Weird Cloud ‘Coils’ Captured by Earth-Observing Satellite

Coil-like shapes in clouds, created by their passage over the Prince Edward Islands in the south Indian Ocean. Credit: NASA/Terra/MODIS.

These are some of the strangest looking clouds I’ve seen from the fleet of Earth-observing satellites. These coil-like or bow-wave-shaped clouds were created by the clouds passing over the Prince Edward Islands, in the south Indian Ocean. It was taken by the Terra satellite with the MODIS instrument (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on March 26, 2013.

Update: Vitaliy Egorov from the Russian website allmars.net has sent us an animation of these coil clouds as seen by the Russian satellite Elektro-L:

Animation is made up of 17 frames made satellite “Electro-L” from 12:30 to 20:30 GMT March 26, 2013 at 1 frame per 30 minutes. Photo: Roscosmos / NTSOMZ / Electro-L / allmars.net.

The images are taken from a different angle than the Terra satellite. You can see more at Egorov’s website.

NASA says MODIS is playing a vital role in the development of validated, global, interactive Earth system models able to predict global change accurately enough to assist policy makers in making sound decisions concerning the protection of our environment.

NASA’s Operation IceBridge Surveys Greenland and Earth’s Polar Ice Sheets

NASA P-3B waits outside the hangar at Thule Air Base with the Greenland Ice sheet in the background. The aircraft is set to begin the 2013 season of NASA’s Operation IceBridge mission to survey Earth's polar ice sheets in unprecedented three-dimensional detail. The plane just arrived from NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia - see my P-3B photos below. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Michael Studinger

NASA’s Operation IceBridge has begun the 2013 research season of Ice Science flights in Greenland and the Arctic to survey the regions ice sheets and land and sea ice using a specially equipped P-3B research aircraft from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va.

Operation IceBridge began in 2009 as part of NASA’s six-year long effort to conduct the largest airborne survey of Earth’s polar ice ever flown.

The goal is to obtain an unprecedented three-dimensional, multi-instrument view of the behavior of Greenland, Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice which have been undergoing rapid and dramatic changes and reductions.

“We’re starting to see how the whole ice sheet is changing,” said Michael Studinger, IceBridge project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Thinning at the margins is now propagating to the interior.”

The P-3 exiting the hanger pre-flight in Thule. Credit: NASA
The P-3 exiting the hanger pre-flight in Thule. Credit: NASA

The airborne campaign was started in order to maintain a continuous record of measurements in changes in polar ice after NASA’s Earth orbiting ICESat (Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite) probe stopped collecting data in 2009.

ICESat-2 won’t be launched until 2016, so NASA’s IceBridge project and yearly P-3 airborne campaigns will fill in the science data gap in the interval.

The P-3B Orion just arrived from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia where I visited it before departure – see my P-3B photos herein.

NASA IceBridge P-3B research aircraft prepares for departure from runway at NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to Thule Air Base in Greenland.  Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
NASA IceBridge P-3B research aircraft prepares for departure from runway at NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to Thule Air Base in Greenland. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)

IceBridge is operating out of airfields in Thule and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, and Fairbanks, Alaska.

The P-3B survey flights over Greenland and the Arctic will continue until May. They are conducted over Antarctica during October and November.

A sunny view of the ramp at Thule Air Base, Greenland, shortly after the NASA P-3B research aircraft arrived on Mar. 18, 2013. Credit: NASA / Jim Yungel
A sunny view of the ramp at Thule Air Base, Greenland, shortly after the NASA P-3B research aircraft arrived on Mar. 18, 2013. Credit: NASA / Jim Yungel

The measurements collected by IceBridge instruments will characterize the annual changes in thickness of sea ice, glaciers, and ice sheets. The data are used to help predict how climate change affects Earth’s polar ice and the resulting rise in sea-levels.

Researchers with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are collaborating with the IceBridge project to collect snow depth measurements near Barrow , Alaska. High school science teachers from the US, Denmark and Greenland will fly along on the P-3B survey flights to learn about polar science.

NASA Wallops has a wide ranging research and development mission and is home to the Virginia launch pad for the new Antares/Cygnus commercial ISS resupply rocket set for its maiden launch in mid April 2013; detailed in see my new story – here.

Ken Kremer

Sea ice in the southern Beaufort Sea. Credit: NASA
Sea ice in the southern Beaufort Sea. Credit: NASA
IceBridge departing to Fairbanks to start their sea ice flights that will cover the Beauford and Chukchi seas - via the Laxon sea ice route for the transit. Credit: NASA
IceBridge departing to Fairbanks to start their sea ice flights that will cover the Beauford and Chukchi seas – via the Laxon sea ice route for the transit. Credit: NASA

NASA’s KaBOOM Experimental Asteroid Radar Aims to Thwart Earth’s Kaboom

Installation of new KaBOOM asteroid detection radar dish antenna system at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)

Over the past month, about a half dozen rather large asteroids have careened nearby our home planet and in one case caused significant injury and property damage with no forewarning – showcasing the hidden lurking dangers from lackluster attitudes towards Asteroid Detection & Planetary Defense.

