An evening pause: This video release from NASA made the rounds a few weeks ago. It isn’t news, but it is cool. One important fact noted during this video is that the Earth’s cloud cover both warms and cools the planet. What wasn’t noted was that there is gigantic uncertainty about how much the clouds warm and cool, which is one of the main reasons no climate models have been even close to successfully predicting the climate.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Cool image time! NASA’s DISCOVR solar observation probe has released its first image of the Earth, taken from its station-keeping position a million miles from Earth.
This camera was originally designed for Al Gore’s proposed propaganda mission where a spacecraft would take daily pictures of the Earth to pound home his environmental agenda. Eventually NASA found a real use for the satellite’s overall structure and location, observing the Sun’s activity and give us advance warning of dangerous flares or coronal mass ejections.
They left the Earth-viewing camera on board, partly because it was built already (it would cost money to remove) and partly because daily images like this can be of some scientific value.
At about T- 13 minutes today’s Falcon 9 launch was scrubbed because of high winds.
They will try again tomorrow at 6:03 pm (eastern).
Because of poor weather predictions NASA and SpaceX have rescheduled the next launch attempt of DSCOVR and the Falcon 9 for Tuesday, 6:05 pm (eastern).
Due to a variety of unresolved but apparently relatively minor issues SpaceX has decided to scrub today’s Falcon 9 launch.
They will try again tomorrow.
More details about the scrub here. The main problem was apparently a failure at an Air Force radar facility for tracking the rocket during launch.
The weather looks almost perfect for tonight’s Falcon 9 launch.
The Falcon 9 will put a solar observation satellite into orbit. While many left wing media outlets will wax poetic about this is Al Gore’s satellite, it is hardly that. It might have been built initially under his misguided idea of creating a propaganda satellite to take daily images of the Earth (images that are essentially of little use for climate studies), DSCOVR has been very carefully redesigned to give it a real purpose, monitoring the solar activity of the Sun and providing a replacement/back-up for ACE, which is now more than a decade overdue for replacement.
The Falcon 9 launch will also attempt again to land intact its first stage on a floating barge. If this attempt succeeds the entire future of space travel will be reshaped.
