The Space Billboard: Innovation or Pollution of the Earth's skies

SpaceBillboard, a supporter of innovative space research, is set to launch the world's first billboard in space in a milestone that marks the increasing importance of CubeSats in Space Exploration.

Researchers at KU Leuven University in Belgium came up with the novel idea of launching a real billboard into space to help fund their research on a new line up of NexGen satellites called CubeSats.

A CubeSat is small, about the size of a milk carton - and lightweight, which makes them cheaper to build and launch.

A CubeSat is the perfect answer for universities and start-ups to get involved in space research, one of the bedrock platforms for research on advanced technology solutions.

European Space Agency ESA and NASA in the US have active CubeSat programs that help drive the development and adoption of emerging technologies in support of new business solutions.

Tjorven Delabie, co-founder of SpaceBillboard said: "We are talking about an out-of-this-world project, that allows companies to bring their brand into space."

"The idea is catching on, and SpaceBillboard has already secured a number of contracts for companies to have their message on their own billboard in space."

The launch of the billboard is scheduled for the beginning of 2016, to be launched from Alcantara in Brazil.

Highest and fastest
The messages on the SpaceBillboard will be the highest and the fastest ever seen in the industry, flying at 27,400 kph at an altitude of 500 km.

The Billboard will orbit the Earth 15 times a day, becoming the first advertisements that literally bring their message around the world.

Although the billboard will not be visible from Earth, all messages will be continuously visible on the SpaceBillboard website as well as used in the customers' branding campaigns.

Marketing and Science
SpaceBillboard is a new kind of crowdfunding project where private and corporate donors help push space research forward. For companies, buying one or more of the 400 available squares on the billboard is a perfect opportunity to showcase their innovative spirit. At euro 2500 per square for the launch premiere, SpaceBillboard is a fantastic way to bring together experts from academia and industry to support the future of technology.

Personal Messages
Inspiring people about space research is an important part of SpaceBillboard's mission. Therefore, you can also put a personal message on the billboard yourself.

Sending a personal message into space costs euro 1/character. So far, many have already signed up to share their message, most of them are messages of love.

Into Space
Once the SpaceBillboard has been sold out, it will be put on the CubeSat. This satellite will also perform a valuable scientific mission.

The CubeSat will be deployed into a high inclination, low Earth orbit, and is expected to operate in orbit for up to ten years.

After that, the satellite will burn up in the atmosphere, ensuring that no space debris is left behind.

NASA Modis Image: Russian Smoke pollution over the Arctic Sea

Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team.

Numerous wildfires have dotted the Russian landscape this past summer fire season.

Although not quite as the adage says, although still true, where there's fire there's smoke.

The smoke in this image has drifted from the Eastern Russian wildfires to the Arctic Sea.

Other images that have been collected over the summer show both the fires that have broken out and the accompanying smoke.

The blaze of a fire is dangerous enough but smoke is an insidious by-product of fires as well. Winds carry the smoke out of the immediate area to other parts of the world not affected by the direct fire.

That smoke can cause multiple problems in the areas that it is carried to. The smoke released by any type of fire (forest, brush, crop, structure, tires, waste or wood burning) is a mixture of particles and chemicals produced by incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials.

All smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter (PM or soot).

Smoke can contain many different chemicals, including aldehydes, acid gases, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, toluene, styrene, metals and dioxins.

The type and amount of particles and chemicals in smoke varies depending on what is burning, how much oxygen is available, and the burn temperature. As always, exposure to high levels of smoke should be avoided.

This natural-colour satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite on August 12, 2014. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.

Ocean Cleanup Array: Could Remove 7,250,000 Tons Of Plastic From the World's Oceans

19-year-old Boyan Slat has unveiled plans to create an Ocean Cleanup Array that could remove 7,250,000 tons of plastic waste from the world’s oceans.

The device consists of an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms that could be dispatched to garbage patches around the world.

Instead of moving through the ocean, the array would span the radius of a garbage patch, acting as a giant funnel.

