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NASA NTRS1980

The measurement of Earth rotation on a deformable Earth

Until recently, the methods of geodetic positioning on the Earth were limited to a precision of roughly one part in 10 to the 6th power. At this level of precision, the Earth can be regarded as a rigid body since the largest departure of the Earth from rigidity is manifested in the strains of the Earth tides which are of the order of one part in 10 to the 7th power. Long baseline interferometry is expected to routinely provide global positioning to a precision of one part in 10 to the 8th power or better. At this level of precision, all parts of the Earth's surface must be regarded as being, at least potentially, in continual motion relative to the geocenter as a result of a variety of geophysical effects. The general implications of this phenomenon for the theory of the Earth's rotation is discussed. Particular attention is given to the question of the measurement of the 'Earth's rotation vector' on a deformable Earth.

Cannon, W. H.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Mission to Planet Earth - The Earth Observing System

The Earth Observing System (EOS) is a major component of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth initiative. It seeks to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the earth as a system, including its various components (solid earth, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere) and its various processes (hydrologic cycle, biogeochemical cycles, and climatic processes). This is to be achieved by space-based remote sensing, using a variety of instrumentation and observing techniques, operating simultaneously, and providing continuous and complete global coverage over a long time period. A few of the investigations to be carried out with EOS, in areas of (1) imagery of the earth from space, and (2) investigations of the earth's radiation budget are described. EOS is expected to make major contributions to the basic earth sciences (geology, meteorology, etc.), but its results also will have important immediate or near-term practical applications which will improve the quality of life on earth.

Carruthers, George R.↗

NASA NTRS2017

Learning More About Our Earth: An Exploration of NASA's Contributions to Earth Science Through Remote Sensing Technologies

NASA is commonly known for its pioneering work in space exploration and the technological advancements that made access to space possible. NASA is now increasingly known for the agency's research and technologies that support the Earth sciences. This is a presentation focusing on NASA's Earth science efforts told mostly through the technological innovations NASA uses to achieve a greater understanding of the Earth, making it possible to explore the Earth as a system. Enabling this science is NASA's fleet of over two dozen Earth science spacecraft, supported by aircraft, ships and ground observations. NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) is a coordinated series of polar-orbiting and low inclination satellites for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, solid Earth, atmosphere, and oceans. With the launching of the three flagship satellite missions, Terra, Aqua and Aura, beginning in 1999, NASA's initial Mission to Planet Earth made it possible to measure aspects of the environment that touch the lives of every person around the world. NASA harnessing the unique space-based platform means, fortunately, no planet is better studied than the one we actually live on.

Lindsay, Francis↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Earth System Digital Twins (ESDT) Technology for NASA Earth Science

For NASA's Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) Program, an Earth System Digital Twin (ESDT) is defined as an interactive and integrated multidomain, multiscale, digital replica of the state and temporal evolution of Earth systems. It dynamically integrates: relevant Earth system models and simulations; other relevant models (e.g., related to the world's infrastructure); continuous and timely (including near real time and direct readout) observations (e.g., space, air, ground, over/underwater, Internet of Things (IoT), socioeconomic); long-time records; as well as analytics and artificial intelligence tools. Effective ESDTs enable users to run hypothetical scenarios to improve the understanding, prediction of and mitigation/response to Earth system processes, natural phenomena and human activities as well as their many interactions. An ESDT is a type of integrated information system that, for example, enables continuous assessment of impact from naturally occurring and/or human activities on physical and natural environments. AIST ESDT strategic goals are to: 1. Develop information system frameworks to provide continuous and accurate representations of systems as they change over time; 2. Mirror various Earth Science systems and utilize the combination of Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Thread, and state-of-the-art models to help predict the Earth’s response to various phenomena; 3. Provide the tools to conduct "what if" investigations that can result in actionable predictions. The AIST ESDT thrust is developing capabilities toward the development of future digital twins of the Earth or of subcomponents of the Earth. This will enable the development of an overarching framework that will integrate New Observing Strategies (NOS) to enable new observation measurements, i.e., multi-source, coordinated, dynamic and responsive to needs and requests defined by Analytic Collaborative Frameworks (ACF) that enable agile science investigations fusing and analyzing very large amounts of diverse data. NOS and ACF capabilities along with open access to various science, infrastructure and human data, interconnected modeling, data assimilation, simulations, surrogate modeling, high-performance computing and advanced visualization, will define a powerful framework that could be utilized for local, regional or global and/or thematic digital twins. This presentation will describe a general overview of the AIST ESDT vision including prior work done in the areas of NOS and ACF as well as current and upcoming ESDT projects.

