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miércoles, 5 de febrero de 2014

NASA : NASA-Sponsored 'Disk Detective' Lets Public Search for New Planetary Nurseries

NASA is inviting the public to help astronomers discover embryonic planetary systems hidden among data from the agency's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission through a new website, DiskDetective.org.

Disk Detective is NASA's largest crowdsourcing project whose primary goal is to produce publishable scientific results. It exemplifies a new commitment to crowdsourcing and open data by the United States government.

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Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.

Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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"Through Disk Detective, volunteers will help the astronomical community discover new planetary nurseries that will become future targets for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope," said James Garvin, the chief scientist for NASA Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate.

WISE was designed to survey the entire sky at infrared wavelengths. From a perch in Earth orbit, the spacecraft completed two scans of the entire sky between 2010 and 2011. It took detailed measurements on more than 745 million objects, representing the most comprehensive survey of the sky at mid-infrared wavelengths currently available.

Herbig-Haro 30 is the prototype of a gas-rich young stellar object disk. The dark disk spans 40 billion miles in this image, cutting the bright nebula in two and blocking the central star from direct view. Volunteers can help astronomers find more disks like this through DiskDetective.org.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/C. Burrows (STScI)

debris disk around the bright star Fomalhaut

Debris disks, such as this one around the bright star Fomalhaut, tend to be older than 5 million years, possess little or no gas, and contain belts of rocky or icy debris that resemble the asteroid and Kuiper belts found in our own solar system. The radial streaks are scattered starlight.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/UC Berkeley/Goddard/LLNL/JPL

Marc Kuchner, the principal investigator for DiskDetective.org (left) and James Garvin, the chief scientist for NASA Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate, discuss the crowdsourcing project in front of the hyperwall at Goddard's Science Visualization Lab.

Image Credit:

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/David Friedlander

Astronomers have used computers to search this haystack of data for planet-forming environments and narrowed the field to about a half-million sources that shine brightly in the infrared, indicating they may be "needles": dust-rich disks that are absorbing their star's light and reradiating it as heat.

"Planets form and grow within disks of gas, dust and icy grains that surround young stars, but many details about the process still elude us," said Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We need more examples of planet-forming habitats to better understand how planets grow and mature."

But galaxies, interstellar dust clouds, and asteroids also glow in the infrared, which stymies automated efforts to identify planetary habitats. There may be thousands of nascent solar systems in the WISE data, but the only way to know for sure is to inspect each source by eye, which poses a monumental challenge.

Public participation in scientific research is a type of crowdsourcing known as citizen science. It allows the public to make critical contributions to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by collecting, analyzing and sharing a wide range of data. NASA uses citizen science to engage the public in problem-solving.

Kuchner recognized the spotting of planetary nurseries as a perfect opportunity for crowdsourcing. He arranged for NASA to team up with the Zooniverse, a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators who collectively develop and manage citizen science projects on the Internet. The result of their combined effort is Disk Detective.

Disk Detective incorporates images from WISE and other sky surveys in brief animations the website calls flip books. Volunteers view a flip book and classify the object based on simple criteria, such as whether the image is round or includes multiple objects. By collecting this information, astronomers will be able to assess which sources should be explored in greater detail, for example, to search for planets outside our solar system.

"Disk Detective's simple and engaging interface allows volunteers from all over the world to participate in cutting-edge astronomy research that wouldn't even be possible without their efforts," said Laura Whyte, director of citizen science at Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Ill., a founding partner of the Zooniverse collaboration.

The project aims to find two types of developing planetary environments. The first, known as a young stellar object disk, typically is less than 5 million years old, contains large quantities of gas, and often is found in or near young star clusters. For comparison, our own solar system is 4.6 billion years old. The second planetary environment, known as a debris disk, tends to be older than 5 million years, possesses little or no gas, and contains belts of rocky or icy debris that resemble the asteroid and Kuiper belts found in our own solar system. Vega and Fomalhaut, two of the brightest stars in the sky, host debris disks.