The angle of the booms would force plastic in the direction of the platforms, where it would be separated from plankton, filtered and stored for recycling.

At school, Boyan Slat launched a project that analyzed the size and amount of plastic particles in the ocean’s garbage patches.

His final paper went on to win several prizes, including Best Technical Design 2012 at the Delft University of Technology.

Boyan continued to develop his concept during the summer of 2012, and he revealed it several months later at TEDxDelft 2012.

Slat went on to found The Ocean Cleanup Foundation, a non-profit organization which is responsible for the development of his proposed technologies.

His ingenious solution could potentially save hundreds of thousands of aquatic animals annually, and reduce pollutants (including PCB and DDT) from building up in the food chain.

It could also save millions per year, both in clean-up costs, lost tourism and damage to marine vessels.

It is estimated that the clean-up process would take about five years, and it could greatly increase awareness about the world’s plastic garbage patches.

On his site Slat says, “One of the problems with preventive work is that there isn’t any imagery of these ‘garbage patches’, because the debris is dispersed over millions of square kilometres.

By placing our arrays however, it will accumulate along the booms, making it suddenly possible to actually visualize the oceanic garbage patches.

We need to stress the importance of recycling, and reducing our consumption of plastic packaging.” To find out more about the project and to contribute, click here.

Trillions of tiny bits of plastic pollutant materials trapped in Arctic ice

A team of researchers with Dartmouth College in the U.S. and the University of Plymouth in the U.K. has found that a massive amount of tiny bits of rayon, plastics and other man-made materials are embedded in Arctic sea ice.

In their paper published in the journal Earth's Future, the team describes how they found evidence of the materials in core samples taken in 2005 and 2010 and note that as Arctic sea ice melts, the embedded material will be released into the ocean, likely causing problems for marine life.

We all use plastics and other materials every day, but few of us give much thought to what happens to it after we toss it in the trash after it's no longer useful to us.

A lot of it winds up in landfills, of course, but a lot goes missing and now it appears that the researchers studying core samples, may have found where it's gone: it's been captured in Arctic sea ice, torn apart into tiny pieces during the journey there.

The rayon and plastic bits aren't noticeable to a person walking around in the Arctic because the pieces are so small, typically less than 5 millimeters in length. It's in the form of beads, fibers or irregular fragments.

Scientists have observed such material in the ocean before, particularly around garbage islands such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but never before have scientists noticed them in ice cores taken from the top of the world.

The researchers don't see any imminent threat from the embedded materials, the problem is that global warming is causing Arctic sea ice to melt, and as it does so, it will release the captured material into the sea, and no one knows what sort of impact that will have.

Most of the materials aren't expected to be toxic, but many are known to soak up chemicals, like a sponge. If the chemicals are toxic and an animal eats them, it likely would get sick or die.

In counting the number of bits of material in the ice cores and estimating the amount of ice they are in, the researchers have concluded that there might be in the neighborhood of a trillion pieces of the stuff in position ready to be released into the world's northern oceans.

A little over half of the bits were rayon, the researchers report, others were polypropylene, acrylic, nylon, polyester, polyethylene and polystyrene.

More information: Global warming releases microplastic legacy frozen in Arctic Sea ice, Earth's Future, DOI: 10.1002/2014EF000240

The Oldest Living Things on our Earth - Video

In this beautiful short trailer of 'The Oldest Living Things in the World' by filmmaker Jonathan Minnard offers glimpse of Rachel Sussman’s extraordinary world.



Interwoven with Sussman’s photographs and essays, brimming with equal parts passion and precision, are the stories of her adventures, and misadventures, as she trekked the world in search of her ancient subjects.

From a broken arm in remote Malaysia to a heart-wrenching breakup to a well-timed sip of whisky at polar explorer Shackleton’s grave (Grytviken), her personal stories imbue the universality of the deeper issues she explores with an inviting dose of humanity — a gentle reminder that life, for us as much as for those ancient organisms, is often about withstanding the uncontrollable, unpredictable, and unwelcome difficulties the universe throws our way, and that resilience comes from the dignity and humility of that withstanding.

