Vital Signs: Taking the Pulse of Our Planet

  • Released Thursday, October 23, 2014
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Our planet is a beautiful and awesome place. In a new video, join NASA scientists on a 40-minute visual tour of Earth from space, presented at the IMAX Theater at National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. on September 10.

“Vital Signs: Taking the Pulse of Our Planet" was the theme for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center's fifteenth installment of its annual lecture and reception sponsored by the Maryland Space Business Roundtable.

Earth is a complex, dynamic system we do not yet fully understand. Like the human body, the Earth system comprises diverse components that interact in complex ways.

On this global tour, scientists lead the viewer through Earth’s water cycle, forests and frozen regions as seen through the eyes of NASA’s Earth observing satellite fleet. They share a story of how we can make life better today and into the future.

NASA's Earth science program aims to develop a greater understanding of Earth's system and its response to natural or human-induced changes, and to improve predictions of climate, weather and natural disasters.

On Sept. 10, 2014, earth scientists celebrated NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) in a show at the National Air & Space museum in Washington D.C. The event highlighted many of the Earth-based data sets that NASA has produced over the last decade.

For complete transcript, click here.

Professor of space science Dr. Lennard A Fisk introduces the arc of the evening, reflecting on what we have learned about the earth system since the EOS program began almost three decades ago.

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Dr. Gail Jackson talks about the water cycle, when, where, and how it moves on our Earth and how the oceans and atmosphere function together in that cycle.

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Dr. Lola Fatoyinbo introduces the carbon cycle, how it’s rhythm moves with the earth’s changing vegetation, and the natural and manmade sources of emissions that we can monitor from space.

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Dr. Thorsten Markus discusses the cryosphere, the evolving nature of the Arctic and Antarctic, and NASA’S various missions to study these regions of the Earth.

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Dr. Piers Sellers closes the evening, talking about the threat of rising carbon in our atmosphere, how, and why we have the power to change it.

For complete transcript, click here.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Thursday, October 23, 2014.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:50 PM EDT.

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Tapes

The media on this page originally appeared on the following tapes:
  • NASM 2014: Vital Signs (ID: 2014088)
    Wednesday, September 10, 2014 at 4:00AM
    Produced by - David Hon (NASA)