Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Why We Need Missions to Earth

Episode Date: July 14, 2008

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Why we need missions to Earth, this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan. We've had a lot of distinguished guests on this show, but we haven't had a Nobel Peace Prize winner till now. Dr. Barry and Morris shared that honor last year as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We'll talk with him about the importance of Earth observation,

perhaps for our very survival. Bill Nye the Science Guy flies in with a message about the discovery of water at Mercury. Emily Lakdawalla returns to Q&A with a guide to proper exposure wherever you're taking pictures in the solar system. And Bruce Betts joins me for burgers, fries, and a look at the night skies in this week's What's Up. For the latest news from out there, you can cruise over to planetary.org, where Emily's blog can also be

found. Barry and more is right around the corner. Here's Bill. Hey, Bill Nye, the planetary guy here, vice president of Planetary Society. Very excited about a message from the inner solar system. I refer, of course, to the messenger spacecraft named after Mercury, the god who delivered messages in theoretical ancient times. Anyway, Mercury goes around the sun so close to the sun, the sun's solar wind has created what is generally called an exosphere. This wouldn't quite be an atmosphere. This is getting little pieces of Mercury up in, if you will, the Mercurian sky. Mercury up in, if you will, the Mercurian sky.

As the MESSENGER spacecraft went flying by Mercury, it scooped up what is essentially some of the Mercurian surface. And get this, my friends, it has the signature, the atomic signature, of water. Water somewhere perhaps in the very dark, shadowed craters on the planet Mercury that ends up in its exosphere, and the MESSENGER spacecraft detected it, and we know about it out here on the third rock from the Sun. This is so very exciting, because once again, it gives us insight into where we all came from. Is Mercury like the Moon? Is Mercury like something else? And if so, why? And we are getting this information from millions and millions of kilometers away.

And yet it is absolutely conclusive. Maybe. So if there's water on Mercury, does that mean there's water in the shadows of the craters on the moon? Is that possible? A lot of people have speculated about it. And we're closer to knowing the next level of truth. It's very exciting, my friends. Please stay tuned to Planetary Radio as we, members of the Planetary Society,

continue to learn more about other worlds and our place among them. I've got to fly. Bill Nye, the Planetary Guy. guy. Why is the Planetary Society promoting study of the Earth? Well, it is a planet, you know, and it's one we have very good reason to learn more about. That's why the Society sent a delegation to Washington, D.C. late last month. On the trip were some of the nation's most distinguished scientists. We'll talk with Charles Kennel in an upcoming program.

He and this week's guest, Berrien Moore, are contributors to a special issue of the Planetary Society's magazine titled, Riding the Earth Together. Dr. Moore's accomplishments and recognition stretch across much of science, including his co-chairing of the National Research Council's Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space. This so-called decadal study laid out an ambitious plan to reinvigorate Earth observation. Berrien recently called us from the Princeton, New Jersey office of a brand new organization called Climate Central. He has just been named its founding executive director. Berrien, thanks so much for joining us on Planetary Radio. How would you describe the current status of the United States' ability to observe our own planet?

Well, the current status is fine. In fact, it's really quite extraordinary because we have on orbit many of the missions that were initiated in the early 90s, in particular the Earth Observing System, three large spacecraft, and then a suite of other focused scientific efforts as well as operational efforts. But many of these spacecraft, many of these missions, are getting a little long at the tooth, shall we say. If we don't start now to begin plans to replace them, then we're going to fall off a cliff. You mentioned in your article in the Planetary Report

that while the funding has really dwindled for these, it seems that even if it just came back to the level of nearly 10 years ago, we'd be in much better shape. Absolutely. Roughly beginning 10 years ago, or even really just 8 years ago, we'd be in much better shape. Absolutely. Roughly beginning 10 years ago, or even really just 8 years ago, right around 2000, we started into a rather precipitous decline. And in the earth sciences, we're down over a third. And if we could reestablish that level in real terms that we're at in the year 2000,

