1. Commander Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command Clippings
June 1-20, 2012
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Top Stories
1. June 1- America’s Navy-Navy Supercomputer Center at Stennis to Greatly Increase Computing
Capability-Page 2
2. June 6-Office of Naval Research- Navy researchers seek to improve weather prediction for
global operations-Page 3
U.S. Naval Observatory
3. June 2-ClickOnDetroit-Look for this heavenly highlight on Tuesday-Page 5
4. June 3-AZDailySun.com-Venus ready to take center stage-Page 6
5. June 5-FoxNewsLatino-Venus: Mexican Share Transit with Ancient Mayans-Page 7
6. June 5-Scientific American-Venus’ Transits through History-Page 9
7. June 6-AZDailySun.com- View of a lifetime: Flag residents watch Venus transit-Page 12
8. June 8-Otago Daily Times-Astronomical Interest in Transit-Page 14
Personnel
9. June 17-Miss. Business Journal-Brown to lead Stennis-Page 14

2. Items of Interest
10. June 1-NOAA-NOAA Administrator Dr. Lubchenco names new Deputy Under Secretary for
Operations-Page 15
11. June 9-The Economist-20,000 colleagues under the sea-Page 15
12. June 20-CNET- How Navy supercomputers help sailors beat an ancient nemesis-Page 17
13. June 20-DVIDS-Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific hosts NATO exercise-Page
19
To subscribe to CNMOC Clippings contact Kelly.LeGuillon@navy.mil
1. Navy Supercomputer Center at Stennis to Greatly Increase Computing Capability
By Christine Cuicchi
STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss. (NNS) -- One of the Defense Department's most powerful
supercomputer centers, located at Stennis Space Center, Miss., will more than triple its computing
power this summer when it adds three new supercomputers.
The additions to the Navy Department of Defense Supercomputing Resource Center (Navy DSRC)
will be operational by the fall.
"This upgrade will put South Mississippi's supercomputing capabilities back in the top 100 of the
world," Dr. Bill Burnett, deputy/technical director of the Stennis-based Naval Meteorology and
Oceanography Command, said of the upgrade.
Navy DSRC is one of five Defense Department supercomputer centers that Navy, Army and Air
Force scientists and researchers use to design new aircraft, ships, and military equipment; to model
and simulate weather and ocean conditions; and for a wide range of other DoD mission-related
science and engineering research. The Navy DSRC is a part of the Department of Defense High
Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP).
The new supercomputers, all IBM iDataPlex Linux clusters, will give the center a capacity of nearly
800 trillion floating point operations (teraflops) per second or the capability to conduct 800 trillion
arithmetic calculations per second. One hundred high school students with handheld calculators
would take nearly 317 years to perform the number of calculations a teraflop-rated computer can
accomplish in one second - almost 250,000 years to perform what the new Navy DSRC computers
will be capable of every second.
The additions will allow the center to retire its existing IBM Power5+ system, an IBM Power6
system, and a Cray XT5 system at the end of the year.
In a nod to the Navy DSRC's location at Stennis Space Center, the systems will be named after

