PMEL Aerosol Group Aerosols are another name for particulate matter in the atmosphere. Aerosols are important because in clear skies they can scatter sunlight back to space can act to help cool the planet. Aerosols are also important because they can act as a site for water to condense on and form cloud particles. Particles […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 06/01/16
NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer #8 (NRCSD#8) Deployment Operations: Following completion of successful deployment of 5 NRCSD #8 silos, one more silo was successfully deployed last night and another earlier this morning. The last deploy is planned for tonight at 9:15 PM CDT, which will conclude three consecutive days of deployment operations for NRCSD#8. Each silo contains …
Seven Things You Didn’t Know About Water Hyacinth
1) In most of the world, water hyacinth (Eichhonria crassipes) — a fast-growing, aquatic plant — is loathed for its ability to reproduce so quickly that it can blanket large portions of lakes and ponds with a thick mat of vegetation. 2) In a lake with strongly entrenched water hyacinth, plants interlock into such dense […]
Earth Monitoring CubeSats Released
More CubeSats are due to be deployed today contributing to humanitarian and environmental research. The crew is also continuing biomedical science to improve the health of astronauts in space and humans on Earth. The final set of CubeSats will be released tonight from a small satellite deployer outside Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. This current fleet …
Satellites and a Grand Challenge
By Walt Meier May 31, 2016 — The morning sessions this week have been inside in a classroom setting. It’s been like being back in school, which has been quite fun (believe it or not). For the first four days I’ve been a student, but today I got to be the teacher. I gave the class […]
Memorial Day On Ice
By Walt Meier May 30, 2016 — This morning we did another modeling exercise, led by Jen Kay of the University of Colorado. A question a sea ice scientist inevitably gets asked is “so, when is the Arctic Ocean going to become ice free?” I can understand the interest, but answering it is quite difficult. One […]
NAAMES-II Expedition: May 30, 2016
THE BLOW So far we have been blessed with calm seas and fair winds. We arrived yesterday at our last station, somewhat rested after a 24 hours transit and ready for the grand finale. Neptune had another plan. Half way through the station the winds picked up very quickly, reaching 50 knots with gusts of […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 05/31/16
NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer #8 (NRCSD#8) Deployment Operations: Following yesterday’s successful deployment of 1 of NRCSD #8 eight Silos, 2 more were successfully deployed last night and 1 was deployed earlier this morning. The next planned deployment is scheduled for today at 6:55 PM CDT. This is the second of three consecutive days of deployment operations …
Tipping Points, Albedo, And The Local Perspective
By Walt Meier May 29, 2016 — This morning, we had our second modeling exercise, led by Ian Eisenman of the University of California, San Diego, where we investigated whether sea ice loss is irreversible – i.e., is there a tipping point for sea ice, a point of no return? In the simple models, like the one […]
Super Pressure Balloon Circumnavigates Globe After 14 days of Flight
NASA’s 18.8 million-cubic-foot super pressure balloon hit another milestone at 9:17 a.m. EDT Monday, May 31, crossing the 169.24 east longitude line, officially completing its first circumnavigation of the globe. The balloon, flying the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) payload, achieved the milestone 14 days, 13 hours and 42 minutes after launching from Wanaka Airport, New …