Partnership
News
The Innovative Partnerships Program aims to provide leveraged
technology for NASA’s mission directorates, programs,
and projects through investments and technology partnerships
with industry, academia, government agencies, and national
laboratories. The following stories highlight some of
the exceptional results of these many partnerships.
NASA Receives Award for Excellence in Technology
Transfer
NASA was honored March 1, 2007, for successfully conducting
a broad range of technology transfer activities. The
International Marketplace and Conference for Business
Development through Technology Transfer (IPTEC), of St.
Albans, England, presented the award to NASA during its
conference in Cannes, France. Doug Comstock, NASA’s director
of the Innovative Partnerships Program, accepted the
award on behalf of the Agency.
|
Photomicrograph
of a sliced rat beta cell that has been processed
with the modified NASA imaging technology. Insulin
granules are the dark black spots surrounded
by a white area called a halo. Large cells have
hundreds of insulin granules. The colored borders
around the granules are labels added to identify
them and classify how they appear. |
“When we collectively engage in space exploration, we
invest not only in the successful navigation of the unknown
but also the innovations that improve our very quality
of daily life,” said Shana Dale, NASA’s deputy administrator.
“We congratulate our program’s accomplishments of contributing
to the high-quality technology transfers that benefit
exploration while complimenting American industry’s ability
to provide benefits for our entire society.”
During its annual conference, IPTEC presents three awards,
one each to the public, private, and academic sectors.
IPTEC’s advisory board, comprised of representatives
from corporations such as the General Electric Company,
Microsoft Corporation, and Ericsson Inc., recommended
the recipients of the awards. At the IPTEC conference,
many of the world’s leading experts in technology transfer
discuss the latest corporate and government technology
transfer strategies and learn about successful licensing
programs and practices.
“This is an important recognition for NASA, because we
take seriously the transfer of technology from our unique
space and aeronautics missions into productive societal
use,” said Comstock.
NASA and Universities Join to Fight Diabetes
A NASA image processing technology used to explore orbital
images of Earth and distant worlds is being modified
for diabetes research.
Scientists at The George Washington University and Cornell
University helped modify the technology, which has greatly
increased the speed of the research. “NASA technology
combined with our modifications has provided us with
new tools for fighting diabetes,” said Murray Loew, director
of the Biomedical Engineering program and professor of
engineering at The George Washington University’s School
of Engineering and Applied Science.
Diabetes afflicts more than 20 million Americans. It
is caused by the body’s inability to regulate glucose,
a sugar that cells use for energy. The hormone insulin
regulates blood glucose levels by unlocking the interior
of cells and allowing glucose in the blood to pass through
the cell wall. Insulin is manufactured in beta cells
in the pancreas. Microscopic structures called granules
carry insulin toward the wall of the beta cells, where
it is secreted in response to glucose levels in the blood.
Two types of diabetes exist. In Type I diabetes, pancreatic
cells are destroyed. In Type II diabetes, either pancreatic
cells do not secrete enough insulin, or cells in the
body lose their responsiveness to insulin, or both problems
happen at once. Both types of diabetes cause glucose
to build up in the blood instead of being delivered to
the interior of cells, where it is needed or would be
stored. Potential effects include coma, heart disease,
kidney damage, nerve damage, blindness, and loss
of limbs.
In the research, the team analyzed electron photomicrographs
(images from an electron microscope) of beta cells from
rats.
The original NASA technology helps scientists to classify
picture elements (pixels) and identify different types
of landforms, geology, and vegetation. In the laboratory,
it has been adapted to identify biological structures,
the insulin granules, in electron photomicrographs. The
research team observed the number, size, and position
of insulin granules in the beta cells in response to
glucose.
“Previously, the analysis of each electron micrograph
took an assistant several hours to complete. Now, with
the image processing software, we can automatically analyze
several dozen electron micrographs overnight,” said Tim
McClanahan, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight
Center.
“We plan on an extensive collaboration in the future.
The potential for this research is excellent,” said Geoffrey
Sharp, a diabetes expert in the Department of Molecular
Medicine at Cornell University. The team has submitted
proposals to the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
and the American Diabetes Association to further validate
the technology with additional data and to extend the work
to identify and characterize other microscopic cellular
structures.
The research is being funded by Goddard’s part-time graduate
study program, NIH, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research
Foundation International.
