Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
No place too remote: Enabling satellite connectivity from Pole to Pole
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team During the morning of March 20, 2015, a total solar eclipse was visible from parts of Europe, and a partial solar eclipse from northern Africa and northern Asia. NASA’s Terra satellite passed over the Arctic Ocean on March 20 at 10:45 UTC (6:45 a.m. EDT) and captured the eclipse’s shadow over the clouds in the Arctic Ocean.
Terra launched 25 years ago on Dec. 18, 1999. Approximately the size of a small school bus, the Terra satellite carries five instruments that take coincident measurements of the Earth system: Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR), Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT), and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS).
On Nov. 28, 2024, one of Terra’s power-transmitting shunt units failed. A response team reviewed Terra’s status and discussed potential impacts and options. Consequently, the team placed ASTER into Safe Mode. As a result, ASTER data are not currently being collected. All other instruments continue uninterrupted.
Image Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team
View the full article
-
By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Data from the SWOT satellite was used to calculate average water levels for lakes and reservoirs in the Ohio River Basin from July 2023 to November 2024. Yellow indicates values greater than 1,600 feet (500 meters) above sea level; dark purple represents water levels less than 330 feet (100 meters). Data from the U.S.-European Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission gives researchers a detailed look at lakes and reservoirs in a U.S. watershed.
The Ohio River Basin stretches from Pennsylvania to Illinois and contains a system of reservoirs, lakes, and rivers that drains an area almost as large as France. Researchers with the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) mission, a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), now have a new tool for measuring water levels not only in this area, which is home to more than 25 million people, but in other watersheds around the world as well.
Since early 2023, SWOT has been measuring the height of nearly all water on Earth’s surface — including oceans, lakes, reservoirs, and rivers — covering nearly the entire globe at least once every 21 days. The SWOT satellite also measures the horizontal extent of water in freshwater bodies. Earlier this year, the mission started making validated data publicly available.
“Having these two perspectives — water extent and levels — at the same time, along with detailed, frequent coverage over large areas, is unprecedented,” said Jida Wang, a hydrologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a member of the SWOT science team. “This is a groundbreaking, exciting aspect of SWOT.”
Researchers can use the mission’s data on water level and extent to calculate how the amount of water stored in a lake or reservoir changes over time. This, in turn, can give hydrologists a more precise picture of river discharge — how much water moves through a particular stretch of river.
The visualization above uses SWOT data from July 2023 to November 2024 to show the average water level above sea level in lakes and reservoirs in the Ohio River Basin, which drains into the Mississippi River. Yellow indicates values greater than 1,600 feet (500 meters), and dark purple represents water levels less than 330 feet (100 meters). Comparing how such levels change can help hydrologists measure water availability over time in a local area or across a watershed.
Complementing a Patchwork of Data
Historically, estimating freshwater availability for communities within a river basin has been challenging. Researchers gather information from gauges installed at certain lakes and reservoirs, from airborne surveys, and from other satellites that look at either water level or extent. But for ground-based and airborne instruments, the coverage can be limited in space and time. Hydrologists can piece together some of what they need from different satellites, but the data may or may not have been taken at the same time, or the researchers might still need to augment the information with measurements from ground-based sensors.
Even then, calculating freshwater availability can be complicated. Much of the work relies on computer models. “Traditional water models often don’t work very well in highly regulated basins like the Ohio because they have trouble representing the unpredictable behavior of dam operations,” said George Allen, a freshwater researcher at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and a member of the SWOT science team.
Many river basins in the United States include dams and reservoirs managed by a patchwork of entities. While the people who manage a reservoir may know how their section of water behaves, planning for water availability down the entire length of a river can be a challenge. Since SWOT looks at both rivers and lakes, its data can help provide a more unified view.
“The data lets water managers really know what other people in these freshwater systems are doing,” said SWOT science team member Colin Gleason, a hydrologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
While SWOT researchers are excited about the possibilities that the data is opening up, there is still much to be done. The satellite’s high-resolution view of water levels and extent means there is a vast ocean of data that researchers must wade through, and it will take some time to process and analyze the measurements.
More About SWOT
The SWOT satellite was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the Ka-band radar interferometer (KaRIn) instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. The Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations were provided by CNES. The KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly was provided by CSA.
