Feature Articles

Introduction Along the southernmost rim of the Florida Peninsula, the arching prop roots or “knees” of red mangroves (Rhizophora mangle) line the coast – see Photo 1. Where they dip below the water’s surface, fish lay their eggs, enjoying the protection…

Introduction On February 27, 2014, the four-ton Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory (CO) spacecraft launched aboard a Japanese H-IIA rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. On that day, the GPM mission, a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA…

Introduction Organized by the Science Mission Directorate’s Science Support Office (SSO), NASA hosted its 12th annual Earth Day Celebration event from April 18–19, 2024. For the first time ever, the two-day event was held at NASA Headquarters (HQ) in Washington,…

Introduction In the 1990s and early 2000s, an international team of engineers and scientists designed an integrated observatory for atmospheric composition – a bold endeavor to provide unprecedented detail that was essential to understanding how Earth’s ozone (O3) layer and…

Introduction First as a bite, then a half Moon, until crescent-shaped shadows dance through the leaves and the temperature begins to drop – a total solar eclipse can be felt growing in the atmosphere. As the sky darkens in the…

Introduction  As one navigates the global constellation of scientific conferences offered each year, the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) is the guiding star. The meeting attracts participants from an ensemble of academic disciplines and a sizeable…

Introduction  Many Earth science missions, both airborne and on orbit, can trace their origins to the early technology developments that produced the groundbreaking instruments, instrument components (the parts or subsystems that make up an instrument), and information systems that enabled…

Introduction For many years, The Earth Observer ran a regular NASA Earth Science Education and Public Outreach Update column, the last of which appeared in the May–June 2017 issue of The Earth Observer. At that time, NASA Science Education communications…

Introduction NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) Southern Hemisphere Additional OZonesondes (SHADOZ) network, which coordinates balloon-borne ozonesonde launches from 14 tropical sites through global partnerships (see Figure 1 and Table, below), has reached two milestones: 25 years of operation and…