Tag: Earth

NASA’s PACE Data on Ocean, Atmosphere, Climate Now Available

NeRD

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s PACE satellite’s Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) detects light across a hyperspectral range, which gives scientists new information to differentiate communities of phytoplankton – a unique ability of NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite. This first image released from OCI identifies two different communities of these microscopic marine organisms in the ocean off the coast of South Africa on Feb. 28, 2024. The central panel of this image shows Synechococcus in pink and picoeukaryotes in green. The left panel of this…

Read More

New NASA Strategy Envisions Sustainable Future for Space Operations

NeRD

Low Earth orbit, the focus of volume one of NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy, is the most concentrated area for orbital debris. This computer-generated image showcases objects that are currently being tracked.  Credits: NASA ODPO To address a rapidly changing space operating environment and ensure its preservation for generations to come, NASA released the first part of its integrated Space Sustainability Strategy, on Tuesday advancing the agency’s role as a global leader on this crucial issue. “The release of this strategy marks true progress for NASA on space sustainability,” said NASA…

Read More

Chinese space junk falls to Earth over Southern California, creating spectacular fireball (photos, video)

NeRD

A big piece of Chinese space junk crashed to Earth over Southern California early Tuesday morning (April 2), putting on quite a show for observers in the Golden State. The fall created a blazing fireball witnessed by people from the Sacramento area all the way down to San Diego, according to the American Meteor Society (AMS). As of Tuesday afternoon, 81 people had reported sightings of the event to the AMS.  The hunk of space debris was the orbital module of China’s Shenzhou 15 spacecraft, according to astrophysicist and satellite…

Read More

Satellites watch Iceland volcano spew gigantic plume of toxic gas across Europe

NeRD

Scientists are tracking a massive plume of toxic gas moving across northern Europe that was spat out by the ongoing volcanic eruption in Iceland. The gas cloud is unlikely to cause any serious health problems. However, it could impact the ozone hole above the Arctic, experts warn. On March 16, an underground volcano in Icealnd’s Reykjanes Peninsula blew its top for the fourth time in as many months, opening up the largest fissure of the current eruption cycle and unleashing a massive lava flow that narrowly missed the evacuated town of Grindavík. There…

Read More

Sleeping subduction zone could awaken and form a new ‘Ring of Fire’ that swallows the Atlantic Ocean

NeRD

A subduction zone below the Gibraltar Strait is creeping westward and could one day “invade” the Atlantic Ocean, causing the ocean to slowly close up, new research suggests. The subduction zone, also known as the Gibraltar arc or trench, currently sits in a narrow ocean corridor between Portugal and Morocco. Its westward migration began around 30 million years ago, when a subduction zone formed along the northern coast of what is now the Mediterranean Sea, but it has stalled in the last 5 million years, prompting some scientists to question whether…

Read More

SWOT Satellite Catches Coastal Flooding During California Storms

NeRD

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This image shows SWOT satellite data for water surface height in part of Mendocino County, Northern California, on Jan. 15, before several atmospheric rivers arrived, and on Feb. 4, after the first storms. Light blue and green indicate the highest water levels relative to mean sea level. (Inland water heights include the underlying ground elevation.) NASA/JPL-Caltech Operated by NASA and the French space agency, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission provides a new view of water on land,…

Read More

SpaceX rocket launches pioneering methane-tracking satellite to orbit

NeRD

A new satellite that will track climate-heating methane emissions from oil and gas companies around the world launched this week from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.  The washing-machine-sized satellite, named MethaneSAT, lifted off Monday (March 4) atop a Falcon 9 rocket, one of 53 payloads on SpaceX’s Transporter-10 rideshare mission. MethaneSAT is designed to ultimately help policymakers independently verify industry reports by pinpointing hotspots of methane, the invisible but potent greenhouse gas, which traps much more heat in Earth’s atmosphere per molecule than carbon dioxide. MethaneSAT, the first satellite by…

Read More

Can Volcanic Super Eruptions Lead to Major Cooling? Study Suggests No

NeRD

Some 74,000 years ago, the Toba volcano in Indonesia exploded with a force 1,000 times more powerful than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The mystery is what happened after that – namely, to what degree that extreme explosion might have cooled global temperatures. Crew aboard the International Space Station photographed the eruption of Mount Etna in Sicily in October 2002. Ashfall was reported more than 350 miles away. When it comes to explosive power, however, no eruption in modern times can compare with a super eruption – which…

Read More

Shanghai from Space

NeRD

NASA/Jasmin Moghbeli While the International Space Station orbited 260 miles above the East China Sea, NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli snapped this photo of Shanghai’s city lights and the Huangpu River flowing through downtown. Shanghai is the most populous city in China with a population of about 24.9 million. The space station serves as a unique platform for observing Earth with both hands-on and automated equipment. Station crew members have produced hundreds of thousands of images, recording phenomena such as storms in real time, observing natural events such as volcanic eruptions…

Read More

What’s Made in a Thunderstorm and Faster Than Lightning? Gamma Rays!

NeRD

3 min read What’s Made in a Thunderstorm and Faster Than Lightning? Gamma Rays! A flash of lightning. A roll of thunder. These are normal stormy sights and sounds. But sometimes, up above the clouds, stranger things happen. Our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has spotted bursts of gamma rays – some of the highest-energy forms of light in the universe – coming from thunderstorms. Gamma rays are usually found coming from objects with crazy extreme physics like neutron stars and black holes. So why is Fermi seeing them come from thunderstorms? About a thousand times a…

Read More