Tsunami

[lucifershammer]

was just watching a program on the 2004 tsunami on the history channel.

one line just jumped right out at me.

"a nasa oceanographic satellite happened to be over the exact area at the time"

how many oceanographic sattelites does nasa have up? what are the chances of this happening? anyone with any info?

[sensimillia]

thats interesting, never heard that before. lets see what comes up...:)

[sensimillia]

NASA has been observing the oceans from space for more than 20 years. NASA launched Seasat, the first civilian oceanographic satellite, on June 28, 1978. The satellite carried five complementary sensors designed to monitor the oceans from space. These sensors included:

a radar altimeter to measure spacecraft height above the ocean surface;
a microwave scatterometer to measure wind speed and direction;
a scanning multichannel microwave radiometer to measure sea surface temperature;
a visible and infrared radiometer to identify cloud, land and water features; and
a synthetic aperture radar to monitor the global surface wave field and polar sea ice conditions.
Although a massive short-circuit in its power system ended all data-taking operations after only 105 days, the Seasat instruments provided as much oceanographic data as had been acquired by ships in the previous 100 years! The variables that Seasat measured in its short lifetime are some of the most important for understanding the ocean and its role in climate.

Another satellite, Tiros-N, was also launched in 1978. It carried the first AVHRR sensor which produced the first really useful maps of sea-surface temperature, and the Coastal Zone Color Scanner, that produced the first maps of chlorophyll and primary productivity in the ocean.

Today there are several ocean-observing satellite missions and an extensive scientific research community studying these data. Each mission provides its own unique contribution to our knowledge of the ocean, however our understanding is rapidly evolving such that we are coming to more fully understand the role that each parameter plays in the constantly changing conditions and cycles of the ocean and thus on climate and weather.


there seems to be a number of them but no exact figures, will look further.

http://science.hq.nasa.gov/oceans/