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Gravity Field And Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer
The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) was the first of ESA's Living Planet Programme satellites intended to map in unprecedented detail the Earth's gravity field. The spacecraft's primary instrumentation was a highly sensitive gravity gradiometer consisting of three pairs of accelerometers which measured gravitational gradients along three orthogonal axes. Launched on 17 March 2009, GOCE mapped the deep structure of the Earth's mantle and probed hazardous volcanic regions. It brought new insight into ocean behaviour; this in particular, was a major driver for the mission. By combining the gravity data with information about sea surface height gathered by other satellite altimeters, scientists were able to track the direction and speed of geostrophic ocean currents. The low orbit and high accuracy of the system greatly improved the known accuracy and spatial resolution of the geoid (the theoretical surface of equal gravitational potential on the E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thales Alenia Space
Thales Alenia Space () is a Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer. A joint venture between the French technology corporation Thales Group (67%) and Italian defense conglomerate Leonardo (33%), the company is the largest satellite manufacturer in Europe. It is headquartered in Cannes, France. Thales Alenia Space designs and builds various space-related products, notably manufacturing numerous ranges of satellites for telecommunications, navigation, earth observation and space exploration purposes. The company is the second largest industrial participant in the International Space Station (ISS), having produced the European Space Agency's (ESA) modules for the ISS. It is also building satellites for Galileo, a European global satellite navigation system (GSNS). History Thales Alenia Space arose as a result of the French defense electronics specialist Thales Group deciding to buy out the participation of Alcatel in two joint-ventures between France's Alcatel and Italy's Finm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mantle (geology)
A mantle is a layer inside a planetary body bounded below by a Planetary core, core and above by a Crust (geology), crust. Mantles are made of Rock (geology), rock or Volatiles, ices, and are generally the largest and most massive layer of the planetary body. Mantles are characteristic of planetary bodies that have undergone planetary differentiation, differentiation by density. All Terrestrial planet, terrestrial planets (including Earth), a number of Asteroid, asteroids, and some planetary Natural satellite, moons have mantles. Earth's mantle The Earth's mantle is a layer of Silicate minerals, silicate rock between the Crust (geology), crust and the Earth's outer core, outer core. Its mass of 4.01 × 1024 kg is 67% the mass of the Earth. It has a thickness of making up about 84% of Earth's volume. It is predominantly solid, but in Geologic time scale, geological time it behaves as a Viscosity, viscous fluid. Partial melting of the mantle at mid-ocean ridges produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mann Eddy
The Mann Eddy is a very small feature of ocean currents in the Atlantic. It is a persistent clockwise circulation in the middle of the North Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ... ocean, specifically "a mesoscale anticyclone, adjacent to the path of the North Atlantic Current (NAC) in the Newfoundland basin". The eddy has persisted since its initial discovery in 1967. The oceanographer Dr Rory Bingham from Newcastle University (UK) describes it as "a persistent pocket of water in the Atlantic that just goes around and around." References {{reflist Physical oceanography Currents of the Atlantic Ocean ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Geophysical Union
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international fields within the Earth and space sciences. The geophysical sciences involve four fundamental areas: atmospheric and ocean sciences; solid-Earth sciences; hydrologic sciences; and space sciences. The organization's headquarters is located on Florida Avenue in Washington, D.C. History The AGU was established in December 1919 by the National Research Council (NRC) to represent the United States in the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), and its first chairman was William Bowie of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (USCGS). For more than 50 years, it operated as an unincorporated affili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gal (unit)
The gal (symbol: Gal), sometimes called galileo after Galileo Galilei, is a unit of acceleration sometimes used in gravimetry. BIPM ''SI brochure'', 8th ed. 2006Table 9: Non-SI units associated with the CGS and the CGS-Gaussian system of units. The gal is defined as 1 centimeter per second squared (1 cm/s2). The milligal (mGal) and microgal (µGal) are respectively one thousandth and one millionth of a gal. The gal is not part of the International System of Units (known by its French-language initials "SI"). In 1978 the CIPM decided that it was permissible to use the gal "with the SI until the CIPM considers that tsuse is no longer necessary". However, use of the gal is deprecated by ISO 80000-3:2006. The gal is a derived unit, defined in terms of the centimeter–gram–second (CGS) base unit of length, the centimeter, and the second, which is the base unit of time in both the CGS and the modern SI system. In SI base units, 1 Gal is equal to 0.01 m/s2. The a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inertial
