On 15 July, a spacecraft bristling with instruments to measure Earth's atmospheric chemistry soared into orbit. The successful launch of Aura rounds out NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS), an ambitious multibillion-dollar effort to understand global climate. The three large EOS platforms launched since 1999 join nearly a dozen smaller U.S. satellites monitoring everything from the world's ice sheets to solar radiation. The flotilla of instruments has left researchers awash in data. But they are learning that data alone won't buy happiness.
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