Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
REPLAY: Sun Close up Views 7th July / Backyard Astronomy with Lunt Telescope
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
Explore This Section Earth Earth Observer Editor’s Corner Feature Articles Meeting Summaries News Science in the News Calendars In Memoriam Announcements More Archives Conference Schedules Style Guide 13 min read
The Earth Observer Editor’s Corner: July–September 2025
NOTE TO READERS: After more than three decades associated with or directly employed by NASA, Steve Platnick [GSFC—Deputy Director for Atmospheres, Earth Sciences Division] stepped down effective August 8, 2025. Steve began his civil servant career at GSFC in 2002, but his GSFC association went back to 1993, first as a contractor and then as one of the earliest employees of the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET). During his time at NASA, Steve played an integral role in the sustainability and advancement of NASA’s Earth Observing System platforms and data. He was actively involved in the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Science Team, where he helped advance several key components of the MODIS instrument. He was also the NASA Lead/co-Lead for the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP), Atmosphere Discipline from 2012–2020 where he focused on operational cloud optical and microphysical products.
In 2008, Steve became the Earth Observing System (EOS) Senior Project Scientist. In this role, he led the EOS Project Science Office that supported airborne sensors, ground networks, and calibration labs. The Kudos article titled “Steve Platnick Steps Down from NASA After 34 Years of Service” includes a more detailed account of Steve’s career and includes a list of awards he has received.
Steve’s departure leaves a vacancy in the author’s chair for “The Editor’s Corner” – another role Steve filled as EOS Senior Project Scientist. Barry Lefer [NASA Headquarters—Associate Director of Research, Earth Science Division] graciously agreed to serve as guest author of the editorial in the current compilation. I want to thank Steve for all his support for The Earth Observer over the years and thank Barry for stepping in as the author of “The Editor’s Corner” for the time being.
–Alan Ward, Executive Editor, The Earth Observer
I begin this editorial with news of a successful Earth science launch. At 5:40 PM Indian Standard Time (IST), or 8:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), on July 30, 2025, the joint NASA–Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Synthetic Aperture Radar, or NISAR, mission launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India’s southeastern coast aboard an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket 5. The ISRO ground controllers began communicating with NISAR about 20 minutes after launch, at just after 8:29 AM EDT, and confirmed it is operating as expected.
NISAR will use two different radar frequencies (L-band SAR and S-band SAR) to penetrate clouds and forest canopies. Including L-band and S-band radars on one satellite is an evolution in SAR airborne and space-based missions that, for NASA, started in 1978 with the launch of Seasat. In 2012, ISRO began launching SAR missions starting with Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-1), followed by RISAT-1A in 2022, to support a wide range of applications in India.
Combining the data from these two radars will allow researchers to systematically and globally map Earth – measuring changes of our planet’s surface down to a centimeter (~0.4 inches). With this detailed view, researchers will have an unprecedented ability to observe and measure complex processes from ecosystem disturbances to natural hazards to groundwater issues. All NISAR science data will be freely available and open to the public.
Following the successful launch, NISAR entered an approximately 90-day commissioning phase to test out systems before science operations begin. A key milestone of that phase was the completion of the deployment of the 39-ft (12-m) radar antenna reflector on August 15 – see Video. The process began on August 9, when the satellite’s boom, which had been tucked close to its main body, started unfolding one joint at a time until it was fully extended about four days later. The reflector assembly is mounted at the end of the boom. On August 15, small explosive bolts that held the reflector assembly in place were fired, enabling the antenna to begin a process called the bloom – its unfurling by the release of tension stored in its flexible frame while stowed like an umbrella. Subsequent activation of motors and cables pulled the antenna into its final, locked position.
Video: NISAR mission team members at NASA JPL, working with colleagues in India, executed the deployment of the satellite’s radar antenna reflector on Aug. 15, 2025. About 39 feet (12 meters) in diameter, the reflector directs microwave pulses from NISAR’s two radars toward Earth and receives the return signals. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The radar reflector will be used to direct and receive microwave signals from the two radars. By interpreting the differences between the L-band and S-band measurements, researchers will be able to discern characteristics about the surface below. As NISAR passes over the same locations twice every 12 days, scientists can evaluate how those characteristics have changed over time to reveal new insights about Earth’s dynamic surfaces.
With the radar reflector now in full bloom, scientists have turned their attention to tuning and testing the radar and preparing NISAR for Science Operations, which are anticipated to start around the beginning of November. Congratulations to the NISAR team on a successful launch and deployment of the radar reflector. Along with the science community, I am excited to see what new discoveries will result from the data collected by the first Earth System Observatory mission.
Turning now to news from active missions, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission has collected over 10 years of global L-band radiometry observations that have resulted in surface soil moisture, vegetation optical depth (VOD), and freeze/thaw state estimates that outperform past and current products. A decade of SMAP soil moisture observations has led to scientific achievements, including quantifying the linkages of the three main metabolic cycles (e.g., carbon, water, and energy) on land. The data have been widely used by the Earth system science community to improve drought assessments and flood prediction as well as the accuracy of numerical weather prediction models.
SMAP’s Early Adopter program has helped connect SMAP data with people and organizations that need it. The program has increased the awareness of SMAP mission products, broadened the user community, increased collaboration with potential users, improved knowledge of SMAP data product capabilities, and expedited the distribution and uses of mission products for a suite of 16 products available. For example, the L-band VOD, which is related to water content in vegetation, is being used to better understand water exchanges in the soil–vegetation–atmosphere continuum.
The SMAP Active–Passive (AP) algorithm – based on data from SMAP and the European Copernicus Program Sentinel-1 C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) – will be adapted to work with L-band data from the newly launched NISAR mission. The result will be estimates of global soil moisture at a spatial resolution of 1 km (0.62 mi) or better approximately once per week.
In addition, the data collected during the SMAP mission would be continued and further enhanced by the European Union’s Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) mission if it launches. This proposed multichannel microwave radiometry observatory includes L-band and four other microwave channels sharing a large mesh reflector – like the one used with SMAP. The plan calls for CIMR to follow a similar approach as SMAP for RFI detection and meet the instrument thermal noise and data latency of SMAP for next-mission desired characteristics.
To learn more about what SMAP has accomplished see “A Decade of Global Water Cycle Monitoring: NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive Mission.”
NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) has been the “gold standard” for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) observations from space for over a decade. The data returned from OCO-2 provide insights into plant health, forest management, forecasting crop yields, fire-risk models, and anticipating droughts.
OCO-3, constructed from spare parts left after OCO-2, was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2019, where it has operated for over five years. OCO-3 extends the global CO2 measurement record while adding new capabilities made possible by being on ISS (e.g., detailed views of urban and tropical regions).
The overarching OCO mission hasn’t just about been about data and hardware. Although both those elements are parts of the story, the human stories woven through the mission’s successes and setbacks are really what holds the mission together. The feature, “A Tapestry of Tales: 10th Anniversary Reflections from NASA’s OCO-2 Mission,” sheds light on some of these personal stories from the OCO-2 and OCO-3 missions.
The individual tales contained in this article reveal the grit and determination behind the scenes of the success of OCO-2 and OCO-3, from the anxiety and excitement surrounding the launch of OCO-2, to moments of fieldwork in the Nevada desert, to internships where wildfire responders turned to OCO-2 data to improve fire-risk models. Taken together, these stories form a “tapestry” that reveals how the OCO-2 and OCO-3 missions continue to illuminate the dynamics of Earth’s atmosphere – one breath at a time.
These personal perspectives underscore that science is not just numbers; it’s people pushing boundaries, navigating failure, and inspiring ways to make our planet safer and healthier. In a time such as this, this is an important reminder.
