Weather Front

摘要

Sometime soon, one of meteorology's most significant eyes in the sky will shut for good and make its silent journey back through Earth's atmosphere. Orbiting at an angle to the earth that covers 35 degrees north to 35 degrees south of the equator, the Joint NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) was originally launched in 1997 as a three-year mission. However, its five instruments have since continued to return important data on the intensity of rainfall, characteristics of water vapor and clouds, and lightning associated with rain events. But the ground-breaking satellite has run out of juice, and NASA predicts that science operations will cease in April.