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NASA Explains Puzzling Impact of Polluted Skies
on Climate
|
Clouds
help regulate the Earth’s climate by reflecting
sunlight into space, thus cooling the surface.
When cloud patterns change, they modify the Earth’s
energy balance in turn, and temperatures on the
Earth’s surface. |
NASA scientists have determined that the formation of
clouds is affected by the lightness or darkness of air
pollution particles. This also impacts Earth’s climate.
In a breakthrough study published in the online edition
of Science, scientists explain why aerosols—tiny particles
suspended in air pollution and smoke—sometimes stop clouds
from forming and, in other cases, increase cloud cover.
Clouds not only deliver water around the globe, they
also help regulate how much of the Sun’s warmth the planet
holds. The capacity of air pollution to absorb energy
from the Sun is the key.
“When the overall mixture of aerosol particles in pollution
absorbs more sunlight, it is more effective at preventing
clouds from forming. When pollutant aerosols are lighter
in color and absorb less energy, they have the opposite
effect and actually help clouds to form,” said Goddard’s
Lorraine Remer. Remer worked closely with the study’s
lead author, the late Yoram Kaufman, also of Goddard,
on previous research into this perplexing “aerosol effect.”
The effect of the planet’s constantly changing cloud
cover has long been a problem for climate scientists.
How clouds change in response to greenhouse-gas warming
and air pollution will have a major impact on future
climate.
Using this new understanding of how aerosol pollution
influences cloud cover, Kaufman and co-author Ilan Koren,
of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, estimate the
impact worldwide could be as much as a 5-percent net
increase in cloud cover. In polluted areas, these cloud
changes can change the availability of fresh water and
regional temperatures.
In previous research by the authors, the opposite effects
that aerosols have on clouds were seen in different parts
of the world using data from NASA satellites. These observations
alone, however, could not confirm that the aerosols themselves
were causing the clouds to change.
To tackle this problem, Kaufman and Koren assembled a
massive database of global observations that strongly
suggests it is the darkness (absorbs sunlight) or brightness
(reflects sunlight) of aerosol pollution that causes
pollution to act as a cloud killer or a cloud maker.
These mesasurements were culled from the NASA-sponsored
Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) of ground-based instruments
at nearly 200 sites worldwide.
No matter where in the world the measurements were taken
or in what season, scientists saw the same pattern. There
were lots of clouds when light-reflecting pollution filled
the air, but many fewer clouds were recorded in the presence
of light-absorbing aerosols.
NASA’s satellites, computer models, and technology will
continue to advance the understanding of how aerosol
pollution affects the Earth’s climate. NASA’s “A-Train”
of formation-flying satellites, now with the cloud-piercing
instruments onboard the CloudSat and CALIPSO spacecrafts,
is helping to answer challenging questions such as the
role of clouds in global warming and the influence of
aerosols on rainfall and hurricanes.
NASA Assists Search for Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
Unlike its more famous cartoon cousin, Woody Woodpecker,
the ivory-billed woodpecker is thought to be extinct,
or so most experts have believed for over half a century.
|
Artist’s
rendering of the ivory-billed woodpecker. If the
bird does exist, NASA’s Laser Vegetation Imaging
Sensor could help find it. (Colorized
photo by Arthur Allen, courtesy of Cornell Lab
of Ornithology.) |
Recently, though, scientists from NASA and the University
of Maryland launched a project to identify possible areas
where the woodpecker, one of the largest and most regal
species, might be living. Finding these habitat areas
will guide future searches for the bird and help determine
if it is really extinct or has maintained an elusive
existence.
The question of whether the species still exists started
when a kayaker reported spotting the woodpecker along
Arkansas’ Cache River in 2004. That sighting spawned
an intensive search for the species by wildlife conservationists,
bird watchers, field biologists, and others.
In June 2006, a research aircraft flew over delta regions
of the lower Mississippi River to track possible areas
of habitat suitable for the ivory-billed woodpecker,
a project supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Scientists from Goddard and the University of Maryland
used NASA’s Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor (LVIS) onboard
the aircraft. The instrument uses lasers that send pulses
of energy to the Earth’s surface. Photons of light from
the lasers bounce off leaves, branches, and the ground
and reflect back to the instrument. By analyzing these
returned signals, scientists receive a direct measurement
of the height of the forest’s leaf-covered tree tops,
the ground level below, and everything in between.
“LVIS is aiding this search effort far beyond what aircraft
photos or satellite images can provide in the way of
just a two-dimensional rendering of what’s below,” said
Woody Turner, program scientist at NASA Headquarters.
