Latest Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer Stories

In what may be a natural response to rising global temperatures, Earth's clouds fell by an average of approximately one-percent over the first decade of this century, a new study funded by NASA and completed by scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand has discovered. According to a Tuesday press release from the U.S. space agency, experts at the university studied 10 years worth of global cloud-top height measurements from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR)...

NASA's DEVELOP (Digital Earth Virtual Environment Learning and Outreach Program) student research program closed out its summer session this year with its second virtual student poster session, and the results are in for the best poster. The winner, a poster presented by the DEVELOP team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., was announced last week on Earthzine, an online publication of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) that provides...

A team of researchers and collaborators from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the University of Arizona's College of Optical Sciences in Tucson has successfully conducted the first test flight of a prototype science instrument for a next-generation satellite mission to survey the impacts of aerosols and clouds on global climate change.The Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager, or MSPI, is a multi-directional multi-wavelength, high-accuracy polarization camera that is a...

A unique partnership between NASA and agencies in Africa and Europe has sent more than 30 terabytes of free Earth science satellite data to South African researchers to support sustainable development and environmental applications in Africa.The data from one of the instruments on NASA's Terra satellite provide observations of Africa's surface and atmosphere, including vegetation structure, airborne pollution particles, cloud heights and winds. Transfer of these data to a distribution center...

In many developing countries, the absence of surface-based air pollution sensors makes it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to get even a rough estimate of the abundance of a subcategory of airborne particles that epidemiologists suspect contributes to millions of premature deaths each year. The problematic particles, called fine particulate matter (PM2.5), are 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, about a tenth the fraction of human hair. These small particles can get past the body's...

Data from the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft have been used in a groundbreaking new university study that examines the concentration, distribution and composition of aerosol pollution over the Indian subcontinent. The study documents the region's very high levels of natural and human-produced pollutants, and uncovered surprising seasonal shifts in the source of the pollution.Larry Di Girolamo and postdoctoral scientist Sagnik Dey of the...

Armed with a decade's worth of satellite data, University of Illinois atmospheric scientists have documented some surprising trends in aerosol pollution concentration, distribution and composition over the Indian subcontinent.In addition to environmental impact, aerosol pollution, or tiny particles suspended in the air, can be detrimental to human health by causing a range of respiratory problems. Aerosols can come from natural sources, such as dust and pollen carried on the wind, but the...

These images, acquired on May 24, 2010 by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument aboard NASA's Terra spacecraft, show the encroachment of oil from the former Deepwater Horizon rig into Louisiana's wildlife habitats. The source of the spill is located off the southeastern (bottom right) edge of the images.Dark filaments of oil are seen approaching the shores of Blind Bay and Redfish Bay at the eastern edge of the Mississippi River delta, and also nearing Garden Island Bay...

These unique images of the Deepwater Horizon oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico were obtained by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument aboard NASA's Terra spacecraft on May 17, 2010, at around 16:40 UTC (11:40 a.m. CDT). The top panel is a false-color image created by combining data from the red band of the 26-degree forward-viewing camera (where the oil appears dark) with the blue and green bands of the nadir (vertical-viewing) camera (where the oil appears bright). The...

NASA has mobilized its remote-sensing assets to help assess the spread and impact of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico at the request of U.S. disaster response agencies.As part of the national response to the spill, NASA deployed its instrumented research aircraft the Earth Resources-2 (ER-2) to the Gulf on May 6. The agency is also making extra satellite observations and conducting additional data processing to assist the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...