Plankton Makes Clouds Brighter over Southern Ocean


Nobody knows what our skies looked like before fossil fuel burning began. Today, about half the cloud droplets in Northern Hemisphere skies formed around particles of pollution. A scary fact when you...

NASA launches Landsat 8 satellite to better study the skies above, water below

NASA launches Landsat 8 satellite to improve our coverage of the skies above and water below

NASA's Landsat program recently turned the big four-oh, and what better way to deal with the mid-life crisis by getting a new satellite as a present? Accordingly, the space agency has just launched Landsat 8 into orbit to give its Earth Science program a new injection of youth. The new vehicle improves the accuracy of existing light and thermal sensors while widening the scope to better reflect modern climate studies -- number 8 now tracks aerosols in the atmosphere, high cirrus clouds and the telltale signs of water quality and consumption levels. We won't get the first USGS-derived results from the new satellite until after a 100-day shakedown period, but we're sure the deeper understanding of our planet will help the Landsat program forget all about those first few gray hairs.

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Source: NASA