Music of the Sphere

NASA has gathered data about the Earth for a long time with a wide range of Earth science missions. As time has passed, missions have become more robust and collected much more data. Specialists at Earth Data have put the data starting in the mid-60s into musical tones in this brief video. Turn up the sound and enjoy.

If more data was collected from the Earth science mission, the pitch of the tone is higher. A guitar represents mission launches. The field of each mission is categorized into these orchestral parts:

• • • Strings = Atmosphere and Weather
    • High Woodwinds = Geosphere – Landforms
    • Low Woodwinds = Hydrosphere – Water Worlds
    • High Brass = Cryosphere – Ice Formations
    • Low Brass = Biosphere – Living Organisms

By the way, April 22 is the 50^th Earth Day. Listen to the first episode of NASA’s Curious Universe podcast: www.nasa.gov/curiousuniverse.

Viewed From Above | From Below

From Above…

A 100 meter telecommunications tower stands near my home. I looked at it from above via Google Earth. The shadow extends to the left. The support cables barely show on a good monitor but not in this small image. A car is rounding the curve at the upper left.

Earth | Global Forest Change 2000-2012

An important body of research mapped the changes in forests of the Earth. The work showed areas of forest loss and gain over the entire globe as mapped by Landsat satellites between 2000-2012. Each pixel of a Landsat image covers 30×30 meters, about the size of a baseball diamond. That makes the level of resolution quite good. The researchers analyzed 143 billion pixels in 654,000 Landsat images to compile the maps. Scientists from the University of Maryland, Google, the State University of New York, Woods Hole Research Center, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and South Dakota State University were part of the research team. Abstract in the November 15 issue of the journal Science.

Deforestation is a growing and very significant problem world wide. The biomass in our forests is huge. They contribute enormously to the processing of carbon dioxide to oxygen. Previous country to country comparisons have been difficult. Some countries allow limited or no access to certain regions. Countries have different criteria when asked to self-report. This Landsat analysis uses a uniformly applied set of standards over a long time period. Here is an example of a map showing loss and gain in a region of Sumatra. Red indicates cleared forest and blue is new growth. Purple shows areas of trees both cut down and re-grown. Green is forest cover that has not been disturbed. Indonesia’s deforestation rate has doubled from levels in 2000-2003.