Misscounterfactual - Retrograde Orbit

misscounterfactual

2 years ago

5 Ways Studying Water Will Help Us Better Understand Earth

Studying our home planet is just as powerful as exploring what’s beyond it.

Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) is a joint mission developed by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency and the UK Space Agency. It will track water on more than 90% of Earth’s surface and help communities, scientists, and researchers better understand this finite and vital resource. And it’s launching this month!

So how will SWOT help us better understand Earth? Here are 5 ways.

This is a GIF of SWOT in space as it passes over Earth and simulates the satellite becoming operational. The SWOT satellite deploys components that were stored for the launch, including extending its solar panels and deploys its booms and antennas.

SWOT will address some of the most pressing climate change questions of our time.

An important part of predicting our future climate is determining at what point Earth’s ocean water slows down its absorption of the excess heat in the atmosphere and starts releasing that heat back into the air, where it could accelerate global warming. SWOT will provide crucial information about this global heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, enabling researchers to test and improve future climate forecasts.

The satellite will also offer insights to improve computer models for sea level rise projections and coastal flood forecasting.

Data from SWOT will additionally help scientists, engineers, water managers, and others better monitor drought conditions in lakes and reservoirs and improve flood forecasts for rivers.

This GIF is a short timelapse of a tree in the middle of a wetland type environment. As the timelapse begins water slowly starts to increase and by the end of the timelapse, the area around the tree is completely flooded.

SWOT is the first satellite mission that will observe nearly all water on the planet’s surface.

SWOT will measure the height of water in Earth’s lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and the ocean, giving scientists the ability to track the movement of water around the world.

SWOT’s eye in the sky will provide a truly global view of the water on more than 90% of Earth’s surface, enriching humankind’s understanding of how the ocean reacts to and influences climate change along with what potential hazards – including floods – lie ahead in different regions of the world.

This GIF was created from video footage of Alaska water ways and roads. It is a collection of scenes throughout Alaska including a large waterway next to road, a car traveling over a bridge, as well as various large rivers and creeks.

SWOT will see Earth’s water in higher definition than ever before.

Because everything is better in HD 😉, SWOT will view Earth’s ocean and freshwater bodies with unprecedented clarity compared to other satellites, much like a high-definition television delivers a picture far more detailed than older models. This means that SWOT will be able to “see” ocean features – like fronts and eddies – that are too small for current space-based instruments to detect. Those measurements will help improve researchers’ understanding of the ocean’s role in climate change.

Not only will the satellite show where – and how fast – sea level is rising, it will also reveal how coastlines around the world are changing. It will provide similar high-definition clarity for Earth’s lakes, rivers, and reservoirs, many of which remain a mystery to researchers, who aren’t able to outfit every water body with monitoring instruments.

Animation of SWOT as it flies over Florida and conducts its measurements of the water below. SWOT will collect data across a 75-mile (120-kilometer) wide swath, with a gap in the center for an altimetry track. This is an animation that shows the collection of data over the state of Florida, which is rich with rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Green and pink lights move downwards from the satellite to Earth, mimicking the satellite collecting data over the ocean and freshwater areas.

SWOT data will be used to help make decisions about our daily lives and livelihoods.

As climate change accelerates the water cycle, more communities around the world will be inundated with water while others won’t have enough. SWOT data will be used to monitor drought conditions and improve flood forecasts, providing essential information to water management agencies, disaster preparedness agencies, universities, civil engineers, and others who need to track water in their local areas. SWOT data also will help industries, like shipping, by providing measurements of water levels along rivers, as well as ocean conditions, including tides, currents, and storm surges.

This GIF shows catastrophic flooding in various communities throughout the world. The first scene includes several houses with water up to the roofs, almost covering the entire neighborhood. The next scene shows a road that is no longer accessible due to water flooding and covering entire segments of the road.

Finally … SWOT will pave the way for future Earth missions.

With its innovative technology and commitment to engaging a diverse community of people who plan to use data from the mission, SWOT is blazing a trail for future Earth-observing missions. SWOT’s data and the tools to support researchers in analyzing the information will be free and accessible. This will help to foster research and applications activities by a wide range of users, including scientists, resource managers, and others who in the past may not have had the opportunity to access this kind of information. Lessons learned from SWOT will lead to new questions and improvements for future missions, including our upcoming Earth System Observatory, a constellation of missions focused on studying key aspects of our home planet.

This is video footage of the SWOT satellite in a Thales Alenia Space clean room facility in Cannes, France. The shot is from faraway so you can see the entirety of the satellite and sheer size – 16.4 feet (5 meters) tall. Below the satellite is a group of about 15 team members admiring the satellite.