“The laser technology gives us the third dimension, enabling
us to better assess the complex vegetation structure
the plane flies over.” The flights are the latest step
in an effort spanning over 2 years to find absolute evidence
that a bird once thought extinct continues to survive.
“We’re trying to understand the environment where these
birds live or used to live, using LVIS-plotted features
like thickness of the ground vegetation and tree-leaf
density, in combination with other factors like closeness
to water and age of the forest, to determine where we
might find them,” said Turner.
“Through numerous studies, we have shown the effectiveness
of the data generated by this sensor for many scientific
uses, including carbon removal, fire prediction, and
habitat identification,” said LVIS project researcher
Ralph Dubayah, a professor in the University of Maryland’s
Department of Geography. “Lidar technology like LVIS
measures the vertical structure of the trees and ground,
setting it apart from other remote-sensing systems that
provide detailed horizontal information that tells us
little about whether a green patch of forest is short
or tall, for example. When identifying habitats, the
vertical structure of the vegetation is of paramount
importance to many species, including a bird like the
ivory-bill.”
The reported sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker
inspired a year-long search by more than 50 experts working
together as part of the Big Woods Conservation Partnership,
led by Cornell University’s Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
and the Nature Conservancy. Researchers have followed
reported sightings across a huge swath of the Southeastern
United States, including the Gulf Coast, Alabama, and
Florida.
In April 2005, that team published a report in the journal
Science that at least one male ivory-bill still survived.
However, some scientists have challenged whether it really
was the ivory-billed woodpecker that was spotted. The
NASA-University of Maryland project is designed to provide
detailed habitat information that search teams will use
for expanded efforts to find new evidence about the possible
survival of the bird.
The project also has a broader application, according
to Goddard’s Bryan Blair, principal investigator for
the project. “This field campaign is part of an effort
to develop approaches that bring together many types
of remote-sensing data for monitoring wildlife habitat.”
The research team previously used NASA’s LVIS to study
wildlife habitats in old-growth forests in the Western
United States and in rain forests abroad.
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NASA Study Solves Ocean Plant Mystery
|
This
image depicts amounts of plant life on Earth. On
land, the dark greens show where there is abundant
vegetation, and the tan colors show relatively
sparse plant cover. In the ocean, red, yellow,
and green areas show higher levels of phytoplankton,
and these are regions of the ocean that are the
most productive over time, while blue and purple
areas show where there is very little phytoplankton. |
A NASA-sponsored study shows that by using a new technique,
scientists can determine what limits the growth of ocean
algae, or phytoplankton, and how this affects Earth’s
climate.
Phytoplankton is a microscopic ocean plant and an important
part of the ocean food chain. By knowing what limits
its growth, scientists can better understand how ecosystems
respond to climate change.
The study focused on phytoplankton in the tropical Pacific
Ocean. It is an area of the ocean that plays a particularly
important role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide
and the world’s climate, in that it is the largest natural
source of carbon dioxide to
the atmosphere.
“We concluded that nitrogen is the primary element missing
for algae growth and photosynthesis in the northern portion
of the tropical Pacific, while it
was iron that was most lacking everywhere else,” said
Michael J. Behrenfeld, an ocean plant ecologist from
Oregon State University.
Scientists determined that when phytoplankton is stressed
from lack of iron, it appears greener, or healthier,
than it really is. Normally, greener plants are growing
faster than less green plants. When iron is lacking,
enhanced greenness does not mean phytoplankton is growing
better; it is actually under stress and unhealthy.
“Because we didn’t know about this effect of iron stress
on the greenness of algae or phytoplankton before, we
have always assumed that equally green waters were equally
productive,” Behrenfeld said. “We now know
this is not the case and that we have to treat areas
lacking iron differently.”
|
Satellite
picture of phytoplankton bloom off Grand Banks,
southeast of Newfoundland, using the OrbView-2/SeaWiFS. |
For the tropical Pacific, correction for this “iron-effect”
decreases estimates of how much carbon ocean plants photosynthesize
for the region by roughly
2 billion tons. This figure represents a tremendous amount
of carbon that remains in the atmosphere that scientists
previously thought was being removed.
The results of this study allow scientists using computer
models to recreate the movement of carbon around the
world much more accurately. Resource managers will become
more knowledgeable about where carbon is
going and the impact of recreational, industrial, or
commercial processes that use or produce carbon. Researchers
better understand the Earth as an ecosystem and can incorporate
these findings in future modeling, analysis, and predictions.
