This week’s image is from SpaceX, which launched NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission into orbit earlier today (the Falcon 9 rocket engines are shown above).
The spacecraft is designed to monitor the Earth from orbit. NASA explains the mission is this way:
Information collected throughout PACE’s mission will benefit society in the areas of ocean health, harmful algal bloom monitoring, ecological forecasting, and air quality. PACE also will contribute new global measurements of ocean color, cloud properties, and aerosols, which will be essential to understanding the global carbon cycle and ocean ecosystem responses to a changing climate.
The PACE’s mission is designed to last at least three years, though the spacecraft is loaded with enough propellant to expand that timeline more than three times as long.
Our Awesome Universe 