Now in a prescient coincidence of timing, NASA is funding an experimental asteroid radar detection array called ‘KaBOOM’ that may one day help thwart Earth’s untimely Ka-boom – and which I inspected first-hand this past week at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC),following the SpaceX Falcon 9 blastoff for the ISS.

“KaBOOM takes evolutionary steps towards a revolutionary capability,” said Dr. Barry Geldzahler, KaBOOM Chief Scientist of NASA Headquarters, in an exclusive interview with Universe Today.

If successful, KaBOOM will serve as a prelude to a US National Radar Facility and help contribute to an eventual Near Earth Object (NEO) Planetary Defense System to avert Earth’s demise.

“It will enable us to reach the goal of tracking asteroids farther out than we can today.”

First some background – This weekend a space rock the size of a city block whizzed past Earth at a distance of just 2.5 times the distance to our Moon. The asteroid – dubbed 2013 ET – is noteworthy because it went completely undetected until a few days beforehand on March 3 and measures about 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter.

KaBOOM experimental asteroid radar array at KSC consists of three 12 meter wide dish antennas mounted on pedestals at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
KaBOOM experimental asteroid radar array at KSC consists of three 12 meter wide dish antennas mounted on pedestals at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)

2013 ET follows close on the heels of the Feb. 15 Russian meteor that exploded violently with no prior warning and injured over 1200 people on the same day as Asteroid 2012 DA 14 zoomed past Earth barely 17,000 miles above the surface – scarcely a whisker astronomically speaking.

Had any of these chunky asteroids actually impacted cities or other populated areas, the death toll and devastation would have been absolutely catastrophic – potentially hundreds of billions of dollars !

Taken together, this rash of uncomfortably close asteroid flybys is a wake-up call for a significantly improved asteroid detection and early warning system. KaBOOM takes a key step along the path to those asteroid warning goals.

KaBOOM asteroid radar under construction near alligator infested swamps at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.  Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
KaBOOM asteroid radar under construction near alligator infested swamps at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)

‘KaBOOM’ – the acronym stands for ‘Ka-Band Objects Observation and Monitoring Project’ – is a new test bed demonstration radar array aimed at developing the techniques required for tracking and characterizing Near Earth Objects (NEO’s) at much further distances and far higher resolution than currently available.

“The purpose of KaBOOM is to be a ‘proof of concept’ using coherent uplink arraying of three widely spaced antennas at a high frequency; Ka band- 30 GHz,” KaBOOM Chief Scientist Geldzahler told me.

Currently the KaBOOM array consists of a trio of 12 meter wide radar antennas spaced 60 meters apart – whose installation was just completed in late February at a remote site at KSC near an alligator infested swamp.

I visited the array just days after the reflectors were assembled and erected, with Michael Miller, KaBOOM project manager of the Kennedy Space Center. “Ka Band offers greater resolution with shorter wavelengths to image smaller space objects such as NEO’s and space debris.”

“The more you learn about the NEO’s the more you can react.”

“This is a small test bed demonstration to prove out the concept, first in X-band and then in Ka band,” Miller explained. “The experiment will run about two to three years.”

Miller showed how the dish antennae’s are movable and can be easily slewed to different directions as desired.

“The KaBOOM concept is similar to that of normal phased arrays, but in this case, instead of the antenna elements being separated by ~ 1 wavelength [1 cm], they are separated by ~ 6000 wavelengths. In addition, we want to correct for the atmospheric twinkling in real time,” Geldzahler told me.

Why are big antennae’s needed?

“The reason we are using large antennas is to send more powerful radar signals to track and characterize asteroids farther out than we can today. We want to determine their size, shape, spin and surface porosity; is it a loose agglomeration of pebbles? composed of solid iron? etc.”

Such physical characterization data would be absolutely invaluable in determining the forces required for implementing an asteroid deflection strategy in case the urgent need arises.

How does KaBOOM compare with and improve upon existing NEO radars in terms of distance and resolution?

“Currently at NASA¹s Goldstone 70 meter antenna in California, we can track an object that is about 0.1 AU away [1 astronomical unit is the average distance between the Earth and the sun, 93 million miles, so 0.1 AU is ~ 9 million miles]. We would like to track objects 0.5 AU or more away, perhaps 1 AU.”

“In addition, the resolution achievable with Goldstone is at best 400 cm in the direction along the line of sight to the object. At Ka band, we should be able to reduce that to 5 cm – that’s 80 times better !”

“In the end, we want a high power, high resolution radar system,” Geldzahler explained.

Thumbs Up for Science & Planetary Defense !  Ken Kremer; Universe Today and Mike Miller; NASA KSC KaBOOM project manager. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
Thumbs Up for Science & Planetary Defense !
Ken Kremer; Universe Today and Mike Miller; NASA KSC KaBOOM project manager. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)

Another significant advantage compared to Goldstone, is that the Ka radar array would be dedicated 24/7 to tracking and characterizing NEO’s and orbital debris, explained Miller.

