#science

esa@social.gibberfish.org

Copernicus Sentinel-1: radar vision for Copernicus

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Video: 00:07:25

Meet Copernicus Sentinel-1 – this ground-breaking mission delivers continuous, all-weather, day-and-night imaging for land, ice and maritime monitoring.

Equipped with state-of-the-art C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), Sentinel-1 captures high-resolution data around the clock, in any weather, making it indispensable for detecting the subtle changes on Earth’s surface that remain hidden from the human eye.

Sentinel-1 data serves a multitude of critical applications: from ensuring the safety and efficiency of maritime traffic, tracking sea ice and icebergs, to monitoring structural integrity and natural hazards, such as earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity.

Its enhanced radar technology provides precises precise information on ground movement, which is critical for urban planning, infrastructure resilience, subsidence risk assessment and geohazard monitoring.

Through consistent, long-term data collection, Sentinel-1 serves as a global asset, essential for environmental and safety monitoring worldwide. The mission is a beacon of innovation, advancing our understanding of our planet’s dynamic landscape.

This video features interviews with Mark Drinkwater, Head of Mission Sciences Division at ESA, Ramon Torres Cuesta, Sentinel-1 Project Manager at ESA and Julia Kubanek, Sentinel-1 Mission Scientist at ESA.

#news #space #science #esa #europeanspaceagency
posted by pod_feeder_v2

esa@social.gibberfish.org

Fly around Ares Vallis on Mars

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Video: 00:04:30

Explore the immense power of water as ESA’s Mars Express takes us on a flight over curving channels, streamlined islands and muddled ‘chaotic terrain’ on Mars, soaking up rover landing sites along the way.

This beautiful flight around the Oxia Palus region of Mars covers a total area of approximately 890 000 km2, more than twice the size of Germany. Central to the tour is one of Mars’s largest outflow channels, Ares Vallis. It stretches for more than 1700 km2 and cascades down from the planet’s southern highlands to enter the lower-lying plains of Chryse Planitia.

Billions of years ago, water surged through Ares Vallis, neighbouring Tiu Vallis, and numerous other smaller channels, creating many of the features observed in this region today.

Enjoy the flight!

After enjoying a spectacular global view of Mars we focus in on the area marked by the white rectangle. Our flight starts over the landing site of NASA’s Pathfinder mission, whose Sojourner rover explored the floodplains of Ares Vallis for 12 weeks in 1997.

Continuing to the south, we pass over two large craters named Masursky and Sagan. The partially eroded crater rim of Masursky in particular suggests that water once flowed through it, from nearby Tiu Vallis.

The Masurky Crater is filled with jumbled blocks, and you can see many more as we turn north to Hydaspis Chaos. This ‘chaotic terrain’ is typical of regions influenced by massive outflow channels. Its distinctive muddled appearance is thought to arise when subsurface water is suddenly released from underground to the surface. The resulting loss of support from below causes the surface to slump and break into blocks of various sizes and shapes.

Just beyond this chaotic array of blocks is Galilaei crater, which has a highly eroded rim and a gorge carved between the crater and neighbouring channel. It is likely that the crater once contained a lake, which flooded out into the surroundings. Continuing on, we see streamlined islands and terraced river banks, the teardrop-shaped island ‘tails’ pointing in the downstream direction of the water flow at the time.

Crossing over Ares Vallis again, the flight brings us to the smoother terrain of Oxia Planum and the planned landing site for ESA’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover. The primary goal of the mission is to search for signs of past or present life on Mars, and as such, this once water-flooded region is an ideal location.

Zooming out, the flight ends with a stunning bird’s-eye view of Ares Vallis and its fascinating water-enriched neighbourhood.

Disclaimer: This video is not representative of how Mars Express flies over the surface of Mars. See processing notes below.

How the movie was made

This film was created using the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera Mars Chart (HMC30) data, an image mosaic made from single orbit observations of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The mosaic, centred at 12°N/330°E, is combined with topography information from the digital terrain model to generate a three-dimensional landscape.

For every second of the movie, 50 separate frames are rendered following a predefined camera path in the scene. A three-fold vertical exaggeration has been applied. Atmospheric effects such as clouds and haze have been added to conceal the limits of the terrain model. The haze starts building up at a distance of 300 km.

The HRSC camera on Mars Express is operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The systematic processing of the camera data took place at the DLR Institute for Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof. The working group of Planetary Science and Remote Sensing at Freie Universität Berlin used the data to create the film.

