NASA Historic Earth Images Still Hold Research Value

Sunday, July 20, 2014

NASA Historic Earth Images Still Hold Research Value

NASA Historic Earth Images Still Hold Research Value:

This Seasat synthetic aperture radar image from Aug. 27, 1978, shows the Massachusetts coast from Nantucket Island in the south past Cape Cod and Boston to Cape Ann in the north. Image Credit: Alaska Satellite Facility
› Full image and caption

March 18, 2014

NASA's Seasat satellite became history long ago, but it left a legacy of images of Earth's ocean, volcanoes, forests and other features that were made by the first synthetic aperture radar ever mounted on a satellite. Potential research uses for the recently released 35-year-old images are outlined in a paper published in the journal Eos today, March 18.

Seasat, which was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was the first satellite mission designed specifically to observe the ocean. Launched in 1978, it suffered a mission-ending power failure after 105 days of operation. But in that short time, Seasat collected more information about the ocean than had been acquired in the previous hundred years of shipboard research, said Benjamin Holt, a research scientist at JPL and coauthor of the Eos paper. The complete catalog of Seasat images has been processed digitally and is freely available from the Alaska Satellite Facility.

To access the Seasat images, visit:

https://www.asf.alaska.edu/seasat/ .

"There's still unique oceanographic data in these products that haven't been duplicated by more recent missions," said Holt. "We see different things in the Seasat images of the ocean currents than are seen by other satellites carrying synthetic aperture radar." This technology allows researchers to create very high-resolution images using complex information-processing techniques.

The 1978 data set also has value for climate studies of land cover simply because of its age. Holt noted that the images of Alaskan, Canadian and Norwegian glaciers are much earlier than any other satellite images that are currently available. This gives glaciologists an earlier baseline against which to measure the glaciers' rates of change.

NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.

For more information about NASA's Earth science activities in 2014, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow .

Alan Buis 818-354-0474

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Alan.Buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Written by Carol Rasmussen

NASA Earth Science News Team

2014-085

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Sunday, July 20, 2014