Goldstone is only available about 2 to 3% of the time since it’s heavily involved in numerous other applications including deep space planetary missions like Curiosity, Cassini, Deep Impact, Voyager, etc.

‘Time is precious’ at Goldstone – which communicates with some 100 spacecraft per day, says Miller.

“If/when the proof of concept is successful, then we can envision an array of many more elements that will enable us to reach the goal of tracking asteroids farther out than we can today,” Geldzahler elaborated.

A high power, high resolution radar system can determine the NEO orbits about 100,000 times more precisely than can be done optically.

Lead KaBOOM scientist Barry Geldzahler ‘assists’ with dish antenna installation at the Kennedy Space Center; - I’m from Headquarters and I’m here to help’ - is Barry’s mantra.  Credit: NASA
Lead KaBOOM scientist Barry Geldzahler ‘assists’ with dish antenna installation at the Kennedy Space Center; – ‘I’m from Headquarters and I’m here to help’ – is Barry’s mantra. Credit: NASA/KSC

So – what are the implications for Planetary Defense ?

“If we can track asteroids that are up to 0.5 AU rather than 0.1 AU distant, we can track many more than we can track today.”

“This will give us a better chance of finding potentially hazardous asteroids.”

“If we were to find that a NEO might hit the Earth, NASA and others are exploring ways of mitigating the potential danger,” Geldzahler told me.

Kaboom’s ‘First light’ is on schedule for late March 2013.

More in Part 2

Ken Kremer

Russian Asteroid Explosion and Past Impactors Paint a Potentially Grim Future for Earth

Impactors strike during the reign of the dinosaurs (image credit: MasPix/devianart)

The recent meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk brought to the forefront a topic that has worried astronomers for years, namely that an impactor from space could cause widespread human fatalities.  Indeed, the thousand+ injured recently in Russia was a wake-up call. Should humanity be worried about impactors? “Hell yes!” replied astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson to CNN’s F. Zakharia .

The geological and biological records attest to the fact that some impactors have played a major role in altering the evolution of life on Earth, particularly when the underlying terrestrial material at the impact site contains large amounts of carbonates and sulphates. The dating of certain large impact craters (50 km and greater) found on Earth have matched events such as the extinction of the Dinosaurs (Hildebrand 1993, however see also G. Keller’s alternative hypothesis).  Ironically, one could argue that humanity owes its emergence in part to the impactor that killed the Dinosaurs.

The Manicouagan impact crater in Quebec, Canada (image credit: NASA)
More than a dozen known impactors created 50 km sized craters (and larger) on Earth. One such example is the Manicouagan crater in Quebec, Canada.  The crater is 215 million years old, and exhibits an 85 km diameter (image credit: NASA).

Only rather recently did scientists begin to widely acknowledge that sizable impactors from space strike Earth.

“It was extremely important in that first intellectual step to recognize that, yes, indeed, very large objects do fall out of the sky and make holes in the ground,” said Eugene Shoemaker. Shoemaker was a co-discoverer of Shoemaker-Levy 9, which was a fragmented comet that hit Jupiter in 1994 (see video below).

Hildebrand 1993 likewise noted that, “the hypothesis that catastrophic impacts cause mass extinctions has been unpopular with many geologists … some geologists still regard the existence of ~140 known impact craters on the Earth as unproven despite compelling evidence to the contrary.”

Beyond the asteroid that struck Mexico 65 million years ago and helped end the reign of the dinosaurs, there are numerous lesser-known terrestrial impactors that also appear destructive given their size. For example, at least three sizable impactors struck Earth ~35 million years ago, one of which left a 90 km crater in Siberia (Popigai). At least two large impactors occurred near the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary (Morokweng and Mjolnir), and the latter may have been the catalyst for a tsunami that dwarfed the recent event in Japan (see also the simulation for the tsunami generated by the Chicxulub impactor below).

Glimsdal et al. 2007 note, “it is clear that both the geological consequences and the tsunami of an impact of a large asteroid are orders off magnitude larger than those of even the largest earthquakes recorded.”

However, in the CNN interview Neil deGrasse Tyson remarked that we’ll presumably identify the larger impactors ahead of time, giving humanity the opportunity to enact a plan to (hopefully) deal with the matter.   Yet he added that often we’re unable to identify smaller objects in advance, and that is problematic.  The meteor that exploded over the Urals a few weeks ago is an example.

Sketch of the ensuing Tsunami caused by an impactor from Space (image credit: binouse49/devianart).
An artist’s sketch of a tsunami which can be potentially generated by an asteroid/comet impactor (image credit: binouse49/deviantart).

In recent human history the Tunguska event, and the asteroid that recently exploded over Chelyabinsk, are reminders of the havoc that even smaller-sized objects can cause. The Tunguska event is presumed to be a meteor that exploded in 1908 over a remote forested area in Siberia, and was sufficiently powerful to topple millions of trees (see image below).  Had the event occurred over a city it may have caused numerous fatalities.