WISE was shut down in 2011 after its primary mission was completed. But in September 2013, it was reactivated, renamed Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), and given a new mission, which is to assist NASA's efforts to identify the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs). NEOWISE also can assist in characterizing previously detected asteroids that could be considered potential targets for future exploration missions.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., manages and operates WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The WISE mission was selected competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology, which manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Disk Detective, please visit:

http://www.diskdetective.org

For more information about NASA's WISE mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/wise

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

domingo, 8 de diciembre de 2013

NASA : 90L (Atlantic Ocean)

Atlantic Ocean's System 90L Gets an Infrared NASA Look

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over System 90L on Dec. 5 at 9:47 a.m. EST and the AIRS instrument captured infrared data on the clouds, revealing the strongest thunderstorms east of the center.

Image Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

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NASA's infrared instrument called AIRS that flies aboard the Aqua satellite gave scientists another look at the clouds and convection happening in a non-tropical low pressure area that's struggling to organize into a sub-tropical or tropical cyclone.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over System 90L on Dec. 5 at 9:47 a.m. EST and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument captured infrared data on the clouds, revealing the strongest thunderstorms east of the center. The bands of thunderstorms east of the center appeared fragmented in the infrared imagery. Within the bands, some of the cloud top temperatures were near -63F/-52C, indicative of high clouds with the potential for moderate to heavy rainfall. On Dec. 6, the heaviest shower activity was still falling east of the center, and some strong showers were also located north of the center of circulation.

The non-tropical area of low pressure was centered about 250 miles south of the Azores Islands and generating gale-force winds.

The National Hurricane Center noted that this post-Atlantic Hurricane Season wannabe is headed northward and into an area of stronger upper-level winds, wind shear and cooler waters, all of which will weaken the system. The National Hurricane Center gives this low pressure area just a 20 percent chance of becoming a subtropical or tropical cyclone during the next five days.

Text credit: Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Dec. 05, 2013 - NASA Watching a Post-Atlantic Hurricane Season Low

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the low pressure area on Dec. 5 and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument captured infrared data on the clouds, revealing the strongest thunderstorms northeast of the center.

Image Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

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System 90L has developed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean today and NASA's Aqua satellite took an infrared look at the low pressure area to see if it had development potential. System 90L was located near 31.8 north and 28.1 west, about 450 miles south of the Azores Islands.
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the low pressure area on Dec. 5 and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument captured infrared data on the clouds, revealing the strongest thunderstorms northeast of the center. The low is non-tropical and is generating tropical-storm-force winds near 60 mph.
The low is expected to be affected by strong upper-level winds shear and move over colder waters, both of which will inhibit and likely prevent organization. The National Hurricane Center gives it a low chance of becoming a subtropical or tropical cyclone in the next couple of days.
Text credit: Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

NASA : 92B (Northern Indian Ocean)

NASA Satellite Catches Birth of Tropical Cyclone 06B

Aqua satellite passed over the tropical cyclone on December 5 at 20:17 UTC/3:17 p.m. EST. Strong rising air and thunderstorms (purple) were building over the low-level circulation center and in a band of thunderstorms wrapping to the southwest.

Image Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

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NASA's Aqua satellite provided visible and infrared satellite imagery to forecasters helping confirm the birth of the sixth tropical cyclone of the Northern Indian Ocean cyclone season.

Tropical Cyclone 06B, which may be renamed "Madi," organized from low pressure System 92B today, December 6, when it was about 266 nautical miles/306 miles/492.6 km southeast of Chennai, India. Tropical Cyclone 06B was centered near 9.8 north latitude and 93.7 west longitude. Its maximum sustained winds were near 45 knots/51.7 mph/83.3 kph, making it tropical-storm strength. Those tropical storm force winds extended out 50 nautical miles/57.5 miles/92.6 km from the center, making the small tropical storm just about 100 nautical miles/115.1 miles/185.2 km in diameter. 06B was moving to the northwest at 3 knots/3.4 mph/5.5 kph.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the tropical cyclone on December 5 at 20:17 UTC/3:17 p.m. EST. Strong rising air (convection) was building over the low-level circulation center and continued on December 6. AIRS data showed high, strong, cold thunderstorm cloud top temperatures as cold as -62F/-52C over a large area around the center and in a band wrapping into the center from the south.

The forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC expect 06B to continue strengthening over the next couple of days because it is located in warm waters.

06B is expected to drift northward because there are no weather systems to guide it until a low to mid-level subtropical ridge (elongated area) of high pressure builds up over the eastern Bay of Bengal. Once that happens, the tropical cyclone is expected to curve to the north-northeast.

JTWC forecasters also expect that 06B will briefly reach cyclone/hurricane strength sometime on December 9 as it parallels the coast of east-central India while remaining far off-shore.

Text credit: Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Dec. 05, 2013 - NASA Eyes Another Developing Depression in Northern Indian Ocean

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over System 92B on Dec. 5 at 2:59 a.m. EST. Aqua's AIRS instrument data showed a large area of strong convection and high, cold (purple) thunderstorm cloud tops north and east of the center.

Image Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

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The Northern Indian Ocean typhoon season usually lasts until the end of December, but it's not going out without a fight this year. Infrared satellite data from 92B (Northern Indian Ocean)92B (Northern Indian Ocean)showed bands of thunderstorms wrapping around low pressure System 92B's center. If this system develops it would become Tropical Depression 06B.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the low pressure area designated as System 92B on Dec. 5 at 07:59 UTC/2:59 a.m. EST and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument captured infrared data about the developing storm. AIRS data showed a large area of strong convection and high, cold thunderstorm cloud tops north and east of the center of circulation.
At the time of the AIRS image, the western-most edge of the low covered most of the island nation of Sri Lanka where it brought rain. AIRS data showed bands of thunderstorms also wrapping into the center from the west and south. The circulation appears to be consolidating today, December 5.
At 1500 UTC/10 a.m. EDT on December 5, System 92B as centered near 9.8 north and 84. 0 east, about 293 nautical miles southeast of Chennai, India. Winds in the area were estimated to be 25 to 30 knots/28.7 to 34.5 mph/46.3 to 55.5 kph. Satellite data indicated that the strongest winds were in the northern half of the low. The low pressure area is moving north-northeastward at 6 knots/6.9 mph/11.1 kph.
The low-level center of the system lies to the south of a subtropical ridge (elongated area) of high pressure, which is providing good outflow, but is also causing vertical wind shear, which is inhibiting the development.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center expects this low pressure area to become a tropical depression and curve away from India. It is expected to move in a northeasterly direction toward the center of the Bay of Bengal.
Text credit: Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

› 2012 Antarctic Ozone Hole Second Smallest in 20 years

viernes, 1 de noviembre de 2013

NASA: Media Invited to View New Earth Science Satellite before Shipment to Japan

Conceptual image of GPM.

Image Credit: NASA

Media Invited to View New Earth Science Satellite before Shipment to Japan

Media have the opportunity Friday, Nov. 15, to get a closer look at NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite before it is shipped to Japan for launch in early 2014.

Media will meet at the Visitors Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., at 9:30 a.m. EST, where they will be briefed on the mission and speak with mission scientists. This will be followed by a tour of the spacecraft clean room and opportunities to interview the engineers who built the satellite.

Reporters also will have time to speak with scientists at Goddard's 15-screen Hyperwall about the applications of GPM data, including how rainfall data fit into climate models and contribute to understanding of the entire Earth system. All speakers will be available for interviews.

GPM, scheduled for shipment to the Tanegashima Space Center in November, is an international satellite mission led by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It will provide next-generation observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours, as well as unprecedented 3-D views of hurricanes and snowstorms. GPM data will contribute to the monitoring and forecasting of weather events such as droughts, floods and hurricanes.

To attend, media must register by contacting Ellen Gray at 301-286-1950 or

ellen.t.gray@nasa.gov

no later than Nov. 7. Social media registration is closed.

