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NASA Launches a Mission To Study the Border of Earth and Space (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A new NASA mission, the first to hitch a ride on a commercial communications satellite, will examine Earth's upper atmosphere to see how the boundary between Earth and space changes over time. GOLD stands for Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk, and the mission will focus on the temperature and makeup of Earth's highest atmospheric layers. Along with another upcoming satellite, called ICON, GOLD will examine how weather on Earth -- and space weather caused by the sun -- affects those uppermost layers. GOLD, which will inspect the ultraviolet radiation that the upper atmosphere releases, will also be the first to take comprehensive records of that atmospheric layer's temperature. The satellite carrying GOLD will orbit 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) above Earth in a geostationary orbit, which means GOLD will stay fixed with respect to Earth's surface as the satellite orbits and the world turns. GOLD will pay particularly close attention to Earth's thermosphere, which is the gas that surrounds the Earth higher than 60 miles (97 km) up, and the layer called the ionosphere, which forms as radiation from the sun strips away electrons from particles to create charged ions. And although solar flares and other interactions on the sun do have a strong impact on those layers, scientists are learning that Earth's own weather has an impact on the layers, too.
Vladimir Putin has his hands up Donald Trump's ass and is directing him like a puppet and we are all supposed to act like we don't notice the treason we see in front of us?
Even Steve Bannon said Trump's a traitor on the record!
When is this treasonous micropenis going to see the inside a jail cell?
Between the Earth and the Space! Martians will pay for it!
Because they MUST be trolls. Seriously, nobody can be that stupid and still keep breathing.
The first four threads posted here are all cancer.
Your move slashdot.
Does that border have a lot of Mexicans jumping it like the US borders?
From the sun the affects shouldn't affect weather much beyond normal seasons and slightly elliptical orbit variations that are already known. What could be interesting is the reverse, how weather on Earth affects the ionisphere and thermosphere as it will be looking at that too. Ionisphere varies on night and day cycles due to the radiation, but that really just affects RF communications. It would be cool if it showed something unexpected, however.
'NASA launches a mission to study blah, blah, blah'. No, it WILL launch a mission towards the end of the month. Then you can write 'NASA launches a mission'.
How much budget did they waste on finding this stupid acronym?
Study Border between Earth and Space: SBES
There, that's your fucking acronym.
#DeleteFacebook
Greath Ice Barrier also know of the Wall !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
So, is this going to tell us why we don't fall off?
Let's make earth great again.
The Space Wall will make the illegal alien problem on Earth worse.
NSA trying to prove to the flat-earthers that the earth is really triangular.
This seems to be a really niche bit of science yet somebody convinced some people that it was worth spending a lot of money on as opposed to the types of missions mere mortals can appreciate like manned missions to some place other than the ISS.