Learn more about Alexia Harper, Mechanical Engineer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Facility's Mechanical Engineering Branch, the go-to place for the comprehensive development of instrument and spacecraft structures and deployment mechanisms. She works among hundreds of designers, engineers, and technicians to build the largest spacecraft ever assembled at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory.

At the core of scientific visualization is the representation of data graphically - through images, animations, and videos - to improve understanding and develop insight. Data visualizers develop data-driven images, maps, and visualizations from information collected by Earth-observing satellites, airborne missions, and ground measurements. Visualizations allow us to explore data, phenomena and behavior; they are particularly effective for showing large scales of time and space, and "invisible" processes (e.g. flows of energy and matter) as integral parts of the models.

This investigation is part of the NASA: Mission Geography Module "What are the causes and consequences of climate change?" that guides students through explorations in climatic variability and evidence for global climate change. 

The Guidance, Navigation, and Control Lead basically is in charge of all of the components to make sure the spacecraft is pointed where the scientists want it to be pointed.

Students investigate the effects of Hurricane Sandy and make a scale model of the storm over the continental United States to assess the area of impact.

Information from satellites if often used to display information about objects. This information can include how things appear, as well as their contents. Explore how pixel data sequences can be used to create an image and interpret it.

Scientific data are often represented by assigning ranges of numbers to specific colors. The colors are then used to make false color images which allow us to see patterns more easily. Students will make a false-color image using a set of numbers.