“Our overblown intellectual faculties seem to be telling us both that we are eternal and that we are not,” philosopher Stephen Cave observed in his poignant meditation on our mortality paradox

And yet we continue to long for the secrets of the secrets of that ever-elusive eternity.

Bristlecone Pine: White Mountains, California

With an artist’s gift for “aesthetic force” and a scientist’s rigorous respect for truth, Sussman straddles a multitude of worlds as she travels across space and time to unearth Earth’s greatest stories of resilience, stories of tragedy and triumph, past and future, but above all stories that humble our human lives, which seem like the blink of a cosmic eye against the timescales of these ancient organisms — organisms that have unflinchingly witnessed all of our own tragedies and triumphs, our wars and our revolutions, our holocausts and our renaissances, and have remained anchored to existence more firmly than we can ever hope to be.

Brain Coral: Speyside, Tobago

And yet a great many of these species are on the verge of extinction, in no small part due to human activity, raising the question of how our seemingly ephemeral presence in the ecosystem can have such deep and long-term impact on organisms far older and far more naturally resilient than us.

Fortingall Yew: Perthshire, Scotland

Oppressive China Unveils Smog-Busting Drone in Fight Against Pollution

A tourist boat, decorated with green lights, travels on the Pearl River amid heavy haze in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China

Credit: Reuters 

China is preparing to test a smog-busting drone in an effort to help clean up air pollution, which has reached crisis levels in most big cities across the country.

Pollution experts will test a parafoil plane made by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.

The unmanned vehicle has a gliding parachute which contains chemicals that effectively mop up particulates and other pollutants in the air.

The drone has flexible wings, making it easier to control. It can also carry three times the amount of chemical cargo than similar-sized aircraft, the company's chief executive, Ma Yongsheng, said.

A parafoil drone designed by the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China conducts "fog-clearing" operations in Ningbo. 

The firm says testing of a type of smog-fighting drone will begin soon. 

Photo: Nandu.com

According to the South China Morning Post, Ma said the parachute can carry up to 700kg of smog clearing-chemicals.

Over recent years, Chinese authorities have used planes to spray chemicals into the air, causing pollutants in smog to fall to the ground.

Ma also noted the drone can be used for emergency rescue, disaster relief and surveillance. There is also potential for its use in agriculture as it can spread seeds over wide areas.

Premier Li Keqiang told the National People's Congress rubberstamp parliament in Beijing that he had authorised a "war on pollution".

Five facts about China's smog

• 600 million people in China have been affected by the smog blanketing large parts of the country.
• The number of people admitted to hospital in Beijing for smog-related illnesses rose by 20% in 2013. Cases of breathing-related problems rose by 50%.
• Many foreign workers have left China because of health fears caused by the smog. One company reportedly pays expats around £15,000 a year extra to work in China as part of a hardship allowance.
• The Chinese have spent £85m on anti-smog products, such as masks and air purifiers.
• It's not all bad news. The Chinese news agency claims smog "unifies the Chinese people". It says smog makes them more conscious of their health and "more willing to show love to each other".

Climate Chnage: China Asian ozone pollution covers Pacific and US West Coast

China Asian pollution drifts east toward North America in 2010. 

In this picture Hawaii is denoted by the star.

Image: Nature Geoscience.

Air pollution from China and Asia has been rising for several decades but Hawaii had seemed to escape the ozone pollution that drifts east with the springtime winds.

Now a team of researchers has found that shifts in atmospheric circulation explain the trends in Hawaiian ozone pollution.

The researchers found that since the mid-1990s, these shifts in atmospheric circulation have caused China and Asian ozone pollution reaching Hawaii to be relatively low in spring but rise significantly in autumn.

The study, led by Meiyun Lin, an associate research scholar in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) at Princeton University and a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, was published in Nature Geoscience.

