Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
La Palma volcano: How satellites help us monitor eruptions
-
Similar Topics
-
By European Space Agency
A multi-orbit constellation of about 300 satellites that will deliver resilient, secure and fast communications for EU governments, European companies and citizens will be put in orbit after two contracts were confirmed today in Brussels.
View the full article
-
By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This animation shows data taken by NASA’s PACE and the international SWOT satellites over a region of the North Atlantic Ocean. PACE captured phytoplankton data on Aug. 8, 2024; layered on top is SWOT sea level data taken on Aug. 7 and 8, 2024. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio One Earth satellite can see plankton that photosynthesize. The other measures water surface height. Together, their data reveals how sea life and the ocean are intertwined.
The ocean is an engine that drives Earth’s weather patterns and climate and sustains a substantial portion of life on the planet. A new animation based on data from two recently launched missions — NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) and the international Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellites — gives a peek into the heart of that engine.
Physical processes, including localized swirling water masses called eddies and the vertical movement of water, can drive nutrient availability in the ocean. In turn, those nutrients determine the location and concentration of tiny floating organisms known as phytoplankton that photosynthesize, converting sunlight into food. These organisms have not only contributed roughly half of Earth’s oxygen since the planet formed, but also support economically important fisheries and help draw carbon out of the atmosphere, locking it away in the deep sea.
“We see great opportunity to dramatically accelerate our scientific understanding of our oceans and the significant role they play in our Earth system,” said Karen St. Germain, director of the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This visualization illustrates the potential we have when we begin to integrate measurements from our separate SWOT and PACE ocean missions. Each of those missions is significant on its own. But bringing their data together — the physics from SWOT and the biology from PACE — gives us an even better view of what’s happening in our oceans, how they are changing, and why.”
A collaboration between NASA and the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), the SWOT’ satellite launched in December 2022 to measure the height of nearly all water on Earth’s surface. It is providing one of the most detailed, comprehensive views yet of the planet’s ocean and its freshwater lakes, reservoirs, and rivers.
Launched in February 2024, NASA’s PACE satellite detects and measures the distribution of phytoplankton communities in the ocean. It also provides data on the size, amount, and type of tiny particles called aerosols in Earth’s atmosphere, as well as the height, thickness, and opacity of clouds.
“Integrating information across NASA’s Earth System Observatory and its pathfinder missions SWOT and PACE is an exciting new frontier in Earth science,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, program scientist for SWOT and the Integrated Earth System Observatory at NASA Headquarters.
Where Physics and Biology Meet
The animation above starts by depicting the orbits of SWOT (orange) and PACE (light blue), then zooms into the North Atlantic Ocean. The first data to appear was acquired by PACE on Aug. 8. It reveals concentrations of chlorophyll-a, a vital pigment for photosynthesis in plants and phytoplankton. Light green and yellow indicate higher concentrations of chlorophyll-a, while blue signals lower concentrations.
Next is sea surface height data from SWOT, taken during several passes over the same region between Aug. 7 and 8. Dark blue represents heights that are lower than the mean sea surface height, while dark orange and red represent heights higher than the mean. The contour lines that remain once the color fades from the SWOT data indicate areas of the ocean with the same height, much like the lines on a topographic map indicate areas with the same elevation.
The underlying PACE data then cycles through several groups of phytoplankton, starting with picoeukaryotes. Lighter green indicates greater concentrations of this group. The final two groups are cyanobacteria — some of the smallest and most abundant phytoplankton in the ocean — called Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus. For Prochlorococcus, lighter raspberry colors represent higher concentrations. Lighter teal colors for Synechococcus signal greater amounts of the cyanobacteria.
The animation shows that higher phytoplankton concentrations on Aug. 8 tended to coincide with areas of lower water height. Eddies that spin counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere tend to draw water away from their center. This results in relatively lower sea surface heights in the center that draw up cooler, nutrient-rich water from the deep ocean. These nutrients act like fertilizer, which can boost phytoplankton growth in sunlit waters at the surface.
Overlapping SWOT and PACE data enables a better understanding of the connections between ocean dynamics and aquatic ecosystems, which can help improve the management of resources such as fisheries, since phytoplankton form the base of most food chains in the sea. Integrating these kinds of datasets also helps to improve calculations of how much carbon is exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean. This, in turn, can indicate whether regions of the ocean that absorb excess atmospheric carbon are changing.
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
More About PACE
The PACE mission is managed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, which also built and tested the spacecraft and the Ocean Color Instrument, which collected the data shown in the visualization. The satellite’s Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 was designed and built by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration was developed and built by a Dutch consortium led by Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Airbus Defence, and Space Netherlands.
