearts and imaginations of people around the world. And some familiar voices do the narration: astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson and actress Felicia Day. The video was created by Caltech planetary scientist Jeff Marlow, and he called it a “love letter” to the rover.
“As scientifically productive as the mission has been, Curiosity’s inspirational capacity may be its true value, its ability to make us feel as if we too are there, crunching on red dirt, pondering the planet’s past environments,” Marlow wrote on Wired.
Enjoy the look back at Curiosity’s travels so far. If you’re like me, the last line in the video (spoken by de Grasse Tyson) will really get you.
Find out more about the video at ourcuriosity.org, where they promise a “making of” video and more will be available soon.
This plot of data captured by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shows X-ray light streaming from regions near a supermassive black hole known as Markarian 335. Credit: NASA
NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has captured a spectacular event: a supermassive black hole’s gravity tugging on nearby X-ray light.
In just a matter of days, the corona — a cloud of particles traveling near the speed of light — fell in toward the black hole. The observations are a powerful test of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which says gravity can bend space-time, the fabric that shapes our universe, and the light that travels through it.
“The corona recently collapsed in toward the black hole, with the result that the black hole’s intense gravity pulled all the light down onto its surrounding disk, where material is spiraling inward,” said coauthor Michael Parker from the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, United Kingdom, in a press release.
The supermassive black hole, known as Markarian 335, is about 324 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Pegasus. Such an extreme system squeezes about 10 million times the mass of our Sun into a region only 30 times the diameter of the Sun. It spins so rapidly that space and time are dragged around with it.
NASA’s Swift satellite has monitored Mrk 335 for years, recently noting a dramatic change in its X-ray brightness. So NuSTAR was redirected to take a second look at the system.
NuSTAR has been collecting X-rays from black holes and dying stars for the past two years. Its specialty is analyzing high-energy X-rays in the range of 3 to 79 kiloelectron volts. Observations in lower-energy X-ray light show a black hole obscured by clouds of gas and dust. But NuSTAR can take a detailed look at what’s happening near the event horizon, the region around a black hole form which light can no longer escape gravity’s grasp.
Specifically, NuSTAR is able to see the corona’s direct light, and its reflected light off the accretion disk. But in this case, the light is blurred due to the combination of a few factors. First, the doppler shift is affecting the spinning disk. On the side spinning away from us, the light is shifted to redder wavelengths (and therefore lower energy), whereas on the side spinning toward us, the light is shifted to bluer wavelengths (and therefore higher energy). A second effect has to do with the enormous speeds of the spinning black hole. And a final effect is from the gravity of the black hole, which pulls on the light, causing it to lose energy.
All of these factors cause the light to smear.
Intriguingly, NuSTAR observations also revealed that the grip of the black hole’s gravity pulled the corona’s light onto the inner portion of the accretion disk, better illuminating it. NASA explains that as if somebody had shone a flashlight for the astronomers, the shifting corona lit up the precise region they wanted to study.
“We still don’t understand exactly how the corona is produced or why it changes its shape, but we see it lighting up material around the black hole, enabling us to study the regions so close in that effects described by Einstein’s theory of general relativity become prominent,” said NuSTAR Principal Investigator Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology. “NuSTAR’s unprecedented capability for observing this and similar events allows us to study the most extreme light-bending effects of general relativity.”
The new data will likely shed light on these mysterious coronas, where the laws of physics are pushed to their limit.
The article has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is available online.
A Soyuz spacecraft on the International Space Station (front) above the lights of Europe. Picture taken during Expedition 40. Credit: Reid Wiseman/Twitter
A lot of action happens on Earth at night! Just ask NASA’s Reid Wiseman, a prolific picture-tweeter who recently uploaded a series of images of night lights shining all around the world.
From his perch on the International Space Station, Wiseman sent pictures showing borders from space, that glowing punch in the desert landscape that is Dubai, and clouds rolling in over the bright lights of Los Angeles. Check out some samples below the jump.
Actor Robin Williams rose to international fame in the 1980s playing the role of an alien, Mork, in the sitcom Mork & Mindy. Credit: ABC/YouTube (screenshot)
The second man to walk on the moon spoke again about his struggles with depression after actor Robin Williams, 63, died Monday of an apparent suicide. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin urged compassion, and said those with the illness should have access to all the resources needed for treatment.
“I regarded Robin Williams as a friend and fellow sufferer. His passing is a great loss,” Aldrin wrote on his Facebook page yesterday (Aug. 12).
“The torment of depression and the complications of addiction that accompany it affect millions, including myself and family members before me – my grandfather committed suicide before I was born and my mother the year before I went to the moon – along with hundreds of veterans who come to a similar fate each year. As individuals and as a nation we need to be compassionate and supportive of all who suffer and give them the resources to face life.”