3. astronauts who have served in the Navy: Fred Haise, a retired U.S. Air Force officer who also
served as a Navy and Marine Corps aviator and the Apollo 13 pilot; Cmdr. Susan Still Kilrain, a
naval aviator who piloted two shuttle missions and more than 30 different aircraft; and Capt.
Eugene Cernan, a naval aviator and the last person to set foot on the moon.
"We are especially excited to honor former naval aviators who have served as astronauts, starting
with South Mississippi's own Fred Haise," Burnett said. Haise is a native of Biloxi, Miss.
High performance computing or supercomputing allows DoD to make the most of its dollars spent
on research, development, test, and evaluation.
"These supercomputers enable the DoD science and research community to test and model
defense systems that cannot be modeled in the real world due to time, financial, physical, or safety
constraints, and in some cases, they can accomplish this work in a matter of hours as opposed to
the days, weeks, or even months that traditional research methods can require," said Tom Dunn,
director of the supercomputing center.
Within the HPCMP, the Navy DSRC is unique in providing supercomputing resources available 24/7
to the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (NMOC). These high performance
computing resources are used by the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) and the Fleet
Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) for ocean and weather forecasts in
support of U.S. Navy fleet operations.
Two of the iDataPlex systems will be identical, each consisting of 18,816 Sandy Bridge Intel
processor cores, 37 terabytes of memory and 2.3 pedabytes of disk storage space available for
computational modeling and research. A third iDataPlex system will have 4,032 of the same
processor cores, eight terabytes of memory and 576 terabytes of disk storage. The peak
computational capabilities of the two larger systems will be 351 teraflops each, and the third system
will be capable of 75 teraflops.
The HPCMP provides DoD supercomputing capabilities, high-speed network communications and
computational science expertise that enable DoD scientists and engineers to conduct a wide-range
of focused research, development and test activities. The partnership puts advanced technology in
the hands of U.S. forces more quickly, less expensively and with greater certainty of success.
Today, the HPCMP provides a complete advanced computing environment for DoD that includes
unique expertise in software development and system design, powerful high performance
computing systems, and a premier wide-area research network. The HPCMP is managed on behalf
of DoD by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center.
2. Navy researchers seek to improve weather prediction for global operations
ONR-developed weather models and tools aid Navy forecasters and meteorologists around the
world
ARLINGTON, Va.—With the Atlantic hurricane season officially beginning this month, the Office of
Naval Research (ONR) is pursuing a number of projects to help Navy forecasters and
meteorologists around the world predict storms better.
"Weather is one of the most significant factors affecting naval operations at sea," said Chief of
Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder. "ONR-funded research in weather prediction is

4. improving the Navy's forecasting capability and accuracy for any location around the world where
our Sailors and Marines are conducting missions."
ONR's efforts in funding ocean research are yielding enhanced weather and ocean prediction
models—highlighted in a new video—that help Navy leaders understand how to route ships around
the globe to avoid storms, reduce fuel consumption, avoid Arctic ice flows and promote safety at
sea.
At the Fleet Weather Center in Norfolk, Va., Navy meteorologists depend on ONR-developed
weather models and tools to provide timely, comprehensive and tactically-relevant products and
services to support Fleet training and operations. "We use real-time sensing data, observations
from ships and combine that with modeling outputs to try and get as far ahead of the bad weather
as possible," said Commander Adam Newton, Operations Officer. "This information improves safety
at sea and can give the Fleet a real warfighting advantage."
While the Navy forecasters focus on supporting Fleet operations around the world, ONR often
partners with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) because the same data
and weather models that Navy forecasters use also help NOAA to provide accurate weather
prediction and storm warnings across the country.
"There is a concerted effort to link various atmospheric and oceanic models together to attain more
accurate weather forecasts," said Dan Eleuterio, an ONR program officer. Eleuterio is working on a
new computer model called the Tropical Cyclone Coupled Ocean/Atmospheric Mesoscale
Prediction System, or TC-COAMPS, which allows scientists to forecast storms' track and strength in
real time at high resolution. It was the first dynamic model to demonstrate better skill than statistical
approaches at NOAA's National Hurricane Center, and is one of several Navy and NOAA models
being evaluated by the National Weather Service's Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program.
"Up until now, predicting the intensity of storms was done with statistical-dynamical models," said
Eleuterio. "What that means is that forecasters would look at several decades of observed data and
they would simply say that if a storm is in this place this season, it is most likely going to get
stronger or weaker or change. It wasn't an actual prediction, and TC-COAMPS will change that as a
next-generation weather prediction model."
ONR researchers work with underwater autonomous vehicles, ocean gliders and other sensors to
collect information about how much the ocean environment drives global weather patterns. That
data helps scientists improve mathematical equations for computer models that predict weather,
ocean, sea, and even Arctic ice conditions.
The Navy has a long history of conducting missions in the Arctic for research and military purposes,
and in 2009 published the Navy Arctic Roadmap to help ensure naval readiness and capability and
promote maritime security in the Arctic region. Developed by the Navy's Task Force Climate
Change, the plan includes increasing operational experience, promoting cooperative partnerships
and improving environmental understanding.
"The Arctic ice flows are retreating, and that has strategic implications for our country and naval
operations in that region of the world as sea lanes open for shipping," said Rear Adm. David Titley,
director of the Navy's Task Force Climate Change. "ONR research is helping us understand the
Arctic environment, which helps us predict conditions and design future Navy ships better suited for
that tough mission."