Mark Boslough, a scientist who studied Tunguska noted, “That such a small object can do this kind of destruction suggests that smaller asteroids are something to consider … such collisions are not as improbable as we believed. We should be making more efforts at detecting the smaller ones than we have till now.” 

Neil deGrasse Tyson hinted that humanity was rather lucky that the recent Russian fireball exploded about 20 miles up in the atmosphere, as its energy content was about 30 times larger than the Hiroshima explosion.  It should be noted that the potential negative outcome from smaller impactors increases in concert with an increasing human population.

The Tungunska impactor is thought to have felled millions of trees in Siberia in 1908 (image credit: Kulik).
In 1908 the Tunguska impactor toppled millions of trees in a rather remote part of Siberia (image credit: Kulik).  Had the object exploded over a city, the effects may have been catastrophic.

So how often do large bodies strike Earth, and is the next catastrophic impactor eminent? Do such events happen on a periodic basis? Scientists have been debating those questions and no consensus has emerged. Certain researchers advocate that large impactors (leaving craters greater than 35 km) strike Earth with a period of approximately 26-35 million years.

The putative periodicity  (i.e., the Shiva hypothesis) is often linked to the Sun’s vertical oscillations through the plane of the Milky Way as it revolves around the Galaxy, although that scenario is likewise debated (as is many of the assertions put forth in this article). The Sun’s motion through the denser part of the Galactic plane is believed to trigger a comet shower from the Oort Cloud. The Oort Cloud is theorized to be a halo of loosely-bound comets that encompasses the periphery of the Solar System. Essentially, there exists a main belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, a belt of comets and icy bodies located beyond Neptune called the Kuiper belt, and then the Oort Cloud.  A lower-mass companion to the Sun was likewise considered as a perturbing source of Oort Cloud comets (“The Nemesis Affair” by D. Raup).

A belt of comets called the Oort Cloud is theorized to encircle the Solar system  (image credit: NASA/JPL).
A halo of comets designated the Oort Cloud is theorized to encircle the periphery of the Solar System, and reputedly acts as a reservoir for objects that may become terrestrial impactors (image credit: NASA/JPL).

The aforementioned theory pertains principally to periodic comets showers, however, what mechanism can explain how asteroids exit their otherwise benign orbits in the belt and enter the inner solar system as Earth-crossers? One potential (stochastic) scenario is that asteroids are ejected from the belt via interactions with the planets through orbital resonances.  Evidence for that scenario is present in the image below, which shows that regions in the belt coincident with certain resonances are nearly depleted of asteroids.  A similar trend is seen in the distribution of icy bodies in the Kuiper belt, where Neptune (rather than say Mars or Jupiter) may be the principal scattering body.  Note that even asteroids/comets not initially near a resonance can migrate into one by various means (e.g., the Yarkovsky effect).

Indeed, if an asteroid in the belt were to breakup (e.g., collision) near a resonance, it would send numerous projectiles streaming into the inner solar system.  That may help partly explain the potential presence of asteroid showers (e.g., the Boltysh and Chicxulub craters both date to near 65 million years ago).   In 2007, a team argued that the asteroid which helped end the reign of the Dinosaurs 65 million years ago entered an Earth-crossing orbit via resonances. Furthermore, they noted that asteroid 298 Baptistina is a fragment of that Dinosaur exterminator, and it can be viewed in the present orbiting ~2 AU from the Sun.  The team’s specific assertions are being debated, however perhaps more importantly: the underlying transport mechanism that delivers asteroids from the belt into Earth-crossing orbits appears well-supported by the evidence.

Kirkwood Gaps, histogram of asteroids as a function of their average distance from the Sun.  Regions deplete of asteroids are called Kirkwood Gaps, and those bodies may have been escavated from the main belt owing to orbital resonances (image credit: Alan Chamberlain, JPL/Caltech).
A histogram featuring the number of asteroids as a function of their average distance from the Sun. Regions depleted of asteroids are often coincident with orbital resonances, the latter being a mechanism by which objects in the belt can be scattered into enter Earth-crossing orbits (image credit: Alan Chamberlain, JPL/Caltech).

Thus it appears that the terrestrial impact record may be tied to periodic and random phenomena, and comet/asteroid showers can stem from both.  However, reconstructing that terrestrial impact record is rather difficult as Earth is geologically active (by comparison to the present Moon where craters from the past are typically well preserved).  Thus smaller and older impactors are undersampled.  The impact record is also incomplete since a sizable fraction of impactors strike the ocean.  Nevertheless, an estimated frequency curve for terrestrial impacts as deduced by Rampino and Haggerty 1996 is reproduced below.  Note that there is considerable uncertainty in such determinations, and the y-axis in the figure highlights the “Typical Impact Interval”.

