New Space Shot Aims for Insight Into Ozone Layers
Date: 10-Jun-04
Country: UK
Author: Jeremy Lovell
The launch of the Aura satellite from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California has already been delayed from June 19 due to technical problems, but a new date has been tentatively set for June 26.
"This will allow us to probe the earth's planetary system and how it operates as a whole," NASA Earth Sciences official Ghassem Asrar told reporters at a news conference in London.
"The knowledge we gain will help inform our discussions on what to look for through the rest of the galaxy as we probe for life on other planets," he added.
Once orbiting the earth Aura -- carrying experiments from British, Dutch and Finnish scientists as well as teams from the United States all under the guidance of NASA -- will join an array of other satellites monitoring the atmosphere.
Built to monitor earth, air and sea, the chain of satellites is the latest bid to understand the causes and consequences of climate change -- branded earlier this year by Britain's chief scientist David King a bigger threat than terrorism.
"This is going to be relevant to every man and woman on the street because it will tell us about the earth's atmosphere and how and why it is changing," said Richard Holdaway of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.
The state-of-the-art instruments aboard Aura include the British-made High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS) that will scan the crucial interface known as the Tropopause where the Troposphere -- in which people live -- meets the Stratosphere.
In particular it will look at the relationship between ozone in the lower atmosphere which is harmful to life and is largely caused by man-made chemicals, and ozone in the upper atmosphere which protects against the sun's ultra-violet rays and which is destroyed by man-made chemicals.
It will also look at compounds in the air -- including water vapor -- which are major greenhouse gases and which are strongly on the rise.
"The Tropopause is a very delicate region to get right. It is where things happen that are very important to us," Alan O'Neill of Reading University told reporters.
"The planet's climate is changing. We are on the threshold of what appears to be rather dramatic climate change. There is a real need to get accurate information about the earth's atmosphere," he added.
The first verified data from Aura should be available to scientists on earth within nine months and will then continue in an unending stream for at least six years and possibly a decade.
"This will be crucial to filling in the holes in our knowledge and evaluating our climate predicting models," said O'Neill.
