A Sea of Data with PACE

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  • 
    ID: 14361 Produced Video

    The Insanely Important World of Phytoplankton

    June 8th, 2023

    Music: "Born to Hold On," "Busy Body," "Hidden Beings," "In Doubt," "Investigation," Universal Production MusicComplete transcript available.Video descriptions available. || PACE's Science Lead for Ocean Biogeochemistry Ivona Cetinić describes the weird, wonderful and important world of phytoplankton and why it's important for the PACE mission to study these tiny creatures. ||

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  • 
    ID: 14315 Produced Video

    Tracking Carbon from Wildfires to Ocean Blooms

    March 22nd, 2023
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    Music: "On the Trail," "Idle at Midnight," "Synthetic Comfort," Universal Production MusicComplete transcript available.Video descriptive text available.The following footage is provided by pond5.com through licensing and may not be excised: 00:00-00:12, 01:03-01:13, 01:15-01:23, 01:37-01:45, 02:07-02:21, 03:31-03:34, 03:43-03:47, 04:06-04:19, and 04:36-04:46 || Between September 2019 and March 2020, wildfires killed billions of animals and decimated more than 200 thousand square kilometers of Australian forest, an area larger than Nebraska. Later, thousands of kilometers away in the Southern Ocean, massive algae blooms covered a surface larger than the area of Australia itself. The connection between these major wildfires and the subsequent explosion of phytoplankton production is an example of the events NASA's upcoming Plankton, Aerosols, Clouds, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help investigate. PACE's suite of instruments will allow scientists to get a clearer picture of carbon as it links land use and fires, atmospheric aerosols and marine communities, and ultimately improves those uncertain the data we put into climate models. ||

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  • 
    ID: 14269 Produced Video

    NASA’s Webb Telescope Links Galaxies Near and Far

    Jan. 9th, 2023
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    A trio of faint objects (circled) captured in the James Webb Space Telescope’s deep image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 exhibit properties remarkably similar to rare, small galaxies called “green peas” found much closer to home. The cluster’s mass makes it a gravitational lens, which both magnifies and distorts the appearance of background galaxies. We view these early peas as they existed when the universe was about 5% its current age of 13.8 billion years. The farthest pea, at left, contains just 2% the oxygen abundance of a galaxy like our own and might be the most chemically primitive galaxy yet identified. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI ||

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  • 
    ID: 5019 Visualization

    PACE orbit with swaths and instrument fields of view

    Oct. 14th, 2022
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    PACE orbiting the Earth showing OCI, HARP2, and SPEXone instument fields of view followed by instrument ground swath patterns || This visualization shows the planned orbit of NASA’s PACE mission (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem). The visualization is organized into three sections.In the first section, PACE's orbit is shown from a global view. PACE will be in a 98-degree-inclination, sun-synchronous polar orbit with an equatorial crossing time of 1:00 pm local time. PACE's orbital period (i.e., the time it takes to complete one orbit) is 98.3 minutes at an altitude of 676.5 km.In second section, the camera zooms in to look at the fields of view of each of PACE's instruments:• The Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) viewing width is 113 degrees. During each orbit on the sunlit side of the Earth, OCI will change its pointing from 20 degrees behind the spacecraft (aft) when south of the Sun's latitude to 20 degrees ahead of the spacecraft (fore) when north. This is to avoid having the instrument’s field of view look into Sun glint. OCI will change its pointing back from fore to aft on the dark side of each orbit.• The Hyper Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2(HARP2) instrument has a viewing width of 94 degrees. HARP2 has 10 viewing angles along the orbit track for its blue, green, and near-infrared wavelength channels and 60 viewing angles for its red wavelength channel. These viewing angles vary along the direction of travel over a range of 114 degrees. The ground swath as viewed on Earth will vary in width with viewing angle.• The Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) instrument's ground swath is about 100 km wide. SPEXone has 5 different viewing angles from -50 degrees (aft) to +50 degrees (fore). Like HARP2, the ground swath as viewed on Earth will vary in width with viewing angle.The third section shows example ground swaths for each instrument. SPEXone has a relatively narrow swath. HARP2 has a wider swath for its nadir (straight down) view. OCI has an even wider swath. At the end all 3 instruments swaths are shown at the same time.In terms of life on Earth, color describes more than simply how features look. In many cases color serves as a proxy for biological processes. When studying ocean biology, colors count in a big way.The PACE mission has been conceived principally as a way to measure ocean color for assessing large scale ocean health. These measurements will provide data to determine the distribution of phytoplankton, tiny plants and algae that sustain the marine food web. A simple way to think about this is the more “green” that’s visible from space, the more prevalent are plant cells containing chlorophyll, an essential green pigment responsible for energy-producing photosynthesis in plants. Phytoplankton populations are fundamental to understanding the overall health of the ocean food web, as well as a wide range of related processes.PACE will be able to see other colors too—a broad range of color, in fact, stretching beyond the bounds of visible light into both ultraviolet as well as infrared. PACE will also be able to make measurements of aerosols in the atmosphere, essential for scientists to improve our understanding of and our ability to forecast weather and climate.PACE continues a more than 20 year legacy of ocean color measurements, providing the scientific community with a long time series of data. That legacy enables better assessments of long term trends about complex processes on Earth.PACE will be able to see other colors too—a broad range of color, in fact, stretching beyond the bounds of visible light into both ultraviolet as well as infrared. PACE will also be able to make measurements of aerosols in the atmosphere, essential for scientists to improve our understanding of and our ability to forecast weather and climate.PACE continues a more than 20-year legacy of ocean color measurements, providing the scientific community with a long time series of data. That legacy enables better assessments of long-term trends about complex processes on Earth. ||

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