All this week, we have been highlighting the Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA’s Goddard Flight Center at the 8am time slot. The SVS has released its latest visualization of the health of the biosphere from space. While it is difficult to see in the YouTube videos, you can download the original Quicktime movie files and see the stars behind planet Earth. If you pay attention, you can see the plane of the Milky Way galaxy.
Satellite data can be used to monitor the health of the biosphere from space. The SeaWiFS instrument is carried aboard the satellite OrbView-2, providing important information about the oceans, the land, and the life within them. On land, the dark greens show where there is abundant vegetation and tans show relatively sparse plant cover. In the oceans, red, yellow, and green pixels show dense phytoplankton blooms, those regions of the ocean that are the most productive over time, while blues and purples show where there is very little of the microscopic marine plants called phytoplankton. For most of the world’s oceans, the most important things that influence its color are PHYTOPLANKTON. Phytoplankton are very small, single-celled plants, generally smaller than the size of a pinhead that contain a green pigment called chlorophyll. All plants (on land and in the ocean) use chlorophyll to capture energy from the sun and through the process known as photosynthesis convert water and carbon dioxide into new plant material and oxygen. Although microscopic, phytoplankton can bloom in such large numbers that they can change the color of the ocean to such a degree that we can measure that change from space. The basic principle behind the remote sensing of ocean color from space is this; The more phytoplankton in the water, the greener it is….the less phytoplankton, the bluer it is. For more information, http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Via : Five Spheres – Biosphere
