MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Contact: Gia Scafidi (818) 354-0372
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 22, 2001
RESEARCHER SHARES SAFARI OF AFRICAN FIELDWORK IN FREE LECTURE
Spacecraft instruments monitor our planet, but ground-based
legwork to verify the measurements is an essential part of
studying Earth from space, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory field
researcher Mark Helmlinger will share his experiences in southern
Africa doing just that in public lectures to be held at JPL on
Thursday, Jan. 25, and at Pasadena City College on Friday, Jan. 26.
Both lectures, called "Adventures in Africa: Earth Science
Fieldwork for JPL," begin promptly at 7 p.m. Parking is free and
seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Throughout Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, Helmlinger and his
team made so-called "ground truth" measurements for NASA's Terra
spacecraft. His digital movies and images from the experience
highlight the places, people and unusual situations he
encountered along the way.
Raised in Southern California, Helmlinger was born near
Morristown, New Jersey, in 1960. After working many part-time
technical jobs and consulting for JPL and the State of
California, he received his bachelor's degree in physics from
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, in 1991. Over
the past decade, JPL has sent Helmlinger to every corner of the
continental United States, South Africa and the wilds of Canada
to conduct ground truth experiments under high-flying aircraft
and satellites.
At JPL, the lecture will be held in the von Karman
Auditorium, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena. At Pasadena City
College, the lecture will take place in the Voslow Forum, 1570
Colorado Blvd. More information on the von Karman lecture series
can be obtained at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/2001schedule.html or by calling
(818) 354-0112..
For the first time since the inception of the von Karman
lecture series in 1997, an audio-visual recording of the
"Adventures in Africa" lecture will be available on the Internet
starting Saturday, Jan. 27.
NASA's Terra spacecraft was launched into orbit around the
Earth in December 1999. It carries the Multi-angle Imaging
Spectro-Radiometer (MISR) instrument, built by JPL, which
collects global images of the sunlit Earth from nine different
angles. This data provides scientists with important information
about Earth's climate, and the regional and global impact of
different types of atmospheric particles and clouds on the
climate. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.
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1-22-2001 GNS
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