SVS Demo Reel
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Music Credit: Westar Music Track "One Idea Leads to Another"
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Visualizers
- Alex Kekesi (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Ernie Wright (USRA)
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
- Helen-Nicole Kostis (USRA)
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
- Kel Elkins (USRA)
- Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC)
- Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Trent L. Schindler (USRA)
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Producer
- Devika Elakara (GSFC Interns)
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Technical support
- Leann Johnson (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
Related pages
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ID: 13814 Produced Video
SVS Demo Reel 2020
Read moreThis is the SVS Demo Reel submitted to SIGGRAPH 2021.Coming soon to our YouTube channel. || Music Credit:"Always A Way" by Stefan Rodescu [SACEM], Yannick Kalfayan [SACEM], Universal Production Music ||
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ID: 4905 Animation
A Web Around Asteroid Bennu – Visualizations
Read moreThis visualization depicts the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s trajectory around the asteroid Bennu from the initial arrival in Dec 2018 through the final departure in April 2021. The trajectory is presented in a Sun Bennu North reference frame. Several mission segments are highlighted in white, leading up to the TAG sample collection maneuver on Oct 20, 2020. || The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft arrived at near-Earth asteroid Bennu in December 2018. After studying the asteroid for nearly two years, the spacecraft successfully performed a Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection maneuver on October 20, 2020. The spacecraft will remain in asteroid Bennu’s vicinity until May 10, when the mission will enter its Return Cruise phase and begin its two-year journey back to Earth. This data visualization presents the mission’s complete trajectory during its time at Bennu. ||
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ID: 4722 Visualization
Jakobshavn Regional View of Three Simulated Greenland Ice Sheet Response Scenarios: 2008 - 2300
Read moreThe Greenland Ice Sheet holds enough water to raise the world’s sea level by over 7 meters (23 feet). Rising atmosphere and ocean temperatures have led to an ice loss equivalent to over a centimeter increase in global mean sea-level between 1991 and 2015. Large outlet glaciers, rivers of ice moving to the sea, drain the ice from the interior of Greenland and cause the outer margins of the ice sheet to recede. Improvements in measuring the ice thickness in ice sheets is enabling better simulation of the flow in outlet glaciers, which is key to predicting the retreat of ice sheets into the future.Recently, a simulation of the effects of outlet glacier flow on ice sheet thickness coupled with improved data and comprehensive climate modeling for differing future climate scenarios has been used to estimate Greenland’s contribution to sea-level over the next millennium. Greenland could contribute 5–34 cm (2-13 inches) to sea-level by 2100 and 11–162 cm (4-64 inches) by 2200, with outlet glaciers contributing 19–40 % of the total mass loss. The analysis shows that uncertainties in projecting mass loss are dominated by uncertainties in climate scenarios and surface processes, followed by ice dynamics. Uncertainties in ocean conditions play a minor role, particularly in the long term. Greenland will very likely become ice-free within a millennium without significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.Three visualizations of the evolution of the Jakobshavn region of the Greenland Ice Sheet between 2008 and 2300 based on three different climate scenarios are shown below. Each scenario is described briefly in the caption under each visualization. Each of the three visualizations are provided with a date, colorbar and a distance scale as well as without. The regions shown in a violet color are exposed areas of the Greenland bed that were covered by the ice sheet in 2008.The data sets used for these animations are the control (“CTRL”) simulations and were produced with the open-source Parallel Ice Sheet Model (www.pism-docs.org). All data sets for this study are publicly available at https://arcticdata.io (doi:10.18739/A2Z60C21V). ||
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ID: 4697 Visualization
ENSO teleconnections in South East Asia for the period of 2015-2016
Read moreThe 2015-2016 strong El Niño event brought changes to weather conditions across the globe that triggered regional infectious disease outbreaks, including mosquito-borne dengue fever in South East Asia. This visualization with corresponding multi-plot graph shows how Sea Surface Temperature anomalies in the equatorial Pacific Ocean (left), resulted in anomalous drought conditions (center) and increase in land surface temperatures (right) in South East Asia. During the 2015-2016 El Niño event, the South East Asia region received below than normal precipitation resulting in drier and warner than normal conditions, which increased the populations of mosquito vectors in urban areas, where there are open water storage containers providing ideal habitats for mosquito production. In addition, the higher than normal temperature on land shortens the maturation time of larvae to adult mosquitos and induces frequent blood feeding/biting of humans by mosquito vectors resulting in the amplification of dengue disease outbreaks over the South East Asia region. ||
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ID: 4593 Visualization
Earthrise in 4K