Jacqueline Le Moigne↗

NASA NTRS1977

Possible controls on the bulk composition of the earth - Implications for the origin of the earth and moon

It is pointed out that speculation regarding the bulk chemical composition of the earth, especially its radial distribution, is important for testing ideas on the origin of the earth-moon system. Definitive solutions are, however, unattainable. The reported investigation is concerned with an attempt to select the more plausible possibilities. The evidence on the chemical distribution in the earth is examined and the resulting models of bulk composition are used to check the plausibility of the Ganapathy-Anders model. It is suggested that the chemistry of the earth and moon can be modeled more plausibly in the context of slow, cool accretion of the earth and either simultaneous accretion or disintegrative capture of the moon than by fission or volatilization models based on a hot earth. Many possible aspects need detailed quantitative study including the relation between U content, other heat sources, and heat flow on earth.

Smith, J. V.↗

NASA NTRS1978

The influence of earth tides on earth's coordinates

The importance of the Earth's tides on Earth coordinates were examined for the following reasons: (1) the precision for obtaining the Earth's coordinates shows that the effects of Earth tides appear on the values obtained for the coordinates; (2) the possibility of determining the values of the Earth tides; and (3) the consideration of theoretical models that can compute the values of Earth tides. The astronomical and geodetic coordinates of a point at the Earth's surface are described.

Vincente, R. O.↗

NASA NTRS2010

Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies

The United States spends approximately four million dollars each year searching for near-Earth objects (NEOs). The objective is to detect those that may collide with Earth. The majority of this funding supports the operation of several observatories that scan the sky searching for NEOs. This, however, is insufficient in detecting the majority of NEOs that may present a tangible threat to humanity. A significantly smaller amount of funding supports ways to protect the Earth from such a potential collision or "mitigation." In 2005, a Congressional mandate called for NASA to detect 90 percent of NEOs with diameters of 140 meters of greater by 2020. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies identifies the need for detection of objects as small as 30 to 50 meters as these can be highly destructive. The book explores four main types of mitigation including civil defense, "slow push" or "pull" methods, kinetic impactors and nuclear explosions. It also asserts that responding effectively to hazards posed by NEOs requires national and international cooperation. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies is a useful guide for scientists, astronomers, policy makers and engineers.

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NASA NTRS1999

NASA/NOAA: Earth Science Electronic Theater 1999. Earth Science Observations, Analysis and Visualization: Roots in the 60s - Vision for the Next Millennium

The Etheater presents visualizations which span the period from the original Suomi/Hasler animations of the first ATS-1 GEO weather satellite images in 1966, to the latest 1999 NASA Earth Science Vision for the next 25 years. Hot off the SGI-Onyx Graphics-Supercomputer are NASA''s visualizations of Hurricanes Mitch, Georges, Fran and Linda. These storms have been recently featured on the covers of National Geographic, Time, Newsweek and Popular Science. Highlights will be shown from the NASA hurricane visualization resource video tape that has been used repeatedly this season on National and International network TV. Results will be presented from a new paper on automatic wind measurements in Hurricane Luis from 1-min GOES images that appeared in the November BAMS. The visualizations are produced by the NASA Goddard Visualization & Analysis Laboratory, and Scientific Visualization Studio, as well as other Goddard and NASA groups using NASA, NOAA, ESA, and NASDA Earth science datasets. Visualizations will be shown from the Earth Science ETheater 1999 recently presented in Tokyo, Paris, Munich, Sydney, Melbourne, Honolulu, Washington, New York, and Dallas. The presentation Jan 11-14 at the AMS meeting in Dallas used a 4-CPU SGI/CRAY Onyx Infinite Reality Super Graphics Workstation with 8 GB RAM and a Terabyte Disk at 3840 X 1024 resolution with triple synchronized BarcoReality 9200 projectors on a 60ft wide screen. Visualizations will also be featured from the new Earth Today Exhibit which was opened by Vice President Gore on July 2, 1998 at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, as well as those presented for possible use at the American Museum of Natural History (NYC), Disney EPCOT, and other venues. New methods are demonstrated for visualizing, interpreting, comparing, organizing and analyzing immense HyperImage remote sensing datasets and three dimensional numerical model results. We call the data from many new Earth sensing satellites, HyperImage datasets, because they have such high resolution in the spectral, temporal, spatial, and dynamic range domains. The traditional numerical spreadsheet paradigm has been extended to develop a scientific visualization approach for processing HyperImage datasets and 3D model results interactively. The advantages of extending the powerful spreadsheet style of computation to multiple sets of images and organizing image processing were demonstrated using the Distributed Image SpreadSheet (DISS). The DISS is being used as a high performance testbed Next Generation Internet (NGI) VisAnalysis of: 1) El Nino SSTs and NDVI response 2) Latest GOES 10 5-min rapid Scans of 26 day 5000 frame movie of March & April 198 weather and tornadic storms 3) TRMM rainfall and lightning 4)GOES 9 satellite images/winds and NOAA aircraft radar of hurricane Luis, 5) lightning detector data merged with GOES image sequences, 6) Japanese GMS, TRMM, & ADEOS data 7) Chinese FY2 data 8) Meteosat & ERS/ATSR data 9) synchronized manipulation of multiple 3D numerical model views; etc. will be illustrated. The Image SpreadSheet has been highly successful in producing Earth science visualizations for public outreach.

