NOVA Official Website Earth From Space. Earth From Space. PBS Airdate February 1. NARRATOR Our planet Earthyou may think you know it well, but a startling new picture is emerging of a world shaped by forces more dynamic and intertwined than we ever imagined, raising possibilities that defy common sense. How can sandstorms in the Sahara Desert transform the Amazon rainforest, over 5,0. In the frigid ocean beneath Antarctica, how can a vast undersea waterfall, 5. Niagara Falls, lead to a gigantic feeding frenzy near the equatorAnd how can warm water, streaming past the coast of Africa, trigger a weather catastrophe, half a world away, in the southern United States Scientists have begun to find surprising answers to these and other profound questions, thanks to a network of satellites, orbiting high above the earth. Ever watchful, their senses extend far beyond what our eyes can see. EMILY SHUCKBURGH British Antarctic Survey Its really the last bastion of human discovery. Were discovering new things every day. NARRATOR What are these hidden forces that rule our world How are the oceans, the continents, the atmosphere and even the sun bound together, and how do they affect all living thingsThe river cascades through steepsided gorges and churns around isolated towers of rock, before winding across a vast plain beyond. It is a torrent to rival the. Throwing things out of anger is never a smart move, but it can also lead to more serious consequences. Especially when youre at an airport and what youre. Amazon source The Living Planet. Torrent ducks dabble in the vital fresh water that runs from Perus moors. Torrent ducks dabble in the vital fresh water that runs. RE8.jpg' alt='Torrent Bbc Planet Earth' title='Torrent Bbc Planet Earth' />For the first time, we can understand how earth, fire, wind and water join together to create the dynamic environments that shaped life in all its forms. WALEED ABDALATI NASA Chief Scientist Their interaction is what has created the environment, the diversity, the kind of life we see on Earth today. NARRATOR With astonishing images created from a wealth of new information from satellites, this is our planet, as never seen before Earth from Space, right now, on NOVA. Since humans first ventured into space, some of the greatest gifts of exploration have been the new views of our home. Who can forget the iconic Earthrise images of the Apollo era And now, from the International Space Station, we have these spectacular vistas. The blue marble is finally revealing its secrets. Its a planet alive with activity and constant change, its surface transformed by humans, yet still ruled by powerful natural forces that we are only beginning to understand. WALEED ABDALATI Its just spectacular when you view it from space. Its teeming with diversity, with beauty, amazing colors, you know The blues and the greens and the whites. Cost Of Dr Bernstein Diet Program more. PIERS SELLERS NASA Goddard Space Flight Center You see the world as one huge system, all linked through the atmosphere and the oceans, rolling its way around the sun. NARRATOR So what is it that shapes Earths dynamic face What are the essential ingredients, and how do they combine to generate and sustain all lifeHow do the natural forces that surround us work together to create an engine powerful enough to nourish and drive life forward, in all its diversity Our best hope for answers may come from above. Orbiting over our heads are 1. Most operate at altitudes ranging from a few hundred miles above the surface of the planet to as high as 2. Each one of these Earth observing satellites reveals a different piece of the puzzle. Each carries an array of exquisitely sensitive detectors designed to reveal what would otherwise be hidden from our view. EMILY SHUCKBURGH Satellites are absolutely amazing because, not only can we see visible things from space, but, also, we can see things that arent visible to the human eye. So satellites are enabling us to turn what are invisible processes into visible things we can see and then understand. NARRATOR To see how our world works, in this program we have taken information provided by satellites, combined it with computer models, and rendered the results in these scientifically accurate graphics. With the invisible now revealed, we can see Earth as an endlessly changing system. These images will show, in great detail, how sunlight, moisture, land and atmosphere interact in unexpected ways, with seemingly local events often triggered by forces far away in space and time. And with these new insights, for the first time, scientists can begin to understand the intimate relationship between the planet and all the living things it supports. WALEED ABDALATI Its really the thrillbecause it matters so muchof piecing together the story of what the earth is doing, how its changing, why its changing and how, ultimately, that affects humans. NARRATOR The first piece of the puzzle is in understanding the massive influence the sun, from 9. PIER SELLERS The worlds continuously bathed in a flow of energy from the sun. That warms the earth. Everything that you can see that lives and breathes and moves on the earth is pushed by the sun. NARRATOR Now an electronic eye in space can measure the impact of the suns energy all around the earth. One of NASAs newest satellites, named for a meteorologist, polar orbiting Suomi, launched in 2. The spacecraft is the size of a small school bus. It orbits 5. 00 miles up, circling the planet 1. On board, it carries five separate sensors that enable it to see things invisible to human eyes. The light that we can see is confined to a narrow band of electromagnetic radiation, just a tiny portion of what the satellite can pick up. Electromagnetic radiation spans a spectrum that goes far beyond the familiar colors of the rainbow. WALEED ABDALATI If you were to consider the full spectrum to be a line that stretched from New York City to Los Angeles, the piece that our eyes could see would be about the size of a dime. There is so much other information out there available to us, and thats, in large part, what these satellites do. NARRATOR One of this satellites key instruments is called CERES, an acronym for Clouds and the Earths Radiant Energy System. It detects a broad range of the spectrum, including the very short and very long wavelengths of light in the ultraviolet and infrared that we cant see. This is a CERES eye view of the planet. Anything that emits heat gives off infrared radiation, so the CERES data shows the earth in shades of heat, accurate to a fraction of a degree. It reveals how the planet, as a whole, reacts to sunlight, both absorbing and reflecting the radiation coming from our local star. At the poles, the sun strikes at an oblique angle and what little light there is, gets reflected back out to space by the ice and clouds. These are the primary reasons why the poles remain cool. At the equator, its a very different story. Not only does the planet receive more direct sunlight here, the lack of ice means that less of the suns energy is reflected back into space. And at the equator, the suns concentrated energy fuels a heat engine that can trigger weather events around the world. Perhaps the best place to see the impact of the suns heat is an area in the Atlantic, just north of the equator and west of Africa the coastal waters of the Cape Verde islands. Here the sea provides a living. The local fishermen keep a careful eye on the weather. They know that storms can bring a good catch. Turbulent weather stirs up nutrients from the deep, attracting great shoals of fish. Its the hottest time of the year, and the sun beats down relentlessly. By late afternoon, the huge inflow of heat energy has led to the buildup of large cloud formations. Sometimes these formations develop into massive storms. Its a process that satellites are revealing in fine detail. Circling above the fishermen is a NASA satellite called Aqua, Latin for water. It orbits the poles.