While satellite data from NASA’s Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view
Sensor (SeaWiFS) played an important part in the study,
the real cornerstone of the discovery was ship-based
measurements of fluorescence.
Fluorescence occurs when plants absorb sunlight and some
of that energy is given back off again as red light.
Scientists looked at approximately 140,000 measurements
of fluorescence made from 1994 to 2006 along 36,040 miles
of ship tracks. They found that phytoplankton gives off
much more fluorescence when the plants do not have sufficient
iron. It is this signal they used to fingerprint what
parts of the ocean are iron-stressed and what parts are
nitrogen-stressed.
It is important that scientists understand how ocean
plants behave, because all plants play a critical role
in maintaining a healthy planet. Plants annually absorb
billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
through photosynthesis and use this carbon to create
the food that nearly all other organisms on Earth depend
on for life.
Nutrients that make ocean plants thrive, such as nitrogen
and phosphates, mostly come from the deep parts of the
ocean, when water is mixed by the wind. Iron also can
come from dust blowing in the air.
Approximately half of the photosynthesis on Earth occurs
in the oceans, and ocean and land plants share the same
basic requirements for photosynthesis and growth. These
requirements include water, light, and nutrients. When
these three are abundant, plants are abundant; when any
one of them is missing, plants suffer.
NASA and Google to Bring Space Exploration Down to Earth
NASA’s Ames Research Center and Google Inc. have signed
a Space Act Agreement that formally establishes a relationship
to work together on a variety of challenging technical
problems ranging from large-scale data management and
massively distributed computing, to human-computer interfaces.
As the first in a series of joint collaborations, Google
and Ames will focus on making NASA’s most useful information
available on the Internet. Real-time weather visualization
and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the Moon
and Mars, as well as real-time tracking of the International
Space Station and the space shuttle will be explored
in the future.
“This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow
every American to experience a virtual flight over the
surface of the Moon or through the canyons of Mars,”
said Michael Griffin, NASA administrator. “This innovative
combination of information technology and space science
will make NASA’s space exploration work accessible to
everyone,” added Griffin.
|
The
partnership between NASA and Google Inc. will provide
the public with access to much of NASA’s information,
including weather visualization and forecasting,
high-resolution 3-D maps of the Moon and Mars,
as well as real-time tracking of the International
Space Station and the space shuttle. |
“Partnering with NASA made perfect sense for Google,
as it has a wealth of technical expertise and data that
will be of great use to Google as we look to tackle many
computing issues on behalf of our users,” said Eric Schmidt,
chief executive officer of Google. “We’re pleased to
move forward to collaborate on a variety of technical
challenges through the signing of the Space Act Agreement.”
Recently, teams from NASA and Google met to discuss the
many challenging computer science problems facing both
organizations and possible joint efforts that could help
address them.
NASA and Google intend to collaborate in a variety of
areas, including incorporating Agency data sets in the
Google Earth mapping service, focusing on user studies
and cognitive modeling for human-computer interaction,
and on science data searching utilizing a variety of
Google features and products.
“Our collaboration with Google will demonstrate that
the private and public sectors can accomplish great things
together,” said S. Pete Worden, Ames center director.
“I want NASA Ames to establish partnerships with the
private sector that will encourage innovation, while
advancing the Vision for Space Exploration and commercial
interests,” Worden added.
“NASA has collected and processed more information about
our planet and universe than any other entity in the
history of humanity,” said Chris C. Kemp, director of
strategic business development at Ames. “Even though
this information was collected for the benefit of everyone,
and much is in the public domain, the vast majority of
this information is scattered and difficult for non-experts
to access and to understand.
“We’ve worked hard over the past year to implement an
agreement that enables NASA and Google to work closely
together on a wide range of innovative collaborations,”
said Kemp. “We are bringing together some of the best
research scientists and engineers to form teams to make
more of NASA’s vast information accessible.”
NASA and Google also are finalizing details for additional
collaborations that include joint research, products,
facilities, education, and missions.
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Spunky Satellite Yields Nobel Prize for NASA Scientist
In the early 1970s, a young NASA scientist had a crazy
idea to build a strange-looking microwave satellite to
test the Big Bang theory. After much stress and many
false starts, his satellite finally launched in 1989
and by 1990 found nearly irrefutable evidence to support
the Big Bang theory.
