NASA to launch latest-Earth observation satellite (AP)

LOS ANGELES – NASA is set to launch its Earth orbiting satellite-latest on a mission of 424 million for analyzing airborne grana spewed from volcanic eruptions, forest fires, chimneys and exhaust.

The satellite is expected to explode glory out before dawn Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Taurus XL rocket. Once upgraded to an altitude of 440 kilometres, will join a fleet of satellites that collected data on climate change for years.

His main task will be to study known as aerosols airborne particles. Less than the diameter of a human hair, these ubiquitous specks can track distances around the world and are largely responsible for the production of Misty sky.

Scientists know little of aerosols and their effects on climate. A better understanding is essential to improve climate models.

"We need to know about these particles much better than us," said Michael Mishchenko project scientist of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

In the last century, average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the world. Scientists blame carbon dioxide, principally from the combustion of coal, oil and other fossil fuels, such as the root cause of global warming.

Unlike greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that linger for years, aerosols are ephemeral — staying for weeks — so is much more difficult to measure their carbon dioxide.

Most aerosols — about 90 percent — comes from natural sources such as volcanic ash, desert dust and smoke from forest fires. The rest is from human activity.

Aerosols may influence both the heating and cooling the Earth depending on their color and chemical composition. They may involve cooling scattering sunlight back into space; are also capable of absorbing the solar heating of the atmosphere.

Dozens of satellites have been studying aerosols over the past 50 years. But the glory is designed to make more accurate measurements of aerosols from space by studying how widely they are deployed and their various properties.

In addition to tracking aerosols in the atmosphere, Glory will also changes in solar activity to determine the effect of the Sun on the climate.

Gloria will be launched aboard a Taurus XL rocket built by four phases Orbital Sciences Corp. The mission marks the return of the Taurus XL flight after a bankruptcy in 2009 that resulted in the loss of a global warming NASA satellite.

Glory, which weighs about half a Volkswagen Beetle, will run for at least three years. The chassis of the spacecraft was recycled from a mission that never flew and had to be adapted to accommodate the two key tools.

The mission was to fly last November, but a problem with solar panels launch delayed by three months. Once in low Earth orbit, glory will join a convoy of satellites already gathering information climate.

Unusual name probe stemmed from an atmospheric phenomenon caused by the dispersion of sunlight by water droplets in a cloud.