What made NASA put up a specialized science camera to track lightning? It is attached to the International Space Station which circles the earth 16 times every day.
This NASA instrument has been cataloguing lightning strikes in the atmosphere since 2017. It is the second LIS to be launched after the first flew on NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite from 1997-2015. It is also the third dedicated lightning instrument NASA has put into space. The first was the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) on the OrbView-1 satellite, which circled Earth from 1995 to 2000.
They now can identify the locations on Earth where lightning strikes the most - known as the Lightning Capital of the World. It is now Lake Maracaibo in northwestern Venezuela. At one time it was Lake Kivu on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Africa remains the leader in the number of lightning hotspots.
Lake Maracaibo's average flash rate is 389 per day. The Lake Kivu location had 368 flashes per day. But it can be thousands per night at its highest and about 300 nights per year, peaking in September.
And the reason why NASA tracks lightning? To better help forecasters predict and alert the public to severe weather such as thunderstorms, tornadoes and hurricanes.
Here are two images that made me think of lightning. Particularly the second one, found on the side of a dilapidated van.
Google just sent some fireworks across the screen. Was it for the Mars rover landing? I think so as it repeats every time the search term is retrieved. You can imagine being involved in that project. The cheering staff in the pictures are referred to as NASA engineers. That's quite prestigious to me even in comparison to the rocket scientist title of the past.
What about a career at NASA? This is from their website:
Career Corner for Students Grades 5-8
Have you ever thought that one day you might work for NASA? Many students have written, asking "What do I need to study to work for NASA?" The fact is NASA needs workers that have a wide variety of knowledge and skills. NASA isn't just astronauts and scientists. NASA has engineers, mathematicians, accountants, historians, writers, computer support technicians, project managers, artists, educators, human resource personnel, public relations managers, physicians, lawyers -- and more. The most important thing for preparing to find a job at NASA is that you study what you like and work hard to achieve your goals.
It's true - there are a lot of jobs at NASA. Here are some of the positions being recruited:
Manager of Rocket Propulsion Test Office
Director of the Office of Strategic Analysis and Communications
Extra Vehicular Activity Safety and Mission Assurance Lead
Lead Aerospace Engineer
Chief Engineer
There's 37 jobs listed - everything from Deputy Directors to Branch Chiefs. Lots of good salaries - up to $190,000 US and the lowest looked like the Administrative Specialist at almost $74,000.
That's 37 jobs listed with a workforce of 17,000 people and it excludes government contractors. The total NASA budget for 2020 was $22.6 billion. There are articles praising NASA as a great place to work. Things like: projects are incredibly interesting, challenging and critical to the success of an experiment or mission. "Great assignments" - that would be an understatement, don't you think?
This is one of the locomotives from the Kaitangata Line in Otago New Zealand. This locomotive was donated to the preservation society at Shantytown, near Greymouth where it operates as a tourist train. These pictures are from our visit in 2009.
