Mission Earth

There is no other heavenly body that is as intensely observed as Earth. Alongside the daily cloud formations used for the weather forecast, the “heavenly eyes“ give usup-to-date information about earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, and floods. They monitor the pollution of the Earth’s atmosphere and, with the help of state-of-the-art measurement methods, they can even look deep inside our planet. From his cosmological point of view, the author discovers wholly new facets to our allegedly well-known Earth. This book describes what can be observed from outer space; shows how to measure things, how these insights can be scientifically used; and how these data are then deployed in disaster relief, climate change models, to predict the weather and earthquakes, in aviation, geophysics, etc. Dirk H. Lorenzen, born in 1968, is an astrophysicist and busy scientific journalist specializing in astronomy and astronautics. He works predominantly for German radio stations such as Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandradio Kultur, ARD-Hörfunk, and Deutsche Welle, as well as for the German edition of the Financial Times. He is also the successful author of books, as well as working as an advisor for projects of the European Commission and the ESA. Includes forewords by Klaus Töpfer (formerExecutive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme) and Volker Liebig (ESA director of Earth observation programs).