Read moreOn December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to witness the Earth rising above the moon's barren surface. Now we can relive the astronauts' experience, thanks to data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Complete transcript available.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. || This is a new, ultra-high definition (UHD, or 4K) version of the Earthrise visualization first published in 2013.In December of 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first people to leave our home planet and travel to another body in space. But as crew members Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders all later recalled, the most important thing they discovered was Earth.Using photo mosaics and elevation data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this video commemorates Apollo 8's historic flight by recreating the moment when the crew first saw and photographed the Earth rising from behind the Moon. Narrator Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon, sets the scene for a three-minute visualization of the view from both inside and outside the spacecraft accompanied by the onboard audio of the astronauts.The visualization draws on numerous historical sources, including the actual cloud pattern on Earth from the ESSA-7 satellite and dozens of photographs taken by Apollo 8, and it reveals new, historically significant information about the Earthrise photographs. It has not been widely known, for example, that the spacecraft was rolling when the photos were taken, and that it was this roll that brought the Earth into view. The visualization establishes the precise timing of the roll and, for the first time ever, identifies which window each photograph was taken from. ||
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ID: 4654 Visualization
Evolution of the Meteorological Observing System in the MERRA-2 Reanalysis
Read moreMeteorological Observing Systems, 1980 and 2018. Data is revealed within a moving 1.5 hour window centered on the time shown. || The Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center uses the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) modeling and data assimilation system to produce gridded estimates of the atmospheric state by combining short-term forecasts with observations from numerous observing systems. While the GEOS system is under continual development, it is periodically frozen and used to reprocess the modern satellite era, which begins in about 1980. This period specifically has been the focus of the second version of the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2). The modern satellite era in the context of MERRA-2 stems from the launch of the NASA/NOAA Television InfraRed Observational Satellite N-series (TIROS-N) satellite. This satellite served as the space platform for the first of the TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) series, which included TIROS-N and NOAA-6 through NOAA-14. The series of TOVS observations included global infrared and microwave radiance observations that provided the first comprehensive space-based observations that served as the remotely sensed backbone of the assimilation system. These observations, along with wind estimates from geostationary satellites and the global surface and upper air conventional observing network (e.g. surface reporting stations, radiosondes, aircraft measurements) provide the observations for the beginning of MERRA-2 in 1980.The observing system has advanced substantially since the launch of TIROS-N. Both satellite and conventional observations have increased in both quality and quantity over the course of the past four decades. In 1980, the median number of observations assimilated over a six hour period was 175,000. In 2018, this number has approached 5 million. The transition from the TOVS to the ATOVS (Advanced TOVS) observing system, which began in 1998 with the launch of the NOAA-15 platform, provided better horizontal and vertical resolution, along with improved observational quality. NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on the EOS-Aqua spacecraft provided yet another major advance in remote sensing of Earth, providing the first well-calibrated hyperspectral infrared radiance observations of the atmosphere, leading to a massive increase in the number of observations available to constrain the system. Designed as a research instrument, AIRS has been adopted by international operational weather prediction centers in their analysis and forecasting systems and also provides a key part of the meteorological observing system for MERRA-2. The demonstrable value of NASA’s AIRS observations also provided the impetus for developing hyperspectral infrared radiance instruments by the weather agencies, with the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometers (IASI) on the EUMETSAT Metop spacecraft and the Cross-track Infrared Sounders (CrIS) on the NASA-NOAA Suomi-NPP and JPSS platforms providing massive boosts in the number of available observations for use in weather analysis and forecasting. These measurements all provide critical inputs to the observing system used in MERRA-2. One of the fundamental scientific goals of the GMAO reanalysis projects is to provide the optimal estimate atmospheric state in a manner that is consistent over time. These animations illustrate how different the observing system were in 1980 compared to today. On the one hand, these animations demonstrate the critical role that NASA has played in developing the observing systems that are used in satellite measurements, including the enhancements of the spacecraft observations between 1980 and the present time. They also highlight one of the great challenges in producing consistent long-term records of the atmospheric state in MERRA-2 and other reanalyses: technological advances lead to larger numbers of higher quality observations. Even though the underlying assimilation systems remain frozen over time, the great challenge is to overcome the impacts of an ever improving suite of observations. ||
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ID: 4624 Visualization
El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico Canopy Change from Afar (2017-2018)