Estimated frequency of impacts as a function of age, diameter, and energy yield.  Results assume an impact speed of 20 km/s and density of 3 g/cm^3 (image credit: Fig. 2 from Rampino & Haggerty 1996, NASA ADS/Springer).
Estimated frequency of impactors as a function of diameter, energy yield, and typical impact interval. Results assume an impact speed of 20 km/s and density of 3 g/cm^3 (image credit: Fig. 2 from Rampino and Haggerty 1996, NASA ADS/Springer).

In sum, as noted by Eugene Shoemaker, large objects do indeed fall out of the sky and cause damage. It is unclear when in the near or distant future humanity will be forced to rise to the challenge and counter an incoming larger impactor, or again deal with the consequences of a smaller impactor that went undetected and caused human injuries (the estimated probabilities aren’t reassuring given their uncertainty and what’s in jeopardy).  Humanity’s technological progress and scientific research must continue unabated (and even accelerated), thereby affording us the tools to better tackle the described situation when it arises.

Is discussion of this topic fear mongering and alarmist in nature? The answer should be obvious given the fireball explosion that happened recently over the Ural mountains, the Tunguska event, and past impactors.  Given the stakes excessive vigilance is warranted.

Fareed Zakharia’s discussion with Neil deGrasse Tyson is below.

The interested reader desiring additional information will find the following pertinent: the Earth Impact Database, Hildebrand 1993Rampino and Haggerty 1996Stothers et al. 2006, Glimsdal et al. 2007Bottke et al. 2007Jetsu 2011, G. Keller’s discussion concerning the end of the Dinosaurs, “T. rex and the Crater of Doom” by W. Alvarez, “The Nemesis Affair” by D. Raup, “Collision Earth! The Threat from Outer Space” by P. Grego.  **Note that there is a diverse spectrum of opinions on nearly all the topics discussed here, and our understanding is constantly evolving.  There is much research to be done.

‘First Light’ Image for Telescope on the International Space Station

The first light from the new ISERV camera system, taken on February 16, 2013 shows the Rio San Pablo as it empties into the Golfo de Montijo in Veraguas, Panama. NASA image by Burgess Howell, SERVIR Global program.

As we reported in January, a new telescope was installed on the International Space Station – not to observe the stars, but instead look back to Earth to acquire imagery of specific areas of the world for disaster analysis and environmental studies. Called ISERV (International Space Station SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System), it has now taken its first image. Above is the “first light” from the new ISERV, taken at 1:44 p.m. local time on February 16, 2013.

No, this is not a giant tree trunk! It is the Rio San Pablo as it empties into the Golfo de Montijo in Veraguas, Panama.


The telescope is a modified off-the-shelf Celestron telescope, the Celestron CPC 925, a 9.25? diffraction limited Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and if you were to buy a un-modified version, it would cost $2,500 including the mount.

The ISERV version was modified at the Marshall Space Flight Center, which is where it is controlled from, as well. It is installed in the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF) in the station’s Destiny laboratory. With a resolution down to 3.2 meters (10 feet), it will be possible to spot fairly small details and objects.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield with the new ISERV (International Space Station SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System), a modified Celestron telescope for Earth observation. Credit: NASA/CSA
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield with the new ISERV (International Space Station SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System), a modified Celestron telescope for Earth observation. Credit: NASA/CSA

This ISERV Pathfinder is intended as an engineering exercise, with the long-term goal of developing a system for providing imagery to developing nations as they monitor natural disasters and environmental concerns.

“ISERV’s full potential is yet to be seen, but we hope it will really make a difference in people’s lives,” said principal investigator Burgess Howell of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “For example, if an earthen dam gives way in Bhutan, we want to be able to show officials where the bridge is out or where a road is washed out or a power substation is inundated. This kind of information is critical to focus and speed rescue efforts.”

The system will use on positioning software to know where the space station is at each moment and to calculate the next chance to view a particular area on the ground. If there’s a good viewing opportunity, the SERVIR team will instruct the camera to take high-resolution photographs at 3 to 7 frames per second, totaling as many as 100 images per pass.

The current mission will test the limitations of this ISERV system and identify measures for improvements in a more permanent system. For instance, the engineering team is working to determine how the geometry of the ISS window affects the imagery; how much sunlight is needed to capture clear images; and how the atmosphere affects that clarity. This characterization phase will last several weeks to a few months. Eventually, ISERV should be made available to the natural hazards community and to basic research scientists.

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

It’s Earth Madness! Vote for Your Favorite Images of Our Home Planet

Screenshot of one of the competing images in the Earth Madness competition bracket.

NASA’s Earth Observatory website has decided to join in on the bracketology fever that overtakes many US citizens during the month of March … but with science and not basketball. Instead of March Madness, it’s EARTH MADNESS! From March 4 through April 5, Earth Observatory fans can vote for their favorite images of the year. There are thirty-two images vying for the title, but only one can be the winner. This will be a head-to-head competition, whittling the total from 32 to 16 to 8 to 4 to 2 in a tournament of remote sensing science. The competition will be stiff in the four brackets — Earth at Night, Events, Data, and True-Color — so it is up to you to separate the winners from the losers. Check back each week to vote in the next round and help choose a winner.

Print a copy of the bracket, fill it out, and get that workplace pool going. Come back every Monday to vote and watch the results.

Berth of a Dragon after Thruster Failure Recovery Establishes American Lifeline to ISS

SpaceX Dragon berthing at ISS on March 3, 2013. Credit: NASA

Kennedy Space Center – After overcoming a frightening thruster failure that could have spelled rapid doom on the heels of a breathtakingly beautiful launch, the privately developed Dragon spacecraft successfully berthed at the International Space Station (ISS) a short while ago, at 8:56 a.m. EST Sunday morning, March 3, 2013 – thereby establishing an indispensable American Lifeline to the massive orbiting lab complex.

Hearts sank and hopes rose in the span of a few troubling hours following Friday’s (Mar. 1) flawless launch of the Dragon cargo resupply capsule atop the 15 story tall Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and the initial failure of the life giving solar arrays to deploy and failure of the maneuvering thrusters to fire.

“Congrats to the @NASA/@SpaceX team. Great work getting #Dragon to the #ISS…our foothold for future exploration!” tweeted NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver.

Space station Expedition 34 crew members Kevin Ford and Tom Marshburn of NASA used the station’s 58 foot long Canadian supplied robotic arm to successfully grapple and capture Dragon at 5:31 a.m. Sunday as the station was flying 253 miles above northern Ukraine. See the grappling video – here.

SpaceX Dragon holding at 10m capture point. ISS crew standing by for "go" to perform grapple. Credit: NASA
SpaceX Dragon holding at 10m capture point. ISS crew standing by for “go” to perform grapple. Credit: NASA

“The vehicle’s beautiful, space is beautiful, and the Canadarm2 is beautiful too”, said station commander Kevin Ford during the operation.

The capsule pluck from free space came one day, 19 hours and 22 minutes after the mission’s launch.

Ground controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston then commanded the arm to install Dragon onto the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module – see schematic.

Schematic shows location of Dragon docking port for CRS-2 mission and ISS modules. Credit: NASA
Schematic shows location of Dragon docking port for CRS-2 mission and ISS modules. Credit: NASA

Originally, Dragon capture was slated only about 20 hours after launch. But that all went out the window following the serious post-launch anomalies that sent SpaceX engineers desperately scrambling to save the flight from a catastrophic finale.

The $133 million mission dubbed CRS-2 is only the 2nd contracted commercial resupply mission ever to berth at the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract. The contract is worth $1.6 Billion for at least a dozen resupply flights.

Following the forced retirement of NASA’s space shuttle orbiters in July 2011, American was left with zero capability to launch either cargo or astronauts to the primarily American ISS. NASA astronauts are 100% reliant on Russian Soyuz capsules for launch to the ISS.

Both the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft were designed and built by SpaceX Corporation based in Hawthorne, Calif., and are entirely American built.

The Falcon 9/Dragon commercial system restores America’s unmanned cargo resupply capability. But the time gap will be at least 3 to 5 years before American’s can again launch to the ISS aboard American rockets from American soil.

And continuing, relentless cuts to NASA’s budget are significantly increasing that human spaceflight gap and consequently forces more payments to Russia.

“Today we marked another milestone in our aggressive efforts to make sure American companies are launching resupply missions from U.S. shores,” said NASA Admisistrator Charles Bolden in a NASA statement.

“Our NASA-SpaceX team completed another successful berthing of the SpaceX Dragon cargo module to the International Space Station (ISS) following its near flawless launch on the Falcon-9 booster out of Cape Canaveral, Florida Friday morning. Launching rockets is difficult, and while the team faced some technical challenges after Dragon separation from the launch vehicle, they called upon their thorough knowledge of their systems to successfully troubleshoot and fully recover all vehicle capabilities. Dragon is now once again safely berthed to the station.”

“I was pleased to watch the launch from SpaceX’s facility in Hawthorne, CA, and I want to congratulate the SpaceX and NASA teams, who are working side by side to ensure America continues to lead the world in space.”

“Unfortunately, all of this progress could be jeopardized with the sequestration ordered by law to be signed by the President Friday evening. The sequester could further delay the restarting of human space launches from U.S. soil, push back our next generation space vehicles, hold up development of new space technologies, and jeopardize our space-based, Earth observing capabilities,” said Bolden.

ISS crew given GO for second stage capture of SpaceX Dragon with ISS on March 3, 2013.  Credit: NASA
ISS crew given GO for second stage capture of SpaceX Dragon with ISS on March 3, 2013. Credit: NASA

Dragon is loaded with about 1,268 pounds (575 kilograms) of vital supplies and provisions to support the ongoing science research by the resident six man crew, including more than a ton of vital supplies, science gear, research experiments, spare parts, food, water and clothing.

NASA says that despite the one-day docking delay, the Dragon unberthing will still be the same day as originally planned on March 25 – followed by a parachute assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.

