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After just two years in orbit, ESA’s GOCE satellite has gathered enough data to map Earth’s gravity with unrivalled precision. Scientists now have access to the most accurate model of the ‘geoid’ ever produced to further our understanding of how Earth works.
 
The new geoid was unveiled today at the Fourth International GOCE User Workshop hosted at the Technische Universität München in Munich, Germany. Media representatives and scientists from around the world have been treated to the best view yet of global gravity.

The geoid is the surface of an ideal global ocean in the absence of tides and currents, shaped only by gravity. It is a crucial reference for measuring ocean circulation, sea-level change and ice dynamics – all affected by climate change.

Prof. Reiner Rummel, former Head of the Institute for Astronomical and Physical Geodesy at the Technische Universität München, said, “We see a continuous stream of excellent GOCE gradiometry data coming in. With each new two-month cycle, our GOCE gravity field model is getting better and better.  
 
“Now the time has come to use GOCE data for science and applications. I am particularly excited about the first oceanographic results.

“They show that GOCE will give us dynamic topography and circulation patterns of the oceans with unprecedented quality and resolution. I am confident that these results will help improve our understanding of the dynamics of world oceans.”

The two-day workshop provides the science community with the latest information on the performance of the satellite and details about data products and user services.
 
Participants are also discussing how the GOCE geoid will make advances in ocean and climate studies, and improve our understanding of Earth’s internal structure.

For example, the gravity data from GOCE are helping to develop a deeper knowledge of the processes that cause earthquakes, such as the event that recently devastated Japan.

After just two years in orbit, ESA’s GOCE satellite has gathered enough data to map Earth’s gravity with unrivalled precision. Scientists now have access to the most accurate model of the ‘geoid’ ever produced to further our understanding of how Earth works.
 
The new geoid was unveiled today at the Fourth International GOCE User Workshop hosted at the Technische Universität München in Munich, Germany. Media representatives and scientists from around the world have been treated to the best view yet of global gravity.

The geoid is the surface of an ideal global ocean in the absence of tides and currents, shaped only by gravity. It is a crucial reference for measuring ocean circulation, sea-level change and ice dynamics – all affected by climate change.

Prof. Reiner Rummel, former Head of the Institute for Astronomical and Physical Geodesy at the Technische Universität München, said, “We see a continuous stream of excellent GOCE gradiometry data coming in. With each new two-month cycle, our GOCE gravity field model is getting better and better.  
 
 
“Now the time has come to use GOCE data for science and applications. I am particularly excited about the first oceanographic results.

“They show that GOCE will give us dynamic topography and circulation patterns of the oceans with unprecedented quality and resolution. I am confident that these results will help improve our understanding of the dynamics of world oceans.”

The two-day workshop provides the science community with the latest information on the performance of the satellite and details about data products and user services.
 
Participants are also discussing how the GOCE geoid will make advances in ocean and climate studies, and improve our understanding of Earth’s internal structure.

For example, the gravity data from GOCE are helping to develop a deeper knowledge of the processes that cause earthquakes, such as the event that recently devastated Japan.

Since this earthquake was caused by tectonic plate movement under the ocean, the motion cannot be observed directly from space. However, earthquakes create signatures in gravity data, which could be used to understand the processes leading to these natural disasters and ultimately help to predict them.

The GOCE satellite was launched in March 2009 and has now collected more than 12-months of gravity data.
 
 
Volker Liebig, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes said, “Benefiting from a period of exceptional low solar activity, GOCE has been able to stay in low orbit and achieve coverage six weeks ahead of schedule.

“This also means that we still have fuel to continue measuring gravity until the end of 2012, thereby doubling the life of the mission and adding even more precision to the GOCE geoid.”

GOCE has achieved many firsts in Earth observation. Its gradiometer – six highly sensitive accelerometers measuring gravity in 3D – is the first in space.

It orbits at the lowest altitude of any observation satellite to gather the best data on Earth’s gravity. The design of this sleek one-tonne satellite is unique.

