Wednesday, April 24th, 2019
Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) approved Beyond Visual-Line-Of-Sight (BVLOS) flights to be carried out in Brazil for the first time in the country’s history, using senseFly’s proprietary drone technology. As the first BVLOS approval ever achieved in the country, the announcement marks a pivotal point in Brazil’s commercial drone industry and will play an
Tuesday, April 16th, 2019
NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission launched in December 2018. From its perch aboard the International Space Station, GEDI’s powerful lasers create detailed 3D maps of Earth’s forests and topography, providing innovative and unique spaceborne observations. In January 2019, GEDI’s lasers were turned on for the first time, and the instrument is now giving
Tuesday, April 9th, 2019
Northern peatlands store approximately one third of global soil carbon, approximately 500 gigatons. Because the peatland carbon cycling is largely controlled by partly anaerobic soil conditions, the carbon stored in these soils is extremely vulnerable to climate warming that is expected to reduce soil moisture and therefore increase soil aeration. Understanding the interactions between warming
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019
An Italian Space Agency Earth observation mission will capture data on the chemical make-up of objects through a powerful hyperspectral imager built by Leonardo, which includes two Sofradir detectors. The PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa) satellite was launched on the Vega rocket from the Kourou, French Guiana, Space Center on March 22, 2019. PRISMA
Tuesday, March 26th, 2019
At least 200 gauges along the waterways of the Central United States—especially the Missouri and Mississippi river basins—reported some level of flooding on March 23, 2019. Thirty-six stations reported major flooding, and another 79 reported moderate floods. Historically high water levels could be a factor in the region for weeks, according to government forecasts. The
Tuesday, March 19th, 2019
A 15-year study by researchers in South Australia and Germany mapped the source, journey and effect of ultrafine particles in the lower troposphere. It found that filtration systems on modern coal-fired power stations are the biggest individual source of ultrafine particles (UFPs), ahead of urban road traffic. Results were gathered using ultralight research trikes and
Tuesday, March 12th, 2019
A classic scenario plays out in action films: criminals evade aerial pursuit from the authorities by seamlessly blending in with other vehicles and their surroundings. The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) now has Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) researchers utilizing hyperspectral video imaging systems that make sure it doesn’t happen in real life.
Tuesday, March 5th, 2019
Temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as in the rest of the world, causing permafrost soils to thaw. Permafrost peatlands are biogeochemical hot spots in the Arctic as they store vast amounts of carbon. Permafrost thaw could release part of these long-term immobile carbon stocks as the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2)
Monday, February 25th, 2019
Fossil fuel combustion is the main contributor to black carbon collected at five sites around the Arctic, which has implications for global warming, according to a study by an international group of scientists. The five-year study to uncover sources of black carbon was done at five remote sites around the Arctic and is published in
Thursday, February 14th, 2019
Set to fly in 2022, ESA’s Biomass Earth Explorer satellite with its 12-meter diameter radar antenna will pierce through woodland canopies to perform a global survey of Earth’s forests—and see how they change over the course of Biomass’ five-year mission. Trees are an integral, much-loved element of our environment; they also hold clues to our
