The first HYPSO-1 satellite was recently joined by a second satellite in Earth orbit. These small vehicles perform a seemingly insignificant task: tracking algal blooms in the Earth’s oceans. However, their work can provide us with valuable information about their water quality.
Colors of the ocean
Back on August 16 of this year, a small HYPSO-2 spacecraft was sent into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. It has a fairly modest size and only two cameras that look at the Earth. And its mission doesn’t seem very important at first glance: tracking the growth of algae in Earth’s oceans.
But recently, the scientists who are leading the project have been able to show that it is indeed important. The fact is that algae in our planet’s oceans are involved in complex physical and chemical processes. On the one hand, they are a good indicator of water quality: where they bloom, it’s good. On the other hand, when overgrowing, at a certain stage they themselves begin to choke out life in the oceans through their own putrefaction.
All of this affects a bunch of phenomena that are closely related to our own lives, from waste pollution to ocean food supply. All of this can be anticipated in advance, but it requires looking closely at the colors of the ocean.
HYPSO-2 satellite
That’s what HYPSO is studying. Actually, there are two of them. HYPSO-1 launched back in January 2022, and HYPSO-2 only recently joined it. However, according to scientists, the productivity of this has increased by 10 times, because now the devices can be used much more flexibly to explore certain parts of the ocean.
The basis for success is the use of a hyperspectral camera. It has 120 channels. Each of which perceives some hue. At the same time, the human eye forms our color picture of the world by mixing only three colors.
Because of this, HYPSO-1 and HYPSO-2 can be used to monitor glacier melt, silt outwash, and other environmental processes that are visible through changes in water color.
According to phys.org