Read moreSample Composite that split screens the lidar swath over the El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico. During the split screen, 2017 data is on the upper left and 2018 data on the bottom right. As the camera moves northwest, the viewer can see patches of ground becoming visible in the 2018 data. This is due to the vast numbers of trees that were stripped or fell during Hurricane Maria in September 2017. || In September 2017, Hurricane Maria's lashing rain and winds also transformed Puerto Rico's lush tropical rainforest landscape. Research scientist Doug Morton of Goddard was part of the team of NASA researchers who had surveyed Puerto Rico's forests six months before the storm. The team used Goddard’s Lidar, Hyperspectral, and Thermal (G-LiHT) Airborne Imager, a system designed to study the structure and species composition of forests. Shooting 600,000 laser pulses per second, G-LiHT produces a 3D view of the forest structure in high resolution, showing individual trees in high detail from the ground to treetop. In April 2018 (post-Maria) the team went back and surveyed the same tracks as in 2017 (before Maria).The extensive damage to Puerto Rico's forests had far-reaching effects, Morton said. Fallen trees that no longer stabilize soil on slopes with their roots as well as downed branches can contribute to landslides and debris flows, increased erosion, and poor water quality in streams and rivers where sediments build up. ||
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ID: 4658 Visualization
NASA's Black Marble night lights used to examine disaster recovery in Puerto Rico
Read moreAt night, Earth is lit up in bright strings of roads dotted with pearl-like cities and towns as human-made artificial light takes center stage. During Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico's lights went out.In the days, weeks, and months that followed, research physical scientist Miguel Román at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and his colleagues combined NASA's Black Marble night lights data product from the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite with USGS-NASA Landsat data and Google's OpenStreetMap to develop a neighborhood-scale map of energy use in communities across Puerto Rico as the electricity grid was slowly restored. They then analyzed the relationship between restoration rates in terms of days without electricity and the remoteness of communities from major cities. ||
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ID: 4700 Visualization
PACE - Studying Plankton, Aerosols, Clouds, and the Ocean Ecosystem
Read moreThe visualization starts close on the PACE spacecraft. A representative data swath is shown, depicting biosphere plankton data. The camera then pulls out to show the spacecraft's polar orbit. Complete global coverage is achieved after approximately two days of orbits. Over time, the data swath cycles between biosphere, aerosol, and cloud data, representing PACE's collective mission to study Earth's ocean and atmosphere. This version end with animated biosphere data. || 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. NASA’s PACE mission (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) 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. ||
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ID: 4572 Visualization
The Hiawatha Impact Crater
Read moreThe series of visualizations below are derived from satellite imagery and radar sounding. They portray both the location and size of the 31-kilometer-wide impact crater beneath Hiawatha Glacier. They also portray the structure of the glacier ice that flows into and fills the crater.The Hiawatha impact crater was first suspected to exist in the summer of 2015, from examination of a compilation of Greenland's sub-ice topography radar measurements made by NASA over two decades. The visualizations of the subsurface shown below are derived from a spring 2016 airborne survey by Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute, using a new ultrawideband radar sounder developed by the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at The University of Kansas. Subsequent helicopter visits to the deglaciated terrain in front of Hiawatha Glacier by scientists from the Natural History Museum in Denmark recovered sediment samples from the main river that discharges water from beneath Hiawatha Glacier, through the northwestern rim breach. Laboratory examination revealed that these sediment samples contained shocked quartz and elevated platinum-group-element concentrations, both signs that the sediment records evidence of the impact of an iron asteroid more than one kilometer wide. The Hiawatha impact crater is potentially one of the youngest large impact craters on Earth.In the visualizations below, the elevation of the topography of the bed, the ice surface and the radar curtains have been exaggerated ten times in order to better illustrate their structure. ||
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ID: 13058 Produced Video
Simulations Create New Insights Into Pulsars
Read moreExplore a new “pulsar in a box” computer simulation that tracks the fate of electrons (blue) and their antimatter kin, positrons (red), as they interact with powerful magnetic and electric fields around a neutron star. Lighter colors indicate higher particle energies. Each particle seen in this visualization actually represents trillions of electrons or positrons. Better knowledge of the particle environment around neutron stars will help astronomers understand how they produce precisely timed radio and gamma-ray pulses.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterMusic: "Reaching for the Horizon" and "Leaving Earth" from Killer TracksWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. ||
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ID: 4683 Visualization
NASA Scientists see Gravity Waves in Concentric Rings
Read moreNASA scientists have tracked gravity waves traveling thousands of miles across our atmosphere in concentric rings. Large storms can create these waves, which grow and spread upward hundreds of miles above Earth's surface. The AIRS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite detected gravity waves in the troposphere and stratosphere 12 hours before a deadly EF5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, in 2013. On the instrument's next pass 11 hours later, it detected even stronger waves.We pull up 250 miles to the ionosphere, where the waves can be observed by GPS satellites. Here gravity waves are shown in greens and yellows, like ripples in a pond. The waves and tornado were both produced by a long-lived storm system.Understanding the spread of gravity waves improves global weather forecasting and space weather forecasting.Complete transcript available.This video is also available on our YouTube channel. ||
