New NASA Mission Launches To Observe ‘invisible Universe’ On Earth........????
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A revolutionary new satellite that will provide an unprecedented look at Earth’s microscopic marine life and tiny atmospheric particles has launched.
The NASA PACE, or Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem, mission lifted off at 1:33 a.m. ET Thursday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The rocket’s booster successfully landed back on Earth about 10 minutes after launch. Just over half an hour after liftoff, the team confirmed that the spacecraft’s solar arrays deployed and it was receiving power.
The launch, initially set for Tuesday morning, was delayed twice due to high winds and cumulus clouds. But the weather conditions were more than 95% favorable for launch Thursday morning.
Scientists began envisioning a way to better understand how oceanic and atmospheric processes shape the planet about 20 years ago, said Jeremy Werdell, PACE project scientist.
The mission will shed light on how aerosols and clouds as well as phytoplankton in the ocean serve as indicators for ocean health and global warming. The three instruments aboard PACE, including two polarimeters and one camera, will capture a rainbow of data across different wavelengths of light that “allows us to see things we’ve never been able to see before,” said Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division.
“What we’re doing here with PACE is really the search for the microscopic, mostly invisible universe in the sea and the sky, and in some degrees, on land, too,” Werdell said.
Although designed as a three-year mission, PACE has enough fuel to continue orbiting and studying Earth for up to 10 years. The spacecraft will join a fleet of more than two dozen NASA Earth science missions circling our planet that gather data on oceans, land, ice and the atmosphere to provide more insights into how Earth’s climate is changing.
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