Hasler, A. Fritz↗

NASA NTRS2004

An Algorithm for Converting Static Earth Sensor Measurements into Earth Observation Vectors

An algorithm has been developed that converts penetration angles reported by Static Earth Sensors (SESs) into Earth observation vectors. This algorithm allows compensation for variation in the horizon height including that caused by Earth oblateness. It also allows pitch and roll to be computed using any number (greater than 1) of simultaneous sensor penetration angles simplifying processing during periods of Sun and Moon interference. The algorithm computes body frame unit vectors through each SES cluster. It also computes GCI vectors from the spacecraft to the position on the Earth's limb where each cluster detects the Earth's limb. These body frame vectors are used as sensor observation vectors and the GCI vectors are used as reference vectors in an attitude solution. The attitude, with the unobservable yaw discarded, is iteratively refined to provide the Earth observation vector solution.

Harman, R.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Bridging the Gap between Earth Science and Students: An Integrated Approach using NASA Earth Science Climate Data

Under the auspices of the Department of Education's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, beginning in 2007 students will be tested in the science area. There are many techniques that educators can employ to teach students science. The use of authentic materials or in this case authentic data can be an engaging alternative to more traditional methods. An Earth science classroom is a great place for the integration of authentic data and science concepts. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a wealth of high quality Earth science data available to the general public. For instance, the Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) at NASA s Langley Research Center houses over 800 Earth science data sets related to Earth's radiation budget, clouds, aerosols and tropospheric chemistry. These data sets were produced to increase academic understanding of the natural and anthropogenic factors that influence global climate; however, a major hurdle in using authentic data is the size of the data and data documentation. To facilitate the use of these data sets for educational purposes, the Mentoring and inquirY using NASA Data on Atmospheric and Earth science for Teachers and Amateurs (MY NASA DATA) project has been established to systematically support educational activities at all levels of formal and informal education. The MY NASA DATA project accomplishes this by reducing these large data holdings to microsets that are easily accessible and explored by K-12 educators and students though the project's Web page. MY NASA DATA seeks to ease the difficulty in understanding the jargon-heavy language of Earth science. This manuscript will show how MY NASA DATA provides resources for NCLB implementation in the science area through an overview of the Web site, the different microsets available, the lesson plans and computer tools, and an overview of educational support mechanisms.

Alston, Erica J.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Earth Science Education Plan: Inspire the Next Generation of Earth Explorers

The Education Enterprise Strategy, the expanding knowledge of how people learn, and the community-wide interest in revolutionizing Earth and space science education have guided us in developing this plan for Earth science education. This document builds on the success of the first plan for Earth science education published in 1996; it aligns with the new framework set forth in the NASA Education Enterprise Strategy; it recognizes the new educational opportunities resulting from research programs and flight missions; and it builds on the accomplishments th'at the Earth Science Enterprise has made over the last decade in studying Earth as a system. This document embodies comprehensive, practicable plans for inspiring our children; providing educators with the tools they need to teach science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); and improving our citizens' scientific literacy. This plan describes an approach to systematically sharing knowledge; developing the most effective mechanisms to achieve tangible, lasting results; and working collaboratively to catalyze action at a scale great enough to ensure impact nationally and internationally. This document will evolve and be periodically reviewed in partnership with the Earth science education community.