Dragon will spend 22 days docked to the ISS. The station crew will soon open the hatch and unload all the up mass cargo and research supplies. Then they will pack the Dragon with about 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms) of science samples from human research, biology and biotechnology studies, physical science investigations, and education activities for return to Earth.

Canadian built robotic arm grapples SpaceX Dragon on March 3, 2013.  Credit:
Canadian built robotic arm grapples SpaceX Dragon on March 3, 2013. Credit:

Dragon is the only spacecraft in the world today capable of returning significant amounts of cargo to Earth.

Orbital Sciences Corp also won a $1.9 Billion cargo resupply contract from NASA to deliver cargo to the ISS using the firm’s new Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule.

NASA hopes the first Antares/Cygnus demonstration test flight from NASA’s Wallops Island Facility in Virginia will follow in April. Cygnus cargo transport is one way – to orbit only.

“SpaceX is proud to execute this important work for NASA, and we’re thrilled to bring this capability back to the United States,” said Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX.

“Today’s launch continues SpaceX’s long-term partnership with NASA to provide reliable, safe transport of cargo to and from the station, enabling beneficial research and advancements in technology and research.”

The SpaceX CRS-3 flight is slated to blast off in September 2013.

Ken Kremer

Falcon 9 SpaceX CRS-2 launch on March 1, 2013 ISS - shot from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building.  .  Credit: Ken Kremer/www.kenkremer.com
Falcon 9 SpaceX CRS-2 launch on March 1, 2013 to the ISS – shot from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: Ken Kremer/www.kenkremer.com

Surprising Third Radiation Belt Found Around Earth

Two giant swaths of radiation, known as the Van Allen Belts, surrounding Earth were discovered in 1958. In 2012, observations from the Van Allen Probes showed that a third belt can sometimes appear. The radiation is shown here in yellow, with green representing the spaces between the belts. Credit: NASA/Van Allen Probes/Goddard Space Flight Center

In September of 2012, scientists with the newly launched Van Allen Probes got permission to turn on one of their instruments after only three days in space instead of waiting for weeks, as planned. They wanted to turn on the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) so that its observations would overlap with another mission called SAMPEX (Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer), that was soon going to de-orbit and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere.

Now, they are very glad they did, as something happened that no one had ever seen before. A previously unknown third radiation belt formed in the Van Allen Radiation Belts that encircle Earth. The scientist watched – in disbelief – while their data showed the extra belt forming, then suddenly disappear, like it had been cut away with a knife. They have not yet seen a recurrence of a third belt.

“First we thought our instruments weren’t working correctly,” said Dan Baker, a member of the Van Allen Probes team from the University of Colorado at Boulder, “but we quickly realized we were seeing a real phenomenon.”

What happened is that shortly before REPT was turned on, solar activity on the Sun had sent energy toward Earth that caused the radiation belts to swell. The energetic particles then settled into a new configuration, showing an extra, third belt extending out into space.

“By the fifth day REPT was on, we could plot out our observations and watch the formation of a third radiation belt,” says Shri Kanekal, the deputy mission scientist for the mission. “The third belt persisted beautifully, day after day, week after week, for four weeks.”

This graph shows energetic electron data gathered by the Relativistic Electron-Proton Telescope (REPT) instruments, on the twin Van Allen Probes satellites in eccentric orbits around the Earth, from Sept. 1, 2012 to Oct. 4, 2012 (horizontal axis). It shows three discrete energy channels (measured in megaelectron volts, or MeV). The third belt region (in yellow) and second slot (in green) are highlighted, and exist up until a coronal mass ejection (CME) destroys them on Oct. 1. The vertical axis in each is L*, effectively the distance in Earth radii at which a magnetic field line crosses the magnetic equatorial plane. Credit: LASP
This graph shows energetic electron data gathered by the Relativistic Electron-Proton Telescope (REPT) instruments, on the twin Van Allen Probes satellites in eccentric orbits around the Earth, from Sept. 1, 2012 to Oct. 4, 2012 (horizontal axis). It shows three discrete energy channels (measured in megaelectron volts, or MeV). The third belt region (in yellow) and second slot (in green) are highlighted, and exist up until a coronal mass ejection (CME) destroys them on Oct. 1. The vertical axis in each is L*, effectively the distance in Earth radii at which a magnetic field line crosses the magnetic equatorial plane. Credit: LASP

Since their discovery in 1958, we’ve known that the Van Allen radiation belt is composed of two donut-shaped layers of energetic charged particles around the planet Earth, held in place by its magnetic field.

The scientists are now incorporating what they saw into new models of the radiation belts – a region that can sometimes swell dramatically in response to incoming energy from the Sun, impacting satellites and spacecraft or pose potential threats to human space flight.

The belts are normally between 200 to 60,000 kilometers above Earth; the new ring was much further out.