For more information about the GPM mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/gpm

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com

domingo, 27 de octubre de 2013

CURIOSIDADES: La NASA quiere más mujeres en la ciencia



La NASA quiere más mujeres en la ciencia

Mapa

La NASA quiere más mujeres en la ciencia

Por Agencia EFE – 22/11/2011

Washington, 22 nov (EFE).- La NASA quiere más mujeres en la ciencia y con el fin de animar a las jóvenes estudiantes a que encaminen sus carreras hacia las ramas de ingeniería, matemáticas y tecnología ha creado una nueva web que fue presentada hoy.

La página women.nasa.gov/a2i/ contiene vídeos en los que pueden saber más sobre las mujeres que trabajan en la NASA, sus carreras, su formación y cómo comenzaron a trabajar para la agencia espacial estadounidense.

Como la matemática Carolina Restrepo, quien creció en Colombia y Bolivia, y a los 18 años no dudó en marcharse a Estados Unidos para estudiar ingeniería, con la ilusión de poder diseñar, construir y hacer volar un aeroplano radiocontrolado.

Fue lo que vio en la televisión sobre la NASA lo que le impulsó a querer trabajar en la agencia espacial. "Nunca había tenido la oportunidad de conocer o hablar con alguien que había trabajado en el campo del espacio, pero no me importó, me concentré para que cuando creciera sucediera", cuenta en su relato.

Pocas semanas después de comenzar su primer semestre en la Universidad de Texas A&M, leyó que la NASA estaba contratando gente de su edad y ese se convirtió en su nuevo objetivo. Un año más tarde estaba trabajando en el Centro Espacial Johnson de Houston algo que siempre ha disfrutado desde entonces.

Como estudiante trabajó en varios proyectos, pero cuenta que sus favoritos eran los que estaban relacionados con diseñar algoritmos sobre el vuelo de las naves espaciales, un trabajo que requirió una base sólida en Matemáticas y en Física para poder simular el vuelo del vehículo espacial.

Ahora forma parte del equipo de diseño de la cápsula Orion, el nuevo vehículo de la NASA con el que espera poder enviar al hombre a Marte.

"Trabajar en la NASA hace que todos esos años de trabajo duro y las largas noches de estudio hayan merecido la pena. No cambiaría esto por nada en el mundo", añadió.

Con esta herramienta "tenemos la oportunidad de llegar a la próxima generación e inspirar a las jóvenes de hoy a perseguir una carrera en la ciencia y la tecnología", señaló Rebecca Keiser, directora adjunta de políticas de integración y representante de la NASA ante la Casa Blanca del consejo de políticas para mujeres y niñas.

La web incluye cuatro cuentas de Twitter, una por cada uno de los temas, en las que las estudiantes pueden interactuar enviando sus preguntas a las científicas.

La NASA ya contaba con una página web women.nasa.gov, en la que se incluyen el testimonio de mujeres en puestos destacados en la agencia, entre otras, la subdirectora Lori Garver, con el mismo objetivo de llevar la ciencia a la nueva generación.

Según datos de la NASA, de los 18.544 empleados que tiene la agencia espacial en todos sus centros, 6.539 son mujeres, de las que 417 son hispanas.

EFE

Antarctic Ozone Hole Slightly Smaller than Average This Year

The Antarctic ozone hole reached its maximum single-day area for 2013 on Sept. 16, 2013.

The Antarctic ozone hole reached its maximum single-day area for 2013 on Sept. 16. The ozone hole (purple and blue) is the region over Antarctica with total ozone at or below 220 Dobson units (a common unit for measuring ozone concentration).

Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

The ozone hole that forms each year in the stratosphere over Antarctica was slightly smaller in 2013 than average in recent decades, according to NASA satellite data.

The ozone hole is a seasonal phenomenon that starts to form during the Antarctic spring (August and September). The September-October 2013 average size of the hole was 8.1 million square miles (21 million square kilometers). For comparison, the average size measured since the mid-1990s when the annual maximum size stopped growing is 8.7 million square miles (22.5 million square kilometers). However, the size of the hole in any particular year is not enough information for scientists to determine whether a healing of the hole has begun.

