Multimedia

Pho, a plucky bright green photon of light, must travel from a NASA spacecraft down to Earth and back again to help complete a crucial science mission in this educational short film.

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The Trees Around the GLOBE Student Research Campaign is a multi-year campaign for students and educators from around the world. This campaign highlights measurements of tree height and focuses on the scientific, cultural, and personal foundation of trees. After students take and collect data, their goal is to make sense of their data and develop presentations, posters, and research projects based on their data and data analysis. Students can also visualize and retrieve additional GLOBE Program data for use in these research projects. Click HERE to learn more.

Laser Focus: The Receiver

Opto-Mechanical Engineer Tyler Evans explains how the photons that bounce back from Earth are received and filtered by the ATLAS telescope.

Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

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ICESat-2 is an incredibly precise space laser that features the latest in NASA technology To measure ice heights, engineers have to take ICESat-2’s instrument ATLAS to the extreme – sometimes going big, sometimes going small, but always keeping it precise.

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Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

To deliver the instrument safely to the spacecraft for assembly and testing, the ATLAS team developed special procedures for packing, transporting and monitoring the sensitive hardware.

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Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

To develop the computer programs that will crunch the raw data gathered by ICESat-2, the mission flew a series of campaigns with the MABEL instrument, which gathers similar information.

Official ICESat-2 mission patch logo.

#PhotonPhriday was a weekly look at how ICESat-2 measures Earth – from Antarctic dunes to the Bahamas to Greenland’s glaciers. Check out the profiles of our planet below!

5/31    Disko Bay, Greenland

6/7      Pine Island Glacier

6/14    Grand Canyon, AZ

6/21    Nantucket, MA

6/28    Jakobshavn, Greenland

7/4      Yosemite Valley, CA

7/12    Crane Glacier, Antarctica

7/19    Cape Canaveral, FL

7/26    Crater Lake, OR

8/2      Mount Everest, Nepal

8/9      West Central Greenland meltponds

8/16    Los Angeles, CA

8/23    Great Bahama Bank

8/30    Dunes in Morocco; Megadunes in Antarctica

9/6      Nares Strait, Greenland

9/13    Gilbert, AZ

9/20    Nordenskiold Glacier, Greenland

9/27    Sequoia National Park, CA

10/4    Lake Mead, NV

10/11  Denali, AK

10/18  Rhine, France

10/25  Norwegian fjords

10/31  Transylvanian Alps

11/8    French Polynesian atolls

11/15  Forests of Botswana

11/22  Smoke clouds from Sonoma Fires

11/29  Black Forest (Germany), Black Sea (Istanbul), Black Canyon (Gunnison, CO)

12/6    San Francisco, CA

12/13  Cascade Mountains, Washington

Learn more about ICESat-2!

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The Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, is a laser altimeter that will measure the heights of Earth’s surfaces. This animation shows deployment of ICESat-2's solar panels, door, and laser pulses.

Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

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In Photon Jump, a 3-minute short animation, a brave photon of light named Pho must travel from a NASA spacecraft down to Earth and back again to help complete a crucial science mission. The animation was created by the ICESat-2/SCAD Collaborative Student Project involving students and faculty from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

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The ATLAS lidar on ICESat-2 uses 6 laser beams to measure the earth’s elevation and elevation change. This animation shows the beam tracks on Earth as the satellite passes overhead.

Video Credit: NASA/GSFC
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An engineer attaches components to ICESat-2's beryllium telescope, before it is attached to the satellite's ATLAS instrument.

NASA cryospheric scientist Kelly Brunt and ICESat-2 Deputy Project Scientist Tom Neumann recall some of the highlights and challenges from the recent 88-South Antarctic Traverse.

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Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

ICESat-2 will use six laser beams to measure the height of ice, as illustrated in this not-to-scale artist's rendering. This illustration is an outcome of the ICESat-2/SCAD Collaborative Student Project.

If ICESat-2 flew over a football field, it would take measurements within each yard line (green circles) – plus there's six of these green laser beams taking measurements at once!
The first ICESat instrument only fired 40 times a second, and would have taken a measurement in each end zone (red circles).

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) archives and distributes data from ICESat-2. Here is their intro video to the mission.

An engineer checks ICESat-2's box structure, shortly after its arrival in a NASA clean room in May. Over the next two years, engineers and technicians will attach electronics, optics, lasers, a telescope and more to the box, testing its function at each step.

With extreme cold-weather gear, scientific instruments, and two tank-like snow machines called PistenBullys, ICESat-2 scientists traversed along section of the 88-degree south latitude line in an arc around the South Pole. 

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Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

This animation shows how ICESat-2 measures sea ice thickness.

ICESat-2 will measure the height of ice and its features, such as this glacial melt pond photographed July 16, 2014, over Alaska.

The ATLAS box structure, with weights attached to simulate different components, is attached to a vibration table at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where it will be tested to see if it can withstand the jolts associated with a rocket launch.

Beyond icy areas, ICESat-2 will measure other ecosystems including forests, rain forests, deserts and urban areas. This 2-sided poster is an outcome of the ICESat-2/SCAD Collaborative Student Project.

ICESat-2's instrument will take measurements every 2.5 feet along its ground path - mapping dips and drop-offs in the ice. This illustration is an outcome of the ICESat-2/SCAD Collaborative Student Project.

Launch countdown Snapchat story aired on August 22, 2018.