NASA's GOLD satellite shots first image of Earth's upper atmosphere
New Delhi : The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) of NASA has successfully captured the first image of Earth's upper atmosphere. It's the Earth's ultraviolet atomic oxygen emissions, which is set to explore the dynamic boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space.
GOLD has captured the first light image of ultraviolet atomic oxygen emission (135.6 nm wavelength) from the Earth's upper atmosphere. It was taken at approximately 6 a.m. local time, near sunrise in eastern South America. The colors correspond to emission brightness, with the strongest shown in red and the weakest in blue.
The GOLD satellite of NASA has opened its cover to scan the Earth for the first time, resulting in a "first light" image of the Western Hemisphere in the ultraviolet.
Scientists now believe that the instrument will transmit unprecedented global-scale imaging of the temperature and composition at the dynamic boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space.
NASA experts say that GOLD is their mission initiated by the University of Central Florida. The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder built the instrument.
It is positioned in the geostationary orbit on a commercial communications satellite, SES-14, built by Airbus for Luxembourg-based satellite operator, SES.
GOLD satellite has been launched with an aim to investigate the dynamic intermingling of space and Earth's uppermost atmosphere. It is the first NASA science mission to fly an instrument as a commercially hosted payload.
Scientists say that the data driven by GOLD will help to improve the forecasting models of the space weather events that can impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space.