Keep track of the mission here. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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misscounterfactual

2 years ago

Fancy Mossy Styrofoam

Fancy looking neighborhood....but besides the awful infrastructure maybe the bas reliefs aren’t even real.

Rockets, Racecars, and the Physics of Going Fast

The SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft launch off Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on November 16, 2022, beginning the Artemis I mission. The ignition from the rocket’s two boosters and four engines lights up the night sky. Smoke is seen building up from the ground as the rocket takes flight. Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

When our Space Launch System (SLS) rocket launches the Artemis missions to the Moon, it can have a top speed of more than six miles per second. Rockets and racecars are designed with speed in mind to accomplish their missions—but there’s more to speed than just engines and fuel. Learn more about the physics of going fast:

The SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft launch from the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on November 16, 2022, beginning the Artemis I mission. This is a close-up view of the solid rocket boosters and RS-25 engines ignited for flight. Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Take a look under the hood, so to speak, of our SLS mega Moon rocket and you’ll find that each of its four RS-25 engines have high-pressure turbopumps that generate a combined 94,400 horsepower per engine. All that horsepower creates more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help launch our four Artemis astronauts inside the Orion spacecraft beyond Earth orbit and onward to the Moon. How does that horsepower compare to a racecar? World champion racecars can generate more than 1,000 horsepower as they speed around the track.

This GIF shows the four RS_25 engines on the SLS rocket igniting one by one as they prepare to launch Artemis I. A red glow comes from below the engines as they ignite. Image credit: NASA

As these vehicles start their engines, a series of special machinery is moving and grooving inside those engines. Turbo engines in racecars work at up to 15,000 rotations per minute, aka rpm. The turbopumps on the RS-25 engines rotate at a staggering 37,000 rpm. SLS’s RS-25 engines will burn for approximately eight minutes, while racecar engines generally run for 1 ½-3 hours during a race.

NASA engineers test a model of the Space Launch System rocket in a wind tunnel at NASA’s Langley Research Center. The image is taken from a test camera. Image credit: NASA

To use that power effectively, both rockets and racecars are designed to slice through the air as efficiently as possible.

While rockets want to eliminate as much drag as possible, racecars carefully use the air they’re slicing through to keep them pinned to the track and speed around corners faster. This phenomenon is called downforce.

This GIF shows a full-scale solid rocket booster being tested at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Utah. The booster, laying horizontal, ignites and fires. Image credit: Northrop Grumman

Steering these mighty machines is a delicate process that involves complex mechanics.

Most racecars use a rack-and-pinion system to convert the turn of a steering wheel to precisely point the front tires in the right direction. While SLS doesn’t have a steering wheel, its powerful engines and solid rocket boosters do have nozzles that gimbal, or move, to better direct the force of the thrust during launch and flight.

Members of the Artemis I launch control team monitor data at their consoles inside the Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center during the first launch attempt countdown on August 29. Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Racecar drivers and astronauts are laser focused, keeping their sights set on the destination. Pit crews and launch control teams both analyze data from numerous sensors and computers to guide them to the finish line. In the case of our mighty SLS rocket, its 212-foot-tall core stage has nearly 1,000 sensors to help fly, track, and guide the rocket on the right trajectory and at the right speed. That same data is relayed to launch teams on the ground in real time. Like SLS, world-champion racecars use hundreds of sensors to help drivers and teams manage the race and perform at peak levels.

Rockets, Racecars, And The Physics Of Going Fast

Knowing how to best use, manage, and battle the physics of going fast, is critical in that final lap. You can learn more about rockets and racecars here.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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misscounterfactual

1 year ago

NASA Inspires Your Crafty Creations for World Embroidery Day

It’s amazing what you can do with a little needle and thread! For #WorldEmbroideryDay, we asked what NASA imagery inspired you. You responded with a variety of embroidered creations, highlighting our different areas of study.

Here’s what we found:

Webb’s Carina Nebula

hThis embroidered image shows the Carina Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The image is framed in black. At the center a circular piece of art appears outlined in white. At the top of the circle, the thread is dark blue on the left. As you travel down white stars appear in lighter shades of blue. In the middle threads turn to dark black, red and orange to signify the nebula’s gas-like structure.

Wendy Edwards, a project coordinator with Earth Science Data Systems at NASA, created this embroidered piece inspired by Webb’s Carina Nebula image. Captured in infrared light, this image revealed for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. Credit: Wendy Edwards, NASA. Pattern credit: Clare Bray, Climbing Goat Designs

Wendy Edwards, a project coordinator with Earth Science Data Systems at NASA, first learned cross stitch in middle school where she had to pick rotating electives and cross stitch/embroidery was one of the options. “When I look up to the stars and think about how incredibly, incomprehensibly big it is out there in the universe, I’m reminded that the universe isn’t ‘out there’ at all. We’re in it,” she said. Her latest piece focused on Webb’s image release of the Carina Nebula. The image showcased the telescope’s ability to peer through cosmic dust, shedding new light on how stars form.

