Powerful thunderstorms rage across the Prairies. Will they spawn damaging tornadoes, and if so, where? Blizzard conditions threaten to shut down the Greater Toronto Area, possibly for days, but who will be hardest hit? A hurricane approaches Atlantic Canada, packing devastating winds and heavy rain. Will it make landfall at high-tide, making its impacts even worse? These questions would be difficult or impossible to answer if we did not have satellites imaging our weather from space. I have always looked up at the night sky in wonder, but after studying meteorology I learned to appreciate space for more than just its splendor. Once a disjointed practice which was only relevant to a forecaster’s immediate area, weather forecasting has advanced significantly due to our access to space. GOES-16, one of the most advanced geostationary weather satellites in operation, snapped this ‘full disk’ image of the western hemisphere on October 29, 2019. (Credit: NOAA) GOES-16 tracks a violent, tornadic supercell thunderstorm in the Texas Panhandle, on May 5, 2019. The colours in this animation/image represent cloud-top temperatures, with reds being the coldest temperatures, and thus showing the tallest clouds. (Credit: NOAA) GOES-16, one of the most advanced geostationary weather satellites in operation, snapped this ‘full disk’ image of the western hemisphere on October 29, 2019. (Credit: NOAA) Launching satellites suddenly empowered us to be “outside, looking in”, to see an entire hemisphere’s weather, all at once. More powerful, still, we can track how weather moves and better see large-scale patterns, to improve our ability to forecast the future. Couple this with providing day-to-day comparisons of our ecosystems, satellites have allowed us to gather crucial evidence of the impacts of global warming and climate change. Without those “eyes in the sky”, we would be years – possibly decades – behind our current knowledge of the climate crisis, and we may have only realized the dangers when it was far too late. This is why space matters so much. Weather and climate change impact us all, and with Canada seeing more than its fair share of impacts from both, it is crucial that we continue our commitments to both developing new space technologies and to participating in space missions. The information we gather from space can literally save us from disaster. Scott Sutherland He is a meteorologist and science writer with The Weather Network, where he reports on weather, climate change, astronomy and human space... Read more
“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.” – Carl Sagan Whenever I speak to an audience, I ask them how many stars they can see in their night sky. In small town Ontario, the answer ranges from a few hundred to a few thousand. In larger cities, the answer is typically one hundred or less. This simple question captures how humans have diminished our connection to the night sky as we continue to give more attention to technology and flock to urban centres. The pale blue dot image reminds us that we are simply a tiny world in a vast empty darkness. It can be scary to think about at first. However, the more thought you give to it the more you feel a connection to the whole world, not as one part of a country or ethnicity, but as a human being, part of a collection of 8.7 million species, trying to survive and grow and learn while sharing responsibility for our home. Ryan Marciniak He is an astronomer and science communicator. He travels across Ontario with two inflatable planetariums with his company Astronomy in Action, delivering programs and experiences to schools, community groups, and the public. When I show the true night sky to audiences in my planetariums, the response is one of awe and wonder, similar to the feelings the night sky evoked in our ancestors for thousands of years. It shows us how vast and beautiful the universe is. The planetarium can then take the audience a step farther, venturing out into this night sky, flying around Earth, past the Moon, Sun, and stars, and then travelling farther out of the Milky Way to distant galaxies, showing the immense scale of the cosmos. The audience leaves feeling reconnected to the universe, with a new perspective on the Earth. The planetarium is just one medium for reestablishing this connection, a digital substitute for the real night sky that is becoming harder to find in urban sprawl, not just in Southern Ontario, but around the world. As humans face greater global challenges, it is becoming more important to approach them with a shared responsibility. Space changes our perspective, reminding us of this shared responsibility. This is why space matters. Visitors experience the night sky in the planetarium (Credit: Astronomy in Action) Visitors experience the night sky in the planetarium (Credit: Astronomy in Action) Earth, described by scientist Carl Sagan as a "Pale Blue Dot," as seen by Voyager 1 from a distance of more than 6.4 billion kilometers. (Credit:... Read more