then you could actually accomplish most of the decadal survey. And that would be a time anyway to take a fresh look because you would have learned something. So you're right. If we could get back to where we were, we'd be fine. You mentioned the decadal survey. You co-chaired this committee put forward by the National Research Council, which came up with these recommendations. That was a pretty distinguished group. Well, it was really a remarkable time. Rick Antes,

my co-chair, and I were really honored to be able to chair this group. It was the first time the Earth-sized community had come together and established a set of priorities across the various disciplines and articulated, I think, the challenges facing the United States and the planet, for that matter, and that many of these challenges, environmental and otherwise, really require global observations from space. So the decadal survey came forward with a set of recommendations, and I've been told it has had the greatest impact of any of the decadal surveys. I wonder if you were able to gauge any of that impact on the trip that you made to Capitol Hill recently with Lou Friedman, the executive director of the Society, and Bill Nye, the

science guy, and some other very distinguished scientists. Well, we could, because we had many of the key committee staff, and it's the committee staff that really guide on technical matters, that really guide the actions of the budgetary process. process. They have been in constant dialogue with us since the decadal survey came out roughly 18 months ago on ways of implementing the recommendations and how to get back on this path to recovering the lost funds and focus that recovery on the recommended missions. So it's very exciting and it was very rewarding to see so much interest from both sides of the aisle of the key staff members. Is Washington beginning to get it? I think they are. I think that there was a fortuitous event for the decadal survey.

It came out in January of 2007. And in February of 2007, the IPCC released the Policymaker's Summary from the Fourth Assessment. So you had these two events, one right after the other. The second event, of course, being focused on the issue of climate change, which I think has come front and center stage for the United States as it has been for the world. And the Decadal Survey obviously addressed climate change as one of the key themes that Earth observations need to address. We have been examining the Earth from space. We have been collecting increasing amounts

of data on the ground for many, many decades. Why is it so important now that we continue to collect data about the Earth? We need to understand well the processes governing many of the functions of the planet. It is not sufficient just to have a time series of information. We need to get at process level understanding. And the reason for that is that the system about which we want to make statements has undergone a significant change, for instance, on this question of climate. We have changed the radiated balance of the planet. As a consequence, we can't drive by looking in the rearview mirror. You could drive by looking in the

rearview mirror if you're driving on a relatively straight road. But I can assure you, you're not going to drive through the city of Boston, which I know well, by looking in the rearview mirror. Because we will have changes in the future that are not in the time series. Because the planet has been perturbed. So we really need to get at this process level of understanding across a wide range of processes. Now let me give a specific example. One of the missions we recommended was to measure carbon dioxide at all latitudes, all seasons, day and night. Now the reason that's valuable is because there's slight differences in the concentration of carbon dioxide, partly as a reflection of sources

and sinks, where carbon dioxide is coming from and where it's going to. Now, if we could make those measurements over extended time periods that includes El Nino and non-El Nino, different climatological states, then you can begin to tease out the processes that are controlling the distribution of carbon dioxide. And how those processes might change in a changing climate is a fundamental question. We're going to launch next year the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. That will be the first step.

But that works off of reflected sunlight, and hence only gives us information in the daytime and in relatively cloud-free areas. We need to take our sunlight with us and hence have a laser-based mission and do it day-night all seasons. So that's just one example. I'll return with scientist Marion Moore of Climate Central in one minute. This is Planetary Radio. I'm Sally Ride.

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It takes a lot to create exciting projects like the first solar sail, informative publications like an award-winning magazine, and many other outreach efforts like this radio show. Help make space exploration and inspiration happen. Here's how you can join us. You can learn more about the Planetary Society at our website, planetary.org slash radio, or by calling 1-800-9-WORLDS.

