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By NASA
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Farms in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta face strict reporting requirements for water usage because the delta supplies most of the state’s freshwater. This Landsat image uses infrared wavelengths to depict vegetation.Credit: U.S. Geological Survey The 30-acre pear orchard in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta has been in Brett Baker’s family since the end of the Gold Rush. After six generations, though, California’s most precious resource is no longer gold – it’s water. And most of the state’s freshwater is in the delta.
Landowners there are required to report their water use, but methods for monitoring were expensive and inaccurate. Recently, however, a platform called OpenET, created by NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and other partners, has introduced the ability to calculate the total amount of water transferred from the surface to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration. This is a key measure of the water that’s actually being removed from a local water system. It’s calculated based on imagery from Landsat and other satellites.
“It’s good public policy to start with a measure everyone can agree upon,” Baker said.
OpenET is only one of the latest uses researchers and businesses continue finding for Landsat over 50 years after the program started collecting continuous imagery of Earth’s surface. NASA has built and launched all nine of the satellites before handing them over to USGS, which manages the program.
Some of the most pressing questions people ask about Earth are about the food it’s producing. Agriculture and adjacent industries are among the heaviest users of Earth-imaging data, which can help assess crop health and predict yields.
The latest Landsat satellite, Landsat 9, went into orbit in fall of 2021. NASA and the USGS are already developing options for the next iteration of Landsat, currently known as Landsat Next.Credit: NASA Even in this well-established niche, though, new capabilities continue to emerge. One up-and-coming company is using Landsat to validate sustainable farming practices by measuring carbon stored in the ground, which can be detected in the reflectance rate in certain wavelengths. This is how Perennial Inc. is enabling emerging markets for carbon credits, through which farmers get paid for maximizing their land’s storage of carbon.
The company is also discovering interest among food companies that want to reduce their environmental impact by choosing eco-conscious suppliers, as well as companies in the fertilizer, farm equipment, and agricultural lending businesses.
Landsat also enables countless map-based apps, studies of changes in Earth’s surface cover over half a century, and so much more.
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Last Updated Oct 16, 2024 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence has taken its first images using three of the instruments that will be used to explore and study the asteroids Dimorphos and Didymos.
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 4 min read
Sols 4331-4333: Today’s Rover ABC – Aurora, Backwards Driving, and Chemistry, with a Side of Images
This image shows just how variable and interesting the terrain is in the area that NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is currently investigating. Curiosity captured this long-distance Remote Micro Imager (RMI) image using the Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) aboard the rover on sol 4329 — Martian day 4,329 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 10, 2024 at 02:30:12 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 11, 2024
This blogger is in the United Kingdom, just north of London, where we yesterday had beautiful night skies with a red aurora that was even visible with the unaided eye, and looked stunning on photographs. That reminded me of the solar storm that made it all the way to Mars earlier this year. Here is my colleague Deborah’s blog about it: “Aurora Watch on Mars.” And, of course, that was a great opportunity to do atmospheric science and prepare for future crewed missions, to assess radiation that future astronauts might encounter. You can read about it in the article, “NASA Watches Mars Light Up During Epic Solar Storm.” But now, back from shiny red night skies north of London, and auroras on Mars six months ago, to today’s planning!
Power — always a negotiation! Today, I was the Science Operations Working Group chair, the one who has to watch for the more technical side of things, such as the question if all the activities will fit into the plan. Today there were many imaging ideas to capture the stunning landscape in detail with Mastcam and very close close-ups with the long-distance imaging capability of ChemCam (RMI). Overall, we have two long-distance RMIs in the plan to capture the details of the ridge we are investigating. You can see in the accompanying image an example from last sol of just how many stunning details we can see. I so want to go and pick up that smooth white-ish looking rock to find out if it is just the light that makes it so bright, or if the surface is different from the underside… but that’s just me, a mineralogist by training, used to wandering around a field site! Do you notice the different patterns — textures as we call them in geology — on the rocks to the left of that white-ish rock and the right of it? So much stunning detail, and we are getting two more RMI observations of 10 frames each in today’s plan! In addition there are more than 80 Mastcam frames planned. Lots of images to learn from!
Chemistry is also featuring in the plan. The rover is stable on its wheels, which means we can get the arm out and do an APXS measurement on the target “Midnight Lake,” which MAHLI also images. The LIBS investigations are seconding the APXS investigation on Midnight Lake, and add another target to the plan, “Pyramidal Pinnacle.” On the third sol there is an AEGIS, the LIBS measurement where the rover picks its own target before we here on Earth even see where it is! Power was especially tight today, because the CheMin team does some housekeeping, in particular looking at empty cells in preparation for the next drill. The atmosphere team adds many investigations to look out for dust devils and the dustiness of the atmosphere, and APXS measures the argon content of the atmosphere. This is a measure for the seasonal changes of the atmosphere, as argon is an inert gas that does not react with other components of the atmosphere. It is only controlled by the temperature in various places of the planet — mainly the poles. DAN continues to monitor water in the subsurface, and RAD — prominently featured during the solar storm I was talking about earlier — continues to collect data on the radiation environment.
Let’s close with a fun fact from planning today: During one of the meetings, the rover drivers were asked, “Are you driving backwards again?” … and the answer was yes! The reason: We need to make sure that in this rugged terrain, with its many interesting walls (interesting for the geologists!), the antenna can still see Earth when we want to send the plan. So the drive on sol 4332 is all backwards. I am glad we have hazard cameras on the front and the back of the vehicle!
Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University
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Last Updated Oct 13, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
NASA canvases the areas impacted by Hurricane Milton using cloud-penetrating L-band radar providing responders insight into flooding across Florida.NASA In the wake of Hurricane Milton, NASA is deploying resources to support Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and state emergency management agencies to aid their response effort including satellite and aerial data collection.
The agency’s Disasters Response Coordination System and Airborne Science Program are began conducting flights Friday to provide emergency responders with better insight into flooding, damage in Florida, and debris.
“After the devastating impact from hurricanes Helene and Milton, NASA immediately sprang into action,” said Karen St. Germain, director, Earth Sciences Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Whether it is through observations from space or from airplanes, NASA is ready to assist communities affected by severe storms. We are working together with our federal and state partners to provide a better understanding of what is happening on the ground, in real time. NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System was designed with the goal of delivering trusted, actionable Earth science information, where and when people need it, to enable effective response when these events strike.”
NASA’s Uninhabited Aerial Synthetic Aperture Radar Vehicle (UAVSAR) instrument is gathering rapid wide area L-Band synthetic aperture radar data shared directly with FEMA and other organizations. Flights are coordinated directly with FEMA to augment their existing satellite and aerial data collection.
Since Hurricane Milton struck, persistent cloud cover over the State of Florida has made it challenging to obtain optical satellite observations of conditions in the region. Synthetic aperture radar instruments, such as those aboard UAVSAR, can see through the clouds to observe changes on the ground. This provides much-needed observations of flood inundation across communities in Florida, as well as the extent of inland river flooding and resource deployment.
The Disaster Response Coordination System has been working closely with FEMA and state emergency management agencies to aid response efforts as Hurricane Milton approached and impacted Florida. The team is actively sharing resources with other agency partners, the state of Florida, and disaster response non-profit organizations.
NASA continues to determine the needs of its partners and is sharing maps and data on the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal as they become available.
Hurricane Milton caused significant wind, flooding, power outages, and damage across central Florida, from Sarasota and Tampa to Palm Springs and the Space Coast. Impacts are currently being assessed alongside lifesaving operations and emergency repairs. The Disasters Response Coordination System is collaborating directly with FEMA, the State of Florida Geospatial Information Office, U.S. Geological Survey, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and the American Red Cross. The Disasters Response Coordination System is also sharing any available Earth observation data with NASA’s Kennedy Space Center emergency managers to support their damage assessment process.
By using tools like NASA’s Black Marble, and updating daily with differential analysis done to highlight areas with extended power outages, the agency provides FEMA, states, and non-profits the opportunity to distribute temporary generators, life-sustaining resources, and damage assessments.
The UAVSAR flights are being conducted with support from NASA’s Disasters Program, NASA’s Earth Action Program, and NASA’s Research and Analysis Program, and are being managed by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, a NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern and California, and the California Institute of Technology.
To learn more about NASA’s Disaster Response Coordination System, visit:
https://disastersresponsecoordinationsystem.gov
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