Category Archives: Eyes in the Sky

NASA’s GLOBE Clouds App: Observe clouds for fun and science

Participate in NASA’s GLOBE Clouds program and have a great excuse to go outside on spring days and gaze at the clouds. Researchers working with the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) recently installed on the International Space Station need to calibrate what the sensors observe with what the clouds look like from the ground. You can help out as a citizen scientist by downloading the GLOBE Clouds app for your smartphone and whenever you are outside use it to capture pictures of the clouds currently in view. The program invites participants to enter up to 10 cloud observations per day from March 15, 2018 to April 15, 2018.

More details at

And here is the announcement from NASA:

Calling All Cloud Gazers: NASA Needs Your Help!

It’s almost spring, the time of year when the looming change in seasons could lead to some pretty fascinating cloud activity in the sky. NASA and the GLOBE Program are asking for your help by taking part in a citizen science cloud observation challenge.

During the GLOBE cloud observation challenge, citizen scientists of all ages can make up to 10 cloud observations per day using the GLOBE Observer app or one of the other data entry options (for trained GLOBE members). Credits: NASA/Jessica Taylor

From March 15 through April 15, citizen scientists of all ages can make up to 10 cloud observations per day using the GLOBE Observer app or one of the other data entry options (for trained GLOBE members). Challenge participants with the most observations will be congratulated by a NASA scientist in a video posted on the GLOBE Program’s website and on social media.

“The GLOBE Program is offering this challenge to show people how important it is to NASA to have citizen scientist observations; observations from the ground up,” said Marilé Colón Robles, lead for the GLOBE Clouds team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “We’re going from winter to spring, so the types of storms will change, which will also change the types of clouds.”

Researchers use, and value, this citizen science cloud data because it helps to validate data from Earth-observing instruments. Scientists at Langley work with a suite of six instruments known as the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES).

The GLOBE Observer app.

Even though CERES’ instruments use advanced technology, it is not always easy for researchers to positively identify all types of clouds in their images. For example, it can be difficult to differentiate thin, wispy cirrus clouds from snow since both are cold and bright; even more so when cirrus clouds are above a surface with patchy snow or snow cover. One solution to this problem is to look at satellite images from a particular area and compare them to data submitted by citizen scientists on the ground.

“Looking at what an observer recorded as clouds and looking at their surface observations really helps us better understand the images that were matched from the satellite,” said Colón Robles.

Citizen science observations are especially needed now because scientists are starting to verify data from a new CERES instrument. CERES FM6 launched to orbit Nov. 18, 2017 and began taking measurements Jan. 5.

You don’t have to be a cloud-gazing pro to participate. For those who want to be part of the challenge but don’t have a lot of experience identifying clouds, Colón Robles offers the following advice: “Just go outside.” The more clouds you observe, she said, the more comfortable you’ll be collecting data.

  • Read more about the challenge here.
  • Find tips for making good cloud observations here.
 NASA sponsors the GLOBE Program. The GLOBE Program is an international science and education program that provides students and the public with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process. NASA GLOBE Observer is a free smartphone app that lets anybody make citizen science observations from the palm of their hand.

Middle school students/teachers can register for next Sally Ride EarthKAM session of ISS earth imaging

Mission 60 for the Sally Ride EarthKAM program is set for February 20-26. Sally Ride EarthKAM is a NASA educational outreach program for middle school students who select particular spots on earth for imaging by a dedicated camera on the International Space Station. See the gallery of EarthKAM images taken over the years.

A recent Sally Ride EarthKAM image of Australian coast.

The program “enables students, teachers, and the public to learn about Earth from the unique perspective of space”.

The Activities section explains the details of the program. For example:

How does a Sally Ride EarthKAM mission work?
A teacher starts by signing up for a mission on the Sally Ride EarthKAM website. Students use their class’s Mission Account to pinpoint locations and request images. To figure out where and when to request images, students can track the orbit of the ISS, refer to maps and atlases, and check weather reports to see if clouds are likely to be in the way. 

UCSD undergraduates at the Sally Ride EarthKAM Mission Control Center collect image requests from schools all over the world. NASA representatives at Johnson Space Center in Houston uplink the requests to a computer on the ISS. This computer sends the requests to the digital EarthKAM camera. Then, when the ISS is passing over the exact right spot on Earth, the camera snaps a picture. 

The images are sent back to the ISS computer and downlinked to Johnson Space Center. From there they are transmitted to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena for processing and then sent to the Sally Ride EarthKAM Mission Control Center. Within hours, the Sally Ride EarthKAM team puts the images on the EarthKAM website. Students can investigate the images and make connections to subjects they are studying. 

To participate in the upcoming ISS session, students and teachers can register here.

A view of a frozen lake in Qinghai Nanshan, northern China taken with the Sally Ride EarthKAM. An entry in the Favorite EarthKAM images gallery

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Videos: “Space to Ground” ISS report – Feb.2.2018

Here is NASA’s latest “Space to Ground” report on activities related to the International Space Station:

For finding when the station is flying over your location, click on the SpotTheStation.nasa.gov link mentioned in the program.

In this video, we see photos taken by NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik of spots on Earth, which he then matched up “with pictures he’d taken of the same locations when he’d visited them previously. ”

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Videos: Satellite views of the big East Coast storm

The formation of the “nor’easter” or “bomb cyclone” that brought snow and high winds to the US East Coast can be seen in this video clip of GOES-16 weather satellite infrared imagery over a 24 hour period:

With visible light:

A view of the storm on Thursday:

A time lapse view of the whole US for a three day period that included the the formation of the cyclone that creates a nor’easter:

Some articles about the weather:

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