"The findings indicate that decade-long variability in climate must be taken into account when attributing U.S. surface ozone trends to rising China and Asian emissions," Lin said.

Although protective at high altitudes, ozone near the Earth's surface is a greenhouse gas and a health-damaging air pollutant. The longest record of ozone measurements in the U.S. dates back to 1974 in Hawaii.

Over the past few decades, emissions of ozone precursors in China and Asia has tripled, yet the 40-year Hawaiian record revealed little change in ozone levels during spring, but a surprising rise in autumn.

Through their research, Lin and her colleagues solved the puzzle. "We found that changing wind patterns 'hide' the increase in China and Asian pollution reaching Hawaii in the spring, but amplify the change in the autumn," Lin said.

Using chemistry-climate models and observations, Lin and her colleagues uncovered the different mechanisms driving spring versus autumn changes in atmospheric circulation patterns.

The stronger transport of China and Asian pollution to Hawaii during autumn since the mid-1990s corresponds to a positive pattern of atmospheric circulation variability known as the Pacific-North American pattern (PNA).

"This study not only solves the mystery of Hawaiian ozone changes since 1974, but it also has broad implications for interpreting trends in surface ozone levels globally," Lin said.

"Characterizing shifts in atmospheric circulation is of paramount importance for understanding the response of surface ozone levels to a changing climate and evolving global emissions of ozone precursors," she said.

More information: Tropospheric ozone trends at Mauna Loa Observatory tied to decadal climate variability; Nature Geoscience (2014) doi:10.1038/ngeo2066

NASA MODIS image: Pollution and Fires in Eastern China

Images are generated at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 

Credit: Image: Jeff Schmaltz, NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

NASA's Aqua satellite captured multiple plumes of smoke from agricultural fires and further evidence of growing industrial pollution in China.

China has long since denied it's destructive role in climate change, despite evidence to the contrary.

The smoke and haze stretches from Inner Mongolia, located north of Beijing, south and west including the provinces of Hebei, Shedong, Henan, Shanxi, Hubai, Hunan, and Chongqing.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite has infrared capabilities that can detect heat from the various wildfires.

In the MODIS images, fires, or hot spots are colour coded as red areas in imagery and smoke appears in light brown. Images are generated at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Dichlorophenol-containing pesticides linked to food allergies and water pollution

Food allergies are on the rise, affecting 15 million Americans and according to a new study published in the December issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), dichlorophenol-containing pesticides could be partially to blame.

The study reported that high levels of dichlorophenols, a chemical used in pesticides and to chlorinate water, when found in the human body, are associated with food allergies.

"Our research shows that high levels of dichlorophenol-containing pesticides can possibly weaken food tolerance in some people, causing food allergy," said allergist Elina Jerschow, M.D., M.Sc., ACAAI fellow and lead study author.

"This chemical is commonly found in pesticides used by farmers and consumer insect and weed control products, as well as tap water."

Among 10,348 participants in a US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005-2006, 2,548 had dichlorophenols measured in their urine and 2,211 were included into the study.

Food allergy was found in 411 of these participants, while 1,016 had an environmental allergy.

"Previous studies have shown that both food allergies and environmental pollution are increasing in the United States," said Dr. Jerschow.

"The results of our study suggest these two trends might be linked, and that increased use of pesticides and other chemicals is associated with a higher prevalence of food allergies."

While opting for bottled water instead of tap water might seem to be a way to reduce the risk for developing an allergy, according to the study such a change may not be successful.

"Other dichlorophenol sources, such as pesticide-treated fruits and vegetables, may play a greater role in causing food allergy," said Dr. Jerschow.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an increase in food allergy of 18 percent was seen between 1997 and 2007. The most common food allergens are milk, eggs, peanuts, wheat, tree nuts, soy, fish, and shellfish.

Food allergy symptoms can range from a mild rash to a life-threatening reaction known as anaphylaxis. The ACAAI advises everyone with a known food allergy to always carry two doses of allergist prescribed epinephrine. A delay in using epinephrine is common in severe food allergic reaction deaths.

