Pasadena, CA – NASA’s newest climate mission has started collecting data on the amount of heat in the form of far-infrared radiation that the Arctic and Antarctic environments emit to space.
These measurements by the Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-Infrared Experiment (PREFIRE) are key to better predicting how climate change will affect Earth’s ice, seas, and weather — information that will help humanity better prepare for a changing world.
One of PREFIRE’s two shoebox-size cube satellites, or CubeSats, launched on May 25th from New Zealand, followed by its twin on June 5th. The first CubeSat started sending back science data on July 1st. The second CubeSat began collecting science data on July 25th, and the mission will release the data after an issue with the GPS system on this CubeSat is resolved.
The PREFIRE mission will help researchers gain a clearer understanding of when and where the Arctic and Antarctica emit far-infrared radiation (wavelengths greater than 15 micrometers) to …