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NASA’s Aquarius Sees Salty Shifts

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2013Environmentafrica, amazon river mouth, aquarius, aquarius instrument, arabian sea, argentine built, bay of bengal, caribbean, changing global climate, chronicle, cold polar waters, conae, cycling of freshwater, eastern tropical pacific, eric lindstrom, flag data, ganges, gary lagerloef, gene carl feldman, global rainfall patterns, heavy rain, ice free oceans, land contamination, large freshwater plume, mediterranean sea, microwave emissions, microwave radiometer, middle east, monsoon rains, NASA, ocean circulation, ocean salinity patterns, ocean salinity satellite, panama coast, pulses of freshwater, salinity processes, salinity variations, salty arabian sea, salty shifts, salty world, seasonal stirrings, smos, soil moisture, spacecraft, spurs, surface salinity data, varying salinity patterns, winter

The colorful images chronicle the seasonal stirrings of our salty world: Pulses of freshwater gush from the Amazon River’s mouth; an invisible seam divides the salty Arabian Sea from the fresher waters of the Bay of Bengal; a large patch of freshwater appears in the eastern tropical Pacific in the winter. These and other changes in ocean salinity patterns are revealed by the first full year of surface salinity data captured by NASA’s Aquarius instrument.

“With a bit more than a year of data, we are seeing some surprising patterns, especially in the tropics,” said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef, of Earth & Space Research in Seattle. “We see features evolve rapidly over time.” (more…)

The Helix Nebula: Bigger in Death than Life

By Guest PostOctober 6, 2012Scienceaquarius, carbon, constellation, dwarf star, dying star, evolution, explorer, fuel source, fusion reaction, Galaxy, galex, helium, helix nebula, hydrogen, infrared, light year, NASA, nebula, ngc 7293, nitrogen, nuclear, oxygen, planetary nebulae, Space, space telescope, spitzer, stellar core, ultraviolet, ultraviolet radiation, wise

A dying star is refusing to go quietly into the night, as seen in this combined infrared and ultraviolet view from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), which NASA has lent to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In death, the star’s dusty outer layers are unraveling into space, glowing from the intense ultraviolet radiation being pumped out by the hot stellar core.

This object, called the Helix nebula, lies 650 light-years away in the constellation of Aquarius. Also known by the catalog number NGC 7293, it is a typical example of a class of objects called planetary nebulae. Discovered in the 18th century, these cosmic works of art were erroneously named for their resemblance to gas-giant planets. (more…)

NASA Mission Will Observe Earth’s Salty Seas

By Guest PostMay 18, 2011Scienceaquarius, aquarius sac d observatory, Argentina, atmosphere, california, climate, comision nacional de actividades espaciales, conae, conveyor belt, deep ocean, delta ii rocket, earth climate, gary lagerloef, melting of sea ice, NASA, ocean circulation, ocean surface salinity, polar regions, radiometer, river runoff, salinity, salinity variations, seattle, space agency, vandenberg air force base, water cycle

PASADENA, Calif. – Final preparations are under way for the June 9 launch of the international Aquarius/SAC-D observatory. The mission’s primary instrument, Aquarius, will study interactions between ocean circulation, the water cycle and climate by measuring ocean surface salinity.

Engineers at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California are performing final tests before mating Aquarius/SAC-D to its Delta II rocket. The mission is a collaboration between NASA and Argentina’s space agency, Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with participation from Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. SAC stands for Satelite de Applicaciones Cientificas. Aquarius was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. (more…)

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NASA’s Aquarius Sees Salty Shifts

The Helix Nebula: Bigger in Death than Life

NASA Mission Will Observe Earth’s Salty Seas