Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. These are the major eras in the history of life on Earth, and the transition from one period to another has been marked by a major turnover in fossils — one assemblage of organisms going extinct and being replaced by another. Today paleontologists agree that the biggest extinction in the fossil […]
In case you missed it, NASA is sponsoring a video contest starring your home planet. The winner will receive behind-the-scenes access to the launch of NASA’s next major Earth-observing satellite — the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) — from Vandenberg Air Force Base in January 2013. Most of the public tends to focus on NASA’s […]
We recently posted an image of a dust storm in the Middle East (see below) that prompted one of our Facebook followers to ask why the dust is thicker near the left part of the image than the right. He wondered if the layer of dust is usually thickest near the origin of dust storms. […]
The past few weeks have been rough on Earth-observing satellites. But there was some good news and some engineering prowess to go along with the troubles.
We often see our images and stories pop up in different places...
We bring you this week’s indicator—90—with a sigh. Ninety is the combined number of Earth-observing instruments on NASA and NOAA satellites that are currently monitoring our planet. And that number is about to plunge, according to a National Research Council report released in May 2012. By 2020, there could be less than 20 instruments in orbit, and […]
I’m giving a talk about the development of the Blue Marble tomorrow at the Information Week Government IT Leadership Forum. In addition to some details of the render, I’ll discuss the history of NASA’s views of the Earth, starting with TIROS-1, continuing through the Apollo Program, interplanetary probes, and the Earth Observing System. If you’re […]