The joint NASA–U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat program has been a cornerstone of Earth observation for over 50 years. On July 13, Landsat 9 collected its millionth image: a stunning shot of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska – see Figure. Landsat 9, the most recent satellite in the Landsat series, orbits Earth alongside Landsat 8. Together, these satellites collect invaluable data about Earth’s changing land surface every eight days.
Figure: This Landsat 9 image showing the Beaufort Sea shoreline off Alaska and Canada is just one of the scenes captured and processed on July 13, 2025— the same day the USGS EROS archive reached a milestone of one million Landsat 9 Level-1 products. This false color image was made with bands 6, 5, and 4 from the Operational Land Imager. This remote area allows the pristine wilderness environment to support a diverse wildlife and unique ecosystem that includes various species of mammals, birds, and fish. Landsat Level-1 products from Landsat 1 through Landsat 9 can be downloaded at no charge from a number of systems – visit the Landsat Data Access webpage to learn more. Credit: Public Domain After collecting more than 3.3 million images over the course of more than 26 years in orbit, Landsat 7 was decommissioned on June 4, 2025. A YouTube video released at the time of decommissioning provides a concise visual summary of the Landsat 7 mission’s achievements – and the technical challenges overcome. In addition, The Earth Observer did a feature for the 20th anniversary of Landsat 7 in the July–August 2019 issue, called “The Living Legacy of Landsat 7: Still Going Strong After 20 Years in Orbit” [Volume 31, Issue 4, pp. 4–14] that is a useful resource to learn more about the history and achievements (through 20 years) of the mission.
One of the strengths of the Landsat program is its potential for data integration with other satellites. The Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) product exemplifies this collaborative approach by combining data from Landsat 8 and 9 with data from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 A, B, and C missions. Whereas Landsat alone has a repeat time of eight days (i.e., combining Landsat 8 and 9 data); the combined HLS dataset provides imagery for the same location on Earth every 1.6 days – enabling researchers to monitor short-term changes in Earth’s land surface much more effectively than using Landsat or Sentinel-2 data alone.
HLS became one of the most-downloaded NASA data products in fiscal year 2024, with continued growth on the horizon. In February 2025, the program expanded with nine new vegetation indices based on HLS data, with historical processing back to 2013 scheduled for completion by early 2026. Low-latency HLS products will also be available in late 2026. For the full story of how HLS came to be – see the feature: “Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2: Collaboration Drives Innovation.”
Following a 13-month hibernation, the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission was reinstalled to its original location aboard the ISS and resumed operations on April 22, 2024. Since this storage period, GEDI’s lasers have been operating nominally and the mission has continued to produce high-quality observations of the Earth’s three-dimensional structure, amassing 33 billion land surface returns as of November 27, 2024.
The mission team has been actively processing and releasing post-storage data to the public, with Version 2.1 – GEDI L1B, L2A, L2B, and L4A data products, which include data through November 2024, all available for download. The new L4C footprint-level Waveform Structural Complexity Index (WSCI) product using pre-storage data has also been released. Looking ahead, the team is preparing Version 3.0 (V3) of all data products, which will incorporate post-storage data while improving quality filtering, geolocation accuracy, and algorithm performance.
The 2025 GEDI Science Team Meeting (STM) brought together the mission science team, competed science team, representatives from the distributed active archive centers (DAACs), collaborators, stakeholders, and data users. Notably, it marked the first in-person gathering of the second competed science team, who shared updates on their research projects. The STM held an important space for brainstorming, knowledge-sharing, and discussion as the GEDI mission continues to flourish in its second epoch. To learn more, see “Summary of the 2025 GEDI Science Team Meeting.”
Shifting focus to the boreal forests of North America, the NASA Arctic–Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) is now in its final year, marking the end of a decade-long scientific endeavor that has transformed our understanding of environmental change in Alaska and western Canada. This ambitious campaign, funded primarily by NASA’s Terrestrial Ecology Program, has successfully progressed through three distinct phases: ecosystem dynamics (2015–2018), ecosystem services (2017–2022), and the current analysis and synthesis phase (2023–present).