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ID: 4685 Visualization
Inside Hurricane Maria in 360°
Read moreTour Hurricane Maria in a whole new way! Late on September 17, 2017 (10:08 p.m. EDT) Category 1 Hurricane Maria was strengthening in the Atlantic Ocean when the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory flew over it. The Dual Frequency Precipitation Radar, measuring in a narrow band over the storm center, shows 3-D estimates of rain, with snow at higher altitudes. The tall "hot towers" characteristic of deepening hurricanes are actually topped by snow! Surface rainfall rates estimated by the GPM Microwave Imager paint the surface over a wider swath. During the tour, you'll see the radar-observed rain intensities displayed three different ways in various parts of the storm. Then, for the first time you'll see estimates of the precipitation particle sizes, which the GPM DPR is uniquely capable of showing, and which provide important insights into storm processes.GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. ||
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ID: 4664 Visualization
Jupiter's Magnetosphere
Read moreJupiter's magnetosphere - a basic view. || Earth's magnetic field creates a 'bubble' around Earth that helps protect our planet from some of the more harmful effects of energetic particles streaming out from the sun in the solar wind. Some of the earliest hints of this interaction go back to the 1850s with the work of Richard Carrington, and in the early 1900s with the work of Kristian Birkeland and Carl Stormer. That this field might form a type of 'bubble' around Earth was hypothesized by Sidney Chapman and Vincent Ferraro in the 1930s. The term 'magnetosphere' was applied to magnetic bubble by Thomas Gold in 1959. But it wasn't until the Space Age, when we sent the first probes to other planets, that we found clear evidence of their magnetic fields (though there were hints of a magnetic field for Jupiter in the 1950s, due to observations from radio telescopes). The Voyager program, two spacecraft launched in 1977, and successors to the Pioneer 10 and 11 missions, completed flybys of the giant outer planets. They became the implementation of the 'Grand Tour' of the outer planets originally proposed in the late 1960s. The Voyagers provided some of the first detailed measurments of the strength, extent and diversity of the magnetospheres of the outer planets.In this series of visualizations, we present simplified models of these planetary magnetospheres, designed to illustrate their scale, and basic features of their structure and impacts of the magnetic axes offset from the planetary rotation axes. The volcanic activity on Jupiter's moon Io launches a large amount of sulfur-based compounds along its orbit, which is subsequently ionized by solar ultraviolet radiation. This is represented in the visualization by the yellowish structure along the orbit of Io. This creates a plasma torus and ring current around Jupiter, which alters the planet's magnetic field, forming some of the perturbations in Jupiter's magnetic field along the orbit of Io.For these visualizations, the magnetic field structure is represented by gold/copper lines. The semi-transparent grey mesh in the distance represents the boundary of the magnetosphere. Major satellites of the planetary system are also included. When appropriate for the time window of the visualization, the Voyager flyby trajectories are indicated.The models are constructed by combining the fields of a simple magnetic dipole, a current sheet (whose intensity is tuned match the scale of the magnetotail), and occasionally a ring current. This is a variation of the simple Luhmann-Friesen magnetosphere model. They are meant to be representative of the basic characteristics of the planetary magnetic fields. Some features NOT included are longitudes of magnetic poles to a standard planetary coordinate system and offsets of the dipole center from the planetary center. ReferencesT. Gold, Motions in the Magnetosphere of the EarthLuhmann and Friesen, A simple model of the magnetosphereLASP: Polarity of planetary magnetic fieldsWikipedia: The Solar Storm of 1859Wikipedia: Kristian BirkelandWikipedia: Carl StørmerSpecial thanks to Arik Posner (NASA/HQ) and Gina DiBraccio (UMBC/GSFC) for helpful pointers on orientation of planetary rotation and magnetic axes. ||
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ID: 4639 Visualization
MMS Sees a New Type of Reconnection
Read moreThe Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission consists of four identical satellites that traverse various regions of Earth's magnetosphere measuring the particles and electric and magnetic field which influence them.In the turbulent plasma between Earth's magnetopause and bow shock, a region called the magnetosheath, the MMS satellite constellation has measured multiple jets of energetic electrons between magnetic bubbles. This appears to be a new 'flavor' of magnetic reconnection based on electrons and occuring on smaller time and spatial scales than the standard model of magnetic reconnection with ions.In these data visualizations, the arrows represent the data collected by the spacecraft. To better comprehend changes as the spacecraft moves along, the data are allowed to 'echo' along the spacecraft trail. The length of the vectors represent the relative magnitude of the vector. However, the electron and proton vectors are scaled so equal velocities correspond to vectors of equal magnitude.Magenta represents the direction and magnitude of the magnetic field at the spacecraft position.Green represents the direction and magnitude of the net electric current created by the motion of the electrons and ions measured at the spacecraft position.The four MMS spacecraft are represented by colored spheres, corresponding to the plotted data lines in the lower graphicMMS1MMS2MMS3MMS4The clocks on MMS are synchronized for the TAI (International Atomic Time) system provided through the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. It provides a high-precision time reference for comparing MMS measurements to other datasets. ||
