The making of NASA's super hi-res blue marble Earth image

A new image of the Earth has been popping up all over the Internet, dazzling us with its high-def imagery of land masses, oceans and rippled clouds.

Some media outlets have reported that the image is the largest image ever made of our planet, but Norman Kuring, the NASA oceanographer who actually made the image, told The Times that  simply is not true.

"I'm surprised that it's gone viral," he said. "I think what's happening in the general public is seeing a larger image than they are used to seeing, but there have been higher sensing instruments around for a number of years."

Kuring explained that this particular image was made using data collected by the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite, which is on a satellite flying 512 miles above the Earth. VIIRS is not really a camera -- rather it has a scanning telescope that measures the difference between the amount of light coming down to the surface of Earth from the sun as compared to the amount of light that is reflected back to the telescope. Kuring made the image above by running code that translates that data into an image.

VIIRS only scans one swatch of Earth at a time, measuring about 1,900 miles across. Kuringer says you can think of it as if you were walking down the street with a broom and sweeping as you go. The images are then pieced together to make a whole.

The satellite it rides on -- Suomi NPP,  which was launched in October -- has been placed in a sun-synchronous orbit so that the satellite is over the equator at the same local ground time in each orbit. This is relevant because it explains why each slice of image is lit the same way even though the entire image of the Earth was taken over a period of several hours.

The data that VIIRS collects is still in the process of being calibrated, but eventually scientists will be able to use it to measure ocean temperatures, tell us the location of fires, and track cloud formations.

As for the above image, Kuringer said he made it as a favor to a NASA scientist who wanted a visual to use in a talk to the American Meteorological Society earlier this week. Kuringer settled on an image taken on Jan. 4 because it was a fairly sunny day, and he decided to focus on North America because the society is based in America.

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Image: A 'blue marble' image of Earth taken with the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's satellite  Suomi NPP. Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Solar storms may cause cellphones to drop calls

On Sunday, a massive explosion on the sun known as a solar flare sent an ejection of some of the sun's plasma hurtling toward earth at the ungodly speed of 1,000 kilometers...per second!

No need to worry about being hit by flying sun plasma though -- that will zoom right past Earth and race toward the edge of the solar system, according to Harlan Spence, principal investigator for the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

It's the ionizing-radiation that was also produced during the flare that hit Earth on Tuesday that is more of a cause for concern.

The radiation won't physically hurt those of us who are earthbound -- the Earth's magnetic field and its atmosphere provides an effective shield against that. But astronauts who are working on the International Space Station could be at risk.

"These particles move so fast that they can penetrate the walls of spacecraft, damage electronics and even pass through a spacesuit into a person's body," said Spence. "And when it moves through you, it can do grave damage to your cells and your DNA. That's why astronauts will try to go to a well shielded environment when one of these events occur."

Furthermore, our beloved GPS systems may be affected. The GPS satellites themselves, which are located high above the Earth's atmosphere, are most likely not at risk, but the earth's electromagnetic field will get all stirred up by radiation coming off the sun, and the signals we receive have to pass through that stirred-up area.

"As conditions change, GPS systems may be degraded," said Spence.

Cellphones will generally not be affected, said Douglas Biesecker, a physicist with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

"It can be impacted if it's sunrise or sunset and the cell tower is in the same direction of the sun," he said. "A cellphone signal is very very weak, so anything that comes in at that frequency could overwhelm it. You would just drop the call, but you wouldn't realize why."

And if you are planning a flight that might pass near one of the Earth's poles -- from New York to Japan for instance -- your plane might be rerouted to keep the flash flood of charged plasma particles from interfering with navigation systems. Delta has already rerouted some of its flights. Others flew at lower altitudes to reduce the risk of radiation exposure.

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Image: A solar flare captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA / Reuters

A tech geek's guide to the 2011 Geminid meteor shower

 

If you forgot to check the skies Tuesday night for the Geminid meteor shower, do not panic. Meteor experts say the show will continue Wednesday night as well.

That's right, stargazers: You still have a fighting chance to see some shooting stars before the end of 2011.

You'll be most likely to see meteors from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. no matter where you are in the country. Unfortunately, the moon will be quite bright for most of that time, but we've seen reports that some of the meteors streaking across the sky have been as bright as Venus, and the moonlight won't be able to block that out.

According to a statement from NASA, stargazers can expect to see about 40 meteors an hour.

