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    Category Environment/Geology

    NASA helps track the Wildfires

    August 14, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Environment/Geology, Technology/Electronics

    Brushfire

    Wildfires in the United States burn an average of 7.3 million acres of land each year. The annual cost of fire suppression nationwide has averaged nearly $1 billion since 1984, but in six of the past 10 years the cost has approached $2 billion a year. Large catastrophic wildfires have become commonplace, especially in association with extended drought and extreme weather. The demand for timely, high-quality fire information has increased and peaks each summer when interagency fire operations respond to numerous, simultaneous major fires. Credit: NASA

    Our handle on these wildfires is improving as a result of a new satellite-based tool developed by researchers at the University of Maryland with support from the NASA Applied Sciences Program and NOAA...
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    Space Farming Yields a Crop of Benefits for Earth

    August 11, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology, Environment/Geology

    Air Cleaner

    NASA air purification technology, originally designed for plant-growing experiments on the space station, has been licensed and turned into a consumer device that keeps household air cleaner and healthier. Credits: Akida Holdings Inc.

    The red romaine lettuce is far from the first crop grown on a space station. For decades, NASA etc have experimented with plants in space, but the results were always sent to Earth for examination, rather than eaten. A number of technologies NASA has explored have found their way onto the market.

    Orbital Technologies (ORBITEC) partnered with Kennedy Space Center to develop the plant growth system: Veggie, that produced this most recent crop of lettuce, as well as its predecessor, Biomass Production System...

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    Recalibrated Sunspot History shows Rising Global Temperature since Industrial revolution not due to Solar Activity

    August 9, 2015, Categories  Environment/Geology

    A drawing of the Sun made by Galileo Galilei on 23 June 1613 showing the positions and sizes of a number of sunspots. Galileo was one of the first to observe and document sunspots. Credit: The Galileo Project/M. Kornmesser

    A drawing of the Sun made by Galileo Galilei on 23 June 1613 showing the positions and sizes of a number of sunspots. Galileo was one of the first to observe and document sunspots. Credit: The Galileo Project/M. Kornmesser

    The Sunspot Number is a crucial tool used to study the solar dynamo, space weather and climate change. It has now been recalibrated and shows a consistent history of solar activity over the past few centuries. The new record has no significant long-term upward trend in solar activity since 1700, as was previously indicated.

    The Maunder Minimum, between 1645 and 1715, when sunspots were scarce and the winters harsh, strongly suggests a link between solar activity and climate change...

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    New approach to search for Life in Alpha Centauri: Polarimetric Signatures of Photosynthetic Pigments as Biomarkers.

    August 7, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology, Environment/Geology, Physics

    The polarized light reflected from the leaf contains a footprint of the leaf's biopigments. These biosignatures can be detected with a polarization filter, shown here as a pair of sunglasses. Credit: Illustration: Svetlana Berdyugina

    The polarized light reflected from the leaf contains a footprint of the leaf’s biopigments. These biosignatures can be detected with a polarization filter, shown here as a pair of sunglasses. Credit: Illustration: Svetlana Berdyugina

    Biopigments of plants, so-called biological photosynthetic pigments, leave behind unique traces in the light they reflect, an international team has discovered. The scientists studied these biosignatures with the help of polarization filters: If biopigments were present as a sign of life on a planet, they would leave behind a detectable polarized signature in the reflected light.

    Eg Chlorophyll pigments in plant leaves, absorb blue to red light but reflect a small part of green in the visible spectrum and thus appear green...

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