Ocean Color Imagery: Exploring the North Caspian Sea

This image shows an embroidery piece inspired by NASA imagery. The background is white. In the middle, a brown frame appears holding an illustration of the Caspian Sea. To the bottom left, blue, green and light green sea appears showing water moving. To the top right, ice gouges are designed in brown and white.

Danielle Currie of Satellite Stitches created a piece inspired by the Caspian Sea, taken by NASA’s ocean color satellites. Credit: Danielle Currie/Satellite Stitches

Danielle Currie is an environmental professional who resides in New Brunswick, Canada. She began embroidering at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic as a hobby to take her mind off the stress of the unknown. Danielle’s piece is titled “46.69, 50.43,” named after the coordinates of the area of the northern Caspian Sea captured by LandSat8 in 2019.

This is an image of the Caspian Sea. To the left, light green and dark green swirls appear in the water. To the right, ice gouges appear in white and light brown. Credit: NASA

An image of the Caspian Sea captured by Landsat 8 in 2019. Credit: NASA

Two Hubble Images of the Pillars of Creation, 1995 and 2015

This embroidery piece shows the Pillars of Creation inspired by the Hubble Telescope. The design is on a vintage embroidery frame (circa 1905) with brown yarn on each side. In the middle a white tapestry shows the galaxy. There are three towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas sitting at the center of the piece, colored in red and white. On the outside, space is blue with stars bursting in red colors. Credit: Melissa Cole, Star Stuff Stitching

Melissa Cole of Star Stuff Stitching created an embroidery piece based on the Hubble image Pillars of Creation released in 1995. Credit: Melissa Cole, Star Stuff Stitching

Melissa Cole is an award-winning fiber artist from Philadelphia, PA, USA, inspired by the beauty and vastness of the universe. They began creating their own cross stitch patterns at 14, while living with their grandparents in rural Michigan, using colored pencils and graph paper. The Pillars of Creation (Eagle Nebula, M16), released by the Hubble Telescope in 1995 when Melissa was just 11 years old, captured the imagination of a young person in a rural, religious setting, with limited access to science education.

This artistic piece shows two images of the Pillars of Creation captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. To the left, the circular art piece is on a brown background. The nebula is blue and navy with small white stitches showing stars. In the center, there are three pillars that appear colored in dark red, yellow and light green. The pillars look like arches and spires rising out of a desert landscape, but are filled with semi-transparent gas and dust, and ever changing. To the right is a closeup of one of the pillars. The image is colored in red, yellow and brown thread, felt and wool. In the middle, blue wool appears showing space. A white star appears in the upper left. Credit: Lauren Wright Vartanian, Neurons and Nebulas

Lauren Wright Vartanian of the shop Neurons and Nebulas created this piece inspired by the Hubble Space Telescope’s 2015 25th anniversary re-capture of the Pillars of Creation. Credit: Lauren Wright Vartanian, Neurons and Nebulas

Lauren Wright Vartanian of Guelph, Ontario Canada considers herself a huge space nerd. She’s a multidisciplinary artist who took up hand sewing after the birth of her daughter. She’s currently working on the illustrations for a science themed alphabet book, made entirely out of textile art. It is being published by Firefly Books and comes out in the fall of 2024. Lauren said she was enamored by the original Pillars image released by Hubble in 1995. When Hubble released a higher resolution capture in 2015, she fell in love even further! This is her tribute to those well-known images.

James Webb Telescope Captures Pillars of Creation

This rectangular piece shows another embroidered interpretation of the Pillars of Creation captured by the Webb Telescope last year. The background is blue and black with white stars scattered from top to bottom. In the middle, three pillars appear in colors of red and yellow. The pillars, which lean to the right, continue downward to the left of the art piece. Credit: Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art

Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art, created a rectangular version of Webb’s Pillars of Creation. Credit: Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art

Darci Lenker of Norman, Oklahoma started embroidery in college more than 20 years ago, but mainly only used it as an embellishment for her other fiber works. In 2015, she started a daily embroidery project where she planned to do one one-inch circle of embroidery every day for a year. She did a collection of miniature thread painted galaxies and nebulas for Science Museum Oklahoma in 2019. Lenker said she had previously embroidered the Hubble Telescope’s image of Pillars of Creation and was excited to see the new Webb Telescope image of the same thing. Lenker could not wait to stitch the same piece with bolder, more vivid colors.