Williams rose to international fame in the 1980s after playing an alien Mork (from the planet Ork) on the sitcom Mork & Mindy. He also was noted for his roles in the movies Mrs. Doubtfire, Aladdin and Good Will Hunting, among many others. After his death was made public, NASA posted a link to Twitter of this video (below) of Williams giving a wake-up call to space shuttle crew STS-26 in 1988 in the style of his Army DJ character in Good Morning, Vietnam.
If you’re facing depression, mental health services are available in most jurisdictions to give you help. Across the United States, for example, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on its website or by phone, 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255).
The last dawn pairing of Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon in the dawn sky in 2012... this month's will be much tighter! Credit: Tavi Greiner.
“What are those two bright stars in the morning sky?”
About once a year we can be assured that we’ll start fielding inquires to this effect, as the third and fourth brightest natural objects in the sky once again meet up.
We’re talking about a conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Venus. Venus has been dominating the dawn sky for 2014, and Jupiter is fresh off of solar conjunction on the far side of the Sun on July 24th and is currently racing up to greet it.
We just caught sight of Jupiter for the first time for this apparition yesterday from our campsite on F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We’d just wrapped up an early vigil for Perseid meteors and scrambled to shoot a quick sequence of the supermoon setting behind a distant wind farm. Jupiter was an easy catch, first with binoculars, and then the naked eye, using brilliant Venus as a guide post.
The view looking eastward at dawn on August 18th, including a five degree telrad (red circles) and a one degree telescopic field of view (inset). Created using Stellarium.
And Jupiter will become more prominent as the week progresses, climaxing with a fine conjunction of the pair on Monday, August 18th. This will be the closest planet versus planet conjunction for 2014. At their closest — around 4:00 Universal Time or midnight Eastern Daylight Saving Time — Venus and Jupiter will stand only 11.9’ apart, less than half the diameter of a Full Moon. This will make the pair an “easy squeeze” into the same telescopic field of view at low power. Venus will shine at magnitude -3.9, while Jupiter is currently about 2 magnitudes or 6.3 times fainter at magnitude -1.8. In fact, Jupiter shines about as bright as another famous star just emerging into the dawn sky, Sirius. Such a dawn sighting is known as a heliacal rising, and the first recovery of Sirius in the dawn heralded the flooding of the Nile for the ancient Egyptians and the start what we now term the Dog Days of Summer.
To the naked eye, enormous Jupiter will appear to be the “moon” that Venus never had next weekend. The spurious and legendary Neith reported by astronomers of yore lives! You can imagine the view of the Earth and our large Moon as a would-be Venusian astronomer stares back at us (you’d have to get up above those sulfuric acid clouds, of course!)
Said conjunction is only a product of our Earthly vantage point. Venus currently exhibits a waxing gibbous disk 10” across — three times smaller than Jupiter — but Venus is also four times closer to Earth at 1.61 astronomical units distant. And from Jupiter’s vantage point, you’d see a splendid conjunction of Venus and the Earth, albeit only three degrees from the Sun:
Earth meets Venus, as seen from Jupiter on August 18th. Note the Moon nearby. Created using Starry Night Education Software.
How often do the two brightest planets in the sky meet up? Well, Jupiter reaches the same solar longitude (say, returns back to opposition again) about once every 13 months. Venus, however, never strays more than 47.1 degrees elongation from the Sun and can thus always be found in either the dawn or dusk sky. This means that Jupiter pairs up with Venus roughly about once a year:
A list of Venus and Jupiter conjunctions, including angular separation and elongations (west=dawn, east=dusk) from now until 2020. Created by author.
Note that next year and 2019 offer up two pairings of Jupiter and Venus, while 2018 lacks even one. And the conjunction on August 27th, 2016 is only 4’ apart! And yes, Venus can indeed occult Jupiter, although that hasn’t happened since 1818 and won’t be seen again from Earth until – mark your calendars – November 22nd, 2065, though only a scant eight degrees from the Sun. Hey, maybe SOHO’s solar observing successor will be on duty by then…
Venus has been the culprit in many UFO sightings, as pilots have been known to chase after it and air traffic controllers have made furtive attempts to hail it over the years. And astronomy can indeed save lives when it comes to conjunctions: in fact, last year’s close pairing of Jupiter and Venus in the dusk sky nearly sparked an international incident, when Indian Army sentries along the Himalayan border with China mistook the pair for Chinese spy drones. Luckily, Indian astronomers identified the conjunction before shots were exchanged!
Earth strikes back… firing a 5mw green laser at the 2013 conjunction of Jupiter and Venus. Photo by author.