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), via Newswise.

NASA GEOS-5 Image: Global Atmospheric Aerosols

Image courtesy NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

High-resolution global atmospheric modeling run on the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation at Goddard Space Flight Center, provides a unique tool to study the role of weather in Earth’s climate system.

The Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5) is capable of simulating worldwide weather at resolutions of 10 to 3.5 kilometers (km).

This portrait of global aerosols was produced by a GEOS-5 simulation at a 10-kilometer resolution. Dust (red) is lifted from the surface, sea salt (blue) swirls inside cyclones, smoke (green) rises from fires, and sulfate particles (white) stream from volcanoes and fossil fuel emissions.

Scottish Mullite: Silicate Material That Can Cut Diesel Pollution

Platinum, a rare and expensive metal, is currently used in diesel engines to try to control the amount of pollution released into the air.

Scientists have now developed a new material that is much more effective than platinum in reducing pollution. University of Texas at Dallas scientists have found that oxide mullite could reduce pollution up to 45 percent compared to platinum crystals.

Mullite or porcelainite is a rare silicate mineral of post-clay genesis, They claim that mullite is less expensive to produce compared to platinum crystals.

Mullite was first described in 1924 for an occurrence on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. It occurs as argillaceous inclusions in volcanic rocks in the Isle of Mull and also with emerylike rocks in Sithean Sluaigh, Scotland.

"Many pollution control and renewable-energy applications require precious metals that are limited - there isn't enough platinum to supply the millions and millions of automobiles driven in the world," said Dr Kyeongjae "K J" Cho, professor at the University of Texas.

"Mullite is not only easier to produce than platinum, but also better at reducing pollution in diesel engines."

Diesel engines give higher fuel efficiency compared to gasoline but produce more nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which are quite harmful to human health.

Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) upgraded the classification of diesel engine exhaust as carcinogenic in humans, putting it in the same category as cigarette smoke and asbestos.

Countries throughout the world have drafted guidelines to reduce diesel air pollution in the next decade.

The new material developed by scientists could be a new cheap and effective way to reduce pollution.

The discovery was made while analysing the chemical components of mullite.

The team used advanced computer modelling techniques to analyse how different forms of the mineral interacted with Oxygen (O) and Nitrous Oxide (NOx).

The study revealed that the oxide mullite reduces pollution up to 45 percent compared to platinum crystals.

"Our goal to move completely away from precious metals and replace them with oxides that can be seen commonly in the environment has been achieved," Dr Cho said.

"We've found new possibilities to create renewable, clean energy technology by designing new functional materials without being limited by the supply of precious metals."

NASA LandSat: Catastrophic growth of China’s megacities and Pollution levels

In 1973, NASA and United States Geological Survey’s Landsat 3 satellite took the image above of quiet, rural land (plant-covered land is red) along China’s Pearl River Delta. 

Six years later, in 1979, the region began to grow as China set up two economic zones north of Hong Kong. 

Then, 30 years later, in 2003, Landsat 7 satellite took this dramatic shot:

Images: NASA/USGS

It’s a catastrophic urban shift, happening all over China, with an unsupportable increase in demand for natural resources and the associated suchoking rge in pollution levels.

You can see the booming urban areas in gray, a major contrast to the mostly red image from 1973.

In the image you can see part of Guangzhou, the most populous urban area in the region today with 12,700,000 people; Dongguan, an urban area with more than 8 million people; and Foshan with more than 7 million. As of 2010, the Pearl District Economic Zone had a population of 36 million.

You can see more before and after images from 10 other cities across the globe. Or, at The Atlantic Cities, check out Nate Berg’s slightly jarring animated GIF rendition of the urban shift.

Human Destruction of Habitat and Earth's Resources Accelerates!

A scavenger bobs around on a giant ocean of rubbish on one of the world's most polluted waterways.