On October 3, 2006, the Nobel Prize Committee announced
that this scientist, John Mather, of Goddard, would receive
the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. He shares the prize
with long-time colleague, George Smoot, of the U.S. Department
of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in
Berkeley, California.
Until fairly recently, very little was known about the
origin of the universe. One theory, called the Big Bang,
stated in the simplest of terms that, long ago, something
happened, and about a billion years later stars and galaxies
appeared. John Mather helped fill in the pieces. The
satellite mission he led was the Cosmic Background Explorer
(COBE).
As early as 1974, Mather was determined to build a satellite
that could find evidence for the Big Bang and how stars
and galaxies formed. The Big Bang theory grew out of
Einstein’s theory of general relativity and was developed
by a Jesuit priest named Georges Lemaître and others
in the 1920s.
The first striking evidence for the Big Bang came between
1963 and 1965, when Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, of
Bell Laboratories, stumbled upon some annoying microwave
static interfering with their radio experiment. That
interference, responsible for a sizable amount of static
seen on your television set, turned out to be remnant
radiation from the birth of the universe 13.8 billion
years ago. Penzias and Wilson won the 1978 Nobel Prize
in Physics for this discovery.
Mather and Smoot greatly advanced the field by precisely
measuring the temperature and spectrum of this cosmic
microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang that
has cooled considerably but still lingers with us today.
If our eyes could detect microwaves, we would see the
entire sky bathed in this light.
The temperature they measured was 2.375 +/− 0.06 degrees
Kelvin, or about minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit. More important,
Mather and Smoot found slight temperature fluctuations
within this near uniform light, which physicist Stephen
Hawking, independent of the COBE team, called “the most
important discovery of the century, if not of all time.”
Why the hyperbole? The temperature variations (about
10 parts per million) make life possible. Without them,
no stars or galaxies or planets would have formed. These
variations—a little more heat here, a little less there—pointed
to density differences, regions with a little more matter
and a little less matter. Through gravity,
over the course of billions of years—in a cosmic take
on the “rich get richer” idea—those denser and warmer
pockets attracted more matter and heat, which ultimately
gave rise to the stars, galaxies, and hierarchical structure
we
see today.
|
The
images were created from the COBE DMR data products.
Each image has been histogram equalized, giving
a non-linear relation between color value and temperature. |
The simplest model of the Big Bang cannot explain why
stars formed, but the tweaked model for which Mather
and Smoot found evidence can.
When Mather presented a chart of the first 9 minutes
of COBE data at the 1990 meeting of the American Astronomical
Society in Washington, D.C., he received a standing ovation.
Scientists saw instantly how well the COBE data matched
the temperature map predicted by theory. Rarely in science
is a match between observation and theory so precise.
The moment still gives Mather goose bumps today, he said.
Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, COBE did not make
optical images of stars and planets, which readily capture
the public’s imagination. As such, COBE never became
a household name before its mission ended in 1994, yet
its legacy is the Nobel Prize, the first to be awarded
to a NASA scientist.
COBE carried three instruments. The first, the Far Infrared
Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS), measured the temperature
and spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. Mather,
the COBE mission project scientist, was the FIRAS principal
investigator, and Richard Shafer, also of Goddard, was
the deputy principal investigator.
The second instrument, the Differential Microwave Radiometer
(DMR), measured the temperature variations, called anisotropy.
George Smoot was the DMR principal investigator, and
Charles L. Bennett, then at Goddard and now at Johns
Hopkins University, was the deputy principal investigator.
The third instrument, the Diffuse Infrared Background
Experiment (DIRBE), measured the cosmic infrared background,
the “core sample” of the universe, containing the cumulative
emissions of stars and galaxies dating back to the epoch
of first light hundreds of millions of years after the
Big Bang. The result was surprising: The universe has
produced twice as much light as had been thought, and
hidden it from view. A previously unknown population
of galaxies made this light. Michael Hauser, then at
Goddard and now at the Space Telescope Science Institute,
was the DIRBE principal investigator. Tom Kelsall, of
Goddard, was the deputy principal investigator.
NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, now in orbit,
builds on the COBE legacy, exploring in far greater detail
the temperature variations the COBE discovered—quite
possibly the stuff of future Nobel Prizes.