Next week’s conjunction also occurs against the backdrop of Messier 44/Praesepe, also known as the “Beehive cluster”. It’ll be difficult to catch sight of M44, however, because the entire “tri-conjunction” sits only 18 degrees from the Sun in the dawn sky. Binocs or a low power field of view might tease out the distant cluster from behind the planetary pair.
And to top it off, the waning crescent Moon joins the group on the mornings of August 23rd and 24th, passing about five degrees distant. Photo op! Can you follow Venus up into the daytime sky, using the Moon as a guide? How about Jupiter? Be sure to block that blinding Sun behind a hill or building while making this attempt.
The Moon photobombs the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter on the weekend of August 23rd. Credit: Stellarium.
The addition of the Moon will provide the opportunity to catch a skewed “emoticon” conjunction. A rare smiley face “:)” conjunction occurred in 2009, and another tight skewed tri-conjunction is in the offering for 2056. While many national flags incorporate examples of close pairings of Venus and the crescent Moon, we feel at least one should include a “smiley face” conjunction, if for no other reason than to highlight the irony of the cosmos.
A challenge: can you catch a time exposure of the International Space Station passing Venus and Jupiter? You might at least pull off a “:/” emoticon image!
Don’t miss the astronomical action unfolding in a dawn sky near you over the coming weeks. And be sure to spread the word: astronomical knowledge may just well avert a global catastrophe. The fate of the free world lies in the hands of amateur astronomers!
A view of the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko taken by the Rosetta spacecraft Aug. 11, 2014. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM
Mark your calendars, astronomy geeks: exactly one year from today, the comet the Rosetta spacecraft is chasing will make its closest approach to the Sun. As Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko draws closer to the star, the radiation pressure will cause gas, ice and dust to stream off the comet in ever greater quantities, scientists expect.
But that process is already starting. Preliminary measurements by a dust detector aboard the Rosetta spacecraft show that dust is at least as frequent — or perhaps even more abundant — than what models have predicted. Meanwhile, as reported on Universe Today earlier this week, Rosetta’s COSIMA instrument is also doing dust measurements.
Rosetta’s Grain Impact Analyser and Dust Accumulator (GIADA) has already detected four dust grains on its impact sensor. The detections took place between Aug. 1 and Aug. 5 at various distances as Rosetta approached the comet, starting from as far as 814 kilometers (506 miles) to as close as 179 kilometers (111 miles). Rosetta arrived at the comet on Aug. 6.
The first impact was just a tad higher than the detection limit for GIADA, scientists said. They also estimated how big the grains are based on how quickly they crash into the impact detector — anywhere from tens of microns (the width of a human hair) to a few hundreds of microns across.
While the results are scientifically interesting, the European Space Agency pointed out that they will also have practical use.
An artist’s impression of the Grain Impact Analyser and Dust Accumulator (GIADA) on the Rosetta spacecraft, which is collecting dust from Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The inset is a an analog dust grain used in the laboratory to calibrate the instrument. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/GIADA/Univ Parthenope NA/INAF-OAC/IAA/INAF-IAPS
A lander called Philae is expected to touch down on the comet in November, so dust predictions will help planning for that. And for Rosetta itself, knowing the dust environment can help protect the spacecraft from strikes.
“GIADA will also provide inputs to other instruments on-board Rosetta, and will help improve coma dust models in support of the Philae landing operations,” ESA stated.
“Furthermore, GIADA will play an important role for the health and the safety of Rosetta and its instruments, providing information about the deposition rates of dust on optical components and critical parts of the spacecraft, such as the solar panels.”
ESA added that the grains themselves are likely a mixture of silicates, organics and some other stuff. Ice from the nucleus surrounds the grains, and the ice itself becomes a gas when the Sun warms the comet. Dust surrounds the comet in a coma and as it gets closer to the Sun, it streams out as a tail.
OCO-2 leads the international Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train, of Earth-observing satellites as shown in this artist's concept. Japan’s Global Change Observation Mission - Water (GCOM-W1) satellite and NASA’s Aqua, CALIPSO, CloudSat and Aura satellites follow. Credit: NASA
NASA’s first spacecraft dedicated to studying Earth’s atmospheric climate changing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and its carbon cycle has reached its final observing orbit and taken its first science measurements as the leader of the world’s first constellation of Earth science satellites known as the International “A-Train.”
The ‘first light’ measurements were conducted on Aug. 6 as the observatory flew over central Papua New Guinea and confirmed the health of the science instrument. See graphic below.