5. Tracking the sea ice cover is the responsibility of the National Ice Center (NIC), a multi-agency
organization operated by the Navy, NOAA and the United States Coast Guard in Suitland, Md.
"Weather modeling is really key to better understanding and forecasting of changing ice conditions
in the Arctic," said Pablo Clemente-Colón, NIC's chief scientist.
In the future, ONR researchers hope to combine multiple weather prediction models to create a
comprehensive coupled global model that will greatly extend prediction capability, accuracy and our
understanding of the world's environment.
3. Look for this heavenly highlight on Tuesday
By Paul Gross
DETROIT - On Tuesday afternoon, June 5th, everyone in the United States will have a chance to
witness one of the rarest celestial phenomena known: a “transit of Venus."
Such an event occurs when the planet Venus passes almost exactly between the Earth and the
Sun, and they are incredibly rare. The United States Naval Observatory provides the following
fascinating historical story about Venus transits.
Since first predicted by the German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler in the 17th
century, only six transits of Venus have been observed. Weather permitting, this will be the seventh.
Transits of Venus occur at regular intervals that repeat over a 243-year period. Intervals between
successive transits are 8 years, 105.5 years, 8 years, and 120.5 years. The next transit of Venus
won’t occur until December 11, 2117, and it will not be visible from most of the U.S.
Kepler predicted the transit of December 7, 1631, but died before the event occurred. The next
transit, on December 4, 1639, was observed by only two individuals, Jeremiah Horrocks and
William Crabtree, from England.
In 1677 Edmond Halley (of comet fame) observed a transit of Mercury from St. Helena Island and
realized that such events, if observed from many widely-spaced sites, could provide a geometric
measure of the scale of the solar system. His work led to several far-flung expeditions to observe
the Venus transits of June 6, 1761 and June 3, 1769. One of the British expeditions to the latter
transit was led by Captain James Cook. Results from these expeditions were mixed, but enough
experience was gained to attempt observations of the next series in the 19th century.
The transits of December 9, 1874, and December 6, 1882, were met with an armada of scientific
expeditions equipped with state-of-the-art astronomical instruments. The U.S. Congress funded and
outfitted eight separate expeditions for each event and placed overall scientific direction of these
teams under the command of the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO). Once again the results were
inconclusive, but many of the instruments from these expeditions are still in the observatory’s
possession.
The 20th century saw no transits of Venus; the next one occurred on June 8, 2004. By this time the
size of the solar system had been well-established, so observing the transit became more of an
historical event than a scientific one.

6. This year’s transit will begin about three hours before sunset here in Detroit, at 6:04 p.m. Eastern
Daylight Time. It will occur earlier in the day and at a higher altitude as one moves farther west, but
no place in the “lower 48” will see the event in its entirety. Residents of Alaska, Hawai’i, and the
U.S. Pacific Territories are the only Americans who will see the complete event.
Observing the transit will not require a telescope; the disc of Venus is large enough to be seen with
the unaided eye. However, just as with a solar eclipse, extreme precaution must be taken when
observing the event, or permanent eye damage and/or blindness will occur. You can try to see the
transit using the same pinhole projection method used with solar eclipses: punch a small hole with
smooth edges in one piece of paper, stand with the sun at your back and project the sunlight
through the hole onto the second piece of paper. You can "focus" the projection of the sun by
moving the pieces of paper closer or farther away. What will you see? Venus transiting the sun will
look like a "dot" slowly passing across the solar disk.
You can also observe the transit with some of the local science centers, planetariums, or amateur
astronomy clubs, as they will have the proper equipment to enjoy this rare event (check ahead to
make sure they are having transit observing parties). Or, better yet, several organizations will be
live streaming the transit.
4. Venus ready to take center stage
Flagstaff isn't done with rare astronomical phenomena this year just yet.
On Tuesday, Venus will pass in front of the sun from Earth's point of view in what's known as a
transit -- like a mini eclipse or a black spot passing across the sun's surface. The event won't
happen again until 2117.
Of course people shouldn't look at the sun without appropriate equipment, but thankfully, local
astronomers are making their telescopes and expertise available to the public. Lowell Observatory
also has some 2,000 solar glasses available for sale at their visitor's center.
The U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff has restored a historic brass telescope that astronomers
used to view the 1874 and 1882 transits in China and South Africa. That telescope and others will
be open for the public to look through at the Naval Observatory's facility just west of town.
The telescope provides incredible views of the sun even when compared to modern telescopes
commonly used for such public viewing. Through the eyepiece and with the help of a special filter,
sun-gazers will be able to see not just Venus, but sunspots and solar prominences extending off the
sun's surface.
Lowell will be hosting a public viewing as well.
Now mostly a heavenly spectacle, transits were once critical to refining our knowledge of the solar
system.
Only two planets, Mercury and Venus, can transit the sun because they are the only two between
us and our home star. Mercury transits are more common, happening about 13 times each century.
Venus transits come in pairs only about every hundred years. The last one happened in 2004.