Launched on August 30, 2012 as the Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission, the twin probes were renamed in honor of the belts’ discoverer, astrophysicist James Van Allen. Observations of the belts have shown they are dynamic and mysterious. However, this type of dynamic three-belt structure was never seen, or even considered, theoretically.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun on August 31, 2012, the event that caused a third ring to form in the Van Allen radiation belts. Credit: NASA
A coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun on August 31, 2012, the event that caused a third ring to form in the Van Allen radiation belts. Credit: NASA

The Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma (ECT) suite of instruments on board the probes were designed to help understand how populations of electrons moving at nearly the speed of light and penetrating ions in space form or change in response to variable inputs of energy from the Sun.

Already, what the team has learned is re-writing the textbooks of what is known about the Van Allen belts.

“These events we’ve recorded are extraordinary and are already allowing us to refine and confirm our theories of belt dynamics in a way that will lead to predictability of their behavior,” said astrophysicst Harlan Spence, principal investigator for the ECT, “which is important for understanding space weather and ultimately for the safety of astronauts and spacecraft that operate within such a hazardous region of geospace.”

At a press briefing today, the team was asked why this third ring had never been observed before.

“We’ve never had the capability before to see something like this, said Nicky Fox, Van Allen Probes deputy project scientist. “The fact that we had such an amazing discovery within days of turning them on shows we still have mysteries to discover and explain. What the Van Allen Probes have shown is that the advances in technology and detection made by NASA have already had an almost immediate impact on basic science.”

Baker added, “As the philosopher Yogi Bera once said, you can observe a lot just by looking. This shows that when you open new eyes on the Universe you can invariably find new things.”

The team will be seeking to understand what the third ring mean for astronauts and satellites, even though the new ring is farther out, the regions in Earth orbit are magnetically connected to the new region that formed.

“Knowing more about this and understanding more about the belt is important for having better models and being able to predict the lifetimes of spacecraft,” said Fox.

“The rings, satellites, the space station are all affected by space weather,” said Mona Kessel, Van Allen Probes program scientist. “We don’t completely understand what we’ve seen, but we are modeling it and trying to piece this all together, so stay tuned.”

The team has published a paper in the journal Science.

For more info: NASA, University of New Hampshire

As Seen From Space: Mt. Etna Boils Over

Lava flows on Mt. Etna visible from the The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured Etna on February 19, 2013. Credit: NASA

Italy’s Mount Etna has turned on again, spewing lava and gas in its first big eruption in 2013. The volcano is one of the most active in the world, and is Europe’s tallest active volcano, currently standing about 3,329 m (10,922 ft) high.

The volcano has been “simmering” for 10 months, but on February 19 and 20, the famous volcano came to life, providing dramatic visuals from the ground (see the video below) as well as from space, with three outbursts in less than 36 hours. This image from the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured Etna on February 19 at 9:59 a.m. Central European Time, about 3 hours after the end of the first outbursts.

The false-color image combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light in the red, green, and blue channels of an RGB picture. This combination differentiates the appearance of fresh lava, snow, clouds, and forest.

Fresh lava is bright red—the hot surface emits enough energy to saturate the instrument’s shortwave infrared detectors, but is dark in near infrared and green light. Snow is blue-green, because it absorbs shortwave infrared light, but reflects near infrared and green light. Clouds made of water droplets (not ice crystals) reflect all three wavelengths of light similarly, and are white. Forests and other vegetation reflect near infrared more strongly than shortwave infrared and green light, and appear green. Dark gray areas are lightly vegetated lava flows, 30 to 350 years old.

The video from the ground was captured by Klaus Dorschfeldt, a videographer and webmaster at Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

In an update today on the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Vocanology website, a fourth episode of lava fountains was reported. “Like the previous paroxysms, this event produced fountains and lava and an ash cloud that has shifted to the northern sector of the volcano.”

If you want to keep updated on what Mt. Etna is doing, there’s a webcam where you can watch the eruptions live.

Source: NASA’s Earth Observatory

A Valentine From Voyager

Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune as seen by Voyager 1 on Valentine's Day in 1990

On February 14, 1990, after nearly 13 years of travel through the outer Solar System, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft crossed the orbit of Pluto and turned its camera around, capturing photos of the planets as seen from that vast distance. It was a family portrait taken from over 4.4 billion kilometers away — the ultimate space Valentine.

Who says astronomy isn’t romantic?

Full mosaic of Voyager 1 images taken on Feb. 14, 1990 (NASA/JPL)
Full mosaic of Voyager 1 images taken on Feb. 14, 1990 (NASA/JPL)

“That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives… There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.”

– Carl Sagan

VoyagerValentineIt was the unique perspective above provided by Voyager 1 that inspired Carl Sagan to first coin the phrase “Pale Blue Dot” in reference to our planet. And it’s true… from the edges of the solar system Earth is just a pale blue dot in a black sky, a bright speck just like all the other planets. It’s a sobering and somewhat chilling image of our world… but also inspiring, as the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are now the farthest human-made objects in existence — and getting farther every second. They still faithfully transmit data back to us even now, over 35 years since their launches, from 18.5 and 15.2 billion kilometers away.

The Voyagers sure know the value of a long-term relationship.

See more news from the Voyager mission here.