In August 2006,
Mather and the COBE team won the 2006 Gruber Cosmology
Prize, also for the Big Bang discoveries. Along with
the scientists mentioned above, the recipients of this
award include the members of the COBE Science Working
Group: Eli Dwek, S. Harvey Moseley, Robert F. Silverberg,
and Nancy Boggess (retired), of Goddard; Edward Cheng,
formerly with Goddard and now president of Conceptual
Analytics LLC; Samuel Gulkis and Michael A. Janssen,
of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); Rainer Weiss,
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Stephan
Meyer, of the University of Chicago; Philip Lubin, of
the University of California, Santa Barbara; Edward Wright,
of the University of California, Los Angeles; Thomas
Murdock, of Frontier Technology Inc.; and the estate
of the late David T. Wilkinson, of Princeton University.
NASA Probes the Sources of the World’s Tiny Pollutants
Pinpointing pollutant sources is an important part of
the ongoing battle to improve air quality and to understand
its impact on climate. Scientists using NASA data recently
tracked the path and distribution of aerosols—tiny
particles suspended in the air—to link their region of
origin and source type with their tendencies to warm
or cool the atmosphere.
By altering the amount of solar energy that reaches
the Earth’s surface, aerosols influence both regional
and global climate, but their impact is difficult to
measure, because most only stay airborne for about
a week, while greenhouse gasses can persist in the
atmosphere for decades. In a new study, researchers
investigated the sources of aerosols and how different
types of aerosols influence climate.
“This study offers details on the aerosol source regions
and emission source types that policy makers could
target to most effectively combat climate change,”
said Dorothy Koch, lead author and an atmospheric scientist
at Columbia University and NASA’s Goddard Institute
for Space Studies (GISS), in New York.
Using a GISS computer model that includes a variety
of data gathered by NASA and other U.S. satellites,
the researchers simulated realistic aerosol concentrations
of important aerosol types in the atmosphere and studied
the amount of light and heat they absorb and reflect
over several regions around the globe.
Each area has a unique mix of natural and pollutant
aerosol sources that produces different types of aerosols
and causes complex climate effects. The industry and
power sectors are particularly important in North America
and Europe and produce large amounts of
sulfur dioxide, while Asia has higher emissions from
residential sources, which produce relatively more
carbon-containing aerosols.
“Computer model simulations showed that black carbon
in the Arctic, a potentially important driver in climate
change, derives its largest portion from Southeast
Asian residential sources,” said Koch. “According to
current model estimates, the residential sector appears
to have a substantial potential to cause climate warming
and, therefore, could potentially be targeted to counter
the effects of global warming.”
|
This
pair of images from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument
(OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite shows smoke measurements
over Alaska and western Canada on August 15, 2005
(left) and August 21, 2005 (right). Increasing
amounts of smoke are shown as an aerosol index
with shades of blue (little or no smoke) to dull
red (thick smoke). |
Black carbon absorbs sunlight, warming the atmosphere
just as dark pavement absorbs more sunlight and becomes
hotter than light pavement. It has a large influence
on global climate, because winds transport approximately
half of the black carbon aerosols produced in important
aerosol source regions like Asia and South Africa to
other parts of the world. When lofted above precipitating
clouds, these aerosols can remain airborne for relatively
longer periods. Some of these aerosols are carried
to the Polar Regions, where they settle on the surface
of ice or snow, absorb sunlight, and boost melting.
Most particles, especially sulfates produced from the
sulfur dioxide emissions of factories and power plants,
are light-colored and tend to cool the atmosphere by
reflecting sunlight or making clouds more reflective.
Computer model simulations suggest this effect is especially
heightened over parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including
the Central United States. The study found, however,
that sulfur dioxide emissions in Southeast Asia and
Europe have a smaller impact on climate because atmospheric
conditions in those areas are not as efficient at turning
the emissions into sulfate particles.
“This research is only the first step in considering
the impacts of aerosols from different sectors on climate,”
said Koch. “Aerosols have other effects, like altering
cloud characteristics that influence precipitation
and climate.”
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NASA Satellites Unearth Antarctic ‘Plumbing System’
and Clues to Leaks
Imagine peering down from aboard an airplane flying
at 35,000 feet and spotting changes in the thickness
of a paperback book on a picnic blanket in New York
City’s Central Park. If you believe this impossible,
NASA satellites are doing the equivalent of just that.
From nearly 400 miles above the Earth, satellites have
detected subtle rises and falls in the surface of fast-moving
ice streams on the Antarctic ice sheet, a capability
that also offers scientists an extraordinary view of
interconnected waterways deep below that surface.