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ID: 4629 Visualization
Snowflakes Melting Simulation Over Turntable
Read moreClockwise rotating turntable of a cluster of melting snowflakes. || These simulated melting snowflakes were based on a smoothed particle hydrodynamics model. Scientists are interested in understanding the microphysics of such events to help improve remote sensing of melting layer precipitation. || Print resolution image of a snowflake cluster in it's initial fully frozen state. || Print resolution image of snowflakes beginning to show some melting primarily at their tips. || Print resolution image of liquid droplets starting to form across the entire frozen snowflake structure. ||
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ID: 4602 Visualization
New island forms in Tonga
Read moreThis visualization shows the change in the island of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apa between January 2015 and September 2017.This video is also available on our YouTube channel. || The evolution of the newly-erupted "surtseyan" island (~ 180 hectares in area) in the Kingdom of Tonga in the Southwestern Pacific is documented in a time-lapse sequences of perspective views using a time-series of DigitalGlobe WorldView images from just after the eruption ended in late January 2015 until late September 2017. These meter-resolution views were generated using Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) created by the NASA- led science team using stereo-pairs of DigitalGlobe Worldview images, and have allowed the erosional history of this unique island to be studied from a never-before-possible spaceborne perspective. The impact of marine abrasion on the somewhat fragile volcanic-ash landscapes is evident as the southern and southeastern margins of the new island, informally known as Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai (HTHH), recede, while deposition of a widening isthmus grows to the northeast. Research results from NASA-funded science team led by James B. Garvin (NASA GSFC), Daniel A. Slayback (SSAI), Vicki Ferrini (Columbia) recently submitted for publication in the AGU's Geophysical Research Letters journal suggest the island's lifetime may be extended for another 25-30 years if geochemical fortification continues to protect key regions. The HTHH island is the first surtseyan eruption-based island to have persisted as "new land" for more than 6 months since Surtsey erupted near Iceland in 1963. Studies of the landscape evolution of pristine volcanic islands of this variety previously relied on a combination of aerial photography, field mapping, and laboratory sample analysis, but this new work enables an optimized approach via advanced satellite optical and radar imaging in combination with ship-based bathymetric mapping. Results of this work can be applied to understanding numerous small volcanic landforms on Mars whose formation may have been in shallow-water environments during epochs when persistent surface water was present. Field photography and sampling of the HTHH island "system" by French sailors who served as citizen geoscientists for the NASA project greatly enhanced the project and validated several key interpretations. (Special thanks to NASA Earth Sciences RRNES program, French sailors Damien Grouille and Cecile Sabau of the sailing vessel Colibri, and to the Schmidt Ocean Institute R/V Falkor). ||
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ID: 4373 Visualization
ICESat-2 Orbit
Read moreICESat-2 orbiting Earth: starting with global view building up ground track, then riding the satellite view, then back to a global view with full ground track || ICESat-2 is a spacecraft designed to accurately measure land and ice elevations on Earth. By comparing observations from different times, scientists will be able to study changes in elevations. ICESat-2 will be in a polar orbit which will provide high coverage near the poles where ice elevations are changing relatively quickly. This visualization shows ICESat-2's polar orbit from afar, then closer up. As we get close to the satellite, the 3 pairs of ICESat-2's ATLAS lidar laser beams begin to resolve. A ground track shows ICESat-2's global coverage which repeats about once every 90 days.The ATLAS lidar on ICESat-2 uses 3 pairs of laser beams to measure the earth’s elevation and elevation change. As a global mission, ICESat-2 will collect data over the entire globe, however the ATLAS instrument is optimized to measure land ice and sea ice elevation in the polar regions.For more information on ICESat-2 click here. ||
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ID: 4571 Visualization
Global Surface- and Upper-Level Winds
Read moreThis entry compiles a series of animations created for the use of WGBH in an educational webside. The animations visualize data from the MERRA reanalysis product, showing winds at both the 850 mb and 250 mb levels. The upper level is rainbow-colored, the lower level is white. Both color and opacity of each level are being driven by windspeed. || 850 mb and 250 mb levels || 850 mb level || 250 mb level || Upper- and Lower-Level Winds, Hyperwall Version || Colorbar ||
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ID: 4201 Visualization
Tracking Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) Orbital Fleet Communicating with User Spacecraft 2017 - 360 video
Read moreVisualization depicting TDRS satellites communicating with customer satellites. White lines represent periods of communication between satellites. Constant contact between TDRS satellites and ground stations is also displayed using grey lines. || The Tracking Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) fleet has provided spacecraft communications and tracking since the 1980's. Designed to replace most ground stations and provide longer periods of coverage, TDRS spacecraft have become an indispensable component of both manned and unmanned Earth orbiting space missions.The TDRS project is building the follow-on and replacement spacecraft necessary to maintain and expand NASA’s Space Network. The third satellite of the third generation, TDRS-M, is set to launch in August 2017. TDRS-M will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard an Atlas V rocket. This satellite will join a constellation of space-based communications satellites providing tracking, telemetry, command and high-bandwidth data return services. ||
