UMBC Earth and Space Institute engineers Yomiyu Fekadu (left) and Danny Nelson (right) prepare the Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument for thermal vacuum testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland on August 8th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute.

UMBC Earth and Space Institute engineers Ian Decker (left) and Danny Nelson (right) attach the Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument to the shaker table for vibration testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland on August 8th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute.

The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument undergoes Boresight alignment at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute.

The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument prior to thermal vacuum testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland on August 8th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute.

The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument undergoes calibration testing after at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland on October 4th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute.

Errol Korn, seated left, deploys a dropsonde experiment over the Gulf of Mexico during a flight aboard the NASA DC-8 as Janel Thomas, a University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) graduate student, and Bob Pasken, look on , Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010. The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment is a NASA Earth science field experiment in 2010 that is being conducted to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers)

An engineer inspects the The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument during calibration testing after at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland on October 4th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute.

Errol Korn, lower left, explains the dropsonde experiment to Janel Thomas, a University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) graduate student, seated, as Bob Pasken, standing left, and Jeff Halverson, a GRIP project scientist from UMBC, look on inside NASA's DC-8 airplane, at Fort Lauderdale International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010. The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment is a NASA Earth science field experiment in 2010 that is being conducted to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. Credit: NASA/Paul E. Alers To read more about the GRIP Mission go <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/missions/grip/news/grip-quest.html" rel="nofollow"> here</a></b> or <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/GRIP/" rel="nofollow"> here</a></b> for an interactive feature <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a><b></b></b>

A ground crewman at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, CA inspects the forward panel on the mid-body section of NASA’s ER2’s wingpod. The crew is preparing to fly the air-LUSI instrument aboard the ER2 to measure the Moon.

Steven Grantham (NIST) and John Woodward (NIST) contemplate cable management for air-LUSI’s Irradiance Instrument Subsystem telescope at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, CA.  It is critical that the delicate fiber optic cables move smoothly with the telescope.

Ground crewman at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, CA install a rail to support the Autonomous, Robotic Telescope Mount Instrument Subsystem, which is part of air-LUSI and has a camera that scans the sky to find the Moon.

Air-LUSI takes off aboard an ER2 out of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, CA for an airborne campaign to measure the Moon from Nov. 13 – 17, 2019.

The air-LUSI crew and ground crew from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, CA place air-LUSI’s component from the wingpod to the stand for hangar calibration.

Dana Chadwick, a scientist in the water and ecosystems group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, center, advises a field team of researchers from JPL; University of Wisconsin, Madison (UWM); University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC); and University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) on vegetation-sampling locations at the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve in Santa Barbara County, California, on March 24, 2022. Chadwick and the team are working on the Surface Biology and Geology High-Frequency Time Series (SHIFT) campaign, which is jointly led by JPL, UCSB, and The Nature Conservancy. Chadwick is surrounded by, from left: Natalie Queally, a forest and wildlife ecology graduate student at UWM; Francisco Ochoa, a geography graduate student at UCLA; Petya Campbell, a research associate professor at UMBC and a research associate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; Brendan Heberlein, a research intern at UWM; Renato Braghiere, a postdoctoral research scientist at JPL; Cassandra Nickles, a postdoctoral fellow at JPL; and Clare Saiki, a doctoral student at UCSB. Operating between late February and late May 2022, SHIFT combines the ability of airborne science instruments to gather data over widespread areas with the more concentrated observations scientists conduct in the field to study the functional characteristics, health, and resilience of plant communities. The sampling and analysis done by researchers on the ground and in the ocean is intended to validate data taken by AVIRIS-NG (Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-Next Generation). The instrument, designed at JPL, is collecting spectral data of vegetation it observes during weekly flights in an aircraft over a 640-square-mile (1,656-square-kilometer) study area in Santa Barbara County and coastal Pacific waters. The campaign is a pathfinder for NASA's proposed Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) mission. SHIFT will help scientists design data collection and processing algorithms for that mission, which would launch no earlier than 2028. The SHIFT data is also intended to support the research and conservation objectives of The Nature Conservancy, which owns the Dangermond Preserve, and UCSB, which operates the Sedgwick Reserve, another nature preserve within the study area. More than 60 scientists from institutions around the U.S. have indicated they intend to use the SHIFT data in their research. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA25141

The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument after integration to the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft bus at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on October 25th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's PACE observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute. PACE's unprecedented spectral coverage will provide the first-ever global measurements designed to identify phytoplankton community composition. The mission will make global ocean color measurements, using the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), to provide extended data records on ocean ecology and global biogeochemistry along with polarimetry measurements, using the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) and the Hyper Angular Research Polarimeter (HARP2) to provide extended data records on clouds and aerosols. The Earth-observing satellite mission, built at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds.

