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Hi, I'm JD and this week on NASA Now we'll take a look
at NASA's Operation IceBridge, the largest airborne survey
of the earth's polar ice.
But before we get to that,
let's find out what else is happening at NASA NOW!
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Nearly a month after the thrilling EPOXI spacecraft
fly-by mission, scientists continue to learn more
about comet Hartley 2.
NASA scientists say the initial images
from the flyby are providing new information
about the comet's volume and the material spewing
from its surface.
A NASA analysis of satellite data quantified
for the first time the amount of "multiyear" sea ice lost
from the Arctic through melt.
Using a suite of satellite data,
scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able
to show that between 1993 and 2009,
over 1,400 cubic kilometers,
that's 336 cubic miles of ice, was lost.
NOW, let's take a look back at the past!
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January 13, 2003 - NASA launches ICESat into polar orbit.
Its mission, to provide critical data needed
to determine the mass of ice sheets.
As well as, the make up of stratospheric clouds
that are common over polar areas.
It gathers information about the Greenland
and Antarctic ice sheets, and also provides topographic
and vegetation data for around the globe.
Operation Ice Bridge uses airborne instruments
to map the Arctic and Antarctic areas once a year.
Here to provide us with an overview
of the project is Dr. Michael Studinger, Project Scientist
for Operation Ice Bridge.
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I'm Michael Studinger and I'm the project scientist
for Operation IceBridge...
and I'm responsible for making sure
that IceBridge accomplishes all the scientific mission goals
that have been set.
About the time we started flying,
ICESat stopped collecting data and the follow-up mission,
ICESat-2 will be launched in 2015 and between 2009
and 2015 we don't have surface elevation observations
from space.
So, in order to fill this gap,
NASA has launched Operation Ice Bridge.
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The polar ice caps are changing rapidly at the moment
and in order to understand this change, we have to go there
and measure the change in the elevation and the volume
in the ice from year to year.
Operation IceBridge will measure surface elevations
of the polar ice sheets both in Greenland and Antarctica
and also the ice surface elevation of the sea ice
that surrounds both Antarctica and Greenland.
And this will allow us to better,
to come up with better predictions
in the future...how much sea level will rise
over the next ten, twenty, thirty years.
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The aircraft is a DC-8 aircraft.
It has a very long range of 11 hours that allows us to commute
from Punta Arenas, Chile to our service sights over Antarctica.
It is a fairly big aircraft that allows us to install a variety
of different sensors and instruments on the aircraft.
So, it's an amazingly suitable aircraft
for doing airborne geophysical research.
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In the particular upcoming campaign, we will focus
on measuring ice surface elevations over Antarctica
with a laser scanner that we have mounted
on the DC-8 aircraft and we will also look
into measuring the surface elevation
and surface characteristics of the sea ice
that surrounds Antarctica in the southern ocean.
We are looking back through ten years of weather history to come
up with a certain estimate of how many flights,
depending on the availability of crew and other things,
we can possible accomplish in a certain time window.
And if we accomplish 90%, we would really be very satisfied.
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Did you know, NASA's DC-8 is a 157-foot-long airborne
laboratory that can hold many instruments.
The DC-8 is the largest aircraft
in NASA's airborne science fleet.
Now let's check out what's up!
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Earth's "twin" Venus, has no ice and no water
because its average temperature 464 degrees Celsius.
This week the planet Venus is putting on quite a show!
Reaching her brightest in the next few days.
Look for a crescent shaped Venus
in the Eastern sky just before dawn.
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Today we learned why studying Earth's ice is important
to our understanding about climate change
and its affect on humans.
Now it's your turn to put what you've learned to use...
Check out these resources and activities
on the NASA Explorer Schools Virtual Campus!
This week, you and your teammates will use real NASA
satellite data to look at the relationship between Polar Ice
and the Earth's Energy Budget.
You'll also conduct a hands-on experiment
to determine the differences between floating ice
and land ice and to learn how each can affect changes
in sea level.
Information about these activities,
plus links to related resources, are available
on the NASA Explorer Schools Virtual Campus.
Well that's it for NASA NOW, Be sure to tune in next week
when we'll take a closer look at slime and the history
of life on our planet.
We'll see you next time on NASA NOW!
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NASA NOW is brought to you from the Virtual Campus
at NASA Explorer schools.