Planetary Radio listeners who aren't yet members can join and receive a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Members receive the internationally acclaimed Planetary Report magazine. That's planetary.org slash radio. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. My guest is scientist Berrien Moore, formerly a professor of systems research at the University of New Hampshire, where he headed the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space. Now he has become the founding executive director of Climate Central. We'll hear more about that organization in a moment, but first we'll

continue our conversation about the importance of Earth observation. It strikes me as you talk about these useful improvements in technology, such as being able to measure CO2 at night, that there is some spinoff benefit here from the missions that we more typically cover on this show, the ones that are flying to our on this show, the ones that are flying to our neighbor planets in the solar system and improving our ability to observe them. That's correct. And in fact, some of the techniques, for instance, this way of measuring carbon dioxide using a laser, you could take that same technology and let's suppose we are concerned about, for instance, methane coming out

of the tundra in a warming situation. This may not require a space mission. It may be something that is more local, though large. You could put this on towers and make this kind of measurement for tower-based systems or aircraft-based systems. So as we make this recovery, we're really going to have to become serious again about investing in technology capabilities. Your article in the Planetary Report is not at all about just making sure that we have the tools to gather the data, but what we do with that data, how society makes use of that data to solve the problems that they uncover, this is maybe a bigger challenge than gathering that data.

You're right. When we formed the Decatur Study for Earth Science, and it was for Earth Science and Applications, we recognized that there were going to be two themes. First of all, understanding how our planet works is one of the great intellectual challenges facing people. I mean, it's just of enormous excitement to say we understand how the earth works, to contribute to that understanding. Secondly, nothing could be more important socially. Nothing could be more important to our society, to our economic well-being, to our security. Look at the situation just in the last six months. You've had this horrific storm in the Indian Ocean. You've had

this horrific earthquake in China. And you have today these horrific, sorry to use the same word, but it's true, these horrific wildfires in California. We need to have in-place systems that give us some prognostic capability. Surely we could do an even better job in forecasting landfall on the typhoon. We actually did a rather remarkably good job because our operational systems are still in place. Earthquake. Can we begin to tease out slight shifts in the tectonics that may give us some warning, some statistical warning? It won't be like weather prediction, but perhaps we could get a statistical edge on that problem. Well, thirdly, we need to be able to predict or detect the conditions that are trigger points for wildfires. It's essentially a soil moisture

vegetation dryness index, so that we get out ahead of these problems. But certainly it's not just climate. Certainly it deals with a wide array of challenges of living on this dynamic planet with more than 6 billion people. Barry, and after more than 20 years of extremely accomplished service at the University of New Hampshire, why set out now to start your own non-profit, Climate Central? Well, two points of correction. It was 39 years at the University of New Hampshire. Sorry about that. So I'm a little long at the tooth talking about satellite missions being a little overage.

Well, yours truly. And secondly, I didn't kind of create this nonprofit. The whole community had been talking about this. Some very generous people decided to step in and create it, and then they invited me in. And I felt that this was something that I should do. We need to find a way to merge what we know about the issue of climate and the body politics understanding of that. The issue has become highly politicized over the last few years, or maybe for many times issue's become highly politicized

over the last few years, or maybe for many times it's been highly politicized. It need not be. It's a scientific and social challenge, just like a lot of other things, just like our economy. And we just need to confront it as adults and begin to look at ways

as to what's the magnitude of the challenge, how's it going to be expressed, and what are the technological and social approaches to meeting that challenge. Something we do all the time. We just have to do it here on this problem. The website, which hopefully, this organization being extremely new, is climatecentral.org. Is there a good chance that by the time our listeners hear this, that they'll be able to take a look at that site and learn more about Climate Central? Yes, climatecentral.org, www.climatecentral.org.

It will be online in an interim basis where one of our products will be available and some of our thinking about our organization. But we're committed to communicating across a broad avenue of techniques and technologies. And so the full-op site will not be available until the fall. We will have a branded channel on YouTube. We're going to do blogs and video blogs. Our strategy is really one of providing pyramids of information so that there will be very refined 70-second video products, longer-form video, white papers, science papers, survey papers, video blogs where you will see various investigators around the world, around the United States. So it's a strategy of layered communication in a way that is straight up and honest.

We're not going to spin it. Well, we're happy to be talking to you right at the beginning of this. I would like, before we run out of time, to congratulate you on your piece of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize that went to the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Well, it was an enormous enterprise of the community, and I'm just a part of the community, a small part. And let me also express my gratitude to the Planetary Society, not only for the wonderful historical work you've done in making us aware of our solar system and our universe, but also for your recognition of the importance of the planet on which we live.

