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Earth Science: Ten Years of Global Glacier Ice Loss | Europe's CryoSat Mission
Thanks to the European Space Agency’s CryoSat satellite and a breakthrough way of using its data, scientists have discovered that glaciers worldwide have shrunk by a total of 2% in just 10 years. This is because of higher air temperatures.
TEMPO Launch: Monitoring Air Pollution over North America | NASA Earth Science
On Friday, April 7, 2023, NASA's TEMPO instrument launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of the Intelsat 40e communications satellite. TEMPO, a joint collaboration between NASA and the Smithsonian, will provide the first-ever hourly scans of air pollution over greater North America. NASA's Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument will monitor major air pollutants down to four square miles.
From a fixed geostationary orbit above the equator, TEMPO will be the first space-based instrument to measure air quality over North America hourly during the daytime and at spatial regions of several square miles—far better than existing limits of about 100 square miles in the U.S. TEMPO data will play an important role in the scientific analysis of pollution, including studies of rush hour pollution, the potential for improved air quality alerts, the effects of lightning on ozone, the movement of pollution from forest fires and volcanoes, and even the effects of fertilizer applications.
This instrument will measure the spectra required to retrieve ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), formaldehyde (H2CO), glyoxal (C2H2O2), aerosols, cloud parameters, and UV-B radiation. TEMPO thus measures the major elements, directly or by proxy, of the diurnal tropospheric ozone chemistry cycle. Multi-spectral observations provide sensitivity to ozone in the lowermost troposphere. TEMPO will also quantify the daytime temporal evolution of aerosol loading.
TEMPO will be part of a constellation of instruments measuring air quality over the Northern Hemisphere that will also include the European Space Agency's Sentinel-4, currently in development, and South Korea's Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer.
The Canadian Rockies of North America | International Space Station
While orbiting over western Montana, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured this photograph of the northern Rocky Mountains, also known as the Canadian Rockies. Sprawling approximately 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) long and nearly 650 kilometers (400 miles) wide at certain points, the Rockies are North America’s largest mountain range. The Rocky Mountains extend from British Columbia, Canada, southeast toward New Mexico, in the United States.
At least 100 separate ranges comprise the Rockies, and they are separated into four geologic subdivisions: the Canadian and Northern Rockies, Middle Rockies, the Southern Rockies, and the Colorado Plateau. This image features the greater portion of the Canadian Rockies, which extends through northern British Columbia and southwestern Alberta. While there are approximately 50 peaks in the Canadian Rockies surpassing 3,350 meters (11,000 feet) in elevation, Mount Robson—in the center of the photo—is the highest peak at about 3,950 meters (12,970 feet) tall.
Jasper National Park, in Alberta, encompasses around 11,214 square kilometers (4,330 square miles) of mountainous terrain, glaciers, forests, and alpine landscapes. The park was established in 1907 and is one of several contiguous parks in the Canadian Rockies that have been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park also supports a vast diversity of wildlife. There are 53 different types of mammals found in the park including bears (both black and grizzly), wolves, elk, and cougars.
Part of the Coast Mountains, a major range along the Pacific coastline of British Columbia and Alaska, is visible in the upper-left part of the image. Glaciers carved out numerous valleys along the 1,600-kilometer (990-mile) long range, including several fjords along British Columbia’s Pacific coast.
Astronaut photograph ISS068-E-31571 was acquired on December 21, 2022, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 50 millimeters. It is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 68 crew.
Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Story Credit: Minna Adel Rubio, GeoControl Systems
Aboard the International Space Station, NASA Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg answered pre-recorded questions about life and work on the orbiting laboratory during an in-flight event April 25, 2023, with students attending the North Allegheny School District in McCandless, Pennsylvania. Hoburg is in the midst of a science mission living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies. Such research benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future human exploration through the agency’s Artemis missions, which will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future expeditions to Mars.
NASA Astronaut William Hoburg's Official Biography:
Station Commander: Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia): Flight Engineers Dmitri Petelin & Andrey Fedyaev
Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
NASA: Flight Engineers Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen, Warren Hoburg
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Janet Petro, director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), provides a special aerial tour of the Florida spaceport to update you on what is happening in 2023 and beyond. Janet Petro is the first woman to lead the Kennedy Space Center.
