Topic: Alan Buis

NASA to use RQ-14 Dragon Eye unmanned aircraft to study Costa Rica’s active Turrialba Volcano Plume

April 2, 2013 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Studying volcanos can be hazardous work, both for researchers and aircraft. To penetrate such dangerous airspace, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), especially those with electric engines that ingest little contaminated air, are an emerging and effective way to gather crucial data about volcanic ash and gases.

Last month, a team of NASA researchers deployed three repurposed military UAVs with special instruments into and above the noxious sulfur dioxide plume of Costa Rica’s active Turrialba volcano, near San Jose.

NASA researchers modified three repurposed Aerovironment RQ-14 Dragon Eye unmanned aerial vehicles acquired from the United States Marine Corps to study the sulfur dioxide plume of Costa Rica’s Turrialba volcano. The project is designed to improve the remote sensing capability of satellites and computer models of volcanic activity. (Image credit: Google/NASA/Matthew Fladeland)

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NASA to send ISS-RapidScat instrument to International Space Station to measure Ocean Winds

February 3, 2013 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – In a clever reuse of hardware originally built to test parts of NASA’s QuikScat satellite, the agency will launch the ISS-RapidScat instrument to the International Space Station in 2014 to measure ocean surface wind speed and direction.

The ISS-RapidScat instrument will help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring, and understanding of how ocean-atmosphere interactions influence Earth’s climate.

Artist’s rendering of NASA’s ISS-RapidScat instrument (inset), which will launch to the International Space Station in 2014 to measure ocean surface wind speed and direction and help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring. It will be installed on the end of the station’s Columbus laboratory. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JSC)

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NASA Study reveals degradation of Amazon Forest due to Climate Change

January 22, 2013 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – An area of the Amazon rainforest twice the size of California continues to suffer from the effects of a megadrought that began in 2005, finds a new NASA-led study.

These results, together with observed recurrences of droughts every few years and associated damage to the forests in southern and western Amazonia in the past decade, suggest these rainforests may be showing the first signs of potential large-scale degradation due to climate change.

The megadrought in the Amazon rainforest during the summer of 2005 caused widespread damage and die-offs to trees, as depicted in this photo taken in Western Amazonia in Brazil. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Aqua spacecraft provides scientists with relative humidity data that could help forecast Hurricane Strengths

December 3, 2012 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Forecasters could soon be better able to predict how intense tropical cyclones like Hurricane Sandy will be by analyzing relative-humidity levels within their large-scale environments, finds a new NASA-led study.

Scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, UCLA and the University of Hawaii at Manoa analyzed relative humidity data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft for nearly 200 North Atlantic hurricanes between 2002 and 2010.

Hurricane Sandy as seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft on Oct. 28th, 2012, when the Category 1 storm was centered off the southeastern U.S. coast. A new NASA-led study finds that analysis of relative humidity levels in the large-scale environment of tropical cyclones may be useful in improving forecasts of their intensity. (Image credit: NASA GSFC/LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team)

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NASA uses direct Satellite Observations to examine Ice Increases in the Antarctic Sea

November 19, 2012 |

Written by Alan Buis and Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA and British Antarctic Survey scientists have reported the first direct evidence that marked changes to Antarctic sea ice drift caused by changing winds are responsible for observed increases in Antarctic sea ice cover in the past two decades.

The results help explain why, unlike the dramatic sea ice losses being reported in the Arctic, Antarctic sea ice cover has increased under the effects of climate change.

View of Sheldon Glacier with Mount Barre in the background, seen from Ryder Bay near Rothera Research Station, Adelaide Island, Antarctica. A new NASA/British Antarctic Survey study examines why Antarctic sea ice cover has increased under the effects of climate change over the past two decades.

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NASA study shows Climate change likely hotter than current Projections

November 12, 2012 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – A new NASA-funded study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, finds climate model projections that show a greater rise in global temperature are likely to prove more accurate than those showing a lesser rise.

The findings, published today in the journal Science, could provide a breakthrough in the longstanding quest to narrow the range of global warming expected in coming decades and beyond.

Scientists used observations from two NASA satellite instruments, including relative humidity data similar to these, from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft, to analyze how well leading global climate models reproduce observed relative humidity in Earth’s tropics and subtropics. The AIRS surface relative humidity data shown here are representative only and are not from the study. Areas shown in reds and yellows are the driest; blue areas the moistest. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA Satellites monitor Hurricane Sandy

October 30, 2012 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Hurricane Sandy is expected to affect as many as 60 million Americans this week as it combines with other weather fronts to create an anticipated ‘superstorm.’ Satellites and instruments from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, are busy monitoring the storm. NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder Tracks Sandy’s Approach

NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft captured this infrared image of Hurricane Sandy at 2:17pm EDT on October 29th, 2012.

NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft captured this infrared image of Hurricane Sandy, another weather front to the west and cold air coming down from Canada at 2:17pm EDT Oct. 29th. The hurricane center is the darkest purple area in the Atlantic just to the east of the New Jersey coast, reflecting Sandy’s areas of heaviest rainfall. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope sees infrared light from Stray Stars

October 25, 2012 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – A new study using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope suggests a cause for the mysterious glow of infrared light seen across the entire sky. It comes from isolated stars beyond the edges of galaxies.

These stars are thought to have once belonged to the galaxies before violent galaxy mergers stripped them away into the relatively empty space outside of their former homes.

New research from scientists using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope suggests that a mysterious infrared glow across our whole sky is coming from stray stars torn from galaxies. When galaxies grow, they merge and become gravitationally tangled in a violent process that results in streams of stars being ripped away from the galaxies. Such streams, called tidal tails, can be seen in this artist’s concept. Scientists say that Spitzer is picking up the collective glow of stars such as these, which linger in the spaces between galaxies. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UC Irvine)

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NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) catches image of giant Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy during a Flare Up

October 24, 2012 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s newest set of X-ray eyes in the sky, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), has caught its first look at the giant black hole parked at the center of our galaxy. The observations show the typically mild-mannered black hole during the middle of a flare-up.

“We got lucky to have captured an outburst from the black hole during our observing campaign,” said Fiona Harrison, the mission’s principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. “These data will help us better understand the gentle giant at the heart of our galaxy and why it sometimes flares up for a few hours and then returns to slumber.”

NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has captured these first, focused views of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy in high-energy X-ray light. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Global Hawk unmanned aircraft flys over Hurricane Lelie in the Atlantic

September 8, 2012 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA has begun its latest hurricane science field campaign by flying an unmanned Global Hawk aircraft over Hurricane Leslie in the Atlantic Ocean during a day-long flight that began in California and ended in Virginia.

With the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission, NASA for the first time will be flying Global Hawks from the U.S. East Coast.

An unmanned NASA Global Hawk aircraft comes in for a landing at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, VA, Sept. 7, kicking off the month-long Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission. HS3 will help researchers and forecasters uncover information about how hurricances and tropical storms form and intensify. (Image credit: NASA)

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