NASA’s OCO-2 spacecraft collected “first light” data Aug. 6 over New Guinea. OCO-2’s spectrometers recorded the bar code-like spectra, or chemical signatures, of molecular oxygen or carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The backdrop is a simulation of carbon dioxide created from GEOS-5 model data. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NASA GSFC
Before the measurements could begin, mission controllers had to cool the observatory’s three-spectrometer instrument to its operating temperatures.
“The spectrometer’s optical components must be cooled to near 21 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 6 degrees Celsius) to bring them into focus and limit the amount of heat they radiate. The instrument’s detectors must be even cooler, near minus 243 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 153 degrees Celsius), to maximize their sensitivity,” according to a NASA statement.
The team still has to complete a significant amount of calibration work before the observatory is declared fully operational.
OCO-2 was launched just over a month ago during a spectacular nighttime blastoff on July 2, 2014, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, atop a the venerable United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket.
OCO-2 arrived at its final 438-mile (705-kilometer) altitude, near-polar orbit on Aug. 3 at the head of the international A-Train following a series of propulsive burns during July. Engineers also performed a thorough checkout of all of OCO-2’s systems to ensure they were functioning properly.
“The initial data from OCO-2 appear exactly as expected — the spectral lines are well resolved, sharp and deep,” said OCO-2 chief architect and calibration lead Randy Pollock of JPL, in a statement.
“We still have a lot of work to do to go from having a working instrument to having a well-calibrated and scientifically useful instrument, but this was an important milestone on this journey.”
Artist’s rendering of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2, one of five new NASA Earth science missions set to launch in 2014, and one of three managed by JPL. Credit: NASA-JPL/Caltech
OCO-2 now leads the A-Train constellation, comprising five other international Earth orbiting monitoring satellites that constitute the world’s first formation-flying “super observatory” that collects an unprecedented quantity of nearly simultaneous climate and weather measurements.
Scientists will use the huge quantities of data to record the health of Earth’s atmosphere and surface environment as never before possible.
OCO-2 is followed in orbit by the Japanese GCOM-W1 satellite, and then by NASA’s Aqua, CALIPSO, CloudSat and Aura spacecraft, respectively. All six satellites fly over the same point on Earth within 16 minutes of each other. OCO-2 currently crosses the equator at 1:36 p.m. local time.
OCO-2 poster. Credit: ULA/NASA
The 999 pound (454 kilogram) observatory is the size of a phone booth.
OCO-2 is equipped with a single science instrument consisting of three high-resolution, near-infrared spectrometers fed by a common telescope. It will collect global measurements of atmospheric CO2 to provide scientists with a better idea of how CO2 impacts climate change and is responsible for Earth’s warming.
During a minimum two-year mission the $467.7 million OCO-2 will take near global measurements to locate the sources and storage places, or ‘sinks’, for atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is a critical component of the planet’s carbon cycle.
OCO-2 was built by Orbital Sciences as a replacement for the original OCO which was destroyed during the failed launch of a Taurus XL rocket from Vandenberg back in February 2009 when the payload fairing failed to open properly and the spacecraft plunged into the ocean.
The OCO-2 mission will provide a global picture of the human and natural sources of carbon dioxide, as well as their “sinks,” the natural ocean and land processes by which carbon dioxide is pulled out of Earth’s atmosphere and stored, according to NASA.
Here’s a NASA description of how OCO-2 collects measurements.
As OCO-2 flies over Earth’s sunlit hemisphere, each spectrometer collects a “frame” three times each second, for a total of about 9,000 frames from each orbit. Each frame is divided into eight spectra, or chemical signatures, that record the amount of molecular oxygen or carbon dioxide over adjacent ground footprints. Each footprint is about 1.3 miles (2.25 kilometers) long and a few hundred yards (meters) wide. When displayed as an image, the eight spectra appear like bar codes — bright bands of light broken by sharp dark lines. The dark lines indicate absorption by molecular oxygen or carbon dioxide.
It will record around 100,000 precise individual CO2 measurements around the worlds entire sunlit hemisphere every day and help determine its source and fate in an effort to understand how human activities impact climate change and how we can mitigate its effects.
OCO-2 mission description. Credit: NASA
At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, there were about 280 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. As of today the CO2 level has risen to about 400 parts per million, which is the most in at least 800,000 years, says NASA.
OCO-2 is the second of NASA’s five new Earth science missions planned to launch in 2014 and is designed to operate for at least two years during its primary mission. It follows the successful blastoff of the joint NASA/JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite on Feb 27.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news.
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, NASA’s first mission dedicated to studying carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, lifts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, at 2:56 a.m. Pacific Time, July 2, 2014 on a Delta II rocket. The two-year mission will help scientists unravel key mysteries about carbon dioxide. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