China's New Global Map of Mars | Tianwen-1 Mars Mission
China released its first color-coded global map of Mars on April 24, 2024, to coincide with Space Day 2023 in China. It will be made available online for viewing by the general public and internationally on May 1st. Its 76-meter spatial resolution provides better quality for conducting future Mars exploration projects and scientific research. The colored images, along with scientific data obtained by the Tianwen-1 Mars mission, will improve our understanding of the Red Planet. Tianwen-1 (天问一号) is China’s first Mars exploration mission with an orbiter, a lander and a rover named Zhurong (祝融). China is the second country after the United States to make a successful soft landing and to establish communication from the Martian surface. It is the first in a series of planned missions undertaken by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) as part of its Planetary Exploration of China program.
The colored map images were jointly released by the CNSA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) at a launch ceremony held in the city of Hefei, located in east China's Anhui Province.
The medium-resolution camera aboard the orbiter of the Tianwen-1 mission carried out 284 orbital remote sensing imaging tasks between November 2021 and July 2022, providing coverage of the entire Martian surface. The ground application system processed 14,757 images to obtain the colored map images of the planet.
Through these high-resolution images of Mars, researchers have identified a large number of geographic entities, 22 of which were named after historical and cultural villages and towns in China with a population of less than 100,000 by the International Astronomical Union based on relevant rules.
About China's first Mars mission, Tianwen-1
China's Tianwen-1 Mars probe was launched back in July 2020 and entered Mars orbit in February 2021. The rover landed and started operations in May 2021. After it completed 90 Martian days of assigned scientific exploration tasks, the rover continued its exploration of the Red Planet. The rover, which has traveled 1,921 meters in 358 Martian days, is now in sleep mode.
As of June 29, 2022, the orbiter of the Tianwen-1 mission had completed its primary global remote sensing exploration objectives. It has been in operation for over 1,000 days. It remains in good condition and will continue to conduct scientific exploration and accumulate data from orbit, according to CNSA.
"This process has placed high demands for the orbital control," Zhang Rongqiao, chief designer for China's Mars Exploration Program, told CGTN in an interview on the sidelines of China's Space Day 2023 events. He is confident that the colors presented in the map are precise and true to the Red Planet.
"This full-color image of Mars not only provides a better quality base map for our country's follow-up Mars exploration projects and scientific research, but also for our international colleagues' Mars exploration projects and scientific research," Zhang said.
"I believe this is an important contribution Tianwen-1 made for deep space exploration, for all humankind," he added.
Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)/China Central Television (CCTV)/China Global Television Network (CGTN)
"We’ve received another incredible photo from the camera onboard our Mission 1 lander!"
Lunar Earthrise during a solar eclipse, captured by the Hakuto-R Mission 1 Lander-mounted camera at an altitude of about 100 km from the lunar surface.
iSpace Mission 1: The first mission will perform a soft landing on the Moon. This will be the first privately-led Japanese mission to land on the lunar surface. The M1 lander will deploy two robotic rovers, a two-wheeled, baseball-sized device from Japan's JAXA space agency and the four-wheeled Rashid explorer made by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In Japanese folklore, the name Hakuto refers to "the white rabbit that lives on the moon."
Landing is scheduled no earlier than April 25, 2023. Stay tuned on social media for updates today.
Cygnus Space Freighter S.S. Sally Ride & Canadarm 2 | International Space Station
The Cygnus space freighter in the grip of the Canadarm2 robotic arm. The Cygnus space freighter from Northrop Grumman is poised for release from the Canadarm2 robotic arm as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland.
The Cygnus space freighter from Northrop Grumman is pictured moments after its release from the Canadarm2 robotic arm as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles above the Mediterranean Sea near the Spanish island of Mallorca.
At 7:22 a.m. EDT on April 21, 2023, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft was released from the Canadarm2 robotic arm, which earlier detached Cygnus from the Earth-facing port of the International Space Station’s Unity module. At the time of release, the station was flying southwest of Ireland.