In classical physics and special relativity, an inertial frame of reference (also called inertial reference frame, inertial frame, inertial space, or Galilean reference frame) is a frame of reference that is not undergoing any acceleration. It is a frame in which an isolated physical object — an object with zero net force acting on it — is perceived to move with a constant velocity (it might be a zero velocity) or, equivalently, it is a frame of reference in which Newton's first law of motion holds. All inertial frames are in a state of constant, rectilinear motion with respect to one another; in other words, an accelerometer moving with any of them would detect zero acceleration. It has been observed that celestial objects which are far away from other objects and which are in uniform motion with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation maintain such uniform motion. Measurements in one inertial frame can be converted to measurements in another by a simp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket Engine
A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, in accordance with Newton's third law. Most rocket engines use the combustion of reactive chemicals to supply the necessary energy, but non-combusting forms such as cold gas thrusters and nuclear thermal rockets also exist. Vehicles propelled by rocket engines are commonly called rockets. Rocket vehicles carry their own oxidiser, unlike most combustion engines, so rocket engines can be used in a vacuum to propel spacecraft and ballistic missiles. Compared to other types of jet engine, rocket engines are the lightest and have the highest thrust, but are the least propellant-efficient (they have the lowest specific impulse). The ideal exhaust is hydrogen, the lightest of all elements, but chemical rockets produce a mix of heavier species, reducing the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drag (physics)
In fluid dynamics, drag (sometimes called air resistance, a type of friction, or fluid resistance, another type of friction or fluid friction) is a force acting opposite to the relative motion of any object moving with respect to a surrounding fluid. This can exist between two fluid layers (or surfaces) or between a fluid and a solid surface. Unlike other resistive forces, such as dry friction, which are nearly independent of velocity, the drag force depends on velocity. Drag force is proportional to the velocity for low-speed flow and the squared velocity for high speed flow, where the distinction between low and high speed is measured by the Reynolds number. Even though the ultimate cause of drag is viscous friction, turbulent drag is independent of viscosity. Drag forces always tend to decrease fluid velocity relative to the solid object in the fluid's path. Examples Examples of drag include the component of the net aerodynamic or hydrodynamic force acting opposite to the di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ion Propulsion
An ion thruster, ion drive, or ion engine is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. It creates thrust by accelerating ions using electricity. An ion thruster ionizes a neutral gas by extracting some electrons out of atoms, creating a cloud of positive ions. Ion thrusters are categorized as either electrostatic or electromagnetic. Electrostatic thruster ions are accelerated by the Coulomb force along the electric field direction. Temporarily stored electrons are reinjected by a ''neutralizer'' in the cloud of ions after it has passed through the electrostatic grid, so the gas becomes neutral again and can freely disperse in space without any further electrical interaction with the thruster. By contrast, electromagnetic thruster ions are accelerated by the Lorentz force to accelerate all species (free electrons as well as positive and negative ions) in the same direction whatever their electric charge, and are specifically referred to as plasma propul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Earth Orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never more than about one-third of the radius of Earth. The term ''LEO region'' is also used for the area of space below an altitude of (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites. All crewed space stations to date have been within LEO. From 1968 to 1972, the Apollo program's lunar missions sent humans beyond LEO. Since the end of the Apollo program, no human spaceflights have been beyond LEO. Defining characteristics A wide variety of sources define LEO in terms of altitude. The altitude of an object in an elliptic orbit can vary significantly along the orbit. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermosphere
The thermosphere is the layer in the Earth's atmosphere directly above the mesosphere and below the exosphere. Within this layer of the atmosphere, ultraviolet radiation causes photoionization/photodissociation of molecules, creating ions; the thermosphere thus constitutes the larger part of the ionosphere. Taking its name from the Greek θερμός (pronounced ''thermos'') meaning heat, the thermosphere begins at about 80 km (50 mi) above sea level. At these high altitudes, the residual atmospheric gases sort into strata according to molecular mass (see turbosphere). Thermospheric temperatures increase with altitude due to absorption of highly energetic solar radiation. Temperatures are highly dependent on solar activity, and can rise to or more. Radiation causes the atmospheric particles in this layer to become electrically charged, enabling radio waves to be refracted and thus be received beyond the horizon. In the exosphere, beginning at about 600 km (375&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fins
A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluids. Fins are also used to increase surface areas for heat transfer purposes, or simply as ornamentation. Fins first evolved on fish as a means of locomotion. Fish fins are used to generate thrust and control the subsequent motion. Fish, and other aquatic animals such as cetaceans, actively propel and steer themselves with pectoral and tail fins. As they swim, they use other fins, such as dorsal and anal fins, to achieve stability and refine their maneuvering.Helfman G, Collette BB, Facey DE and Bowen BW (2009"Functional morphology of locomotion and feeding" Chapter 8, pp. 101–116. In:''The Diversity of Fishes: Biology'', John Wiley & Sons. . The fins on the tails of cetaceans, ichthyosaurs, metriorhynchids, mosasaurs, and plesiosaurs are ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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