New NASA mission could improve weather forecasting

Photo: Courtesy: Airbus

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The GOLD instrument (the gray and white object located on the front right corner of the top deck) has completed environmental testing and is shown here on the SES-14 spacecraft in preparation for a scheduled January 2018 launch date. less

Photo: Courtesy: Airbus

NASA will release more details Thursday about a new instrument that could improve future weather forecasting models.

The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission -- led by the University of Central Florida -- will launch on a satellite later this month to embark on its two-year mission, aiming to collect data on what causes changes in the area where weather in the Earth's lower atmosphere interacts with solar activity from above its magnetic field.

GOLD, an 80-pound ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, "will explore the boundary of Earth and space," according to a university news release.

This boundary area is 22,236 miles above Earth. Data will come on space weather above Earth and atmospheric weather below the boundary, the release states.

"Resulting data will improve forecasting models of space weather events that can impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space," according to a NASA news release.