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FY 2005 Year in Review
A YEAR OF HURRICANES
NASA's Earth-observing "eyes in the sky," including Earthorbiting satellites, aircraft, and the International Space Station, provided detailed images of the flooding and devastation in areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. NASA, along with academic institutions and partner agencies, worked to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had the best available information to aid the rescue and recovery effort. The images and associated data helped characterize the extent of the flooding, the damage to homes, businesses, and infrastructure, and the potential hazards caused by the storms and their aftermath.
NASA used its Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Light Detection and Ranging system, carried aboard a Cessna 310 aircraft, to survey the Gulf of Mexico coastline. The system can "see" through vegetation, like trees and shrubs, to view the land underneath. Near the coast, it mapped the beach surface under water. This helped the U.S. Geological Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Army Corps of Engineers determine the state of the shoreline infrastructure, identify hazards, and study environmental loss.
The left photo is a mosaic of images taken of New Orleans by NASA's Terra satellite in April and September 2000. The right photo, taken by the same spacecraft, shows New Orleans on September 15, 2005, with flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina. The flooded parts of the city appear dark blue, such as the golf course in the northeast corner, where there is standing water. Areas that have dried out appear light blue gray, such as the city park in the left middle. On the left side of the image, the failed 17th Street canal marks a sharp boundary between flooded city to the east, and dry land to the west.
WATCHING FROM SPACE AS STORMS HEAT UP
Throughout the hurricane season, NASA observed the upper ocean thermal conditions in the Gulf of Mexico. Research shows a link between the intensification of hurricanes in the region and oceanic heat content. In late August 2005, when Katrina passed over the Loop Current and a large warm eddies called the core ocean ring, it evolved quickly from a category 3 to category 5 hurricane in only nine hours. The warm waters of the Loop Current appear to have rapidly fueled the storm while the warm core rings seemed to have sustained the storm's intensity.
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are studying this phenomenon to confirm if oceanic heat content plays a major role in hurricane intensity. Researchers use satellite altimetry data, including data from NASA's TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 missions, to calculate in near-real time the tropical cyclone heat potential, a measure of the vertical temperature of the upper ocean. Satellite altimeters also search for warm pockets of water in the ocean that could fuel a passing tropical storm or hurricane. The Loop Current has warmer waters at greater depth than the surrounding ocean, as well as different salinity. These differences create variations in the sea surface height that can be detected from space and incorporated into the study.
STUDYING THE BIRTH OF TROPICAL STORMS AND HURRICANES
This year NASA conducted the Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes mission, designed to study the factors that influence the genesis and rapid intensification of tropical cyclones. During the Costa Rica-based mission, scientists tracked two major Atlantic Ocean hurricanes at the height of their destructive power, witnessed the entire lifecycle of tropical storms in the Atlantic, and documented a number of unexpected surprises about the short, violent lives of these seagoing tempests.
The mission documented "cyclogenesis," the mysterious formula of rainfall, air and sea temperature, pressure, and other factors required to spawn tropical storm systems. By studying the complex processes that form tropical storms, scientists will gain a better understanding of how hurricanes evolve, intensify, and travel-the key to developing earlier, more accurate warning systems.
Partnering with NOAA and the Costa Rican Centro Nacional de Alta Tecnologia, NASA spent July conducting ground-based and airborne studies of tropical storm systems on Costa Rica's east and west coasts. The team primarily intended to investigate the birthplace of eastern Pacific tropical cyclones, which they did in detail, but an early start to a record-breaking, busy Atlantic hurricane season added numerous other research opportunities to the mission.
The missions used NASA and NOAA aircraft, satellites, balloon-borne weather probes, and remotely operated aircraft to investigate the lifecycle of Hurricane Dennis, from genesis through post-landfall, a disturbed region of the Eastern Pacific that likely gave birth to Tropical Storm Eugene, and the complete lifecycle, from genesis to landfall, of Hurricane Gert. These data sets represent the first time that anyone has sampled the full life cycle of a single tropical cyclone. Scientists will collate and analyze the enormous amount of data for more than a year.
TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT HURRICANES
The Aerosonde remote-controlled aircraft is released from its transport truck on the runway at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia. It was sent down the coast to fly through Hurricane Ophelia, a low-energy hurricane.
While satellites searched for warm water in the Gulf from space, NASA also took a closer look at the environment where the atmosphere meets the sea, the critical zone where the ocean's warm water transfers energy to a growing storm. On September 16, 2005, NASA, NOAA, and Aerosonde North America launched a remote-controlled aircraft into Hurricane Ophelia as it sat off the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas.
The aircraft, known as an Aerosonde, was equipped with sophisticated instruments that recorded temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind speed in real time and relayed the information back to the researchers. The resulting data provided the first-ever detailed observations of the high-wind area where a hurricane meets the sea surface, an area often too dangerous for piloted aircraft to observe directly. NASA pioneered the use of aerosondes in other tropical convection experiments in 2001 and 2005, but this was the first time the Aerosonde flew into a hurricane.
The Aerosonde, along with piloted aircraft and Earthobserving satellites, are helping scientists and forecasters better predict hurricane intensity and behavior. Enhancing this predictive capability would save the United States billions of dollars, and-more importantly-save lives.
EARTH'S CHANGING SHAPE
This year, NASA scientists learned more about forces that continually change Earth's shape. Single events like the Indonesian earthquake in December 2004, and seasonal climate events like El Nino, can cause measurable changes in the Earth system.
The massive earthquake off the west coast of Indonesia on December 26, 2004, registered a magnitude of nine on the new "moment" scale (a modified Richter scale) that indicates the size of earthquakes. It was the fourth largest earthquake in one hundred years and the largest since the 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake. In addition to the massive tsunami that washed over 10 countries in South Asia and East Africa, NASA found that the earthquake caused permanent changes to the Earth's structure.
The December 2004 Indonesian earthquake caused a massive tsunami to wash over 10 countries in South Asia and East Africa. This pair of images from NASA's Terra satellite shows the Aceh province of northern Sumatra, Indonesia, on December 17, 2004, before the earthquake (top), and on December 29 (bottom), three days after. The earthquake also changed Earth's shape slightly. (Photo: NASA)
Using Earth observations from before and after the Indonesian earthquake, NASA scientists calculated that it slightly changed the planet's shape; the Earth's oblateness (flattening on the top and bulging at the equator) decreased by a small amount and the North Pole shifted by about 2.5 centimeters. The earthquake also increased the Earth's rotation and decreased the length of day by 2.68 microseconds. Physically, this is like a spinning skater drawing their arms closer to the body resulting in a faster spin.
Scientists using NASA satellite data found that Earth's shape also appears to be influenced by climate events like the El Nino Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation that affect the amount of water moving in the oceans, atmosphere, and continents. The study results showed that significant variations in Earth's shape over the past 28 years might be linked to climate events.
SOLAR FLARE SPARKS SPACE WEATHER MYSTERY
Space may look empty, but it is filled with dust, debris, and dynamic forces generated by the Sun, including radiation hazardous to astronauts and satellites. On January 20, 2005, the space around Earth was filled with radiation when a large solar flare blasted out the most intense burst of solar radiation in five decades.
Normally, it takes two or more hours after a flare on the Sun for the blast of solar radiation to reach maximum intensity at Earth. In January, the solar protons released by a massive flare-accelerated to nearly light speed by the explosion-reached Earth and the Moon only minutes later, beginning a days-long "proton storm" that altered existing theories about the origin of proton storms around Earth. "Since about 1990, we've believed that proton storms at Earth are caused by shock waves in the inner solar system as coronal mass ejections plow through interplanetary space," said Robert Lin of the University of California at Berkeley, principal investigator for the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (also known as RHESSI). "But the protons from this event may have come from the Sun itself."
