Earth Sciences

ESA PR 52-2002. What is the fastest Ferrari`s distinctive red paint has ever travelled? Next year it will be 10800 km/h! Mars Express, to be launched in May/June 2003, the first European spacecraft to visit the Red Planet, will be speeding on its way accompanied by the very essence of Ferrari: a sample of its distinctive red paint. Mars has always fascinated us here on Earth. The European Space Agency`s Mars Express mission, due to arrive at its destination by December 2003, aims to solve ma

Satellites can help the EU monitor climate change, address international crises and contain natural disasters. Today in Brussels EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin and Mr Antonio Rodotà, the Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), officially opened a large stakeholder consultation forum aiming at the definition of European needs to enhance global monitoring for environment and security (GMES). 250 participants, representing users, suppliers and researchers, addressed poli

What happens when a large meteor crashes into the Earth? The impact of a large meteorite releases an enormous amount of energy that evaporates, melts and fractures areas surrounding the impact over distances that can range over hundreds of kilometers. Although the subject of abundant recent interest, little is directly known about the propagation of damage during these events.

Three researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have come up with a new picture of damage propagation, whi

COLLEGE STATION – Lightning may not often strike twice in the same place, but it sure can hang out repeatedly in the same neighborhood. In Texas, that neighborhood is Houston, which Texas A&M University atmospheric scientists call the “lightning capital of the state.” Results of their lightning research, indicating that the high-energy stuff likes the city life, was originally published in Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, and an overview of that study is featured in the online

As part of the Earth System Science Pathfinder small-satellite program, NASA has selected a new space mission proposal led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., that will yield fresh insight into how oceans affect and respond to climate change — knowledge that will help better life here on Earth. The mission, named Aquarius, promises to explore the saltiness of the seas in order to understand how the massive natural exchanges of water between the ocean, atmosphere and sea ice

A sensor aboard NASA’s Terra satellite is helping scientists map how much sunlight the Earth’s surface reflects back up into the atmosphere, and this new detailed information should help to greatly improve weather and forecast models. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) now routinely provides daily global and local measurements of albedo, or the total amount of light reflected from Earth’s surface out to space. These precise data may allow scientists to better understand and pr