7. In the 19th century, astronomers didn't have a good understanding of the distance from the Earth to
the sun, which is known as one astronomical unit. Also unclear was the distance between Venus
and Earth.
Venus' transit could reveal both distances, and using well-established mathematical laws, map out
the scale of the entire solar system.
Naval astronomers took a number of large brass refracting telescopes made by Alvan Clark, for
whom Lowell's Clark telescope is named, and set out for the far reaches of the world.
They compared transit measurements made from various locations across our planet's surface to
calculate the distance to both the sun and Venus.
One of the brass telescopes was used for a long time as a finder telescope attached to a much
larger telescope built in Flagstaff in the 1930s.
Its history was never forgotten though. And a couple months ago, USNO staff thought it would be
cool to restore it to watch the transit.
It was thought that seven such telescopes were used at the time. Two are at the Naval
Observatory's site -- one is still covered in paint -- and one is at the Smithsonian in Washington,
D.C.
A small group of astronomers took the finder telescope apart and cleaned it, as well as the lenses,
and then polished the instrument and gave it a fresh coating. They didn't know if it would work until
they put it all back together.
"It's really amazing the art the Clark brothers took optical telescopes to back in the 1870s," said
Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station Director Paul Shankland. "It really is a beautiful piece of glass
to look through."
"I couldn't see a better way to celebrate this than opening it up to the public," he added.
Using modern techniques, we now know that the Earth is about 93 million miles away from the sun
and Venus is about 67 million miles away from the sun.
That doesn't mean transits aren't still useful to astronomers.
During the last transit of Mercury, astronomers used the event to calculate the diameter of the sun
with extreme accuracy.
5. Venus: Mexican Share Transit with Ancient Mayans
The transit of Venus across the sun today is something that Mexicans can share with their ancient
ancestors: the Mayans.
The Mayans were famed for their precise and methodical observation of the stars. They are known
to closely have followed the movement of Venus, and possibly the planet’s rare visits across the
sun.

8. For today’s astronomers, Venus passing in front of the sun is not just a rare planetary spectacle —
it won't be seen for another 105 years. It's also one of those events they hope will spark curiosity
about the universe.
Sul Ah Chim, a researcher at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute in the central South
Korean city of Daejon, said he hoped people see life from a larger perspective, and "not get caught
up in their small, everyday problems."
"When you think about it from the context of the universe, 105 years is a very short period of time
and the Earth is only a small, pale blue spot," he said.
As astronomers use the latest technology to document the transit of Venus, stargazers gathering
across the world should only look at the celestial event with a properly filtered telescope, a strong
welding visor or cardboard eclipse glasses.
In terms of rarity, to be here at a time when it's happening, you almost have to look at it...It ain't
going to happen again in my lifetime. - Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory
If viewed directly, permanent eye damage could result.
Extremely hot Venus is one of Earth's two neighbors and is so close in size to our planet that
scientists at times call them near-twins. During the transit, it will appear as a beauty mark moving
across the face of the sun.
"In terms of rarity, to be here at a time when it's happening, you almost have to look at it," said
Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory. "It ain't going to happen again in my lifetime."
The transit is happening during a 6-hour, 40-minute span starting just after 6 p.m. EDT in the United
States. What you can see and for how long depends on what the sun's doing in your region during
that exact window, and the weather.
Those in most areas of North and Central America will see the start of the transit until the sun sets,
while those in western Asia, the eastern half of Africa and most of Europe will catch the transit's end
once the sun comes up.
Hawaii, Alaska, eastern Australian and eastern Asia including Japan, North and South Korea and
eastern China will get the whole show since the entire transit will happen during daylight in those
regions.
In Hawaii, university astronomers planned viewings at Waikiki Beach, Pearl Harbor and Ko Olina. At
Waikiki, officials planned to show webcasts as seen from telescopes from volcanoes Mauna Kea on
the Big Island and Haleakala on Maui.
NASA planned a watch party at its Goddard Visitor Center in Maryland with solar telescopes,
"Hubble-quality" images from its Solar Dynamics Observatory Mission and expert commentary and
presentations.
Amateur astronomers from the University of North Texas planned to watch from points in Alaska
and Hawaii to recreate the 1769 expedition of British Capt. James Cook to Tahiti, part of an effort to
use the transit to measure the solar system.

