Manfred Gottwald – författare

Vor fast 90 Jahren konnte man erstmals in fotografischer Realität sehen, was sich durch Jahrhunderte moderner Wissenschaft etabliert hatte – die Erde zeigte ihre Kugelgestalt anhand eines gekrümmten Erdhorizonts. Das sich danach langsam anschließende Raumfahrtzeitalter eröffnete weitere Möglichkeiten. Unser Heimatplanet ließ sich zunächst aus niedriger Umlaufbahn beobachten; etwas später sogar aus der Distanz des Mondes. Die interplanetaren Raumflüge verschoben unseren Standpunkt schließlich weit hinaus in den Weltraum, von wo aus Ansichten der Erde und ihres Mondes zeigten, wie wir Teil des Sonnensystems sind.

About 80 years ago, it was possible for the first time to confirm what modern science had suggested for centuries: Earth shows its sphericity based on a curved horizon. The following age of space flights opened other opportunities. First, our home planet could be observed from low Earth orbits, and then, a while later, even from the distance of the Moon. Interplanetary space flights even shifted our perspective out into the universe. Images sent back from many spacecraft showed how Earth and its Moon are part of the solar system.

This book is a journey away from Earth, but always looking back at it. The journey starts with balloon flights reaching the stratosphere, followed by the tedious attempts to reach space. When space flight in low Earth orbits had been achieved, frequent unmanned and manned missions covered that region. Further milestones reached geostationary orbit and the Moon. Interplanetary missions allowed us to become acquainted with large parts of the solar system. They showed us how unique our home planet Earth is. A photo from a distance of 6 billion kilometers, the famous “pale blue dot,” always reminds us of this fact.

The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. The author has subsequently revised the text further in an endeavour to refine the work stylistically.

SCIAMACHY, the SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHar­tographY, is a passive sensor for exploring the Earth’s atmosphere. It is part of the payload of the European Earth Observation mission ENVISAT, launched on 1 March 2002. SCIAMACHY observes absorption spectra of molecules from the UV (214 nm) to the short-wave infrared wavelength range (2386 nm) and derives the atmospheric composition – trace gases, aerosols, clouds – from these measurements. Having meanwhile successfully monitored and explored the Earth’s atmosphere for more than 8 years, new and exciting insights into the Earth-atmosphere system are obtained. The provided global data sets do not only cover greenhouse gases and pollutants in the troposphere or the ozone chemistry in the stratosphere but even reach up to the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. They contribute significantly to atmospheric physics and chemistry as well as climate change research.

SCIAMACHY is one of the major current Earth Observation undertakings of Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium, accomplished in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). Many scientific groups at various institutes in Europe and abroad were and are actively involved in the analysis of the data.

This book is a comprehensive summary describing the entire SCIAMACHY mission – from the very first ideas to the current results. It illustrates how the measurements are performed, how the trace gas concentrations are derived from the measured spectra and how the unique data sets areused to improve our understanding of the changing Earth’s atmosphere. The targeted readership is not only the existing and potentially new SCIAMACHY data users from undergraduate student level up to researchers new in the fields of atmospheric chemistry and remote sensing, but anyone who is keen to learn about SCIAMACHY’s efforts to study the atmosphere and its responses to both, natural phenomena and anthropogenic effects.