With the bright moon that was out on the evening of August 13, many astronomy buffs were not able to fully appreciate the spectacular Perseid meteor shower going on in the night sky. From the International Space Station, however, astronaut Ron Garan had a front seat view as part of the Crew Earth Observations, or CEO, investigation.
Using a Nikon D3S digital camera with a 22 mm lens, Garan captured a stunning photo of one of the Perseid meteors streaking through Earth's atmosphere. You can see part of the space station's solar array in the image, allowing the viewer to share in the unique perspective of the crew from low Earth orbit. This photograph will add to the CEO investigation's collection of hundreds of thousands of Earth images.
The astronaut photography for CEO supports global research, according to William Stefanov, chief scientist for the Engineering and Science Group Contract supporting the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center. "The inclined equatorial orbit of the station, and having 'humans in the loop,' makes it a useful and unique platform in comparison to unmanned polar-orbiting sensor systems.
From the space station, data can be collected on Earth processes at different times of day, with different image resolutions, illumination conditions and viewing angles, than is possible from the majority of robotic sensor systems," said Stefanov.
One of the upcoming developments for CEO includes camera updates to enable images in near-infrared wavelengths. This will make it possible to better map vegetation conditions using crew photography. According to Stefanov, this is just one of the advantages to a station-based perception of our planet. "The orbital perspective allows us to view and record Earth processes that would be difficult, if not impossible, to measure from the ground at scales that provide local, regional, and global perspectives.
Atmospheric and oceanic processes, patterns of vegetation change and urbanization, changes to Earth's snow and ice cover and glaciers, and detection of erupting volcanoes, are all examples of Earth processes of interest to our societies that we can only efficiently monitor, in a global sense and on repeatable time intervals, from space," said Stefanov.
A NASA-led research team has confirmed what Walt Disney told us all along: Earth really is a small world, after all.
Since Charles Darwin's time, scientists have speculated that the solid Earth might be expanding or contracting. That was the prevailing belief, until scientists developed the theory of plate tectonics, which explained the large-scale motions of Earth's lithosphere, or outermost shell. Even with the acceptance of plate tectonics half a century ago, some Earth and space scientists have continued to speculate on Earth's possible expansion or contraction on various scientific grounds.
Now a new NASA study, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, has essentially laid those speculations to rest. Using a cadre of space measurement tools and a new data calculation technique, the team detected no statistically significant expansion of the solid Earth.
So why should we care if Mother Nature is growing? After all, Earth's shape is constantly changing. Tectonic forces such as earthquakes and volcanoes push mountains higher, while erosion and landslides wear them down. In addition, large-scale climate events like El Nino and La Nina redistribute vast water masses among Earth's ocean, atmosphere and land.
Scientists care because, to put movements of Earth's crust into proper context, they need a frame of reference to evaluate them against. Any significant change in Earth's radius will alter our understanding of our planet's physical processes and is fundamental to the branch of science called geodesy, which seeks to measure Earth's shape and gravity field, and how they change over time.
To make these measurements, the global science community established the International Terrestrial Reference Frame. This reference frame is used for ground navigation and for tracking spacecraft in Earth orbit. It is also used to monitor many aspects of global climate change, including sea level rise and its sources; imbalances in ice mass at Earth's poles; and the continuing rebound of Earth's surface following the retreat of the massive ice sheets that blanketed much of Earth during the last Ice Age.
NASA's Gulfstream III environmental research aircraft completed its brief mission to radar image volcanoes in Alaska the first week in August, and now the lengthy work of analyzing the data begins.
During the four-day mission from Aug. 1 through Aug. 4, the G-III flew several flights from its deployment base at Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage, Alaska. The UAVSAR synthetic aperture radar installed in a pod slung under the belly of the G-III imaged volcanoes in the Aleutian Island chain to detect and measure small changes in the Earth's surface of geophysical interest. While the aircraft was en route from its home base at NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., the radar imaged volcanoes in the Cascade Range over California, Oregon and Washington.
"All indications are that data were collected successfully," said scientist Paul Lundgren of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where the specialized radar was developed. "However, to detect changes in activity requires computation of differential interferograms from the new and previously collected data. This processing....typically [takes] several months, so we will know months from now whether there was any volcanic deformation over the past year."
Differential Global Positioning System satellite information is being used in conjunction with the aircraft's precision autopilot to enable the aircraft to repeat flight lines within 15 feet of the originals flown in August 2010. The system depends on corrections received from Iridium and Inmarsat satellites. The radar’s electronically steered antenna compensates for aircraft altitude and heading changes as the radar makes repeat passes over areas of interest.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted the signature of flat carbon flakes, called graphene, in space. If confirmed, this would be the first-ever cosmic detection of the material which is arranged like chicken wire in flat sheets that are one atom thick.
Graphene was first synthesized in a lab in 2004, and subsequent research on its unique properties garnered the Nobel Prize in 2010. It's as strong as it is thin, and conducts electricity as well as copper. Some think it's the "material of the future," with applications in computers, screens on electrical devices, solar panels and more.
Graphene in space isn't going to result in any super-fast computers, but researchers are interested in learning more about how it is created. Understanding chemical reactions involving carbon in space may hold clues to how our own carbon-based selves and other life on Earth developed.
Spitzer identified signs of the graphene in two small galaxies outside of our own, called the Magellanic Clouds, specifically in the material shed by dying stars, called planetary nebulae. The infrared-sensing telescope also spotted a related molecule, called C70, in the same region – marking the first detection of this chemical outside our galaxy.
C70 and graphene belong to the fullerene family, which includes molecules called "buckyballs," or C60. These carbon spheres contain 60 carbon atoms arranged like a soccer ball, and were named after their resemblance to the architectural domes of Buckminister Fuller. C70 molecules contain 70 carbon atoms and are longer in shape, more like a rugby ball.
Fullerenes have been found in meteorites carrying extraterrestrial gases, and water has been very recently encapsulated in buckyballs by using new laboratory techniques. These findings suggest fullerenes may have helped transport materials from space to Earth long ago, possibly helping to kick-start life.
With the bright moon that was out on the evening of August 13, many astronomy buffs were not able to fully appreciate the spectacular Perseid meteor shower going on in the night sky. From the International Space Station, however, astronaut Ron Garan had a front seat view as part of the Crew Earth Observations, or CEO, investigation.