"There was a lot of Antarctic ozone depletion in 2013, but because of above average temperatures in the Antarctic lower stratosphere, the ozone hole was a bit below average compared to ozone holes observed since 1990," said Paul Newman, an atmospheric scientist and ozone expert at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The ozone hole forms when the sun begins rising again after several months of winter darkness. Polar-circling winds keep cold air trapped above the continent, and sunlight-sparked reactions involving ice clouds and chlorine from manmade chemicals begin eating away at the ozone. Most years, the conditions for ozone depletion ease before early December when the seasonal hole closes.

Levels of most ozone-depleting chemicals in the atmosphere have gradually declined as the result of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to protect the ozone layer by phasing out production of ozone-depleting chemicals. As a result, the size of the hole has stabilized, with variation from year to year driven by changing meteorological conditions.

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Daily images from Jul. 1 to Oct. 15 show the evolution of the 2013 ozone hole. The ozone hole maximum occurred on Sept. 16, 2013.

Image Credit: NASA/Robert Simmon/Ozone Hole Watch

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The single-day maximum area this year was reached on Sept. 16 when the maximum area reached 9.3 million square miles (24 million square kilometers), about equal to the size of North America. The largest single-day ozone hole since the mid-1990s was 11.5 million square miles (29.9 million square kilometers) on Sept. 9, 2000.

Science teams from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have been monitoring the ozone layer from the ground and with a variety of instruments on satellites and balloons since the 1970s. These ozone instruments capture different aspects of ozone depletion. The independent analyses ensure that the international community understands the trends in this critical part of Earth's atmosphere. The resulting views of the ozone hole have differences in the computation of the size of the ozone hole, its depth, and record dates.

NASA observations of the ozone hole during 2013 were produced from data supplied by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite and the Ozone Monitoring and Profiler Suite instrument on the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite. Long-term satellite ozone-monitoring instruments have included the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer, the second generation Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Instrument, the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment series of instruments, and the Microwave Limb Sounder.

Related Links:

› NASA's Ozone Hole Watch

› NASA, NOAA Data Show Significant Antarctic Ozone Hole Remains

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

domingo, 25 de agosto de 2013

NASA - NASA Invites Media to Learn About Airborne Hurricane Mission

NASA's HS3 Mission Analyzes Saharan Dust Layer Over Eastern Atlantic

Aug. 23, 2013

This infrared image from NOAA's GOES-East satellite on Aug. 20 shows the Global Hawk crossing the low-level remnants of Erin. Erin's low-level clouds appear as a faint circulation. The green path is the direction the Global Hawk came from. The red line represents the path the aircraft would follow.

Image Credit:

NASA/NOAA

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Global Hawk track overlaid on dust forecast (left) and temperature and dew point data graph (right)

The Global Hawk track overlaid on the GEOS-5 dust forecast (red shading). Green symbols show the locations of real-time S-HIS temperature and dew point temperature retrievals (right image, from the location of the plane symbol in the left image) which shows very dry air over the remnants of Erin.

Image Credit:

NASA

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The Global Hawk’s Cloud Physics Lidar analyzed the Saharan Air Layer and showed an elevated dust layer (dark blue shading between 1.5 to 2.8 miles). The red shading beneath shows low-level clouds associated with Erin’s remnants. Lighter shading near 9.3 miles are thin cirrus clouds.

