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Looks funny but Real

on July 03, 2014

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Landsat-1 satellite

On this day in 1972 Landsat-1, the first US Earth-resources satellite was launched. The satellite, based on a modified weather satellite, was placed in a polar orbit to obtain continual coverage of the whole globe for the next six years. L andsat-1 had a three-camera system to obtain visible light and near infrared photographic images of Earth; a four-channel multispectral scanner (MSS) to obtain radiometric images of Earth; a receiver to collect feedback from ground stations for relay back to NASA, and two video tape recorders to provide backup when the spacecraft was out-of-range of NASA's ground control. One of its more notable discoveries was a small island off the coast of Canada, which was later named Landsat Island after the satellite. You can read more about the Landsat program at http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (image courtesy of http://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/baumanpr/geosat2/RS%20Landsat/RS-Landsat.htm )

First powered, controlled, and sustained flight

In 1903, December 18 , Orville and Wilbur Wright made man's first powered, controlled, and sustained flight—120 feet in 12 seconds at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

Antarctic Ice Loss Changing Earth's Gravity

London: A sudden and massive ice loss in a previously stable region of Antarctica is causing small changes in the gravity field of the Earth, a new study has found. Using measurements of the elevation of the Antarctic ice sheet made by a suite of satellites, the researchers found that the Southern Antarctic Peninsula showed no signs of change up to 2009. Around 2009, multiple glaciers along a vast coastal expanse, measuring some 750 km in length, suddenly started to shed ice into the ocean at a nearly constant rate of 60 cubic km, or about 55 trillion litres of water, each year. This makes the region the second largest contributor to sea level rise in Antarctica and the ice loss shows no sign of waning, researchers said. "To date, the glaciers added roughly 300 cubic km of water to the ocean. That's the equivalent of the volume of nearly 350,000 Empire State Buildings combined," said Dr Bert Wouters, a Marie Curie Fellow at the Uni

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