The makeshift vessel carves a path through rubbish on the River Sentiong in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The river, which winds through the capital city, has been dubbed the 'River of Refuse'.

Picture: Sinar Sakti Images / Barcroft Media

On 6 June 2007, the city administration introduced the Waterway (officially Angkutan Sungai), a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River. 

However, because of the large amount of floating garbage which kept jamming the propeller, it is no longer in service. 

ESA IDRISI: Protecting the heart of Borneo

Forest cover loss and forest degradation under Business as Usual scenario 2020, calculated using the IDRISI Land Change Modeller and spatial analysis.

Credits: Hatfield Consultants

In Southeast Asia, the island of Borneo is home to one of the world’s most diverse rainforests, but its natural resources are under threat.

Information from satellites is being used to evaluate the impact of the island’s future development.

The mountainous island is the third largest in the world.

It is an area of exceptional biological diversity and its natural resources have tremendous social and economic value at local, national and global levels.

While still of great importance, these resources have diminished in recent years due to logging, plantation development, mining and forest fires.

“The ecosystems in the heart of Borneo provide many local, regional and global services and benefits,” said Anna van Paddenburg, Sustainable Financing and Policy Strategy Leader for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia.

“The mountainous forests form the headwaters of most of Borneo’s 20 major rivers, providing water for agriculture, human consumption, and industry. 

“The forests provide timber and non-timber forest products, and store huge amounts of carbon.

“The diverse ecosystems support endemic plants and animals, which supports eco-tourism and pharmaceutical research.”

While it is widely recognised that healthy ecosystems provide services that play a critical role in maintaining individual and societal welfare, the benefits that flow from them are not always accounted for in government and private sector decision-making.

In an effort to protect the environment and develop the area in a sustainable way, the Heart of Borneo conservation agreement was initiated by WWF and signed by the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei in 2007.

In December 2010, WWF initiated an assessment of Borneo’s natural capital to quantify and understand the value of ecosystem services and benefits.

ESA provided technical assistance through Hatfield Consultants, a Canadian environmental and geomatics consulting company that has been working in Indonesia for 20 years, and NEO BV, a value-adding data provider.

Read more here

Also visit one amazing individual's conservation efforts, saving gibbons and other endangered species, in neighbouring Indonesia: www.kalaweit.com

NASA Maps Global View of Health-Sapping Air Pollution

In many developing countries, the absence of surface-based air pollution sensors makes it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to get even a rough estimate of the abundance of a subcategory of airborne particles that epidemiologists suspect contributes to millions of premature deaths each year.

The problematic particles, called fine particulate matter (PM2.5), are 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, about a tenth the fraction of human hair. These small particles can get past the body’s normal defenses and penetrate deep into the lungs.

To fill in these gaps in surface-based PM2.5 measurements, experts look toward satellites to provide a global perspective.

Yet, satellite instruments have generally struggled to achieve accurate measurements of the particles in near-surface air.

The problem: Most satellite instruments can't distinguish particles close to the ground from those high in the atmosphere.

In addition, clouds tend to obscure the view and bright land surfaces, such as snow, desert sand, and those found in certain urban areas can mar measurements.

However, the view got a bit clearer this summer with the publication of the first long-term global map of PM2.5 in a recent issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

Canadian researchers Aaron van Donkelaar and Randall Martin at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, created the map by blending total-column aerosol amount measurements from two NASA satellite instruments with information about the vertical distribution of aerosols from a computer model.

Read more of this article here: NASA - Global View of Health-Sapping Air Pollution

Satellite observes spatiotemporal variations in mid-upper tropospheric methane over China

To understand the profile of methane in China and provide data for validation of satellite products, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements were made at a ground-based hyperspectral remote sensing laboratory at the National Satellite Meteorological Center.

Atmospheric methane (CH4), one of the main greenhouse gases, has increased dramatically worldwide since the pre-industrial era. However, much work is needed to build on intermittent and scattered observations since the 1960s and systematic study since the 1980s.