Image Credit:

NASA

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One of two of NASA's Global Hawk unmanned aircraft flew over the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin and investigated the Saharan Air Layer in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean on Aug. 20 and 21. The instruments aboard the Global Hawk sampled the environment of ex-Erin and revealed an elevated dust layer overrunning the storm.
"Our goal with this flight was to look at how the Saharan air would move around or into the former storm, but the circulation was so shallow and weak that, according to our instruments, the Saharan air simply moved westward right over what was left of Erin,"
said Scott A. Braun, HS3 principal investigator and a research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Two Global Hawks are flying as part of HS3, short for NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel mission, this year out of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Va. Global Hawk aircraft are well-suited for hurricane investigations because they can fly for as long as 28 hours and over-fly hurricanes at altitudes greater than 60,000 feet (18.3 km).
One of the purposes of the HS3 mission is to address the controversial role of the Saharan Air Layer in tropical storm formation and intensification. On its first flight out of Wallops, a Global Hawk obtained data about the SAL using several instruments aboard.
The Cloud Physics Lidar, or CPL, instrument analyzed the SAL and showed an elevated dust layer between about 1.5 and 2.8 miles (2.5 and 4.5 km) overrunning the remnants of Erin. The low-level clouds associated with what was left of Erin were located below 1.2 miles (2 km).
The CPL is an airborne lidar system designed specifically for studying clouds and aerosols. CPL will study cloud- and dust-layer boundaries and will provide optical depth or thickness of aerosols and clouds.
Another instrument aboard the Global Hawk measured temperature and dewpoint. "The scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder showed very dry air over the remnants of Erin," Braun said.
The Global Hawk is expected to make another trip to analyze the Saharan Air Layer on Aug. 24-25.
HS3 is a mission that brings together several NASA centers with federal and university partners to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin. Among those factors, HS3 will address the controversial role of the hot, dry and dusty Saharan Air Layer in tropical storm formation and intensification and the extent to which deep convection in the inner-core region of storms is a key driver of intensity change.
The HS3 mission will operate between Aug. 20 and Sept. 23. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 and usually peaks in early to mid-September.
Wallops is one of several NASA centers involved with the HS3 mission. The Earth Science Projects Office at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages the project. Other participants include Goddard, NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The HS3 mission is funded by NASA Headquarters in Washington and managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and is one of five large field campaigns operating under the Earth Venture program. The HS3 mission also involves collaborations with various partners including the National Centers for Environmental Prediction; Naval Postgraduate School; Naval Research Laboratory; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division and Earth System Research Laboratory; Northrop Grumman Space Technology; National Center for Atmospheric Research; State University of New York at Albany; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; University of Wisconsin; and University of Utah.
Related Links
› HS3 Mission
› NASA Hurricane Research
› NASA's Wallops Flight Facility
› NASA's Airborne Science Program
› NASA's Global Hawks

Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com

domingo, 11 de agosto de 2013

NASA - Mangkhut (Northwest Pacific Ocean)

NASA Sees Former Tropical Storm Mangkhut's Remnants Raining Out

NASA's Aqua satellite captured this infrared image of Mangkhut's remnants on Aug. 8 at 2:17 a.m. EDT. Ex-Tropical Storm Mangkhut's clouds and showers (blue) are over Northern Viet Nam, Laos and China.

Image Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

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NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of former Tropical Storm Mangkhut's remnants on Aug. 8 raining on northern Vietnam and adjacent areas as it continued to move inland after making landfall in northern Vietnam on Aug. 7.

Mangkhut made landfall 80 nautical miles south of Hanoi, Vietnam on Aug. 7. At the time of the last advisory on the system, it was centered near 20.1 north and 104.7 east, about 77 nautical miles south-southwest of Hanoi. Since then, it has moved into northern Vietnam, Laos and southern China.

The infrared data, captured on Aug. 8 at 2:17 a.m. EDT by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard the Aqua satellite, showed the circulation of ex-Tropical Storm Mangkhut's clouds and showers over northern Viet Nam, Laos and China. At 10 a.m. EDT on Aug. 8, Dienbien, Vietnam (the capital of Diện Biên Province located in western north Vietnam) was reporting light rain from Mangkhut's remnants. Farther north, the airport at Kunming, China was reporting cloudy skies and the forecast calls for scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight from the remnants as it dissipates.