9. They will use atomic clocks, GPS and high-end telescopes to take measurements, and will use
high-end video gear to capture time-lapse video.
Experts from Hong Kong's Space Museum and local astronomical groups were organizing a
viewing Wednesday outside the museum's building on the Kowloon waterfront overlooking the
southern Chinese city's famed Victoria Harbor.
The transit begins there around 6 a.m. local time.
In South Korea, the transit coincides with a national holiday.
Choi Hyungbin, head of the Daejon Observatory, said he was expecting more visitors than might
otherwise come out to watch the transit. Local media urged residents to visit observatories,
reiterating the danger of looking directly at the sun.
This will be the seventh transit visible since German astronomer Johannes Kepler first predicted the
phenomenon in the 17th century. Because of the shape and speed of Venus' orbit around the sun
and its relationship to Earth's annual trip, transits occur in pairs separated by more than a century.
It's nowhere near as dramatic and awe-inspiring as a total solar eclipse, which sweeps a shadow
across the Earth, but there will be six more of those this decade.
6. Venus’ Transits through History
In a matter of hours, lucky observers with clear skies will be able to watch Venus pass in front of the
Sun. Transits of Venus are rare – this is the last one until 2117 – but that’s not the only reason you
should find a way to watch it. This astronomical event is historically very significant. Since the 17th
century astronomers have used Venus transits to better understand the Universe and our place
within in, and the upcoming transit doesn’t break this centuries-old tradition.
The Transit of Venus
Before exploring the role of Venus transits in history, it’s worth taking a couple of steps back. It’s
worth looking at the geometry of our Solar System to understand why this event is so rare.
Horrocks observing the 1639 Venus Transit. Published in the US before 1923 and public domain in
the US.
Venus takes about 225 days to make one full orbit around the Sun while the Earth takes about 365
days. The two planets line up roughly once every year and a half; Venus lies directly between the
Earth and the Sun. But we don’t see a transit every time because Venus’ orbit is tilted by about
three degrees compared to Earth’s. From our perspective, we see Venus passing near the Sun on
these occasions but not crossing it. Transits occur when the Earth and Venus line up at the same
inclination of their orbits. That’s when we see the planet as a small dot crossing the Sun, and it’s a
much rarer occurrence. Venus transits come in pairs eight years apart, but pairs come less than
once per century. The repeating pattern between transits is eight years, 105.5 years, eight years,
and 120.5 years.

10. But astronomers didn’t always know the transit schedule. In fact, they didn’t know nearly as much
about planetary orbits as we know now. Getting a sense of where astronomy was as a science
before transits became a valuable tool for astronomers is also worthwhile before getting into the
story of transits in history.
Where We Stood
Illustration of the Venus transit from James Ferguson's 1811 Astronomy, Explained Upon Sir Isaac
Newton's Principles. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Until 1543, we were the centre of the Universe. Aristotelean and Ptolemaic models of cosmos had
the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn orbiting around the Earth against the
background of fixed stars. But astronomers observed odd behaviour like planets occasionally
doubling back on their orbits that couldn’t be explained in this geocentric model. Polish astronomer
Nicolaus Copernicus proposed an elegant, and controversial, solution. He decentered the Earth and
posited that all planets, including the Earth, orbit the Sun. In this model, the odd planetary motions
astronomers saw could be chalked up to their orbiting viewpoint. Copernicus published his model
the year of his death, 1543, in his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the
Celestial Spheres). Though he didn’t see it, he changed the cosmic world view to one with a
heliocentric system.
George Forbes, "The Transit of Venus", London and New York, 1874. Credit: Adler Planetarium
Online
German astronomer Johannes Kepler built on Copernicus’ heliocentric model. Copernicus had
retained the ancient idea that planets orbit the sun in perfect circles, but again the observations
were inconsistent with the model. Kepler found that the planets actually trace elliptical orbits around
the Sun, a theory he proved by using his model to accurately predict the November 7, 1631 transit
of Mercury. In 1627, he also predicted the 1631 transit of Venus.
The 1631 Venus transit wasn’t visible in Europe, and Kepler, who died in 1630, failed to this
transit’s pair. He predicted a Venus transit in 1761 and a near transit in 1639. He was wrong, and
English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks found the error and used Kepler’s adjusted calculation to
predict the 1639 event. At around quarter past three on the afternoon of December 4 that year, he
became one of the first men in history to observe a Venus transit. He projected the sun onto a piece
of paper through a telescope. His friend William Crabtree also watched the event. Horrocks used
his observations to guess at Venus’ size and compared data with Crabtree to estimate the distance
between the Earth and the Sun.
From the Earth to the Sun
A photograph of the 1882 transit. Credit: The US Naval Oceanography Portal
The actual distance between the Earth and the Sun eluded astronomers in the 17th century. By the
1660s, the Copernican heliocentric model was widely accepted and the planets’ relative orbits were
well known. The missing piece was a number. Everything was quantified by the valueless
Astronomical Unit (AU) where 1 AU is the average distance from the Sun to the Earth. Venus was
known to orbit on average 0.7 AU from the Sun, but that wasn’t the precise value astronomers
wanted. If they could determine the value for 1 AU, they could figure out the size of every planet’s