Thank you, Berrien. Thank you. Berrien Moore led the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire for more than 20 years before leaving just recently to become the first, the founding executive director of Climate Central, which you can find, as we said, at climatecentral.org. If we went through his other awards, we wouldn't have time to get to Emily with her Q&A

or Bruce Betts with this week's edition of What's Up, but we will mention that he received NASA's highest honor for a civilian, the Distinguished Public Service Medal. And it is time for Emily. Be right back with Bruce for a look at the night sky. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, Images from Phoenix make Mars look as bright as a summer's day on Earth.

Wouldn't it be darker at Mars because it's farther from the Sun? The Sun is less bright at Mars than it is at Earth by roughly a factor of two. So it might seem that photographs from Mars should all look dark. Why don't they? For one thing, the slightly dimmer Sun is partially offset by a thinner and less scattering atmosphere at Mars. But the main reason that pictures from Mars don't appear dark is because we always account for light levels at any space target by sending a camera with the sensitivity necessary to detect light at ambient levels and then setting exposure times so that enough light gets to the camera to make the target visible.

Cameras sent to Mars don't have to be very different from cameras sent to Earth. If it's slightly dimmer at Mars on a sunny day, Mars almost never sees cloudy days like Earth's, so ambient light levels are usually within an Earth-like range. Cameras sent to the outer solar system, on the other hand, have to be much more sensitive. Cassini's camera is designed for light levels at Saturn, where the sun is only one percent as bright as it is on Earth. Yet Cassini's camera is sensitive enough to see details on the night sides of the moons, where the only light available has been reflected first from Saturn or its rings. Human eyes are similarly capable of functioning

at wide extremes of light levels, from sunlight to starlight. A human explorer on the night side of Enceladus may one day walk around on an icy landscape lit by Saturn shine. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio.

As promised, we are in person and on location. We are. With Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, and it must be time for What's Up. Tell them where we are. We're at a planetary eating establishment. Wolf Burger. Wolf Burger.

Wolf Burger. And there is great significance to the location, which will come up later, because it's right on Lake Avenue, only like a block and a half, two blocks from the Planetary Society. And I suggested it because they have the best French fries that I've ever tasted. You're going to try to shove one through the microphone? I'm going to do it while you're telling us about the night sky. Oh, good. Very nice. Thank you. Very rude. Eclipses. Yes, it's eclipse season. There's a total solar eclipse on August 1st.

But if you're not in the right parts of northern Russia or China or various other places, at least lots and lots of you, though not us, can see a partial solar eclipse. The partial will be visible throughout much of Europe and much of Asia. And can we give them a website link so they can go check out the details? Please. No, I mean, we'll put it on planetary.org. Oh, I'll put it on the site as well. Right, we'll put it on planetary.org slash radio. I get on the site as well. Right, we'll put it on planetary.org

slash radio. I get you. Or you can just search for the NASA solar eclipse site. It's quite nice. And that'll give you the details if you're off there in Asia or Europe and trying to figure out exactly what you'll see and when on August 1st. And then on August 16th, there's a partial lunar eclipse, and that'll be visible throughout much of South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, visible throughout much of South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia. We're on the missing continent, but have fun, everyone. August 16th. We get zip.

In Eclipse land, we get zip. Okay. But we can see the next things I'm going to talk about. August 12th, Perseid meteor shower peaks. The second in normal years, the second most prominent meteor shower, meaning about 60 meteors per hour from a dark side. And you can just go outside and stare up at the sky. It usually gets later as it gets later. It's better.

You don't have to do it just on August 12th, but a few days before, a few days after will work. And, of course, we've got the planets up. Jupiter, really easy to see in the evening. You can see it over in the east, brightest star-like object up. An hour or two before dawn, you can see it in the evening. You can see it over in the east. Brightest star-like object up an hour or two before dawn. You can see it in the west. And Saturn and Mars, after nuzzling each other, are still close together in Leo.

Very low in the west shortly after sunset. Excellent. Busy sky. Yeah, it is. It is. On to random space facts. I don't want to scare anyone here. You scared the listeners, I think. I'm sorry.