Text credit: Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

August 07, 2013 - NASA Satellite Sees Tropical Storm Mangkhut Making Vietnam Landfall

This Aug. 6 infrared image from AIRS on NASA’s Aqua satellite showed that cloud top temperatures in Mangkhut are as cold as 210 kelvin/-81F/-63Ct (purple) indicating powerful storms.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

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Tropical Storm Mangkhut had some strong thunderstorms around its center as it began making landfall in northern Vietnam on Aug. 7. Infrared data from NASA's Aqua satellite showed very cold cloud top temperatures of those strong thunderstorms as it passed overhead.

On Aug. 6 at 20:55 UTC (4:55 p.m. EDT) NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Mangkhut as it tracked west-northwest through the Gulf of Tonkin on its way to a landfall. Aqua's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument captured infrared data that showed that cloud top temperatures of some thunderstorms around Mangkhut's center were as cold as 210 kelvin/-81F/-63C indicating powerful storms with the potential for heavy rainfall.

The AIRS data also measures temperatures over land, and in the same image where it captured Tropical Storm Mangkhut, the data showed some of the surface temperatures in eastern central China appeared warmer than 300 kelvin/80F/26.8C at 1841 UTC on Aug. 6 or 2:41 a.m. China local time. Those are warm overnight temperatures!

Early on Aug. 7, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that "Animated infrared satellite imagery shows the deep convective bands associated with the system have collapsed as they began to interact with the topography of Vietnam." A Tropical Storm Warning remains in effect for Aug. 7, according to the Vietnam National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

At 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) on Aug. 7, Mangkhut's center was very close to landfall. Maximum sustained winds were near 35 knots, making it a minimal tropical storm. Mangkhut was about 92 nautical miles/106 miles/170 km south of Hanoi, Vietnam, near 19.8 north latitude and 105.8 east longitude. It was moving to the west-northwest at 13 knots/15 mph/24 kph.

After Mangkhut makes landfall about 65 miles south of Hanoi, the storm is expected to dissipate within 24 hours.

Text credit: Rob Gutro

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

August 06, 2013 - NASA Sees a Second Tropical Storm Headed to Northern Vietnam in a Week

This infrared image from the AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite was taken on Aug. 6 at 10:39 UTC (6:39 a.m. EDT). Strong thunderstorms with very cold cloud tops were around the center and in fragmented bands around the center (purple).

Image Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

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Tropical Depression 10W has strengthened in 24 hours and become Tropical Storm Mangkhut. Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite revealed the strong thunderstorms around Mangkhut's center that hinted at that intensification.

Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC expect Mangkhut to make landfall in northern Vietnam sometime on Aug. 8, just days after Tropical Storm Jebi made landfall and took lives. JTWC takes Mangkhut from the southeast, through the Gulf of Tonkin and making landfall just south of Hanoi. Tropical Storm Jebi came from the east, over Hainan Island, China and made landfall north of Hanoi.

At 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) on Aug. 6, Tropical Storm Mangkhut had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots/40.2 mph/64.8 kph. The center of Mangkhut was located near 16.4 north and 109.7 east, about 104 nautical miles/ 119.7 miles/192.6 km east of Da Nang, Vietnam. Mangkhut is moving to the northwest at 17 knots/19.5 mph/31.4 kph.

Infrared satellite imagery from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite taken on Aug. 5 at 17:59 UTC (12:59 p.m. EDT) showed strong thunderstorms with very cold cloud tops around the center of what was Tropical Depression 10W. The depression since strengthened into a tropical storm. AIRS also revealed fragmented bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the low-level center of the storm.

The JTWC is forecasting Tropical Storm Mangkhut to drift across the Gulf of Tonkin, and make landfall just southeast of Hanoi.

Text credit: Rob Gutro

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

NASA - NASA Begins Launch Preparations for Next Mars Mission

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatiles Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is seen inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on Aug. 3. 2013 at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. MAVEN will be prepared inside the facility for its scheduled November launch to Mars.

NASA's next spacecraft going to Mars arrived Friday, Aug. 2, at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and is now perched in a cleanroom to begin final preparations for its November launch.

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is undergoing detailed testing and fueling prior to being moved to its launch pad. The mission has a 20-day launch period that opens Nov. 18.