For those who want to do more than just watch shooting stars, NASA has developed a Meteor Counter app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that allows star watchers of all experience levels to record the number of meteors they've seen, and report that information, as well as the time, location and brightness of the meteors, to NASA. You can even record an accompanying audio track with comments on a meteor's trajectory, for instance.

NASA said it will use the information collected by amateur scientists to discover new meteor showers, pinpoint come-debris streams and map the distribution of asteroids around the Earth's orbit. Perhaps more importantly, it will encourage people to take meteor watching seriously. The app will also include a news feed about the night sky and will alert users to upcoming meteor showers.

Another option for enjoying the meteor shower: Listening to it. Space Weather Radio has a neat function that allows listeners to hear a ghostly "ping" whenever a meteor passes overhead. The sound is a side product of the Air Force Space Surveillance Radar that transmits a 216.98 MHz signal into the heavens 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Objects passing overhead -- satellites, spacecraft, meteors -- reflect the signal back to Earth. That's what you're hearing.

And if none of this appeals to you, check out this amazing video of  the Geminid meteor shower, shot in Joshua Tree this week.

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Video: Sciencecasts: Tracking Meteors

 

Google executives offer to save Hangar One at Moffett Field

Google's top three executives have reportedly offered to save Hangar One, a historic landmark at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley that for years has sat neglected.

Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt -- the CEO, co-founder and executive chairman of Google, respectively -- have proposed paying the full $33 million cost of revamping the iconic hangar through a company they control, according to the San Jose Mercury News. But there's apparently a catch: They want to use up to two-thirds of the floor space of the hangar to house their fleet of eight private jets.

Moffett Field is in Mountain View, Calif., where Google is based. NASA Ames, which owns the site including Hangar One, is said to be considering the offer made in September by the Google trio's company, H211. 

An icon from the infancy of the Space Age that looms large in aviation history, Hangar One spans 361,000 square feet -- as big as seven football fields -- and is wide enough to fit three Titanics side by side. Built in 1933, the cavernous structure once housed the Macon, a lumbering dirigible that roamed the California coast on U.S. military missions before crashing into the Pacific Ocean in 1935.

But the humpbacked Silicon Valley structure sits on a toxic site and is currently undergoing a major process to strip the hangar of its PCB-laden paneling. The 198-foot-tall building has faced numerous challenges, especially in the last year, when the House of Representatives cut $32 million from NASA's budget that was set aside to replace Hangar One's siding, the Mercury News report said. 

A NASA spokesman told the newspaper that the H211 proposal had "not yet been completely vetted" and "we have to weigh that against the reality of constrained resources and use." Under the plan, NASA would remain Hangar One's owner and would be able to lease out floor space not used by H211 as well as the upper levels of the structure.

"We are giving all options thoughtful consideration as we prepare our funding proposal for the fiscal year 2013 budget," NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said.

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Photo: Hangar One at Moffett Field. Credit: Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times

Watch Saturday's total lunar eclipse on your computer

 

Bright and early Saturday morning, people in Asia and Australia and on the western coast of America will be treated to a total eclipse of the moon—the last one until 2014.

You'll have to wake up early to see it—NASA says a red shadow will start to fall across the moon at 4:45 a.m. PST. By 6:05 a.m. PST, the moon will be totally engulfed in red light.

Red?

Yes, red.

As Dr. Tony Phillips explains in a NASA release, the lunar eclipse will appear red, not black, because a delicate layer of dusty air surrounding our planet will redirect the light of the sun, filling the darkness behind Earth with a sunset-red glow.

Whether the moon will appear bright orange or blood red or somewhere in between is still up for debate. However, atmospheric scientist Richard Keen of the University of Colorado has hazarded a guess: "I expect this eclipse to be bright orange, or even copper-colored, with a possible hint of turquoise at the edge," he told NASA.

It all sounds pretty spectacular, but unfortunately, the totality of this eclipse will not be fully visible all over the world. In fact, it will only be visible in its entirety from Australia, Asia and the extreme northwest portion of North America.

But no need to despair—the Internet has come to the rescue.

Slooh, the online Space Camera, plans to broadcast a free, real-time feed of the eclipse from telescopes in Australia, Asia and Hawaii. You can access the feed via Slooh's homepage, or by downloading the Android app at the Android Market store.

If you watch the lunar eclipse on Slooh, you'll get the benefit of live narration of the event from astronomer and Slooh editor Bob Berman, who will be joined by guests such as solar researcher Dr. Lucie Green and documentary maker Duncan Copp.

Of course, if you can go outside and see it yourself, you'll get the benefit of fresh air.