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ID: 12635 Produced Video
A New Multi-dimensional View of a Hurricane
Read moreMusic: "Buoys," Donn Wilkerson, Killer Tracks; "Late Night Drive," Donn Wilkerson, Killer Tracks.Complete transcript available. || NASA researchers now can use a combination of satellite observations to re-create multi-dimensional pictures of hurricanes and other major storms in order to study complex atmospheric interactions. In this video, they applied those techniques to Hurricane Matthew. When it occurred in the fall of 2016, Matthew was the first Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in almost ten years. Its torrential rains and winds caused significant damage and loss of life as it coursed through the Caribbean and up along the southern U.S. coast. ||
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ID: 4544 Visualization
2015-2016 El Niño: Daily Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly and Ocean Currents
Read moreThis visualization shows 2015-2016 El Nino through changes in sea surface temperature and ocean currents. Blue regions represent colder temperatures and red regions represent warmer temperatures when compared with normal conditions. Yellow arrows illustrate eastward currents and white arrows are westward currents. || El Niño is a recurring climate pattern characterized by warmer than usual ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. This 3-D visualization tracks the changes in ocean temperatures and currents, respectively, throughout the life cycle of the 2015-2016 El Niño event, chronicling its inception in early 2015 to its dissipation by April 2016.Blue regions represent colder temperatures and red regions warmer temperatures when compared with normal conditions.Under normal conditions, equatorial trade winds in the Pacific Ocean blow from the east to the west, causing warm water to pile up in the Western Pacific, while also causing an upwelling- the rise of deep, cool water to the surface- in the Equatorial Pacific. During an El Niño, trade winds weaken or, as with this latest event, sometimes reverse course and blow from west to east. As a result, the warm surface water sloshes east along the equator from the Western Pacific and temporarily predominates in the Central and Eastern Pacific Ocean. At that time, cooler water slowly migrates westward just off the equator in the Western Pacific.The first visualization shows the 2015-2016 El Niño through changes in sea surface temperature as warmer water moves east across the Pacific Ocean.The Eastern Pacific Ocean undergoes the most warming from July 2015 to January 2016. In the west, just to the north of the equator, cooler waters hit the western boundary and reflect along the equator and then head east starting in February 2016. Just as the warming waves traveled east earlier in the video, these cool waters make their way to the central Pacific, terminating the warming event there.Hand-in-hand with an El Niño's changing sea surface temperatures are the wind-driven ocean currents that move the waters along the equator across the Pacific Ocean. The second visualization depicts these currents, which here comprise the ocean's surface to a depth of 225 meters: Yellow arrows illustrate eastward currents and white arrows are westward currents. The El Niño-inducing westerlies- winds coming from the west that blow east- causing eastward currents to occur in pulses.These visualizations are derived from NASA Goddard's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, using Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications(MERRA) dataset, which comprises an optimal combination of observations and ocean and atmospheric models. For more information, see https://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/reanalysis/MERRA/. ||
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ID: 3899 Visualization
Seasonal sea ice and snow cover visualizations
Read moreSeasonal snow cover and sea ice across the globe from September 2010 to August 2011 || This set of frames provides the background layer only of the seasonal snow cover and sea ice across the globe from September 2010 to August 2011. || This set of frames provides the dates layer only of the seasonal snow cover and sea ice across the globe from September 2010 to August 2011. || North America sea ice and snow cover from September 2010 to August 2011 || This set of frames provides the background layer only of the North America sea ice and snow cover from September 2010 to August 2011 ||
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ID: 4514 Visualization
Carbon Dioxide from GMAO using Assimilated OCO-2 Data
Read moreCarbon Dioxide from the GEOS-5 modelThis video is also available on our YouTube channel. || Carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas released to the atmosphere through human activities. It is also influenced by natural exchange with the land and ocean. This visualization provides a high-resolution, three-dimensional view of global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from September 1, 2014 to August 31, 2015. The visualization was created using output from the GEOS modeling system, developed and maintained by scientists at NASA. The height of Earth’s atmosphere and topography have been vertically exaggerated and appear approximately 400 times higher than normal to show the complexity of the atmospheric flow. Measurements of carbon dioxide from NASA’s second Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) spacecraft are incorporated into the model every 6 hours to update, or “correct,” the model results, called data assimilation.As the visualization shows, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be mixed and transported