The Cygnus spacecraft successfully departed the space station more than five months after arriving at the microgravity laboratory to deliver about 8,200 pounds of supplies, scientific investigations, commercial products, hardware, and other cargo for NASA.
Following a deorbit engine firing, Cygnus completed a planned destructive re-entry, in which the spacecraft—filled with trash packed by the station crew—safely burned up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Cygnus arrived at the space station Nov. 10, 2022, following a launch on Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. It was the company’s 18th commercial resupply services mission to the space station for NASA. Northrop Grumman named the spacecraft “S.S. Sally Ride” after late NASA astronaut, physicist, and first American woman to fly in space, Sally Ride, launched on an Antares rocket from the Virginia Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad 0A at Wallops.
Chinese Taikonauts Talk with Students from Mongolia, Nepal & Myanmar
Chinese taikonauts held an online video chat on April 20, 2023, with students from Mongolia, Nepal, and Myanmar to inspire them to chase their dreams. The event's main venue was in Beijing, with ten additional overseas sites in Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member and observer states, including Mongolia.
Shenzhou-14 crew member Cai Xuzhe attended in Beijing and shared stories about China's space exploration, while Shenzhou-15 taikonauts currently orbiting aboard the China Space Station answered student questions from space.
Arc Mining The Moon: Using Controlled Lighting Bolts to Harvest Materials | NASA
NASA researchers are working on a concept that could change the way we use the rich resources on the Moon to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. Arc Mining is a revolutionary process that vaporizes rock with electric arcs and extracts valuable resources like water, silicon, and nickel. These materials could be used to make rocket propellants and build structures and hardware on the lunar surface. This electrifying technology may one day fuel future human exploration missions to the Moon or Mars.
NASA 360 takes a look at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) called Arc Mining, a revolutionary idea for harvesting resources on the Moon. To learn more visit:
To watch the in-depth presentation about this topic please visit the 2021 NIAC Symposium Livestream site: https://bit.ly/3PGFUI8 (Arc Mining talk begins at 2:40:55)
Aurora Borealis over Yellowstone National Park | U.S. National Park Service
Northern Lights April 23, 2023: Hot spring reflection (portrait)
Northern Lights April 23, 2023: Canary Spring (portrait)
Northern Lights April 23, 2023: Overhead
Northern Lights on April 23, 2023, over Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established in 1872.
Planet Mars: Deimos Moon Flyby | United Arab Emirates Hope Mars Mission
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency’s Hope Mars Mission performed a flyby of Mars' moon Deimos on March 10, 2023. The Hope probe successfully entered orbit around Mars in February 2021. In April 2021, the Hope Probe (مسبار الأمل) transitioned into the desired science orbit and began the science phase of its mission.
The Emirates Mars Mission is a United Arab Emirates Space Agency space exploration mission to Mars. The Hope orbiter was launched on July 19, 2020, and went into orbit around Mars on February 9, 2021. The mission design, development, and operations are led by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC). The spacecraft was assembled in the United States at the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) with support from Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley).
(Source: Wikipedia)
Credit: UAE Space Agency(UAESA)/Emirates Mars Mission (EMM)
NASA Wind Tunnel Engineers: Sam & Frank | Langley Research Center
We are big fans of Sam Zauber and Frank Quinto—two wind tunnel test engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center! You will be blown away as you learn how NASA uses its 14-foot by 22-foot subsonic wind tunnel. See several of the fascinating things Frank and Sam have tested there, and learn what propelled them into their exciting STEM careers.
We are launching STEM Engagement to new heights with learning resources that connect teachers, students, parents and caregivers to the inspiring work at NASA. Join us as we apply science, technology, engineering and mathematics to explore space, improve aeronautics, examine Earth and strive to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon with the Artemis program.
Celebrating Hubble’s 33rd Year Anniversary! | NASA Goddard
The Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 33rd year in orbit by premiering a stunning new Hubble image of a nearby star-forming region named NGC 1333.
Even after all these years, Hubble continues to uncover the mysteries of the universe. These are a few science achievements from Hubble’s latest year in orbit.
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