To study the role of Earth’s oceans in climate change, NASA recently launched a mission 100 miles off the coast of San Francisco involving a ship, two aircraft, and a fleet of sailing drones and other robotic research vehicles.

Scientists are studying lesser-known features of the ocean’s surface, such as eddies and eddies, which they suspect may play an important role in the transfer of gases and heat between the atmosphere and the ocean. The mission began on October 19 when the research vessel Oceanus left Newport, Oregon and will end on November 6. During the recent storm, when the ship had to enter the port of San Francisco due to waves in the ocean, it made a brief pause in the study region, reaching 30 feet high.

Although NASA is best known for space exploration, it also operates a fleet of satellites for studying the earth’s surface, some of which focus on the oceans. This particular mission is known as the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment, or S-MODE. Submesoscale refers to ocean dynamics less than 10 kilometers in diameter such as ocean eddies that swirl around the ocean surface and stir up the water.

“These eddies are making a really important impact on the climate,” said Tom Farrar of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the mission’s lead investigator, at a news conference on the mission on Friday.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the ocean absorbs 31% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Farrar and others suggest that eddies have an impact on the exchange of heat and gases between the air and the ocean, and likely play a role in transporting heat, carbon, and oxygen from the surface to deeper layers of the ocean. But vortices are too small and too short to be studied by satellite, which is why the S-MODE mission uses so many different instruments at the same time, closer to the source.

The location in front of San Francisco Bay was chosen because it is located on the California Current, a dynamic movement of water along the west coast that is surrounded by many eddies. Two planes collect data on wind and currents on the ocean surface from different heights, one under the clouds and one at 28,000 feet, while the Oceanus and autonomous research vehicles collect images and measurements in the water.

“The goal is to map a complete 3-D structure,” said Farrar.

The Oceanus carried most of the marine robots out to sea, although five sailing drones, bright orange, solar-powered robotic vehicles, disembarked from Alameda and made their way to the study area. You can measure air and ocean currents, as well as salinity and chlorophyll levels, or the amount of phytoplankton in the water. With all the tools working together, the team hopes to study the eddies as they form to learn more about how the ocean is slowing the effects of climate change.

What they find can be used to support an international project NASA is participating in next year by using satellites to conduct the first global survey of all bodies of water on the planet, from oceans to lakes, Nadya said Vinogradova-Shiffer, program scientist from NASA’s Earth Sciences department at the briefing.

“Observing ocean circulation directly from space would be a great advance for science,” she said.

Tara Duggan is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan

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LOS ANGELES (KTLA) – An asteroid predicted to be the largest to fly past Earth this year will approach the planet closest on the first full day of spring, according to NASA.

But don’t worry, because there is “no danger” of it falling to earth, assures the space agency.

The asteroid, dubbed the 2001 FO32, will be within 1.25 million miles of our planet on March 21, NASA said in a statement.

While that’s roughly 5.25 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon, it’s still considered close in astronomical terms. For this reason, the space rock has been classified by NASA as a “potentially dangerous asteroid”.

The earth is spinning faster than in 5 decades, say scientists

It is expected to be the largest asteroid zoomed from Earth in 2021, with a length comparable to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, EarthSky reports.

Astronomers have been tracking FO32 in 2001 since its discovery 20 years ago, according to Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“We know the 2001 FO32 orbit,” Chodas said in the press release. “There’s no chance the asteroid will get closer than 1.25 million miles to Earth.”

In fact, according to NASA, there is no danger of an asteroid colliding with the planet in the centuries to come.

The near-Earth asteroid will fly by at about 77,000 miles per hour, faster than most that hit the planet. This is due to its “sharply inclined and elongated (or eccentric) orbit around the sun,” the agency said.

This diagram shows the elongated and inclined orbit of 2001 FO32 on its orbit around the sun (white ellipse). (NASA / JPL-Caltech)

The rocky body “like a skateboarder rolling down a half pipe” will pick up speed as it navigates further into the inner system, and according to Release it will only slow down after being thrown back into space. The asteroid then swings back into the solar system and towards the sun.

All in all, it will take 2001 FO32 about 810 days, or about 27 months, to complete orbit.

However, the asteroid will not come close to Earth again in another 31 years – until 2052 – if it passes at a distance of about 1.75 million miles.

So next weekend’s approach will offer astronomers a rare opportunity to better understand it, according to NASA. Some things you will be looking at are size, brightness, and composition.

“Little is known about this object at the moment, so the very close encounter provides an excellent opportunity to learn a lot about this asteroid,” said Lance Benner, senior scientist at JPL, in the press release.

For example, he noted that “20 years of observations have shown that approximately 15% of near-Earth asteroids comparable in size to 2001 FO32 have a small moon.”

The asteroid will appear brightest in the southern sky as it approaches, meaning those in the southern hemisphere and the lower parts of the northern hemisphere have the best views, according to Chodas.

But it won’t be visible to the naked eye.

To see the asteroid, Chodas recommends using a medium-sized telescope with an aperture of at least 20 inches on the nights before March 21. But those trying to see it will likely still need starting cards to find it.

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