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Image: In this Thursday, June 16, 2011, file photo, the moon exhibits a deep orange glow as the Earth casts its shadow in a total lunar eclipse as seen in Manila, Philippines, before dawn. Credit: Bullet Marquez /Associated Press.

SETI telescopes get new life listening for signs of alien life

Alien enthusiasts, get psyched.  

Thanks to the help of 2,700 independent supporters and a new deal with the U.S. Air Force, the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array is back online as of Monday. SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

For the first time since April, the group of 42 giant radiotelescopes, built to monitor the universe full time for radio waves that might be sent out by life forms on other planets, is listening once again.

And the timing couldn't be better.

On Monday, NASA announced that its Kepler Mission had confirmed the existence of a planet in a "habitable zone," meaning it is close enough (and far away enough) from its sun that water could exist on its surface. The planet, called Kepler-22b, is located 600 light-years away.

And in the last 18 months the mission has discovered 2,236 planets that might also be in a similar "habitual region."

The SETI Institute plans to spend the next two years pointing its telescopes at the top 1,000 habitable planets that Kepler finds.

“This is a superb opportunity for SETI observations,” Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, said in a statement. “For the first time, we can point our telescopes at stars, and know that those stars actually host planetary systems -- including at least one that begins to approximate an Earth analogue in the habitable zone around its host star. That’s the type of world that might be home to a civilization capable of building radio transmitters.”

But Tarter isn't convinced these are the only places that might be home to alien life.

“In SETI, as with all research, preconceived notions such as habitable zones could be barriers to discovery,” she said. “So, with sufficient future funding from our donors, it’s our intention to examine all of the planetary systems found by Kepler."

The Allen Telescope Array has monitored the universe consistently since 2008, but in April, SETI and its partner, the Radio Astronomy Lab of UC Berkeley, ran out of money and put the ATA into hibernation mode. The SETI Institute raised $232,155 from private citizens to help put the array back online, but the bulk of the funding came from a partnership with the U.S. Air Force to help with its space situational awareness mission.

In a statement Tarter added that SETI's website would soon allow people to see for themselves what is happening with the telescopes while they work, but a spokeswoman for the institute said she could not yet elaborate on what that would look like.

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Image: SETI's Allen Telescope Array. Credit: Los Angeles Times

NASA launches satellite from Vandenberg at night [Video]

In the predawn hours, NASA launched a 13-story rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base that lighted the night sky for miles around.

Check out the blast off in the video below or here on YouTube.

The Delta II rocket launched at 2:48 a.m. PDT on Friday from Space Launch Complex-2 at the base, located northwest of Santa Barbara. It was carrying a $1.5-billion weather satellite that’s armed with new state-of-the-art sensors that will observe the ozone, atmospheric temperatures, snow and vegetation coverage.

According to NASA, the satellite, known as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS Preparatory Project, is a crucial first step in building the next-generation weather system.

"NPP is critical to our understanding of Earth's processes and changes," NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said in a statement. "Its impact will be global and builds on 40 years of work to understand our complex planet from space."

The satellite was built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., with components made by Raytheon Co. in their El Segundo facilities.

United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., manufactured the Delta II rocket with a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-27A engine, which is made in Canoga Park.

The satellite is slated to provide weather information for military and civil users.

Mary Glackin, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assn.’s deputy undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, said it will "make America a more weather-ready nation."

 

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Photo: Liftoff of the NPOESS Preparatory Project, or NPP, aboard a Delta II rocket at Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls

NASA weather satellite to be launched from Vandenberg

NASA's newest high-powered weather satellite, set to keep an eye on long-term climate change and short-term weather conditions, is poised to be launched atop a 13-story rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The $1.5-billion satellite is slated to blast off aboard a Delta II rocket at 2:47 a.m. PDT on Friday from Space Launch Complex-2 at the base, located northwest of Santa Barbara.

There will be live launch coverage on NASA's Launch Blog or rocket maker United Launch Alliance's website, which will begin around 12 a.m.

According to NASA, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS Preparatory Project, is a crucial first step in building the next-generation weather system.

The satellite, built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., is armed with new state-of-the-art sensors that will probe everything from the ozone layer and land cover, to atmospheric temperatures and ice cover. Obtaining this information is crucial to understanding global change, NASA said.

Check out how it works here.

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Photo: The NPP satellite being lowered into the thermal vacuum chamber. Credit: Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp.

Virgin Galactic hires pilot to fly passengers to space

After combing through a long list of astronauts, fighter pilots and space geeks, British billionaire Richard Branson settled on a new astronaut pilot to join his start-up space venture that aims to lift paying passenger’s into space.