“NASA’s satellite instruments are so sensitive we’re
able to measure from space changes in the ice sheet’s
surface elevation of a mere 3 feet,” said Robert Bindschadler,
chief scientist of the Hydrospheric and Biospheric
Sciences Laboratory at Goddard and co-author of a related
study published in the February 16, 2007, issue of
Science.
|
Because
Antarctica holds about 90 percent of the world’s
ice and 70 percent of the world’s reservoir of
fresh water, leaks under the ice sheet influence
sea level and ice melt worldwide. |
With the aid of the satellites, Bindschadler and a
team of scientists led by research geophysicist Helen
Fricker, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
in La Jolla, California, revealed a new three-dimensional
look at an extensive network of waterways beneath an
active ice stream that acts like a natural plumbing
system, as well as clues to how leaks in the system
impact the world’s largest ice sheet and sea level.
They also documented, for the first time, changes in
the height of the ice sheet’s surface as proof that
the lakes and channels nearly half a mile of solid
ice below filled and emptied.
“This exciting discovery of large lakes exchanging
water under the ice sheet’s surface has radically altered
our view of what’s happening at the base of the ice
sheet and how ice moves in that environment,” said
Bindschadler.
Fricker, Bindschadler, and others spotted intriguing
discharges of water from the lakes into the ocean.
Their research has also delivered new insights into
how much water leaks from these waterways, how frequently,
and how many connect to the ocean. Because Antarctica
holds about 90 percent of the world’s ice and 70 percent
of the world’s reservoir of fresh water, leaks in this
system influence sea level and ice melt worldwide.
The research team combined images from an instrument
aboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites and data from
NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat)
to unveil a first-ever view of changes in the elevation
of the icy surface above a subglacial lake the size
of Lake Ontario that took place over a 3-year period.
Those changes suggest that the lake drained and that
its water relocated elsewhere.
To the naked eye, the surface of the ice sheet is very
cold and stable, but the base of any of its ice streams
is warm, enabling water melted from the basal ice to
flow, filling the system’s “pipes” and lubricating
flow of the overlying ice. These waterways act as a
vehicle for water to move and change its influence
on the ice movement, a factor that determines ice sheet
growth or decay.
“There’s an urgency to learning more about ice sheets
when you note that sea level rises and falls in direct
response to changes in that ice,” said Fricker. “With
this in mind, NASA’s ICESat, Terra, Aqua, and other
satellites are providing a vital public service.”
NASA Data Helps Pinpoint Wildfire Threats
NASA data from Earth observation satellites is helping
build the capability to determine when and where wildfires
may occur by providing details on plant conditions.
While information from sophisticated satellites and
instruments have recently allowed scientists to quickly
determine the exact location of wildfires and to monitor
their movement, this geoscience research offers a step
toward predicting their development and could complement
data from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) weather satellites used to help calculate fire
potential across much of the United States.
By studying shrublands prone to wildfire in southern
California, scientists found that NASA Earth observations
accurately detected and mapped two key factors: plant
moisture and fuel condition—or greenness—defined as
the proportion of live to dead plant material. Moisture
levels and fuel condition, combined with the weather,
play a major role in the ignition, rate of spread,
and intensity of wildfires.
“This represents an advance in our ability to predict
wildfires using data from recently launched instruments,”
said lead author Dar Roberts, of the University of
California, Santa Barbara. “We have come a long way
in just the past 5 to 10 years and continue to gather
much better data on the variables critical in wildfire
development and spread.”
|
The
MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this photo-like
image and fire detections, which are marked with
red dots. Some of the fire detections appear only
as “hotspots,” places where MODIS detected unusually
high temperatures, while other fires are producing
obvious smoke plumes. |
To find out how well NASA satellites could detect these
factors, researchers first sampled live fuel moisture,
a critical measure for assessing fire danger, from
several different plant species in sites across Los
Angeles County. The ground-based data, collected by
the Los Angeles County Fire Department over a 5-year
period,
were then compared to greenness and moisture measures
from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) and Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer
(AVIRIS) instruments. The space-based data were often
closely linked to the field measurements, suggesting
the instruments can be used to determine when conditions
are favorable for wildfires.