As ABoVE approaches its conclusion, the program has grown to encompass 67 NASA-funded projects with over 1000 participating researchers – a testament to the collaborative scale required to address complex Arctic–boreal ecosystem questions. The program’s integrated approach, combining field research, airborne campaigns, and satellite remote sensing, has generated unprecedented insights into how environmental changes in these northern regions affect both vulnerable ecosystems and society.
The recent 11th – and final – ABoVE Science Team Meeting was an opportunity to showcase the program’s evolution from data collection to synthesis, highlighting successful community engagement initiatives, cutting-edge research on carbon dynamics and ecosystem responses, and innovative science communication strategies that have made this complex research accessible to diverse audiences. With synthesis activities now underway, ABoVE is positioned to deliver comprehensive insights that will inform Arctic and boreal research for years to come. To learn more, see “Summary of the 11th and Final ABoVE Science Team Meeting.”
Last but certainly not least, I want to both recognize and congratulate Compton J. Tucker [GSFC—Senior Researcher]. Compton retired from NASA in March 2025 after 48 years of public service, and then in April, was among 149 newly elected members to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) – which is one of the highest honors in American science. This recognition from NAS brings Compton’s career full circle. He came to GSFC as a NAS postdoc before joining NASA as a civil servant. Compton is a pioneer in the field of satellite-based environmental analysis, using data from various Landsat missions and from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instrument. His research has focused on global photosynthesis on land, determining land cover, monitoring droughts and food security, and evaluating ecologically coupled disease outbreaks. The Kudos, “Compton J. Tucker Retires from NASA and is Named NAS Fellow,” provides more details about Compton’s research achievements and all of the other scientific awards and honors received throughout his career.
Barry Lefer
Associate Director of Research, Earth Science Division
Share
Details
Last Updated Sep 10, 2025 Related Terms
Earth Science View the full article
-
-
By Space Force
SecAF Meink visited Vandenberg SFB to engage with leadership and gain insight into the base’s strategic role in advancing U.S. space capabilities.
View the full article
-
-
By NASA
6 Min Read Upcoming Launch to Boost NASA’s Study of Sun’s Influence Across Space
Soon, there will be three new ways to study the Sun’s influence across the solar system with the launch of a trio of NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spacecraft. Expected to launch no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23, the missions include NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and NOAA’s SWFO-L1 (Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1) spacecraft.
The three missions will launch together aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. From there, the spacecraft will travel together to their destination at the first Earth-Sun Lagrange point (L1), around one million miles from Earth toward the Sun.
The missions will each focus on different effects of the solar wind — the continuous stream of particles emitted by the Sun — and space weather — the changing conditions in space driven by the Sun — from their origins at the Sun to their farthest reaches billions of miles away at the edge of our solar system. Research and observations from the missions will help us better understand the Sun’s influence on Earth’s habitability, map our home in space, and protect satellites and voyaging astronauts and airline crews from space weather impacts.
The IMAP and Carruthers missions add to NASA’s heliophysics fleet of spacecraft. Together, NASA’s heliophysics missions study a vast, interconnected system from the Sun to the space surrounding Earth and other planets to the farthest limits of the Sun’s constantly flowing streams of solar wind. The SWFO-L1 mission, funded and operated by NOAA, will be the agency’s first satellite designed specifically for and fully dedicated to continuous, operational space weather observations.
Mapping our home in space: IMAP
The IMAP mission will study the heliosphere, our home in space.
NASA/Princeton University/Patrick McPike As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will investigate two of the most important overarching issues in heliophysics: the interaction of the solar wind at its boundary with interstellar space and the energization of charged particles from the Sun.
The IMAP mission will principally study the boundary of our heliosphere — a huge bubble created by the solar wind that encapsulates our solar system — and study how the heliosphere interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond. The heliosphere protects the solar system from dangerous high-energy particles called galactic cosmic rays. Mapping the heliosphere’s boundaries helps scientists understand our home in space and how it came to be habitable.