The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument on The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) in the clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on October 31st, 2023. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's PACE observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute. PACE's unprecedented spectral coverage will provide the first-ever global measurements designed to identify phytoplankton community composition. The mission will make global ocean color measurements, using the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), to provide extended data records on ocean ecology and global biogeochemistry along with polarimetry measurements, using the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) and the Hyper Angular Research Polarimeter (HARP2) to provide extended data records on clouds and aerosols. The Earth-observing satellite mission, built at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds.

Technicians integrate the Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument to the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft bus at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on October 25th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's PACE observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute. PACE's unprecedented spectral coverage will provide the first-ever global measurements designed to identify phytoplankton community composition. The mission will make global ocean color measurements, using the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), to provide extended data records on ocean ecology and global biogeochemistry along with polarimetry measurements, using the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) and the Hyper Angular Research Polarimeter (HARP2) to provide extended data records on clouds and aerosols. The Earth-observing satellite mission, built at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds.

Technicians prepare to integrate the Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument to the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft bus at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on October 25th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's PACE observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute. PACE's unprecedented spectral coverage will provide the first-ever global measurements designed to identify phytoplankton community composition. The mission will make global ocean color measurements, using the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), to provide extended data records on ocean ecology and global biogeochemistry along with polarimetry measurements, using the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) and the Hyper Angular Research Polarimeter (HARP2) to provide extended data records on clouds and aerosols. The Earth-observing satellite mission, built at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds.

The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument on The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) in the clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on October 31st, 2023. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's PACE observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute. PACE's unprecedented spectral coverage will provide the first-ever global measurements designed to identify phytoplankton community composition. The mission will make global ocean color measurements, using the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), to provide extended data records on ocean ecology and global biogeochemistry along with polarimetry measurements, using the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) and the Hyper Angular Research Polarimeter (HARP2) to provide extended data records on clouds and aerosols. The Earth-observing satellite mission, built at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds.

Technicians integrate the Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument to the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft bus at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on October 25th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's PACE observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute. PACE's unprecedented spectral coverage will provide the first-ever global measurements designed to identify phytoplankton community composition. The mission will make global ocean color measurements, using the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), to provide extended data records on ocean ecology and global biogeochemistry along with polarimetry measurements, using the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) and the Hyper Angular Research Polarimeter (HARP2) to provide extended data records on clouds and aerosols. The Earth-observing satellite mission, built at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds.

The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft bus after integration of The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on October 25th, 2022. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's PACE observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute. PACE's unprecedented spectral coverage will provide the first-ever global measurements designed to identify phytoplankton community composition. The mission will make global ocean color measurements, using the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), to provide extended data records on ocean ecology and global biogeochemistry along with polarimetry measurements, using the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) and the Hyper Angular Research Polarimeter (HARP2) to provide extended data records on clouds and aerosols. The Earth-observing satellite mission, built at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds.

As Antarctica remains shrouded in darkness during the Southern Hemisphere winter, the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on Landsat 8 captured a new snap of the 2,240-square-mile iceberg that split off from the Antarctic Peninsula’s Larsen C ice shelf on July 10-12. The satellite imagery is a composite of Landsat 8 as it past on July 14 and July 21 and shows that the main berg, A-68, has already lost several smaller pieces. The A-68 iceberg is being carried by currents northward out of its embayment on the Larsen C ice shelf. The latest imagery also details a group of three small, not yet released icebergs at the north end of the embayment. Credits: NASA Goddard/UMBC JCET, Christopher A. Shuman <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>

The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2) instrument (top) and the SPEXone instrument on The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) in the clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on October 31st, 2023. HARP2 is one of three instruments on NASA's PACE observatory, it was designed and built by UMBC's Earth and Space Institute. SPEXone has been developed by a Dutch consortium consisting of SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Airbus Defence and Space Netherlands, supported by opto-mechanical expertise from TNO. SRON and Airbus DS NL are responsible for the design, manufacturing and testing of the instrument. The scientific lead is in the hands of SRON. SPEXone is a public-private initiative, funded by the Netherlands Space Office (NSO), the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO), SRON and Airbus DS NL. PACE's unprecedented spectral coverage will provide the first-ever global measurements designed to identify phytoplankton community composition. The mission will make global ocean color measurements, using the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), to provide extended data records on ocean ecology and global biogeochemistry along with polarimetry measurements, using the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) and the Hyper Angular Research Polarimeter (HARP2) to provide extended data records on clouds and aerosols. The Earth-observing satellite mission, built at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds.

NASA Aqua spacecraft tracked the concentration and transport of carbon monoxide from Russian fires in 2010, during which time some 558 fires were burning.