“Improving the role of satellite data in wildfire prediction
and monitoring through efforts like these is critical,
since traditional field sampling is limited by high
costs, and the number and frequency of sites you can
sample,” said Roberts. “This new data on the relative
greenness of a landscape also allows us to see how
conditions are changing compared to the past.”
The satellite data worked best on landscapes where
one plant type was dominant. The amount of vegetation
cover in an area and its growth rate also influence
the reliability of satellite data for wildfire prediction.
The study also found that in areas where branches and
dead foliage often help spread fires, changes in the
proportion of green vegetation to other plants may
also indicate locations of potential fires, especially
after moisture values fall below a critical level.
The proportion of greenness determines the manner in
which plants absorb and scatter sunlight and plays
a major role in moisture retention.
Although scientists have long recognized the importance
of moisture conditions in wildfire development, this
research suggests that other variables may be just
as significant. “While live fuel moisture values are
critical in the development of wildfires, it’s clearly
not the last word. Even if vegetation is extremely
dry, there are a number of other factors that influence
whether a fire will develop and how quickly it spreads,
including the ratio of live to dead foliage, plant
type, seasonal precipitation, and weather conditions,”
said Roberts.
As researchers continue to better understand wildfire
development, they are also creating fire-spread computer
models that use wind speed and direction forecasts
to determine where fires will travel. And in the near
future, scientists will likely be able to map fire
severity to get an indication of the overall impact
of a wildfire on the landscape and environment, including
the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.
As the data record from recent satellites continues
to grow, scientists will also be able to better track
historical changes that might modify fire danger to
provide better information for decision makers.
Two NASA Technologies Inducted into the Space Technology
Hall of Fame
On April 12, 2007, two water treatment technologies
developed at NASA were inducted into the Space Foundation’s
Space Technology Hall of Fame. Johnson Space Center
received the honor for its development of the Microbial
Check Valve used in water purification, and Kennedy
Space Center was recognized for the development of
Emulsified Zero-Valent Iron (EZVI) technology used
to clean contaminated ground water. Both technologies
were featured in Spinoff 2006, and the EZVI technology
was also recognized as NASA’s “Government Invention
of the Year” and “Commercial Invention of the Year”
in 2005.
Developed at Johnson to provide microbial control for
drinking water systems for the space shuttle and the
International Space Station, the Microbial Check Valve
is now an integral component in water purification
systems in rural areas and developing countries around
the world. Johnson engineers joined the Water Security
Corporation, of Sparks, Nevada, and Umpqua Research
Company, of Myrtle Creek, Oregon, as inductees for
developing the technology. Retired NASA employee Richard
Sauer received an individual award for his work on
the Microbial Check Valve while he was the manager
of Shuttle Water Quality at Johnson.
The EZVI technology is a cost-effective technology
used to clean ground water contaminated by dense chemical
compounds. Engineers at Kennedy developed the technology
to address pollution from chlorinated solvents used
to clean Apollo rocket components. The environmentally
friendly EZVI uses iron particles in an oil and water
base that neutralizes the toxic chemicals. This technology
is now used at both government and private industry
cleanup sites.
|
Johnson
Space Center’s Michelle Brekke at the Space Technology
Hall of Fame awards dinner with William B. Tutt,
chairman emeritus of the Space Foundation (left)
and Astronaut John Herrington (right), currently
director of the Center for Space Studies at the
University of Colorado. |
Dr. Jacqueline W. Quinn, environmental engineer, and
Kathleen B. Brooks, materials scientist, received individual
awards for their work at Kennedy on the EZVI. Weston
Solutions, of West Chester, Pennsylvania; GeoSyntec,
of Guelph, Ontario; and the University of Central Florida,
Orlando were also inducted for developing the technology.
Michele Brekke, director of Johnson’s Innovative Partnerships
Program office, and Dr. David Bartine, director of
Applied Technology at Kennedy, accepted the awards
on behalf of NASA at the Space Technology Hall of Fame
dinner, the closing event of the Space Foundation’s
4-day National Space Symposium held in Colorado Springs,
Colorado.
The National Space Symposium is the premier event for
the Space Foundation, a national nonprofit organization
founded in 1983 and headquartered in Colorado Springs.
The organization is a leader in space awareness activities,
trade association services, research and analysis for
the global space industry, and educational enterprises.
Since 1988, the Space Foundation’s Space Technology
Hall of Fame, managed in cooperation with NASA, has
honored 54 technologies, as well as the innovating
organizations and individuals who transformed space
technology into commercial products that improve life
here on Earth.
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