Revesmecaniques - LOIN D'ICI

Our New Satellite to Study the Edge of Space

We’re about to launch a new satellite called ICON — the Ionospheric Connection Explorer — to study our planet’s boundary to space.

The overlap between Earth’s upper atmosphere and outer space is complicated and constantly changing. It’s made up of a mix of neutral gas (like the air we breathe) and charged particles, where negatively charged electrons have separated from positively charged ions. This charged particle soup reacts uniquely to the changing electric and magnetic fields in near-Earth space, while weather conditions from here on Earth can also travel upwards and influence this region. This makes Earth’s interface to space a dynamic, hard-to-predict region of the atmosphere.

Understanding what causes the changes in this region and how to predict them isn’t just a matter of curiosity. Earth’s boundary to space is home to many of our Earth-orbiting satellites, and it also plays a role in transmitting signals for communications and navigation systems. Unpredictable changes here can garble those signals and even shorten the lifetime of satellites.

ICON, launching on Nov. 7, will study this region with a unique combination of instruments. Orbiting about 360 miles above Earth, ICON will use its cameras to measure winds near the upper edge of Earth’s boundary to space and track atmospheric composition and temperature by studying a phenomenon called airglow. ICON also carries an instrument that will capture and measure the particles directly around the spacecraft, or in situ. 

ICON is launching aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket. On launch day, the Pegasus XL is carried out over the ocean by Northrop Grumman’s L-1011 Stargazer aircraft, which takes off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. About 50 miles off the coast of Florida, the Pegasus XL drops from the plane and free-falls for about five seconds before igniting and carrying ICON into low-Earth orbit.

NASA TV coverage of the launch starts at 2:45 a.m. EST on Nov. 7 at nasa.gov/live. You can also follow along with the mission on Twitter, Facebook or at nasa.gov/icon.

I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you`re proud of, and if you find that you`re not, I hope you find the strength to start all over again.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Dir. David Fincher (via wnq-movies)

Sometimes I think of the old days

Those where your eyes were nothing more than an unsolved mystery

Back when your mind was Inaccessible and your heart refused to give in

What have I done? What have I done? To you.

I'm an abyss, everything comes in but nothing ever comes back out

I'll suck your soul and crash it into little pieces of lost hopes and big dreams

Will I ever be enough?

Am I dragging you into this unbearable insignificance?

Should I set you free from the curse of ordinary and mundane?

There in the crowd, we're just a number. Only that and nothing more. No one will jump or shout or cry to our command.

And that's the awful truth, maybe we're only meant to see the life from afar. No spotlights. No curtain call.

The guilt always comes creeping in. I'm secretly so happy in this eternal nothingness. My heart rest warm in your pain.