“ESA’s CryoSat and the Copernicus Sentinel-1 missions have been used to measure subtle changes in the elevation and flow of ice shelves that, in turn, reveals how huge canyons are forming underneath. Warm bottom ocean water is entering the cavity under Antarctica’s Dotson ice shelf and is stirred by Earth’s rotation. This is causing one side of the ice shelf to melt. The canyon, which has formed over 25 years, is now 200 m deep in places and the ice just above it is heavily crevassed, affecting the shelf’s future ability to buttress the ice on land.”
Video credit: ESA/University of Edinburgh–N. Gourmelen/Planetary Visions
Boston Dynamics released a teaser video with SpotMini, their new small four-legged robot, and the quietest robot they designed and built. SpotMini weighs 25 kg, it is all-electric, and has a 90 minute range. The navigation is supported by stereo cameras, depth cameras, an IMU, and position/force sensors in the limbs. SpotMini has the ability to maintain balance and negotiate rough terrain.
“The first flight of an advanced supersonic parachute system for Mars 2020—NASA’s next Mars rover. This video is narrated by Ian Clark, the test’s technical lead from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The test took place on October 4, 2017, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. At the moment of full inflation, the parachute is going 1.8 times the speed of sound or nearly 1,300 miles an hour, and generating nearly 35,000 pounds of drag force—drag that would be necessary to help slow a payload down as it was entering the Martian atmosphere. This is the first of several tests in support of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission.”
“A team from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is developing a new, third-generation facility science instrument for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA.
The High Resolution Mid-InfrarEd Spectrometer (HIRMES), is a spectrometer optimized to detect neutral atomic oxygen, water, as well as normal and deuterated (or “heavy”) hydrogen molecules at infrared wavelengths between 25 and 122 microns (a micron is one-millionth of a meter). These wavelengths are key to determining how water vapor, ice, and oxygen combine at different times during planet formation, and will enable new observations of how these elements combine with dust to form the mass that may one day become a planet.
HIRMES will provide scientists with a unique opportunity to study this aspect of planetary formation, as SOFIA is currently the only NASA observatory capable of accessing these mid-infrared wavelengths. Infrared wavelengths between 28 and 112 microns do not reach ground-based telescopes because water vapor and carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere block this energy. SOFIA is able to access this part of the electromagnetic spectrum by flying between 39,000 feet and 45,000 feet, above more than 99 percent of this water vapor.”
Francis Reddy (Syneren Technologies): Science Writer
Rob Andreoli (AIMM): Videographer
John Caldwell (AIMM): Videographer
Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Animator
Music credit: “Sparkle Shimmer” and “The Orion Arm”, both from Killer Tracks.
“A team of scientists led by Laura Hayes –a solar physicist who splits her time between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland – investigated a connection between solar flares and Earth’s atmosphere. They discovered pulses in the electrified layer of the atmosphere – called the ionosphere – mirrored X-ray oscillations during a July 24, 2016 flare.”
Genna Duberstein (USRA): Lead Producer
Kathalina Tran (Wyle Information Systems): Lead Science Writer
Jack Ireland (ADNET Systems): Scientist
Laura Hayes (Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland): Lead Scientist
“Early on the morning of Saturday, November 18, NASA successfully launched for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the first in a series of four advanced polar-orbiting satellites, equipped with next-generation technology and designed to improve the accuracy of U.S. weather forecasts out to seven days. The Joint Polar Satellite System-1 (JPSS-1) lifted off on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s central coast. JPSS-1 data will improve weather forecasting and help agencies involved with post-storm recovery by visualizing storm damage and the geographic extent of power outages.”
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