Since 1983, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has coordinated global in-situ measurement of methane. Quantification of methane emissions still has large uncertainties, mainly because of undersampling over most regions of the globe by surface observation networks.

In particular, spatiotemporal variations of mid-upper tropospheric methane in China are not well understood, because of limited in-situ measurements.

Dr. ZHANG Xingying and his group at the National Satellite Meteorological Center of the China Meteorological Administration tackled this problem using satellite observations.

Using Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) methane data from 2003 to 2008, they revealed spatiotemporal variations of mid-upper tropospheric methane in China.

Their study shows that in the mid troposphere, a center of low CH4 concentration is located over western China, attributable to minimal industrial and agricultural activity. The lowest CH4 mixing ratio in the upper troposphere is over southern China, related to atmospheric transport from the ocean.

A seasonal cycle of methane has been discovered. One peak in summer and the other in winter over eastern, northeastern and northwestern China. Only one peak (in summer) occurs over southern and western China.

Before 2007, CH4 mixing ratio was nearly stable. The average mixing ratio during the last 6 years over major northern hemispheric countries is similar.

However, there has been a significant increase in tropospheric CH4 concentrations after 2007 in most northern hemispheric areas, with slightly larger increases over China.

Dr. ZHANG Xingying has stated that the trend of CH4 based on satellite observation is still somewhat uncertain, because of the short, 6-year dataset. More satellite data of higher quality are needed for further trend analysis.

To understand the profile of methane in China and provide data for validation of satellite products, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements were made at a ground-based hyperspectral remote sensing laboratory at the National Satellite Meteorological Center.

A Bruker FTIR instrument (IFS 120 M, made in Ettlingen, Germany) with 0.008 cm-1 spectral resolution, was used for observations. Several years of data have been collected.

Implementation and promotion of this work will publicize methane spatiotemporal variations and their potential sources. In so doing, informed efforts may be mounted to reduce methane emission and resulting global climate change.

The National Satellite Meteorological Center manages satellite climate products in China. Two payloads for greenhouse gas monitoring are in development for the next satellite. One of the payloads is similar to AIRS for mid-upper tropospheric greenhouse gases.

The other is for low tropospheric greenhouse gases, and uses a near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer. Meanwhile, more in-situ measurements have been carried out in China for more detailed investigation of greenhouse gases.

Dr. XIONG Xiaozhen, an expert from NOAA, is in charge of AIRS methane product retrieval. He believes that this study is the first to use satellite data for analyzing mid-upper tropospheric methane over China, and represents important step in the study of climate change.

Pollution endangers Rare Chinese white dolphin: DNA bank

An endangered Chinese white dolphin (Sousa chinensis chinensis) swims off the coast of Hong Kong in August 2011.

A Hong Kong conservation group has set up a DNA bank for the rare Chinese white dolphin, also known as the pink dolphin, in a bid to save the mammals facing a sharp population decline.

There are about 2,500 Chinese white dolphins in the busy insutrialised Pearl River Delta region, the body of water between Macau and Hong Kong, with the majority of the mammals in Chinese waters and the rest in Hong Kong.

But experts say their number has dropped significantly in the past few years due to overfishing, an increase in maritime traffic, water pollution, habitat loss and coastal development.

In a bid to save the dwindling population, the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation Hong Kong said it had joined hands with a Chinese university to set up a DNA bank, which will also spearhead a genetic research project.

"We hope to offer the scientific community a standardised genetic analysis platform to assess the sustainability of Chinese white dolphin populations," Judy Chen, the foundation chairwoman said in a statement.

"The collected data will provide important reference to governments in the region for developing critical strategies of Chinese white dolphin conservation," she added.

The biological samples of these dolphins will be sent to the DNA bank to investigate the environmental impacts on the mammal, the statement said.

The Chinese white dolphins, a sub-species of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, are unique for their pink skin. They are listed as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The mammal was the official mascot at the handover ceremony when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, while dolphin watching is a favourite tourist attraction in Hong Kong.