To learn more about SWOT, visit:
https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
2024-176
Share
Details
Last Updated Dec 17, 2024 Related Terms
SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) Jet Propulsion Laboratory Water on Earth Explore More
5 min read NASA Mars Orbiter Spots Retired InSight Lander to Study Dust Movement
Article 1 day ago 5 min read NASA’s Perseverance Rover Reaches Top of Jezero Crater Rim
Article 5 days ago 5 min read NASA’s Juno Mission Uncovers Heart of Jovian Moon’s Volcanic Rage
Article 5 days ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
Launched in May 2024, ESA’s EarthCARE satellite is nearing the end of its commissioning phase with the release of its first data on clouds and aerosols expected early next year. In the meantime, an international team of scientists has found an innovative way of applying artificial intelligence to other satellite data to yield 3D profiles of clouds.
This is particularly news for those eagerly awaiting data from EarthCARE in their quest to advance climate science.
View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
A pair of spacecraft were launched together today from India with the potential to change the nature of future space missions. ESA’s twin Proba-3 platforms will perform precise formation flying down to a single millimetre, as if they were one single giant spacecraft. To demonstrate their degree of control, the pair will produce artificial solar eclipses in orbit, giving prolonged views of the Sun’s ghostly surrounding atmosphere, the corona.
View the full article
-
By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 3 min read
Sols 4732-4735: I’ll Zap You, My Pretty, and Your Pebble Too
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to capture this image, with a horizon of platy, dark-toned bedrock at the forefront, on Nov. 20, 2024 at 05:54:55 UTC. Curiosity acquired the image on sol 4369 — Martian day 4,369 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Earth planning date: Friday, Nov. 22, 2024
For more than a year, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been climbing through layers of sulfate-rich rock in Gale Crater, where alternating thick light- and dark-toned bands are visible by satellite. After a successful 24.55-meter drive (about 81 feet), Curiosity traversed across a light-toned band into a dark-toned one, entering a workspace that contains the characteristic features of these dark-toned bands: platy, dark-toned material interbedded with lighter-toned bedrock. The origin of this dark-toned, platy material remains a mystery. To help solve it, the Geology and Mineralogy Theme Group focused the weekend’s science plan on continuing our documentation of the sedimentary textures, structures, and chemistry of this bedrock, aiming to uncover clues about the processes that formed the dark-toned, platy material. My role as Keeper of the Geology Plan meant keeping track of all the geology-related requests, which made for a busy day!
To investigate further, we plan to brush away surface dust from a section of light-toned bedrock and capture detailed images using the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI). This close-up view will be paired with chemical and mineralogical analysis using the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS). Meanwhile, Mastcam will focus on two nearby outcrops nicknamed “Hanging Valley Ridge” 1 and 2, where the dark-toned platy material is visibly layered within the light-toned bedrock. ChemCam will add to the data by zapping both the brushed light-toned area and the dark-toned material to work out their compositions and compare the two.
In addition to studying the sulfate layers, we’re continuing our long-term investigation of Gediz Vallis Ridge, believed to be a remnant of an ancient debris channel that we’ve been investigating for some time. To build on our previous observations, we’ve planned a Mastcam mosaic and a long-distance Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) observation to further document its morphology and sedimentary structures. Interestingly, we’ve also identified a dark-toned pebble in our workspace that could have been transported from Gediz Vallis Ridge. To test this idea, we’ll use ChemCam to zap the pebble to work out its composition and compare it to the dark-toned material in the outcrop.
While Curiosity focuses on the Martian surface, we’re also monitoring the planet’s atmosphere. The Environmental Theme Group is using the rover’s downtime to conduct a series of dust- and cloud-monitoring activities. One highlight of the weekend plan is an approximately 30-minute ChemCam passive sky observation, which will help us study atmospheric conditions in Gale Crater.
As Americans prepare for Thanksgiving here on Earth, the Curiosity team is gearing up for a special holiday “mega plan.” This seven-sol schedule will keep the rover hard at work, ensuring that science and exploration continue while the team enjoys their celebrations. Stay tuned to see what this plan has in store next week!
Written by Amelie Roberts, Ph.D. candidate at Imperial College London
Share
Details
Last Updated Dec 02, 2024 Related Terms
Blogs Explore More
2 min read You Are Now Arriving at ‘Pico Turquino’
Article
5 hours ago
2 min read Sol 4370-4371: All About the Polygons
Article
1 week ago
3 min read Sols 4368-4369: The Colors of Fall – and Mars
Article
2 weeks ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…
All Mars Resources
Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…
Rover Basics
Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…
Mars Exploration: Science Goals
The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.