The spacecraft will conduct the first mission dedicated to surveying the upper atmosphere of Mars. Scientists expect to obtain unprecedented data that will help them understand how the loss of atmospheric gas to space may have played a part in changing the planet's climate.

"We're excited and proud to ship the spacecraft right on schedule," said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "But more critical milestones lie ahead before we accomplish our mission of collecting science data from Mars. I firmly believe the team is up to the task. Now we begin the final push to launch."

Over the weekend, the team confirmed the spacecraft arrived in good condition. They removed the spacecraft from the shipping container and secured it to a rotation fixture in the cleanroom. In the next week, the team will reassemble components previously removed for transport. Further checks prior to launch will include software tests, spin balance tests, and test deployments of the spacecraft's solar panels and booms.

The spacecraft was transported from Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., on Friday, aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo plane. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton, Colo., designed and built the spacecraft and is responsible for testing, launch processing, and mission operations.

"It's always a mix of excitement and stress when you ship a spacecraft down to the launch site," said Guy Beutelschies, MAVEN program manager at Lockheed Martin. "It's similar to moving your children to college after high school graduation. You're proud of the hard work to get to this point, but you know they still need some help before they're ready to be on their own."

Previous Mars missions detected energetic solar fields and particles that could drive atmospheric gases away from Mars. Unlike Earth, Mars does not have a planet-wide magnetic field that would deflect these solar winds. As a result, these winds may have stripped away much of Mars' atmosphere.

MAVEN's data will help scientists reconstruct the planet's past climate. Scientists will use MAVEN data to project how Mars became the cold, dusty desert planet we see today. The planned one-year mission begins with the spacecraft entering the Red Planet's orbit in September 2014.

"MAVEN is not going to detect life," said Bruce Jakosky, planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder and MAVEN's principal investigator. "But it will help us understand the climate history, which is the history of its habitability."

MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder. The university provides science instruments and leads science operations, education and public outreach.

Goddard manages the project and provides two of the science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The University of California at Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory provides science instruments for the mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., provides navigation support, Deep Space Network support, and Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

To learn more about the MAVEN mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/maven

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

domingo, 14 de julio de 2013

NASA - Space Station Ocean Imager Available to More Scientists

Differently colored waters in the Sea of Okhotsk on June 12, 2013 suggest differences in phytoplankton community structure from one location to the next. The ocean color community would eventually like to use remotely sensed data, such as are shown in the above Aqua-MODIS image, to better understand global phytoplankton diversity. (Click on the above image to see more of the region at higher resolution.)

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NOTE: All SeaWiFS images presented here are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye

Ocean Color Distribution Statistics

HOUSTON -- The International Space Station is expanding the use of its Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO) instrument to more Earth scientists and environmental researchers.

HICO records highly detailed images of various environments on Earth for research, support and management. Now that the instrument has completed its primary mission of collecting regional coastal ocean data for civilian and naval research, NASA will continue to support HICO and encourage new users. HICO is mounted to the station's Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility.

Scientists can use information from HICO to detail the biological and chemical signatures of aquatic and terrestrial materials. When the instrument scans an area of Earth, its sensor can reveal things invisible to the human eye such as chemical compounds in coastal waters or the presence of microscopic sea life. The Environmental Protection Agency has tapped HICO as a resource to monitor coastal water quality.

New proposals for scientific or commercial use of HICO's data should be submitted through the HICO website. Proposals requesting new uses of the instrument will be evaluated by the International Space Station Program, NASA's Science Mission Directorate, the HICO project scientist and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space. Oregon State University in Corvallis manages the HICO website, and the Naval Research Laboratory operates the sensor itself.

Users can access historical and any future collections of HICO data through the NASA Ocean Color website, managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

To submit a proposal to use HICO, visit:

http:/hico.coas.oregonstate.edu/index.shtml

To view the Ocean Color website, visit:

http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For more about the International Space Station or information on past, ongoing, and future station research activities, including research results and publications, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui