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Satellites highlight a 30-year rise in ocean acidification
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
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Internet of Animals
The Internet of Animals project combines animal tracking tags with remote sensing, to better understand habitat use and movement patterns. This kind of research enables more informed ecological management and conservation efforts, and broadens our understanding of how different ecosystems are reacting to a changing climate.
https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-earth-exchange-nex/new-missions-support/internet-of-animals/
FATE: dFAD Trajectory Tool
FATE will quantify dFAD (drifting fish aggregating devices) activity in relation to ocean currents, fish biomass, and animal telemetry at Palmyra Atoll, which is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) National Wildlife Refuge and is part of the U.S. Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM) in the central Pacific Ocean. This innovative decision support tool will use NASA observations and numerical models to predict future dFAD trajectories and inform resource managers whether they should deploy tactical resources (boats, personnel) to monitor, intercept, or retrieve dFADs that have entered the MPA.
SeaSTAR
SeaSTAR aims to provide multi-spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD) and aerosol optical properties using a custom-built robotic sun/sky photometer. The instrument is designed to operate from a ship and is planned to deploy aboard the NOAA research vessel RV Shearwater in September 2024 to support the PACE-PAX airborne campaign.
PACE Validation Science Team Project: AirSHARP
Airborne asSessment of Hyperspectral Aerosol optical depth and water-leaving Reflectance Product Performance for PACE
The goal of AirSHARP is to provide high fidelity spatial coverage and spectral data for ocean color and aerosol products for validation of the PACE Ocean Color Instrument (OCI). Coastal influences on oceanic waters can produce high optical complexity for remote sensing especially in dynamic waters in both space and time. Dynamic coastal water features include riverine plumes (sediments and pollution), algal blooms, and kelp beds. Further, coastal California has a range of atmospheric conditions related to fires. We will accomplish validation of PACE products by combined airborne and field instrumentation for Monterey Bay, California.
Water2Coasts
Watersheds, Water Quality, and Coastal Communities in Puerto Rico
Water2Coasts is an interdisciplinary island landscape to coastal ocean assessment with socioeconomic implications. The goal of Water2Coasts is to conduct a multi-scale, interdisciplinary (i.e., hydrologic, remote sensing, and social) study on how coastal waters of east, and south Puerto Rico are affected by watersheds of varying size, land use, and climate regimes, and how these may in turn induce a variety of still poorly understood effects on coastal and marine ecosystems such as coral reefs and seagrass beds.
US Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF)
The USCRTF was established in 1998 by Presidential Executive Order to lead U.S. efforts to preserve and protect coral reef ecosystems. The USCRTF includes leaders of Federal agencies, U.S. States, territories, commonwealths, and Freely Associated States. The USCRTF helps build partnerships, strategies, and support for on-the-ground action to conserve coral reefs. NASA ARC scientists are members of the Steering Committee, Watershed Working Group, and Disease and Disturbance Working Group, and lead the Climate Change Working Group to assist in the use of NASA remote sensing data and tools for coastal studies, including coral reef ecosystems. Data from new and planned hyperspectral missions will advance research in heavily impacted coastal ecosystems.
CyanoSCape
Cyanobacteria and surface phytoplankton biodiversity of the Cape freshwater systems
The diversity of phytoplankton is also found in freshwater systems. In Southern Africa, land use change and agricultural practices has hindered hydrological processes and compromised freshwater ecosystems. These impacts are compounded by increasingly variable rainfall and temperature fluctuations associated with climate change posing risks to water quality, food security, and aquatic biodiversity and sustainability. The goal of CyanoSCape is to utilize airborne hyperspectral data and field spectral and water sample data to distinguish phytoplankton biodiversity, including the potentially toxic cyanobacteria.
mCDR: Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal
The goals of this effort are to conduct literature review, analysis, and ocean simulation to provide scientifically vetted estimates of the impacts, risks, and benefits of various potential mCDR methods.
Ocean modeling
Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in a changing climate
The goals of this project are to build scientific understanding of the AMOC physics and its implications for biogeochemical cycles and climate, to assess the representation of AMOC in historical global ocean state estimates, and evaluate future needs for AMOC systems in a changing climate.
Elucidating the role of the ocean circulation in changing North Atlantic Ocean nutrients and biological productivity
This project will conduct analysis of NASA’s ECCO-Darwin ocean biogeochemical state estimate and historical satellite ocean color observations in order to understand the underlying causes for the sharp decline in biological productivity observed in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Integrated GEOS and ECCO Earth system modeling and data assimilation to advance seasonal-to-decadal prediction through improved understanding and representation of air-sea interactions
This analysis will build understanding of upper ocean, air-sea interaction, and climate processes by using data from the SWOT mission and ultra-high-resolution GEOS-ECCO simulations.
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Last Updated Sep 17, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter. The mission is targeting an Oct. 10, 2024, launch.NASA/JPL-Caltech The first NASA spacecraft dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth, Europa Clipper aims to find out if the ice-encased moon Europa could be habitable.
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, the largest the agency has ever built for a planetary mission, will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Europa, an intriguing icy moon of Jupiter. The spacecraft’s launch period opens Thursday, Oct. 10.
Learn more about how NASA’s Europa Clipper came together – and how it will explore an ocean moon of Jupiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Data from previous NASA missions has provided scientists with strong evidence that an enormous salty ocean lies underneath the frozen surface of the moon. Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter and conduct 49 close flybys of the moon to gather data needed to determine whether there are places below its thick frozen crust that could support life.
Here are eight things to know about the mission:
1. Europa is one of the most promising places to look for currently habitable conditions beyond Earth.
There’s scientific evidence that the ingredients for life — water, the right chemistry, and energy — may exist at Europa right now. This mission will gather the information scientists need to find out for sure. The moon may hold an internal ocean with twice the water of Earth’s oceans combined, and it may also host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface. If the mission determines that Europa is habitable, it would mean there may be more habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond than we have imagined.
2. The spacecraft will fly through one of the most punishing radiation environments in our solar system — second only to the Sun’s.
Jupiter is surrounded by a gigantic magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s. As the field spins, it captures and accelerates charged particles, creating radiation that can damage spacecraft. Mission engineers designed a spacecraft vault to shield sensitive electronics from radiation, and they plotted orbits that will limit the time Europa Clipper spends in most radiation-heavy areas around Jupiter.
3. Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter, studying Europa while flying by the moon dozens of times.
The spacecraft will make looping orbits around Jupiter that bring it close to Europa for 49 science-dedicated flybys. On each orbit, the spacecraft will spend less than a day in Jupiter’s dangerous radiation zone near Europa before zipping back out. Two to three weeks later, it will repeat the process, making another flyby.
4. Europa Clipper features NASA’s most sophisticated suite of science instruments yet.
To determine if Europa is habitable, Europa Clipper must assess the moon’s interior, composition, and geology. The spacecraft carries nine science instruments and a gravity experiment that uses the telecommunications system. In order to obtain the best science during each flyby, all the science instruments will operate simultaneously on every pass. Scientists will then layer the data together to paint a full picture of the moon.
5. With antennas and solar arrays fully deployed, Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission.
The spacecraft extends 100 feet (30.5 meters) from one end to the other and about 58 feet (17.6 meters) across. That’s bigger than a basketball court, thanks in large part to the solar arrays, which need to be huge so they can collect enough sunlight while near Jupiter to power the instruments, electronics, and other subsystems.
6. It’s a long journey to Jupiter.
Jupiter is on average some 480 million miles (about 770 million kilometers) from Earth; both planets are in motion, and a spacecraft can carry only a limited amount of fuel. Mission planners are sending Europa Clipper past Mars and then Earth, using the planets’ gravity as a slingshot to add speed to the spacecraft’s trek. After journeying about 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) over 5½ years, the spacecraft will fire its engines to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030.
7. Institutions across the U.S. and Europe have contributed to Europa Clipper.
Currently, about a thousand people work on the mission, including more than 220 scientists from both the U.S. and Europe. Since the mission was officially approved in 2015, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper, including teams who work for contractors and subcontractors.
8. More than 2.6 million of us are riding along with the spacecraft, bringing greetings from one water world to another.
As part of a mission campaign called “Message in a Bottle,” the spacecraft is carrying a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, cosigned by millions of people from nearly every country in the world. Their names have been stenciled onto a microchip attached to a tantalum metal plate that seals the spacecraft’s electronics vault. The plate also features waveforms of people saying the word “water” in over 100 spoken languages.
More About Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.
Find more information about Europa here:
https://europa.nasa.gov
Europa Clipper Teachable Moment See Europa’s Chaos Terrain in Crisp Detail Europa Clipper Gets Its Super-Size Solar Arrays News Media Contacts
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-6215
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2024-125
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Last Updated Sep 17, 2024 Related Terms
Europa Clipper Jet Propulsion Laboratory Jupiter The Solar System Explore More
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By European Space Agency
The European Galileo satellite navigation system Galileo keeps growing: a new pair of satellites has joined the constellation after a journey on a Falcon 9 rocket, launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 18 September at 00:50 CEST (17 September 18:50 local time).
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By European Space Agency
The two new Galileo satellites launched in April have entered service, completing the second of three constellation planes. With every addition to the constellation, the precision, availability and robustness of the Galileo signal is improved. The next launch is planned in the coming weeks and the remaining six Galileo First Generation satellites will join the constellation in the next years.
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