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NASA NTRS2012

Crew Earth Observations: Twelve Years of Documenting Earth from the International Space Station

The Crew Earth Observations (CEO) payload was one of the initial experiments aboard the International Space Station, and has been continuously collecting data about the Earth since Expedition 1. The design of the experiment is simple: using state-of-the-art camera equipment, astronauts collect imagery of the Earth's surface over defined regions of scientific interest and also document dynamic events such as storms systems, floods, wild fires and volcanic eruptions. To date, CEO has provided roughly 600,000 images of Earth, capturing views of features and processes on land, the oceans, and the atmosphere. CEO data are less rigorously constrained than other remote sensing data, but the volume of data, and the unique attributes of the imagery provide a rich and understandable view of the Earth that is difficult to achieve from the classic remote sensing platforms. In addition, the length-of-record of the imagery dataset, especially when combined with astronaut photography from other NASA and Russian missions starting in the early 1960s, provides a valuable record of changes on the surface of the Earth over 50 years. This time period coincides with the rapid growth of human settlements and human infrastructure.

Evans, Cynthia A.↗

NASA NTRS2018

Synoptic Ozone, Cloud Reflectivity, and Erythemal Irradiance from Sunrise to Sunset for the Whole Earth as Viewed by the DSCOVR Spacecraft from the Earth-Sun Lagrange 1 Orbit

EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) on board the DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) spacecraft is the first earth science instrument located near the earth-sun gravitational plus centrifugal force balance point, Lagrange 1. EPIC measures earth-reflected radiances in 10 wavelength channels ranging from 317.5 to 779.5 nm. Of these channels, four are in the UV range 317.5, 325, 340, and 388 nm, which are used to retrieve O3, 388 nm scene reflectivity (LER: Lambert equivalent reflectivity), SO2, and aerosol properties. These new synoptic quantities are retrieved for the entire sunlit globe from sunrise to sunset multiple times per day as the earth rotates in EPIC's field of view. Retrieved ozone amounts agree with ground-based measurements and satellite data to within 3 %. The ozone amounts and LER are combined to derive the erythemal irradiance for the earth's entire sunlit surface at a nadir resolution of 1818 km2 using a computationally efficient approximation to a radiative transfer calculation of irradiance. The results show very high summertime values of the UV index (UVI) in the Andes and Himalayas (greater than 18), and high values of UVI near the Equator at equinox.

Cloud reflectivity↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Performance Evaluation of Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) Instruments in Generating A Stable Earth Radiation Budget Multi-Decadal Data Record

Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument is designed to measure the earth-reflected solar and earth-emitted longwave radiances, two components of the Earth Radiation Budget. CERES instrument measure radiances in 0.3 to 5.0 micron region with Shortwave (SW) sensor, 0.3 to >100 microns with Total (TOT) sensor, and either 8 - 12 micron with Window (WN) sensor or 5 – 35 micron with longwave (LW) sensor. The on-board internal calibration module (ICM) is used to monitor the stability of the sensors and to correct the pre-launch determined sensor gains for radiance calculations. Corrections for spectral changes occurring in different wavelength regions observed through vicarious studies were applied to sensor response function used in radiance determination. The resulting global flux long term trends from each instrument have shown consistent behavior and provided a stable global record of Top of the Atmosphere (TOA) shortwave and longwave fluxes for the Earth radiation budget climate data record.

Clouds and Earth Radiation Energy System (CERES)↗

NASA NTRS2012

Returning an Entire Near-Earth Asteroid in Support of Human Exploration Beyond Low-Earth Orbit

This paper describes the results of a study into the feasibility of identifying, robotically capturing, and returning an entire Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) to the vicinity of the Earth by the middle of the next decade. The feasibility of such an asteroid retrieval mission hinges on finding an overlap between the smallest NEAs that could be reasonably discovered and characterized and the largest NEAs that could be captured and transported in a reasonable flight time. This overlap appears to be centered on NEAs roughly 7 m in diameter corresponding to masses in the range of 250,000 kg to 1,000,000 kg. The study concluded that it would be possible to return a approx.500,000-kg NEA to high lunar orbit by around 2025. The feasibility is enabled by three key developments: the ability to discover and characterize an adequate number of sufficiently small near-Earth asteroids for capture and return; the ability to implement sufficiently powerful solar electric propulsion systems to enable transportation of the captured NEA; and the proposed human presence in cislunar space in the 2020s enabling exploration and exploitation of the returned NEA. Placing a 500-t asteroid in high lunar orbit would provide a unique, meaningful, and affordable destination for astronaut crews in the next decade. This disruptive capability would have a positive impact on a wide range of the nation's human space exploration interests. It would provide a high-value target in cislunar space that would require a human presence to take full advantage of this new resource. It would offer an affordable path to providing operational experience with astronauts working around and with a NEA that could feed forward to much longer duration human missions to larger NEAs in deep space. It represents a new synergy between robotic and human missions in which robotic spacecraft would retrieve significant quantities of valuable resources for exploitation by astronaut crews to enable human exploration farther out into the solar system. The capture, transportation, examination, and dissection of an entire NEA would provide valuable information for planetary defense activities that may someday have to deflect a much larger near-Earth object. Transportation of the NEA to lunar orbit with a total flight time of 6 to 10 years would be enabled by a ~40-kW solar electric propulsion system with a specific impulse of 3,000 s. The flight system could be launched to low-Earth orbit (LEO) on a single Atlas V-class launch vehicle, and return to lunar orbit a NEA with at least 28 times the mass launched to LEO. Longer flight times, higher power SEP systems, or a target asteroid in a particularly favorable orbit could increase the mass amplification factor from 28-to-1 to 70-to-1 or greater. The NASA GRC COMPASS team estimated the full life-cycle cost of an asteroid capture and return mission at approx.$2.6B.

solar electric propulsion↗

NASA NTRS2017

GeoDash: Assisting Visual Image Interpretation in Collect Earth Online by Leveraging Big Data on Google Earth Engine

Collect Earth Online (CEO) is a free and open online implementation of the FAO Collect Earth system for collaboratively collecting environmental data through the visual interpretation of Earth observation imagery. The primary collection mechanism in CEO is human interpretation of land surface characteristics in imagery served via Web Map Services (WMS). However, interpreters may not have enough contextual information to classify samples by only viewing the imagery served via WMS, be they high resolution or otherwise. To assist in the interpretation and collection processes in CEO, SERVIR, a joint NASA-USAID initiative that brings Earth observations to improve environmental decision making in developing countries, developed the GeoDash system, an embedded and critical component of CEO. GeoDash leverages Google Earth Engine (GEE) by allowing users to set up custom browser-based widgets that pull from GEE's massive public data catalog. These widgets can be quick looks of other satellite imagery, time series graphs of environmental variables, and statistics panels of the same. Users can customize widgets with any of GEE's image collections, such as the historical Landsat collection with data available since the 1970s, select date ranges, image stretch parameters, graph characteristics, and create custom layouts, all on-the-fly to support plot interpretation in CEO. This presentation focuses on the implementation and potential applications, including the back-end links to GEE and the user interface with custom widget building. GeoDash takes large data volumes and condenses them into meaningful, relevant information for interpreters. While designed initially with national and global forest resource assessments in mind, the system will complement disaster assessments, agriculture management, project monitoring and evaluation, and more.

SERVI↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Performance Evaluation of Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) Instruments in Generating A Stable Earth Radiation Budget Multi-Decadal Data Record

Earth Radiation Budget↗

NASA NTRS1982

A strategy for Earth science from space in the 1980s. Part 1: Solid earth and oceans

The report develops a ten-year science strategy for investigating the solid earth and dynamics of world oceans from Earth orbit. The strategy begins from the premise that earth studies have proceeded to the point where further advances in understanding Earth processes must be based on a global perspective and that the U.S. is technically ready to begin a global study approach from Earth orbit. The major areas of study and their fundamental problems are identified. The strategy defines the primary science objectives to be addressed and the essential measurements and precision to achieve them.

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