Blogs

Andreas Colliander Below are quick-look images from yesterday’s first science flights (June 7). A single polarization each of the radiometer and radar are shown. The data are from high-altitude lines 3 through 8 (lines 1 and 2 were not acquired). For reference, the study site map is also shown (at right). The radiometer brightness temperature […]

Mike Cosh June 7th was our first day of soil moisture sampling in the SMAPVEX12 experiment after two days of training and rehearsal. Beginning at 6:45am, 13 soil moisture teams set out to record surface soil moisture at 59 fields. By 2pm, the teams had returned successfully measuring moisture at 53 fields.   For more […]

Eni Njoku Today was planned as the first full day of science flights and soil moisture sampling. The morning Go/No-Go telecon confirmed our “Go” decision of yesterday evening, so the ground sampling crews were given the signal to head for the fields (an hour or more drive from Winnipeg) and the PALS folk headed for […]

Eni Njoku Today was a test day, to go through the PALS/Twin Otter flight operations, and for the ground teams to get familiar with the soil and vegetation sampling equipment and the field site locations. Test Flight We were at the airport by 8 am. The plane was outside being prepared by Richard and Dave […]

The Earth Observatory image of the day for June 5 shows flooding in Botswana’s Savuti River and Savuti Swamp. The abundant water turns out to be a very small part of a much bigger picture. The Savuti Swamp sits within the Kalahari Desert, which stretches across Namibia, Angola, Zambia, South Africa, and most of Botswana. More […]

Eni Njoku Arrived yesterday evening (Monday June 4) and settled into the Hilton Suites, Winnipeg near the airport. The Twin Otter had arrived a couple of days earlier from Grand Junction, Colorado via Wyoming and is hangared at Winnipeg airport. Training (First Day) Early Tuesday morning we headed for the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) […]

From the Landsat team at NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey… To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Landsat Earth-observing program — which first rocketed into space on July 23, 1972 — NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey will be giving something special to members of the American public. NASA will create customized Landsat chronicles […]

Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. These are the major eras in the history of life on Earth, and the transition from one period to another has been marked by a major turnover in fossils — one assemblage of organisms going extinct and being replaced by another. Today paleontologists agree that the biggest extinction in the fossil […]

In case you missed it, NASA is sponsoring a video contest starring your home planet. The winner will receive behind-the-scenes access to the launch of NASA’s next major Earth-observing satellite — the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) — from Vandenberg Air Force Base in January 2013. Most of the public tends to focus on NASA’s […]

We recently posted an image of a dust storm in the Middle East (see below) that prompted one of our Facebook followers to ask why the dust is thicker near the left part of the image than the right. He wondered if the layer of dust is usually thickest near the origin of dust storms. […]