This image provided by NASA shows an artist‘s conception of the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft, a collaboration between NASA and Argentina’s space agency, with participation from Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. Aquarius, the NASA-built primary instrument on the spacecraft, will take NASA’s first space-based measurements of ocean surface salinity, a key missing variable in satellite observations of Earth that links ocean circulation, the global balance of freshwater and climate.

First published in the July 03, 2011, 9:17 a.m. edition

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