Its population in Hong Kong has dropped from an estimated 158 in 2003 to only 75 in 2010, according to the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society.

SPINSTARS: the first polluters of the Universe

From the analysis of the chemical composition of some of the oldest stars in our Galaxy, an international team of astronomers led by Cristina Chiappini from the Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP) and the Instituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) presents new clues on the nature of the first stellar generations in our Universe.

“We think that the first generations of massive stars were very fast rotators – that’s why we called them spinstars”, explains Chiappini.

Their findings will be published in a Nature article on April 28, 2011.

Massive stars live fast and furious, and hence the first generations of massive stars in the Universe are already dead.

However, their chemical imprints, like fingerprints, can still be found today in the oldest stars in our Galaxy. These fossil records are thus the witnesses of the nature of the first stellar generations to pollute our Universe.

“It is like if we tried to reveal the character of a cook from the taste of his dishes”, says Prof. Georges Meynet, from the Geneva University.

How were these first stars? Were they different from the stars we observe today?

Soon after the Big Bang, the composition of the Universe was much simpler than at present as it was made of essentially only hydrogen and helium.

The chemical enrichment of the Universe with other elements had to wait around 300 million years until the fireworks started with the death of the first generations of massive stars, polluting the primordial gas with new chemical elements, which were later incorporated in the next generations of stars.

Using data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), the astronomers reanalyzed spectra of a group of very old stars in the Galactic Bulge.

These stars are so old that only very massive, short-living stars with masses larger than around ten times the mass of our Sun should have had time to die and to pollute the gas from which these fossil records then formed.

As expected, the chemical composition of the observed stars showed elements typical for enrichment by massive stars.

However, the new analysis unexpectedly also revealed elements usually thought to be produced only by stars of smaller masses. Fast-rotating massive stars on the other hand would succeed in manufacturing these elements themselves.

“Alternative scenarios cannot yet be discarded - but - we show that if the first generations of massive stars were spinstars, this would offer a very elegant explanation to this puzzle!”, says Cristina Chiappini. Team member Urs Frischknecht, a PhD student at the Basel University, is already working on extending the stellar simulations in order to further test the proposed scenario.

The impact of having had an early generation of spinstars in the Universe is manifold. Fast rotation also affects other properties of a star, such as its colour, its lifetime and its luminosity. 

Spinstars would therefore also have strongly influenced the properties and appearance of the first galaxies which were formed in the Universe.

The existence of spinstars is now also supported by recent hydrodynamic simulations of the formation of the first stars of the universe by an independent research group.

Further information:

• Original publication: Chiappini et al., Imprints of fast-rotating massive stars in the Galactic Bulge, to be published in Nature, 2011. (DOI: 10.1038/nature10000, publication date: April 28, 2011)

• Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP) - www.aip.de

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Space Debris: China Leads In Outer Space Pollution

China has topped the list of the world's major polluters of the near-Earth space environment, followed by the United States and Russia, the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said on Friday.

All together, the three main space powers produce 93% of space debris, according to a statement published on the agency's website.

"According to estimates, 40% of space debris is produced by China. The U.S.'s share accounts for 27.5%, and Russia's [share] for 25.5%, with 7% falling on other countries involved in space exploration," the statement said.

The NASA Orbital Debris Program Office has named Russia and CIS countries as the main polluters of outer space
. According to the organization, Russia and its former Soviet allies disposed of a total of 5,833 spacecraft or their parts, including 1,402 satellites and 4,431 parts of carrier rockets, by ejecting them into near-Earth space.

Some 15,550 "dead" spacecraft, rocket stages, upper-stage rockets and their parts are orbiting around Earth, according to the U.S. space agency.

NASA also named France, Japan and India as major polluters of the near-Earth space environment, with the figures standing at 472, 190 and 170, respectively.

Russian scientists have proposed the creation of an international airspace system for monitoring the near-Earth space environment. The idea has already been supported by the international community, Roscosmos said