To learn more about PACE, visit:
https://pace.gsfc.nasa.gov
News Media Contacts
Jacob Richmond (for PACE)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
jacob.a.richmond@nasa.gov
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang (for SWOT)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
2024-169
Share
Details
Last Updated Dec 09, 2024 Related Terms
PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem) Climate Science Oceans SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) Explore More
7 min read Six Ways Supercomputing Advances Our Understanding of the Universe
Article 3 weeks ago 4 min read NASA Data Helps International Community Prepare for Sea Level Rise
Article 4 weeks ago 6 min read Inia Soto Ramos, From the Mountains of Puerto Rico to Mountains of NASA Earth Data
Dr. Inia Soto Ramos became fascinated by the mysteries of the ocean while growing up…
Article 4 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
Researchers from the University of Leeds have detected methane leaking from a faulty pipe in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK, using GHGSat satellite data – part of ESA’s Third Party Mission Programme. This marks the first time a UK methane emission has been identified from space and successfully mitigated.
View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
ESA’s Proba-3 will be the first mission to create an artificial total solar eclipse by flying a pair of satellites 150 metres apart. For six hours at a time, it will be able to see the Sun’s faint atmosphere, the corona, in the hard-to-observe region between the Sun’s edge and 1.4 million kilometres from its surface. This new technology combined with the satellite pair’s unique extended orbit around Earth will allow Proba-3 to do important science, revealing secrets of the Sun, space weather and Earth’s radiation belts.
View the full article
-
By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The focus of Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 was IADS, a software that coordinates flight schedules between the ramp, tower, terminal, and center control facilities. This visual representation of data helps minimize delays on the ground.NASA / Jim Banke If every commuter drove the same few roads at the same time every day, the traffic would be unbearable. That’s exactly what’s happening in the skies above the nation, known as national airspace (NAS). Multiple flights from different airlines try to use the most direct flight paths, converging on the same airports. With limited runway space, that causes jumbo-sized traffic congestion.
“The majority of uncertainty in the NAS can be attributed to surface operations, and in particular, uncertainty related to when a flight will be available to push back from the gate,” said Jeremy Coupe of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California. To help develop a solution, NASA Ames focused on how to improve managing traffic on the ground and scheduling departures.
Holding airplanes at the gate until just before takeoff allows them to run on power supplied by the airport. American Airlines saved millions of gallons of fuel and maintenance costs and tons of harmful emissions by only running engines when arriving at and leaving the gate.NASA Working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), commercial airlines, and airports, NASA developed and tested a new program to manage airport traffic on the ground – the Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface (IADS) system. In 2022, the FAA began incorporating this system’s capabilities at 27 of the busiest airports in the country.
Just as a traffic officer can prevent gridlock at a busy intersection, IADS is designed to prevent similar traffic tangles. The first test site for the program development was Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, the second-busiest airport on the East Coast with only three runways. About 75% of those are connecting flights.
Before IADS, one challenge the airport faced was a technology mismatch – the airport’s control tower used one software program and ground management used a different one, with no way to integrate them. A phone call was the most common way to notify each other about changes or problems. With approximately 115 aircraft on the ground at any time, a delay in communication could create complications. A plane leaving the gate before being notified of a delay could result in several planes waiting in line at the runway.
“Knowing that you’re going to get where you need to go when the airline says it’s going to deliver you is what people stress about when they’re traveling, especially if they’re trying to make connections in an airport like Charlotte,” said Lee Davis, communications director for the airport. Many factors, including weather, influence timeliness, but making ground operations run predictably is fundamental.
With near real-time data related to on-time departures and delays, airlines can actively address issues related to connections for crew, customers, and cargo. Whether it’s in space or the skies above, NASA innovations continue to make travel more efficient.
Read More Share
Details
Last Updated Nov 27, 2024 Related Terms
Technology Transfer & Spinoffs Spinoffs Technology Transfer Explore More
2 min read Super Insulation Requires Super Materials
NASA researchers helped create an insulation coating that blocks heat and sunlight
Article 1 week ago 2 min read From Mars Rovers to Factory Assembly Lines
NASA-funded AI technology enabling autonomous rovers and drones now keeps an eye on conveyor belts
Article 4 weeks ago 2 min read The View from Space Keeps Getting Better
After 50 years of Landsat, discovery of new commercial and scientific uses is only accelerating
Article 1 month ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
Aeronautics
Air Traffic Management Research
Ames Research Center
Missions
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.