SOHO's Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope captured this image of an intense solar flare on January 20, 2005. The flare - the most intense in 50 years - is visible along the center right edge of the Sun. A flare is caused when magnetic field lines stretch and twist over sunspots on the surface until they build up enough energy to snap open, forming a tongue-like shape. (Photo: ESA/NASA)
No one suffered from the January 20th solar event thanks to the thick atmosphere and magnetic field that protect Earth and its inhabitants from solar radiation. However, high-energy protons ionized the upper atmosphere, disrupting electrical devices and communication signals. Astronauts on the International Space Station were safe, as well, since the Station is heavily shielded and orbits inside Earth's magnetic field. The Moon, however, is totally exposed to solar flares. It has no atmosphere or magnetic field to deflect radiation, so protons rushing at the Moon simply hit the surface. An astronaut caught on the Moon's surface when the storm hit may have gotten sick and exhibited symptoms of radiation sickness: vomiting, fatigue, and low blood counts. Solar radiation storms hitting the Moon also would affect exploration vehicles, like robotic explorers. Therefore, to protect astronauts and space vehicles on the way to the Moon or on the surface, NASA and its partners are developing technologies that can predict solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and geospace storms, part of what is called "space weather." The Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE), the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), Wind, and the RHESSI spacecrafts are the space community's early warning system, spotting solar activity before it reaches Earth and helping scientists to identify the causes of flares and coronal mass ejections. The result is improved forecasting, better solar fl are prediction, improved planning and better shielding from bursts that could disrupt radio transmissions, cellular communications, and satellite service.
DEEP IMPACT: AN INDEPENDENCE DAY ENCOUNTER CREATES DEEP-SPACE FIREWORKS
On July 4, 2005, NASA scientists created their own fireworks in the sky when part of NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft successfully crashed into a comet. The Deep Impact team members, located more than 83 million miles away at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, steered the spacecraft, comprised of a subcompact car- sized "flyby" spacecraft and a smaller, washing machine-sized "impactor," toward the comet, Tempel 1, for a first-of-its-kind, planned, high-speed collision with a comet.
Deep Impact provided step-by-step images as its probe closed in on Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, from approximately 5 minutes away to several seconds after impact, when sunlight glinting on ejecta created a bright flash visible to the mother spacecraft (above). (Photos: NASA/Caltech/UMD)
After a voyage of 172 days and 268 million miles, Deep Impact's collision with Tempel 1, a nomadic ball of dirty ice and rock orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, was a smashing success. The impact gave scientists a glimpse beneath the comet's surface, where material from the solar system's formation has sat relatively unchanged for billions of years. The 820-pound impactor collided with the comet nucleus at a speed of 23,000 miles per hour, spewing out a spray of vaporized impactor and comet material that glinted in the sunlight like a giant, distant firework-bright enough to be seen by telescopes on Earth.
The Deep Impact science team theorizes that the impactor vaporized deep below the comet's surface when the two collided, creating a crater and revealing the untouched, primordial material beneath. By observing the impact crater and how it developed, scientists hope to learn the basic structure and density of the comet. The final image from the short-lived impactor was transmitted three seconds before it met its fiery end from a distance of about 18.6 miles from the comet's surface, allowing scientists to resolve features on the comet's surface that are less than four meters across.
The Deep Impact science team continues to probe the data collected during the Independence Day encounter, data that will provide new insight into comets. These beautiful, icy remnants of the ancient solar system provide clues to its formation and evolution and the role comets may have played in providing ancient Earth with water and other chemicals necessary for life.
SPIRIT AND OPPORTUNITY TREK ON
Since successfully completing their three-month primary missions in April 2004, the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have explored ever farther from their landing sites as they study Mars' geology. Both rovers have worked in the harsh Martian environment much longer than anticipated and are in amazingly good shape for their age. Their unanticipated longevity has allowed both rovers to reach destinations beyond the original scope of their missions and to keep making discoveries in pursuit of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration. NASA plans to keep both rovers exploring through September 2006, taking advantage of their excellent mechanical health.
What a difference ten days make: The photo on the left s