Milky Way

Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art was inspired by NASA’s imaging of the Milky Way Galaxy. Credit: Darci Lenker

In this piece, Lenker became inspired by the Milky Way Galaxy, which is organized into spiral arms of giant stars that illuminate interstellar gas and dust. The Sun is in a finger called the Orion Spur.

The Cosmic Microwave Background

This image shows an embroidery design based on the cosmic microwave background, created by Jessica Campbell, who runs Astrostitches. Inside a tan wooden frame, a colorful oval is stitched onto a black background in shades of blue, green, yellow, and a little bit of red. Credit: Jessica Campbell/ Astrostitches

Jessica Campbell obtained her PhD in astrophysics from the University of Toronto studying interstellar dust and magnetic fields in the Milky Way Galaxy. Jessica promptly taught herself how to cross-stitch in March 2020 and has since enjoyed turning astronomical observations into realistic cross-stitches. Her piece was inspired by the cosmic microwave background, which displays the oldest light in the universe.

This image shows the oldest light in the universe, the cosmic microwave background, captured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, also known as WMAP. At the center of the image is a colorful oval that is speckled with the seeds of galaxies, which appear as blobs of dark blue, light blue, green, yellow, and a little bit of red.

The full-sky image of the temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) in the cosmic microwave background, made from nine years of WMAP observations. These are the seeds of galaxies, from a time when the universe was under 400,000 years old. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

GISSTEMP: NASA’s Yearly Temperature Release

This image shows an embroidered art piece based on NASA’s yearly temperature release. To the bottom left, two fingers hold up the circular piece. A round wooden frame holds it in place. In the center, a map appears of the different content. It’s outlined in black. Most of the map is covered in yellow stitching to show a warming pattern. To the left and right, the stitches change to an orange color and are scattered on the map. In the top left- and right-hand corners, the color changes to a dark red to signify another temperature change.

Katy Mersmann, a NASA social media specialist, created this embroidered piece based on NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global annual temperature record. Earth’s average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record. Credit: Katy Mersmann, NASA

Katy Mersmann is a social media specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She started embroidering when she was in graduate school. Many of her pieces are inspired by her work as a communicator. With climate data in particular, she was inspired by the researchers who are doing the work to understand how the planet is changing. The GISTEMP piece above is based on a data visualization of 2020 global temperature anomalies, still currently tied for the warmest year on record.

In addition to embroidery, NASA continues to inspire art in all forms. Check out other creative takes with Landsat Crafts and the James Webb Space telescope public art gallery.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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misscounterfactual

2 years ago

Gorgeous circle of mushrooms almost two weeks after they emerged.

Behold—the space station of the future! (…from 1973)

An artist's concept illustrating a cutaway view of the Skylab 1 Orbital Workshop (OWS). The OWS is a circular space with several vertical layers with floors that look like golden honeycombs. Different parts of the workshop are labeled, like the control and display panel where an astronaut in an orange jumpsuit works, film vaults, experiment support system, and the shower. Credit: NASA

This artist’s concept gives a cutaway view of the Skylab orbital workshop, which launched 50 years ago on May 14, 1973. Established in 1970, the Skylab Program's goals were to enrich our scientific knowledge of Earth, the sun, the stars, and cosmic space; to study the effects of weightlessness on living organisms; to study the effects of the processing and manufacturing of materials in the absence of gravity; and to conduct Earth-resource observations.

Three crews visited Skylab and carried out 270 scientific and technical investigations in the fields of physics, astronomy, and biological sciences. They also proved that humans could live and work in outer space for extended periods of time, laying the groundwork for the International Space Station.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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Misscounterfactual - Retrograde Orbit

More Posts from Misscounterfactual and Others

5 Ways Studying Water Will Help Us Better Understand Earth

So how will SWOT help us better understand Earth? Here are 5 ways.

SWOT will address some of the most pressing climate change questions of our time.

SWOT is the first satellite mission that will observe nearly all water on the planet’s surface.

SWOT will see Earth’s water in higher definition than ever before.

SWOT data will be used to help make decisions about our daily lives and livelihoods.

Finally … SWOT will pave the way for future Earth missions.

Fancy Mossy Styrofoam

Rockets, Racecars, and the Physics of Going Fast

NASA Inspires Your Crafty Creations for World Embroidery Day

Webb’s Carina Nebula

Ocean Color Imagery: Exploring the North Caspian Sea

Two Hubble Images of the Pillars of Creation, 1995 and 2015

James Webb Telescope Captures Pillars of Creation

Milky Way

The Cosmic Microwave Background

GISSTEMP: NASA’s Yearly Temperature Release

Behold—the space station of the future! (…from 1973)