by winds in the blink of an eye. For several decades, scientists have measured carbon dioxide at remote surface locations and occasionally from aircraft. The OCO-2 mission represents an important advance in the ability to observe atmospheric carbon dioxide. OCO-2 collects high-precision, total column measurements of carbon dioxide (from the sensor to Earth’s surface) during daylight conditions. While surface, aircraft, and satellite observations all provide valuable information about carbon dioxide, these measurements do not tell us the amount of carbon dioxide at specific heights throughout the atmosphere or how it is moving across countries and continents. Numerical modeling and data assimilation capabilities allow scientists to combine different types of measurements (e.g., carbon dioxide and wind measurements) from various sources (e.g., satellites, aircraft, and ground-based observation sites) to study how carbon dioxide behaves in the atmosphere and how mountains and weather patterns influence the flow of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Scientists can also use model results to understand and predict where carbon dioxide is being emitted and removed from the atmosphere and how much is from natural processes and human activities. Carbon dioxide variations are largely controlled by fossil fuel emissions and seasonal fluxes of carbon between the atmosphere and land biosphere. For example, dark red and orange shades represent regions where carbon dioxide concentrations are enhanced by carbon sources. During Northern Hemisphere fall and winter, when trees and plants begin to lose their leaves and decay, carbon dioxide is released in the atmosphere, mixing with emissions from human sources. This, combined with fewer trees and plants removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, allows concentrations to climb all winter, reaching a peak by early spring. During Northern Hemisphere spring and summer months, plants absorb a substantial amount of carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, thus removing it from the atmosphere and change the color to blue (low carbon dioxide concentrations). This three-dimensional view also shows the impact of fires in South America and Africa, which occur with a regular seasonal cycle. Carbon dioxide from fires can be transported over large distances, but the path is strongly influenced by large mountain ranges like the Andes. Near the top of the atmosphere, the blue color indicates air that last touched the Earth more than a year before. In this part of the atmosphere, called the stratosphere, carbon dioxide concentrations are lower because they haven’t been influenced by recent increases in emissions. ||
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ID: 4516 Visualization
2017 Path of Totality: Oblique View
Read moreThis animation closely follows the Moon's umbra shadow as it passes over the United States during the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse. Through the use of a number of NASA datasets, notably the global elevation maps from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the shape and location of the shadow is depicted with unprecedented accuracy. || During the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse, the Moon's umbral shadow will fly across the United States, from Oregon to South Carolina, in a little over 90 minutes. The path of this shadow, the path of totality, is where observers will see the Moon completely cover the Sun for about two and a half minutes.People traveling to see totality, likely numbering in the millions for this eclipse, will rely on maps that show the predicted location of this path. The math used to make eclipse maps was worked out by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel and William Chauvenet in the 19th century, long before computers and the precise astronomical data gathered during the Space Age.In keeping with their paper and pencil origins, traditional eclipse calculations pretend that all observers are at sea level and that the Moon is a smooth sphere centered on its center of mass. Reasonably accurate maps, including this one, are drawn based on those simplifying assumptions. Those who want greater accuracy are usually referred to elevation tables and plots of the lunar limb.This animation shows the umbra and its path in a new way. Elevations on the Earth's surface and the irregular lunar limb (the silhouette edge of the Moon's disk) are both fully accounted for, and they both have dramatic and surprising effects on the shape of the umbra and the location of the path. To read more about these effects, go here.The animation runs at a rate of 30× real time — every minute of the eclipse takes two seconds in the animation. The oblique view emphasizes the terrain of the umbral path. For an overhead view, go here.Earth radius6378.137 kmEllipsoidWGS84GeoidEGM96Moon radius1737.4 kmSun radius696,000 km (959.645 arcsec at 1 AU)EphemerisDE 421Earth orientationearth_070425_370426_predict.bpc (ΔT corrected)Delta UTC69.184 seconds (TT – TAI + 37 leap seconds)ΔT68.917 seconds ||
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ID: 4482 Animation
OSIRIS-REx orbits, maneuvers, and mapping
Read moreThe Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer spacecraft will travel to a near-Earth asteroid, called Bennu (formerly 1999 RQ36), and bring at least a 2.1-ounce sample back to Earth for study. The mission will help scientists investigate how planets formed and how life began, as well as improve our understanding of asteroids that could impact Earth.OSIRIS-REx launched on Sept. 8, 2016, at 7:05 p.m. EDT. As planned, the spacecraft will reach its target asteroid in 2018 and return a sample to Earth in 2023. These animations depict the journey of OSIRIS-REx to Bennu and back, including the complex maneuvers that the spacecraft will perform in the asteroid's low-gravity environment. The animations are presented in chronological order. ||
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ID: 4469 Visualization
Dynamic Earth-A New Beginning