The Glacier at Lake Louise (Credit:Harvey Barrison, Creative Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Glacier_at_Lake_Louisein_the_Canadian_Rockies.jpg) As population growth, globalization and climate change make our world increasingly complex, our knowledge of the Earth becomes more valuable with each passing day. Geosciences already play a central role in making Canada and the world safer and more productive. They help prevent landslides on British Columbia’s Sea to Sky highway, forecast droughts in the Prairie Provinces, measure sea-ice loss in Canada’s North, and make sense of the complex environmental systems of the Great Lakes, which contain one-fifth of the world’s fresh water supply and produce over $7.5 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP). But, studying the Earth comes with a built-in obstacle. We only have one! Sample size is a key part of good science. Imagine being tasked to learn everything you could about dogs, but having only your pet corgi to do it with! Humans are pretty smart; they can deduce a lot from a single sample. But if inexplicably your Corgi’s favourite snack was broccoli, could you reasonably assume the same for all dogs? Jake Robins Jake Robins is a Vancouver-based space fan and science communicator. He hosts the WeMartians and Off-Nominal Podcasts, spends his weekends hiking, and can’t stop thinking about Mars. This is why our solar system matters. A vast array of planets, moons, asteroids and comets orbit our Sun. By studying these worlds, we learn what’s true about all planets and what’s just special about Earth. Take for example the Hadley cell, an atmospheric current that brings warm air from the equator to our mid-latitude regions. It turns out, the Hadley cell is also found on Mars, Venus, and even Saturn’s moon, Titan! On the other hand, plate tectonics like the ones forming Canada’s mountain ranges, as we know them now, are unique to Earth. And if space matters so much, the natural next question is “who should do it?”. Here on Earth, there are few places with a more diverse geology than Canada. Some of the oldest rocks in the world, over four billion years old, are found in the Northwest Territories. We can study the scars of the most recent ice age, whose glaciers carved the Canadian Shield and created the many lakes of Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. Canadians enjoy a Pacific subduction zone creating volcanos like Mount Garibaldi and can walk among ancient impact craters like the Sudbury Basin. Our backyard is a geologist’s dream come true, and it gives us a head start in becoming world-class scientists. Making Earth safer and more productive is an imperative, and exploring space is a necessary step in that endeavor. As we look to future, I can think of no people more poised to be leaders than... Read more
iss059e016574 - Expedition 59 Flight Engineer David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency takes a quick self portrait while working outside the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA) Millions of people are taking pictures everyday with an ease unprecedented even 20 years ago. One of the biggest reasons why this is so easy now is because space scientists invested in charge-coupled device (CCD) technology decades ago. Back in 1969, two engineers at Bell Labs, Willard Boyle and George Smith, created the CCD (and won a Nobel Prize for their work in 2009). Originally they were looking for ways to store and read-off data in better and faster ways. However, they and many others immediately recognized CCDs would be incredibly useful for imaging as well. Up until that point, all cameras used film: light-sensitive material that, when exposed to light, would create a chemical reaction, leaving an image of the light behind. The best telescopes on the planet used large photographic plates to record images. Dr. Jesse Rogerson Dr. Jesse Rogerson is an astrophysicist and Science Advisor at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. He received is Ph.D. from York University where he studied super massive black holes. Jesse also has dedicated much of his professional career to education and public outreach by working at various museums, science centres, and the York University Astronomical Observatory. CCDs meant the strength of light could be stored electronically and then read-off into a digital picture. For astronomy this meant no more changing photographic plates for each image of the sky you wanted to take! Around this time, the astronomical community had already begun planning a large space observatory that would eventually become the Hubble Space Telescope. Starlight that travels through Earth’s atmosphere is distorted by the turbulence of the air. Observing through our atmosphere is like trying to see a penny on the bottom of a pool. Even if the pool water is very still, the penny will still be somewhat distorted. By putting a telescope in space, you are above the atmosphere, and thus the starlight is not distorted. But, if your telescope is in space and it uses photometric plates to record images, how do you retrieve the images? And how do you put new plates in the telescope? Astronomers toyed with various answers to these questions including sending astronauts up to retrieve the photometric plates and insert new ones. CCDs solved this problem because images could be saved on hard drives, and beamed back to Earth via RADAR. Unfortunately, CCDs were very new and not ready to be used for high-end science. So universities, labs, and private companies around the world started investing millions in CCD development. As a result of this early investment, CCDs are now in every telescope, every DSLR, and many mobile phones. This is how investments in fundamental scientific... Read more