#news #space #science #esa #europeanspaceagency
posted by pod_feeder_v2

esa@social.gibberfish.org

New full Sun views show sunspots, fields and restless plasma

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The Sun's surface as seen by Solar Orbiter's PHI instrument

Zoom into Solar Orbiter's four new Sun images, assembled from high-resolution observations by the spacecraft's PHI and EUI instruments made on 22 March 2023. The PHI images are the highest-resolution full views of the Sun's visible surface to date, including maps of the Sun's messy magnetic field and movement on the surface. These can be compared to the new EUI image, which reveals the Sun's glowing outer atmosphere, or corona.

#news #space #science #esa #europeanspaceagency
posted by pod_feeder_v2

wazoox@diasp.eu

Yin and Yang-Mills - Curt Jaimungal

#science #philosophy #epistemology

Today, we can argue about what the proper definition of life is if we want to. There are interesting penumbral cases like viruses—are they alive? How about motor proteins, are they alive? Are ribosomes alive? What's the smallest thing that's alive? Who cares? There are many candidates, and we should just say, it's all right, tigers are alive, volcanoes aren't, lots of things aren't alive, sodium fluoride is not alive, DNA... it's not really alive, no, it's just a macromolecule. You see it as a diversion, this whole emphasis on definitions.

  • Daniel Dennett

https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/p/yin-and-yang-mills

esa@social.gibberfish.org

ESA’s Space Systems for Safety and Security (4S) programme

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Video: 00:02:18

At ESA, through the Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems programme , we’re addressing _ _ solutions for when safety and security of communication services cannot be guaranteed by the terrestrial networks alone. With our programme Space systems for Safety and Security, or 4S, we are pioneering cutting-edge development of secure and resilient satellite communication systems, technologies and services to improve life on Earth.

Picture a world where our critical infrastructure is protected from cyber threats, and where communication links work when the world around them doesn't. A transportation network where safety is not just a priority, but a guarantee. Where air traffic flows completely efficiently, reliable and connected. Railways operate without interruption, and shipping can navigate safely and securely.

Imagine that our first responders are coordinating via seamless communications, and institutional agencies are acting rapidly and decisively when there's a crisis. All thanks to secure and safe satellite communication systems, orbiting above the planet. This is the future we're building with the 4S programme. A future where space systems safeguard our security, making sure that connectivity remains our greatest strength. Join us as we continue to push the boundaries of innovation.


#telecommunications #space #science #esa #europeanspaceagency
posted by pod_feeder_v2

esa@social.gibberfish.org

Space for Shore: Sentinel-1 reveals Arctic glacier retreat

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Kronebreen glacier seen from above

As Arctic temperatures rise, marine-terminating glaciers—especially in places like Svalbard—are undergoing rapid retreat and intensified calving.

The ESA-funded Space for Shore project utilises radar data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission to provide precise, year-over-year insights into glacier retreat and calving intensity, particularly in areas like Kongsfjorden, where notable glaciers are experiencing significant retreat.

#news #space #science #esa #europeanspaceagency
posted by pod_feeder_v2

esa@social.gibberfish.org

Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) 4.0

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Video: 00:03:18

Satellite communication underpins everyday life, enabling fundamental improvements not just in communication, but also in transport, healthcare, safety and security, and environmental services. The Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) 4.0 programme enables European and Canadian industry to explore, through research and development, innovative concepts that stimulates the wider economy, creating new business and jobs across nearly every industry. ARTES 4.0 supports the production of market-leading and cutting-edge products and services within a fiercely competitive global satellite communications market.

Learn more: https://connectivity.esa.int/

#telecommunications #space #science #esa #europeanspaceagency
posted by pod_feeder_v2

esa@social.gibberfish.org

Proba-3’s journey to see the Sun’s corona

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Video: 00:04:31

The double-satellite Proba-3 is the most ambitious member yet of ESA’s Proba family of experimental missions. Two spacecraft will fly together as one, maintaining precise formation down to a single millimetre. One will block out the fiery disc of the Sun for the other, to enable prolonged observations of the Sun’s surrounding atmosphere, or ‘corona’, the source of the solar wind and space weather. Usually, the corona can only be glimpsed for a few minutes during terrestrial total solar eclipses. Proba-3 aims to reproduce such eclipses for up to six hours at a time, in a highly elliptical orbit taking it more than 60 000 km from Earth. The two spacecraft are being launched together by India’s PSLV-XL launcher from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Follow the mission’s deployment and commissioning, up to its first glimpse of the corona, in this overview video.

#news #space #science #esa #europeanspaceagency
posted by pod_feeder_v2