Read moreThe visualization 'Excerpt from "Dynamic Earth"' has been one of the most popular visualizations that the Scientific Visualization Studio has ever created. It's often used in presentations and Hyperwall shows to illustrate the connections between the Earth and the Sun, as well as the power of computer simulation in understanding those connections.There is one part of this visualization, however, that has always seemed a little clumsy to us. The opening shot is a pullback from the limb of the sun, where the sun is represented by a movie of 304 Angstrom images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). It is difficult to pull back from the limb of a flat sun image and make the sun look spherical, and the problem was made more difficult because the original sun images were in a spherical dome show format. As a result, the pullback from the sun showed some odd reprojection artifacts.The best solution to this issue was to replace the existing pullout with a new one, one which pulled directly out from the center of the solar disk. For the new beginning, we chose a series of SDO images in the 171 Angstrom channel that show a visible coronal mass ejection (CME) in the lower right corner of the solar disk. Although this is not the specific CME that is seen affecting Venus and Earth later in this visualization, its presence links the SDO animation thematically to the later solar storm. The SDO images were also brightened considerably and tinted yellow to match the common perception of the Sun as a bright yellow object (even though it is actually white).Please go to the original version of this visualization to see the complete credits and additional details. ||
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ID: 4370 Visualization
Solar Wind Strips the Martian Atmosphere
Read moreScientists have long suspected the solar wind of stripping the Martian upper atmosphere into space, turning Mars from a blue world to a red one. Now, NASA's MAVEN orbiter is observing this process in action, providing significant data on solar wind erosion at Mars.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.This video is also available on our YouTube channel. || Today, Mars is a global desert with an atmosphere far too thin to support bodies of flowing water, but evidence shows that Mars was considerably wetter in the ancient past. Scientists think that climate change on Mars was caused by the loss of an early, thick atmosphere, and NASA’s MAVEN mission is investigating whether it was driven into space.One of the prime suspects is the solar wind, a stream of electrically charged particles continuously blowing outward from the Sun. Unlike Earth, Mars lacks a global magnetic field to deflect the incoming solar wind. Instead, charged particles from the Sun crash into the Mars upper atmosphere, and can accelerate Martian ions into space. Now, MAVEN has observed this process in action – by measuring the velocity of ions escaping from Mars.The movies on this page compare simulations of ion escape with MAVEN’s observations of oxygen ion flux. The results closely fit the expected pattern, with the most energetic ions (in red) accelerated in a plume above Mars, while the majority of escaping ions (green) are lost along the “tail” region in the wake of the solar wind. MAVEN’s observations confirm that the solar wind is a significant contributor to atmosphere loss on Mars, and they bring scientists closer to solving the mystery of the ancient Martian climate. Read the full press release about this finding.Watch the November 2015 MAVEN Science Update. ||
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ID: 4253 Visualization
Moon Phase and Libration, from the Other Side
Read moreThis narrated video introduces two views of the Moon's far side. Transcript.This video is also available on our YouTube channel. || A number of people who've seen the annual lunar phase and libration videos have asked what the other side of the Moon looks like, the side that can't be seen from the Earth. This video answers that question. (Update: The video was selected for the SIGGRAPH 2015 Computer Animation Festival.)Just like the near side, the far side goes through a complete cycle of phases. But the terrain of the far side is quite different. It lacks the large dark spots, called maria, that make up the familiar Man in the Moon on the near side. Instead, craters of all sizes crowd together over the entire far side. The far side is also home to one of the largest and oldest impact features in the solar system, the South Pole-Aitken basin, visible here as a slightly darker bruise covering the bottom third of the disk.The far side was first seen in a handful of grainy images returned by the Soviet Luna 3 probe, which swung around the Moon in October, 1959. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched fifty years later, and since then it has returned hundreds of terabytes of data, allowing LRO scientists to create extremely detailed and accurate maps of the far side. Those maps were used to create the imagery seen here.In the first of the two viewpoints, the virtual camera is positioned along the Earth-Moon line at a distance of 30 Earth diameters from the Moon and 60 ED from the Earth. The focal length is equivalent to a 2000 mm telephoto lens on a 35 mm SLR, making the horizontal field of view about one degree. The view is consistent with what you might see through an amateur telescope at these distances.In the second view, the virtual camera is much closer to the Moon, only 1.2 ED, versus 31 ED from Earth. The camera focal length has been reduced to 80 mm, giving a 25° horizontal field. The result is an Earth that appears much smaller, more closely resembling the way it would look to the eye from the surface of the Moon. ||
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ID: 11670 Produced Video
Sun Emits Mid-Level Flare on October 2, 2014
Read moreThe sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 3:01 p.m. EDT on Oct. 2, 2014. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun 24-hours a day, captured images of the flare. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.This flare is classified as an M7.3 flare. M-class flares are one-tenth as powerful as the most powerful flares, which are designated X-class flares. ||
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