Talking about Earth and Earth observations from space, it's sort of more of a random Earth fact, but it's a random Earth fact only because we have space observations. The most lightning. Where are the most lightning strikes on Earth, on average? Do you know? I have no idea. Right here at Wolf Burger.

Oh, Lord. And they said there'd be thundershowers today. I'm moving inside. No, no, totally wrong. It is the Congo Basin of Central Africa. Get this. Per year, per kilometer, 158 lightning flashes per year. Wow. A lot. Yeah, that is a lot. Although we beat them for a couple of weeks in Northern California a few weeks ago when all those fires, the 1,000 fires started.

Also, in fact, there's some, if you can call it, just wonderful pictures from both aerial and satellite observations of all the fires going on in California. Yeah, I've seen some of those. Real-time Earth observation helping out. All right, let us move on to the trivia contest. And we asked you last time about what are the brightnesses measured in magnitudes of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, and Vega, one of the brightest stars in the sky.

And apparently I wasn't explicit enough, so we got people sending both apparent magnitude, which is what I was really looking for, what we see in the sky, but people also sent absolute magnitude, which is the I was really looking for, what we see in the sky. But people also said absolute magnitude, which is the question, if you were a uniform distance from each of these stars, how bright would they be? How did we do, Matt? You know, we did get both from people. No problem there. Both were quite acceptable because we didn't specify.

And our winner, now I said it was significant that we're here at Wolf Burger on Lake Avenue. Now this is freaky because I wrote to this guy when I saw the address. He said, you can mail it to me or I'll just walk over and pick up my prize if I win. Well, he won. Random.org. Ivan M. Thoen. I'm Ivan Thoen. And he is right here on North Lake Boulevard. Probably one of those office buildings right across the street. I hope not in IndyMac, the bank that has its headquarters and was just taken over by the FDIC. You're going to feel awfully badly if the answer is yes, aren't you? But, Ivan, don't worry about it.

You've got a poster. It's true. Who needs a thriving business when you have an Explorer's Guide to Mars poster? Or a job, for that matter. Well, okay. That's just a happy-go-lucky kind of a guy. Cock-eyed optimist. Let's go on to another trivia contest.

What are we going to offer him this time? Oh, you know what? We didn't say. I'm sorry. Let's give him another Explorer's Guide to Mars poster. Absolutely. We can do that, absolutely. Absolute magnitude of Vega, 0.58. Absolute magnitude of Sirius, A, 1.42. And Vega, apparently the apparent is zero because it was always used as the standard, I guess. Yeah, I don't want absolutes.

That's why I mentioned Vega. Oh, you want apparent. All right. I want apparent because Vega is zero. That's why it's cool. Vega is zero, and the apparent of Sirius is minus 1.47. Indeed. Remember, minus is brighter, and that's the brightest star in the sky.

But not as bright as Jupiter. Go out there and see it. Moving right along to the trivia contest. If you're on Mars, as we often want to be, what is the very large volcano that is in between the large volcanoes Arcea Mons and Ascreas Mons? Excuse the pronunciation on Ascreas. Arcea and Ascreas, what's the big old hanging volcano in between the two? Go to planetary.org slash radio, find out how to enter.

Get that entry to us by Monday, 2 p.m., Monday, July 21st. Monday, 2 p.m., Monday, July 21st. And you might just get one of those Explorer guides to that place with all those volcanoes. And then you'll be able to see it. If you have one already, Ivan can just look it up right now. We're done. All right, everybody, go out there, look up in the night sky, and think about tasty French fries. They are the best.

They actually are the best I have ever tasted. Wolf Burger on Lake. Thank you for letting us use your patio. He's Bruce Betts, who enjoys the, what do they call it, the Big Bad Wolf? The Big Bad Wolf. Two-thirds pounds of nothing but burger. He is the director of projects for the Planetary Society, and he joins us every week here for What's Up.

Join us next time for another conversation with Sean Solomon, Principal Investigator for the Messenger Mission to Mercury, the one that just found water. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. Have a great week. Thank you.