“IMAP will revolutionize our understanding of the outer heliosphere,” said David McComas, IMAP mission principal investigator at Princeton University in New Jersey. “It will give us a very fine picture of what’s going on out there by making measurements that are 30 times more sensitive and at higher resolution than ever before.”
The IMAP mission will also explore and chart the vast range of particles in interplanetary space. The spacecraft will provide near real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic particles, which can produce hazardous conditions not only in the space environment near Earth, but also on the ground. The mission’s data will help model and improve prediction capabilities of the impacts of space weather ranging from power-line disruptions to loss of satellites.
Imaging Earth’s exosphere: Carruthers Geocorona Observatory
An illustration shows the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory spacecraft. NASA/BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, a small satellite, will launch with IMAP as a rideshare. The mission was named after Dr. George Carruthers, creator of the Moon-based telescope that captured the first images of Earth’s exosphere, the outermost layer of our planet’s atmosphere.
The Carruthers mission will build upon Dr. Carruthers’ legacy by charting changes in Earth’s exosphere. The mission’s vantage point at L1 offers a complete view of the exosphere not visible from the Moon’s relatively close distance to Earth. From there, it will address fundamental questions about the nature of the region, such as its shape, size, density, and how it changes over time.
The exosphere plays an important role in Earth’s response to space weather, which can impact our technology, from satellites in orbit to communications signals in the upper atmosphere or power lines on the ground. During space weather storms, the exosphere mediates the energy absorption and release throughout the near-Earth space environment, influencing strength of space weather disturbances. Carruthers will help us better understand the fundamental physics of our exosphere and improve our ability to predict the impacts of the Sun’s activity.
“We’ll be able to create movies of how this atmospheric layer responds when a solar storm hits, and watch it change with the seasons over time,” said Lara Waldrop, the principal investigator for the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
New space weather station: SWFO-L1
SWFO-L1 will provide real-time observations of the Sun’s corona and solar wind to help forecast the resulting space weather.
NOAA/BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems Distinct from NASA’s research satellites, SWFO-L1 will be an operational satellite, designed to observe solar activity and the solar wind in real time to provide critical data in NOAA’s mission to protect the nation from environmental hazards. SWFO-L1 will serve as an early-warning beacon for potentially damaging space weather events that could impact our technology on Earth. SWFO-L1 will observe the Sun’s outer atmosphere for large eruptions, called coronal mass ejections, and measure the solar wind upstream from Earth with a state-of-the-art suite of instruments and processing system.
This mission is the first of a new generation of NOAA space weather observatories dedicated to 24/7 operations, working to avoid gaps in continuity.
“SWFO-L1 will be an amazing deep-space mission for NOAA,” said Dimitrios Vassiliadis, SWFO program scientist at NOAA. “Thanks to its advantageous location at L1, it will continuously monitor the solar atmosphere while measuring the solar wind and its interplanetary magnetic fields well before it impacts Earth — and transmit these data in record time.”
With SWFO-L1’s enhanced performance, unobstructed views, and minimal delay between observations and data return, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center forecasters will give operators improved lead time required to take precautionary actions that protect vital infrastructure, economic interests, and national security on Earth and in space.
By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Share
Details
Last Updated Sep 04, 2025 Related Terms
Carruthers Geocorona Observatory (GLIDE) Heliophysics Heliosphere IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Solar Wind Space Weather The Sun The Sun & Solar Physics Explore More
3 min read Juno Detected the Final Missing Auroral Signature from Jupiter’s Four Largest Moons
Article
2 days ago
6 min read NASA, IBM’s ‘Hot’ New AI Model Unlocks Secrets of Sun
Article
2 weeks ago
3 min read Sun at the Center: Teacher Ambassadors Bring Heliophysics to Classrooms Nationwide
Article
2 weeks ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.