Orbiting Carbon Observatory To Shed Light On Climate Change Mysteries

Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are seen as the main culprit for climate change, yet scientists still have a limited understanding of how much carbon dioxide is being put into, and coming out of, the atmosphere. At 01:53 PST on Feb 23, an Orbital Sciences Taurus XL 3110 booster (CL) will launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) from Vandenberg AFB, CA. The OCO will use a spectrometer, developed by Hamilton Sundstrand Sensor Systems to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide globally, while pinpointing the key locations on the Earth's surface where CO2 is being emitted and absorbed. Once in orbit, the 441 kg observatory will be the 6th satellite inserted into the Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train (B), a fleet of spacecraft that carry a range of instrumentation to study Earth's atmospheric and water systems. The other members of the A-Train are: NASA's Aqua and CloudSat, and France's Calipso, Parasol and Aura. OCO will fly over the planet in 16-day cycles from a 771 km-high, Sun-synchronous orbit collecting up to 8 million soundings per cycle. The data will allow scientists to better predict future changes in CO2 distribution, and the effect that these changes may have on Earth's climate. Japan's GOSAT, launched last month, is also studying atmospheric CO2, yet it is focused on sources rather than concentrations of the gas. Europe is currently considering 2 carbon observatories, A-SCOPE and BIOMASS, for launch in 2016. (Credit: NASA)

Chile contains arguably the best window to the stars on Earth. Several large observatories have already taken advantage of its pristine environment for astronomical observations, and with several revolutionary observatories in the works, Chile is poised to surpass Hawai`i's Mauna Kea as the world's preeminent center of astronomy. With its arid, clear skies and high elevation, the Atacama desert of northern Chile has attracted several world-class observatories since the 1960s, when the US National Science Foundation's Cerra Tololo Observatory, and the European Southern Observatory's La Silla began operation. The largest of the observatories currently in operation is the Very Large Telescope of the Paranal Observatory (T). It consists of 4 8.2-m Unit Telescopes (UTs) which can be operated independently or in combined mode. In this latter mode, the VLT provides the total light collecting power of a 16 meter single telescope, which eclipses both Keck and the Gran Telescopio Canarias as the largest optical telescope in the world. New advances in technology and design are leading to a new generation of large telescopes, many of which are being planned for northern Chile. Two of these include the Cornell-Caltech Atacama Telescope, a 25-m single aperture telescope; and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (C), a single instrument composed of 64 high precision antennas. Other projects such as the Thirty Meter Telescope and the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (B) are also considering Chile as a potential site. (Credit: ESO, ALMA)