In addition, GOCE uses an innovative ion engine that generates tiny forces to compensate for any drag the satellite experiences as it orbits through the remnants of Earth’s atmosphere.
 
 
Prof. Liebig added, “You could say that, at its early conception, GOCE was more like science fiction. GOCE has now clearly demonstrated that it is a state-of-the-art mission.”

Rune Floberghagen, ESA’s GOCE Mission Manager, noted “This is a highly significant step for the mission. We now look forward to the coming months, when additional data will add to the accuracy of the GOCE geoid, further benefiting our data users.”

Source: European Space Agency

A Cornell electrical engineering professor is helping art historians do a little detective work by using computing algorithms to identify which of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings came from the same original rolls of canvas.

C. Richard Johnson Jr., the Geoffrey S.M. Hedrick Senior Professor of Engineering, is on leave from Cornell this semester to serve as an adjunct research fellow at the Van Gogh Museum and other museums in the Netherlands. Computer algorithms are allowing Johnson and colleague

Richard Johnson has created weave density maps of the canvas threads in Vincent Van Gogh paintings to help authenticate and date the works of art. Painting F651, "Falling Leaves," matches the thread pattern of F659, "Garden of the Asylum," providing evidence that the canvases came from the same roll.

s to count the number of individual threads per centimeter in the canvases Van Gogh painted on — tasks that would take multiple lifetimes to complete by hand.

“There is a long tradition of interaction between scientists and museums in the materials science area, but what’s not been done so much is this kind of image processing and analysis that can be done by the computer,” said Johnson, whose academic expertise is in signal processing, which he has long wanted to mix with his Ph.D. minor in art history.

To analyze the paintings, researchers first X-ray them to unveil the thread patterns from beneath layers of opaque white primer. These images are then fed into the computer so individual weave densities can be calculated.

These canvas “weave maps” plot the average thread count of either horizontally or vertically oriented threads, represented by colors. Matching patterns allows observers to quickly determine whether paintings came from the same roll of canvas, giving historians a clearer view of the order in which Van Gogh painted his most famous works.

“This is pretty extraordinary,” Johnson said. “What’s happening is some doubted paintings are being authenticated, and some that had been placed at a funny date are now being moved.”

When Johnson began working with the Van Gogh Museum in 2007, he knew he wanted to use signal processing to help art conservators; he just wasn’t sure exactly how. Much of his early work involved fraud detection — using computers to identify fakes — a “sexy” topic, he says, from which he’s been wanting to branch out.

Now, as the Van Gogh Museum readies an exhibition years in the making on the methods, practice and technique of Van Gogh, Johnson’s technical expertise will have played a significant role.

Johnson and collaborators Don Johnson of Rice University and Rob Erdmann of the University of Arizona have counted the threads in all 320 Van Goghs owned by the Van Gogh Museum, and more than two dozen other museums — approximately 60 percent of all those in museums worldwide. The ones in private collections are a trickier matter, Johnson said, but he’s hoping more collectors will come forward so engineers can account for the threads in every Van Gogh painting in the world.

These types of technologies could continue revolutionizing people’s understanding of how artists worked, Johnson said. For example, he and his colleagues are also looking at how the canvases were mounted onto various frames during their preparation and use. Using similar image-processing techniques to look at the scalloped patterns at the edges of the paintings, they can help identify whether the paintings were cut down at some point in time. This could help art historians piece together missing clues about lost works or provide a clearer understanding of the artist’s original intentions.

Johnson hopes to persuade art conservators and technical art historians to buy into these technologies as a way to enhance their professional capabilities.

Source: Cornell University

At 5:20 am EDT on Mar. 29, 2011, MESSENGER captured this historic image of Mercury. This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System’s innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER acquired an additional 363 images before downlinking some of the data to Earth. The MESSENGER team is currently looking over the newly returned data, which are still continuing to come down. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington