organization:european space agency

The European Space Agency wants to mine the moon for oxygen and water - MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/612822/the-european-space-agency-wants-to-mine-the-moon-for-oxygen-and-wa

https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/renden-yoder-418953-unsplash.jpg?sw=1200

The moon may look barren, but its hidden resources have multiple space agencies eyeing its potential.

The news: This week, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced a deal with ArianeGroup, parent company of launch provider Arianespace, to study and prep a possible 2025 moon mission. The goal: mine the lunar surface for resources. They have also recruited former Google Lunar X Prize competitor PTScientists to provide the lander for the mission.

Precious moon dust: The ESA is focusing on regolith (a.k.a. lunar soil), which contains both oxygen and water. When extracted from the soil, these resources can be used to create fuel and life-support systems in space. Other countries, like China and India, have also investigated pulling helium-3 from the moon; this substance is extremely rare on Earth, but abundant there. It could be used as safer nuclear fuel to power spacecraft.

What’s next? Well, ESA still has to long way to go. This is step one in a long process. The initial contract lasts for a year and will decide whether or not this mission is feasible. That means looking at how the materials could be mined and stored on the moon and the technology that needs to be developed. The results of the study will likely be used to attempt to get funding for the full-fledged mission in 2025.

Why it matters: More space agencies are looking at space mining as they plan longer-term crewed missions away from Earth. Being able to acquire fuel and oxygen after liftoff makes for lighter takeoff loads and could enable extended stays. This year, more countries and former Lunar X Prize competitors are planning moon landings, so it could also bring interest in moon mining to the forefront once again.

#Espace #Communs #Extractivisme

Shocking Maps Show How Humans Have Reshaped Earth Since 1992 - Motherboard
▻https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbazm4/shocking-maps-show-how-humans-have-reshaped-earth-since-1992

“There is so much talk about the change in environment,” Stepinski told me over the phone. “But surprisingly enough, there was not a map. There are maps of individual land cover issues, like forest or agriculture. But there was not a map of everything.”

To fill this gap, Stepinski and his colleagues used satellite data collected by the European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative, which included geospatial maps of land cover designed to monitor climate change.

The team broke these maps into 81-kilometer-squared tracts and created a legend of color-coded tiles based on nine broad types of transitions that occurred between 1992 and 2015 (agriculture gains in yellow, forest losses in maroon, etc). The tiles are shaded to reflect the degree of change, with the lightest shade corresponding to regions altered by less than 10 percent, and dark patches representing regions that shifted by 30 percent or more.

https://video-images.vice.com/articles/5c0062a694bfc900069d4836/lede/1543529172511-186488_web.jpeg?crop=1xw%3A0.7848837209302325xh%3Bcenter%2Ccenter&resize=1050%3A*&output-quality=55 https://video-images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1543529380690-186490_web.jpeg?resize=1575:* https://video-images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1543529484594-186489_web.jpeg?resize=1575:*

#cartographie #terres #urbanisation #agriculture #déforestation

Close encounters of the Wikipedia kind : Astronaut is first to specifically contribute to Wikipedia from space – Wikimedia Blog
▻https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/11/29/astronaut-spoken-voice

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Paolo_A._Nespoli_2016.jpg

Astronaut Paolo Nespoli recently recorded his spoken voice for use on his Wikipedia article—a small step for him, but a giant leap for the Wikimedia movement. This milestone is the first time content has been made in space specifically for Wikipedia.

Paolo, a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut, made the recording while orbiting Earth aboard the International Space Station for the Italian Space Agency mission VITA.

Il s’agit d’un enregistrement vocal... dans l’idée de compléter les pages des personnes par des enregistrements de leur voix.

C’est aussi fun de penser qu’on peut contribuer à Wikipédia hors de la Terre...

#Wikipédia #Enregistrement_vocal

Arctic sea ice may be declining faster than expected: study
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-arctic-research/arctic-sea-ice-may-be-declining-faster-than-expected-study-idUSKBN1CT2JD

https://s3.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20171024&t=2&i=1206815049&w=&fh=545px&fw=&ll=&pl=&sq=&r=LYNXMPED9N1JJ#.jpg

Arctic sea ice may be thinning faster than predicted because salty snow on the surface of the ice skews the accuracy of satellite measurements, a new study from the University of Calgary said on Tuesday.

The report from the Canadian university’s Cryosphere Climate Research Group published in the academic journal Geophysical Research Letters found satellite estimates for the thickness of seasonal sea ice have been overestimated by up to 25 percent.

That means the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free much sooner than some scientific predictions, which forecast sea ice will first disappear completely during summer months between 2040 and 2050, according to lead author Vishnu Nandan.

Scientists Know How Big the Larsen C Iceberg Will Be | Climate Central
▻http://www.climatecentral.org/news/scientists-larsen-c-iceberg-size-21595

http://assets.climatecentral.org/images/made/7_5_17_Brian_IcebergTrips1_600_315_s_c1_c_c.jpg

It’s the final countdown. The European Space Agency said on Wednesday that just three miles separate the Larsen C crack — a rift slicing the front off a major Antarctic ice shelf — from open water.

Like a tailor with a tape measure, scientists have been measuring the crack using ESA satellites. The next Sentinel-1 satellite pass will happen later this week, providing a high-resolution look at whether the Larsen C ice shelf has finally calved an iceberg.

http://assets.climatecentral.org/images/uploads/news/7_5_17_Brian_CryoSatLarsenCEstimate.gif

3D map of Antarctica made using 250 million measurements | Daily Mail Online

▻http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4360596/3D-map-Antarctica-using-250-million-measurements.html

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/03/29/16/3EBEF63E00000578-0-image-a-21_1490800445112.jpg

Antarctica as you’ve never seen it before: Stunning 3D ice map made up of 250 million satellite readings reveals the continent’s jagged surface

The 3D model was made using readings taken by the European Space Agency
Detailed maps created by the ESA’s CryoSat help scientists track Antarctic ice
CryoSat’s radar takes readings from Earth’s orbit to detect variations in the elevation of ice across the continent

#antarctique #pôles #climat

ESA Star Mapper

▻http://sci.esa.int/star_mapper

Spécialement pour @fil

A visualisation based on data from
the European Space Agency’s Hipparcos star mapper

#espace

#Mars_lander smashed into ground at 540km/h after misjudging its altitude | Science | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/24/mars-lander-smashed-into-ground-at-540kmh-after-misjudging-its-altitude

hat crashed on Mars last month flew into the red planet at 540km/h (335mph) instead of gently gliding to a stop, after a computer misjudged its altitude, the European Space Agency has said.

#Schiaparelli was on a test-run for a future rover meant to seek out evidence of life, past or present, but it fell silent seconds before its scheduled touchdown on 19 October.

After trawling through vast amounts of data, the ESA said on Wednesday that while much of the mission went according to plan, a computer that measured the rotation of the lander hit a maximum reading, knocking other calculations off track.

That led the navigation system to think the lander was much lower than it was, causing its parachute and braking thrusters to be deployed prematurely.

“The erroneous information generated an estimated altitude that was negative – that is, below ground level,” the ESA said in a statement.

“#Philae comet lander alien ‘cover-up’ conspiracy theories emerge [...] Probe landing attracts allegations that #67P is not a comet but alien object kept secret by Nasa and European Space Agency”

▻http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/13/philae-comet-lander-alien-cover-up-conspiracy-theories-emerge

#conspiracy #loonies #UFOs #ESA

#Satellite's #magnetic #mapping mission
▻http://phys.org/news/2013-12-satellite-magnetic-mission.html

http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/2013/satellitesma.jpg

A scientist from the University of Liverpool will play a leading role in the European Space Agency’s (ESA) satellite mission to study the Earth’s geomagnetic field.
Dr Richard Holme, from the School of Environmental Sciences, leads the team responsible for the vector magnetic calibration for the mission, called Swarm.
Swarm consists of three identical satellites which have successfully launched into space from Plesetsk, Russia, near the Arctic coast. Their super-sensitive instrumentation acts like a 3-D compass, enabling the precise strength and direction of the magnetic field to be determined all around the globe.
Dr Holme said: "This satellite mission will help us to measure precisely the magnetic signals from Earth’s core, mantle, crust and oceans, as well as ionosphere and magnetosphere. What is new is to have multiple measurements in orbit at the same time but in different locations.
“This will allow us for the first time to distinguish directly between field sources internal and external to the Earth. The resulting models will give us an insight into Earth’s interior and space weather.”
Although invisible, the magnetic field and electric currents in and around Earth generate complex forces that have immeasurable impact on everyday life. The field can be thought of as a huge bubble, protecting us from cosmic radiation and charged particles that bombard Earth in ’solar winds’. This shield also protects the atmosphere, and so likely played an important role in the development of life on Earth.
As well as furthering science, the measurements delivered by the three Swarm satellites will be valuable for a range of applications including improving the accuracy of navigation systems and cartography, and improving the efficiency of prospecting and drilling for natural resources.

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Comet ISON Fizzles as it Rounds the Sun | NASA
▻http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/comet-ison-fizzles-as-it-rounds-the-sun/index.html

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j6nkLnHyG0

Comet ISON went around the sun on Nov. 28, 2013. Several solar observatories watched the comet throughout this closest approach to the sun, known as perihelion. While the fate of the comet is not yet established, it is likely that it did not survive the trip. The comet grew faint while within both the view of NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, and the joint European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The comet was not visible at all in NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Malgré ce qui est dit ci-dessus, sur la video de la NASA présente sur cette même page, on aperçoit très nettement la trajectoire de la comète après son passage au périhélie.

SKYTRUTH: using remote sensing and digital mapping to educate the public and policymakers about the environmental consequences of human activities
►http://www.skytruth.org

On Wednesday, December 21, #SkyTruth obtained a radar #satellite #image showing a major oil spill in the waters off the coast of #Nigeria. The image, taken at approximately 9:30am local time on December 21, 2011 by the ASAR instrument aboard the Envisat satellite operated by the European Space Agency, reveals a slick covering 923 square kilometers (356 square miles). The image may be viewed and downloaded from the SkyTruth blog.

Image #republication is #permitted with the following credit statement:

“Envisat ASAR image analyzed by SkyTruth (►http://www.skytruth.org) - data courtesy European Space Agency”

Déjà cité (►http://seenthis.net/spip.php?page=recherche&recherche=skytruth), à présent lié...