NASA takes marriage of art and science to new heights

The world's ocean currents have been brought to life in stunning detail by a team of animators at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The animated video is the latest example of a program designed to make scientific satellite data more accessible to the public and policy makers. As Rob Muir reports, it succeeds with spectacular results.

                          Inside an innocuous brick building near Washington, art and science are coming together. Greg Shirah and his team of animators are taking dry scientific data and turning into movies like "Perpetual Ocean". "Perpetual Ocean" is an animated film illustrating the Earth's ocean surface currents as they flowed around the world between June, 2005 and December 2007. It is not a precise representation but comes close, the product of real satellite data, sophisticated computer modelling and the skills of Greg Shirah. SOUNDBITE (English) GREG SHIRAH, LEAD ANIMATOR - GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER VISUALIZATION STUDIO, SAYING: "Well, I'm a scientific visualiser so I take data from primarilly spacecraft but also models and try to turn that data into visuals that people can understand, some concepts about what the data might represent." In the case of Perpetual Ocean, it represents the forces that dictate ocean movement, from water temperature and wind direction, to the depth and topography beneath the surface. SOUNDBITE (English) GREG SHIRAH, LEAD ANIMATOR - GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER VISUALIZATION STUDIO, SAYING: "The scientists will give us their data and explain the nuances of the data. We'll then use software to extract the data and pull it into software that we have that is more tuned to do Hollywood-type things, where you would make movies and things." Movies like "Tour of the Moon". Measurements collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), launched three years ago, provided the scientific framework for animators to produce breath-taking views of the moon and an educational tool for the public. Horace Mitchell, a physicist and the director of the studio, takes a hands on approach. He says his team's mission is simple. SOUNDBITE) (English) HORACE MITCHELL, GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER VISUALIZATION STUDIO DIRECTOR, SAYING: "The mission is to capture the scientists' work as accurately as possible and to make it exciting. I believe to scientists, their data, their work is really exciting. A lot of it goes on in their mind and we sort of bring it out. We bring it out and make it visual for a visual world" To underscrore their point, the team bring staff and visitors to the hyperwall Their latest project is a work in progress. It's a data-supported representation of a solar storm, illustrating in spectacular detail what happens when a cloud of electrical energy generated by a solar eruption, reaches Earth. SOUNDBITE (English) GREG SHIRAH, LEAD ANIMATOR - GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER VISUALIZATION STUDIO, SAYING: "I've been doing this for fifteen years or so and I could never have done anything like this then. The models could never have been run fifteen years ago. Only recently do we have enough computational power and disc storage and network speed and memory to be able to do these types of things." SOUNDBITE) (English) HORACE MITCHELL, GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER VISUALIZATION STUDIO DIRECTOR, SAYING: "We have a mandate in the modern world to help people understand how we find out things, how we know things so that decisions can be made, so that, and so we can appreciate the earth. Some say we don't appreciate what we have. Well, I think this helps. I think the joy of understanding how something works is just amazing." The team has made hundreds of visualizations in recent years, illustrating planetary and climate data that would otherwise exist only as numbers on a page. And the quality is improving all the time. Greg Shirah says that within another fifteen years, detail will become even finer and global areas of coverage more localised, taking his job many levels beyond the current state-of-the art. Rob Muir, Reuters.

MAKING NAVY MORE STRONGER

 

Visakhapatnam: With the induction of Nerpa, rechristened INS Chakra, into the Indian Navy on Wednesday, India is back in the elite club of nations having nuclear-powered submarines. Here are top 10 must-know facts about INS Chakra: 


1) INS Chakra is a Russia-made, nuclear-propelled, hunter-killer submarine. Unlike conventional submarines that India operates which need to surface to charge their batteries often - sometimes as frequently as 24 hours - INS Chakra can stay under as long as it wants. Its ability to stay underwater is restrained only by human endurance to stay underwater. Also, another problem that the submarine could face is acidity. This is because of a lack of exercise inside due to prolonged deployments. 


2) The Akula Class submarine will carry conventional weapons. The vessel is armed with four 533mm torpedo tubes and four 650mm torpedo tubes. It will be used to hunt and kill enemy ships.

3) The INS Chakra displaces about 10,000 tons. It can do over 30 knots - more than twice the speed of conventional submarines. It can go upto a depth of 600 metres.


4) INS Chakra is one of the quietest nuclear submarines around, with noise levels next to zero. 


5) It has about 80 crew members on board. The entire crew of INS Chakra has been trained in Russia for over a year. Facilities for the crew on board INS Chakra include a large recreation area, a gymnasium and a sauna as well. 


6) INS Chakra has been taken on lease from Russia for 10 years and would provide the Navy the opportunity to train personnel and operate such nuclear-powered vessels. In 2004, India had signed a deal with Russia worth over $900 million for leasing the submarine. INS Chakra was expected to be inducted into Indian Navy a couple of years ago, but after an on-board accident in 2008, in which several Russian sailors died, the delivery schedule was changed. 


7) INS Chakra formally joined the Indian Navy on Wednesday. It was commissioned by Defence Minister AK Antony at the Ship Building Complex in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. "INS Chakra will ensure security and sovereignty of the country," the minister has said. When asked if INS Chakra's induction will lead to arms race in the region, Defence Minister AK Antony told reporters, "India does not believe in arms race. We are not a confrontationist nation. We are a peaceloving nation....but, at the same time, the armed forces will be strengthened to meet any challenge." 


8) The induction of the nuclear-powered submarine clearly indicates India's intentions in the Indian Ocean Region and South East Asia which has recently seen increasing assertive Chinese presence in the last few months. It will also a send a strong reassuring message to south east Asian nations like Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia who want India to play a more active role in the region to counter the assertiveness of China in the
area. 


9) The induction of the INS Chakra is likely to be followed by the induction of the indigenous INS Arihant, which will be capable of launching nuclear weapons and therefore complete the nuclear triad. INS Arihant, it is understood, is now undergoing sea trails at Vizag. 


10) The only other nations possessing nuclear-powered submarines are - US, Russia, UK, France and China. India is back in this elite club after over a decade. In 1988, the Indian Navy had leased a Charlie Class nuclear-powered submarine for three years till 1991. However, the expertise gathered then was lost as most officers who had trained to operate nuclear submarines have retired.