Dec 7 2001
From The Space Library
NASA launched the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) spacecraft on a Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The purpose of the mission was to study a region called the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere/Ionosphere (MLTI), located 40 to 110 miles (60 to 180 kilometers) above Earth. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory had designed the spacecraft to produce the first set of comprehensive, global measurements of the MLTI, a region that scientists had not yet thoroughly analyzed, in which electrical currents surge and auroras create a glow over the northern and southern hemispheres of Earth. TIMED, which launched on the same rocket as the Jason-1 oceanography satellite, was the first in a series of six spacecraft that NASA intended to send to observe the MLTI from a 388-mile (625-kilometer) orbit of Earth. NASA’s GSFC would manage the TIMED spacecraft for the Office of Space Science in Washington, DC; the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory would operate the spacecraft for NASA during the mission. (NASA, “It’s About TIMED: NASA Spacecraft Will Use Lofty Perch To Study Gateway to Space,” news release 01-226, 19 November 2001; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, “TIMED: A Mission To Explore One of the Last Frontiers in Earth’s Atmosphere: Mission,” http://www. timed.jhu apl. edu/WWW/mission/mission.php (accessed 6 January 2009).)
NASA launched the Jason-1 oceanography satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The satellite launched on the same rocket as the TIMED spacecraft, but the two spacecraft were part of separate missions. Jason-1 belonged to a joint U.S.-French mission to monitor global climate interactions between Earth’s atmosphere and seas, continuing the mission that the TOPEX/Poseidon spacecraft had begun in 1992. The 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) Jason-1 weighed about 1/5th of the TOPEX/Poseidon and carried its predecessor’s main instrument~the Poseidon 2 altimeter~as well as other, more advanced instruments that would provide Jason-1 with improved operational utility. (NASA, “NASA/French Ocean-Observing Satellite Set To Soar,” news release 01-225, 19 November 2001; NASA JPL, “Ocean Surface Topography from Space: Missions~Jason-1 Launch,”29 July 2008, http://topex-www.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/jason-1-launch. html (accessed 12 December 2008).)
NASA researchers with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California at San Diego published research indicating that particles from human-produced pollution might significantly contribute to weakening the planet’s hydrological cycle. The hydrological cycle is the circulation of water between Earth’s atmosphere and its surface water and soils. Specifically, water precipitates from the atmosphere into surface water or soils and later evaporates from surface water, soils, and plants back into the atmosphere. The researchers had examined satellite data indicating aerosol distribution in the Indian Ocean region and had found that the aerosols, primarily composed of black carbon, could weaken the hydrological cycle in two ways. The aerosols could reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the ocean, thereby decreasing the amount of water evaporating into the atmosphere. In addition, when particulates enter clouds, they reduce the size of cloud droplets, thereby reducing the amount of rain over polluted regions. The particulates in aerosols comprise a mixture of substances formed by the burning of fossil fuels and rural biomass. The new research was significant because it suggested that aerosols might be more environmentally harmful than scientists had previously understood and that air pollution is both an urban and a rural phenomenon. (NASA, “Tiny Pollution Particles May Carry Large Consequences for Earth’s Water Supply,” news release 01-239, 6 December 2001; V. Ramanathan, “Aerosols, Climate, and the Hydrological Cycle,” Science n.s. 294, no. 5549 (7 December 2001): 2119–2124.)
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