Branson’s company Virgin Galactic announced Wednesday that former U.S. Air Force test pilot Keith Colmer will join chief pilot David Mackay to begin flight training and testing of the company’s revolutionary aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo.

Colmer was selected from more than 500 applicants, which included about 10 current and former astronauts, said Virgin Galactic Chief Executive George T. Whitesides in a recent interview at the company’s offices in Pasadena.

“We selected the best pilot for our vehicles,” he said. “Unlike most spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo is actually flown to space. So the emphasis is on people who have tremendous pilot skills.”

In the past, the way people reached outer space is aboard a high-powered rocket.

Instead, Virgin Galactic will depart from Spaceport America in New Mexico using a WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft. It will fly with the reusable SpaceShipTwo rocket plane under its wing to 50,000 feet, where the spaceship will separate, blast off, and be flown back to New Mexico.

When the rocket motor engages, strong gravitational forces will pin the pilot to the back of his seat as he steers the craft -– and up to six passengers -- to the edge of space, or about 60 miles above the Earth's surface.

Once they reach that suborbital altitude, passengers will experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. Then they will re-enter the atmosphere and coast back to a runway at Spaceport America.

The pilot will have manual control of SpaceShipTwo for nearly the entire flight. This is unusual in modern aviation, in which automated controls pervade air and space flight.

“That spaceship is the sexiest vehicle in the world for the right kind of pilot,” Whitesides said. “If you’re going to fly it, you need to have the ‘right stuff.’”

That was a reference to "The Right Stuff," Tom Wolfe's 1979 book (and later a movie) about the early days of NASA’s space program.

Similar to those early pioneers, Whitesides said, Colmer is blazing a new path in the new commercial space flight industry. 

According to Virgin Galactic, Colmer brings 12 years of operational, developmental and experimental aircraft test flight experience plus more than 10 years of combined military experience in Air Force spacecraft operations and flying.

He has logged more 5,000 hours in more than 90 types of aircraft, including two combat tours in Iraq as a F-16 fighter pilot.

Colmer, known as "Coma," will join the team in Mojave, Calif., where Virgin Galactic’s carrier aircraft and spaceships are made by the Spaceship Co. They are undergoing test flights.

Whitesides said the company hopes to start commercial flights within two years.

“I am extremely honored to have been the first astronaut pilot selected through competition to join the team,” Colmer said in a statement. “Virgin Galactic is truly revolutionizing the way we go to space, and I am looking forward to being a part of that.”

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Photos from top: Photographers take shots of Virgin Galactic's carrier aircraft and spaceship at Mojave Air and Space Port in September. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times. At right: New Virgin Galactic pilot Keith Colmer. Credit: Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic signs deal to give NASA rides into space

NASA engineers, technologists and scientific researchers are planning to hitch a ride to outer space aboard a space ship owned by Virgin Galactic, British billionaire Richard Branson’s private space venture.

The company, which aspires to be the world’s first commercial carrier in space, said it has confirmed an order from NASA for one charter suborbital spaceflight so the space agency can conduct experiments.

NASA's order includes options for two additional charter flights, Virgin Galactic said. If all of the options are exercised, the company said the contract value would amount to $4.5 million.

According to a Virgin Galactic statement, each mission allows for up to 1,300 pounds of scientific experiments. Virgin Galactic will provide a flight test engineer on every flight to monitor and interact with experiments as necessary, a capability that has never before been available on suborbital vehicles.

“We are excited to be working with NASA to provide the research community with this opportunity to carry out experiments in space,” said George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic. “An enormous range of disciplines can benefit from access to space, but historically, such research opportunities have been rare and expensive.”

Virgin Galactic, founded by Branson, hopes to make its first passenger flight sometime next year from the yet-to-be finished Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Instead of launching a rocket directly into space, a carrier aircraft will fly SpaceShipTwo under its wing to 50,000 feet, where the spaceship will separate and blast off. The craft will climb to the edge of space, or about 60 miles above the Earth's surface.

At that suborbital altitude, passengers will experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. The company said it has taken about 455 reservations for the ride. The price per flight for a wannabe space tourist is $200,000.

Virgin Galactic’s carrier aircraft and spaceships are made by The Spaceship Co. in Mojave, where they are currently undergoing test flights.

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Photo: Photographers get photos of Virgin Galactic's carrier aircraft and spaceship at Mojave Air and Space Port in September. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times