11. orbit and the picture of the solar system, at least as it was understood at the time, would be
complete.
Edmund Halley of Halley’s Comet fame was the first astronomer to come up with a way of using the
transit of Venus to find the value for 1 AU. If two astronomers observed the transit from two far
apart locations on Earth, they could use the difference in transit time and their known distance from
each other to calculate the distance between the Earth and Venus. Then, applying Kepler’s third
law about the shape of planetary orbits – the square of the orbital period of a planet is directly
proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit – they could determine the value of 1 AU.
French astronomer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle improved on Halley’s method. He stipulated that if the
two observers knew their exact positions on Earth, they would only need to record the moment
when the edge of Venus lined up with the edge of the Sun. This would be enough to calculate the
value of 1 AU.
Measuring the Solar System with Transits
Halley died in 1742, 19 years before he could try his method on the 1761 transit. But a host of
astronomers took up the challenge in his stead. European expeditions set out to India, the East
Indies, Siberia, Norway, Newfoundland, and Madagascar to get the best and most spaced out
views of the event. From the whole worldwide network, more than 120 transit observations were
recorded, but most were of poor quality stemming from optical problems and inexperienced
observers. For the 1769 transit, more than 150 observations were recorded from Canada, Norway,
California, Russia, and famously Tahiti as part of Captain James Cook’s first expedition. But the
results were only marginally better.
The state of technology in the 17th century made it impossible to record the exact moments of the
start and end of the transit because of the so-called black drop effect. As Venus crossing in front of
the Sun, a haze obscured the planet making it impossible for astronomers to make clear
observations. But even poor results are results. In 1771, French astronomer Jérôme Lalande
combined the observations from the 1761 and 1769 transits and calculated that 1 AU was 95 million
miles (153 kilometers) give or take a half million or so miles. It was a start, but it wasn’t the precise
value astronomers had hoped for.
Over a century later, a new generation of astronomers sought to use the 1874 and 1882 pair of
Venus transits to refine the value of 1 AU. This time around, reigning astronomical superpowers
France and England weren’t the only nations mounting expeditions for the event. Austria, Belgium,
Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, and the United States
all joined in the international effort, though it was far from the organized enterprise we see in
international cooperatives today.
A new technology was also on hand for this set of 19th century transits: photography. Most
astronomers felt their photographic recording wasn’t good enough to provide accurate
measurements. Only the American astronomers felt the 200 photographs they took during the 1874
transit were promising enough to try again in 1882.
The 1882 transit was visible in the United States, and the U.S. Naval Observatory produced nearly
1,400 photographs. Though a striking record, these and other images gathered from other sites
around the world did little to perfect the standing value of 1 AU. American astronomer William
Harkness studied the 1874 and 1882 photographs and came up with a value of 92,797,000 miles

12. (149,342,295) give or take 59,700 miles for 1 AU. This was better, but it still wasn’t accurate
enough. The black drop effect remained; perfect Earth-based observations can never be free from
the distorting effects of the atmosphere.
New Technologies, New Goals
Venus begin its transit as seen by NASA's TRACE satellite on June 8, 2004. Credit: NASA/TRACE
Space age technology made short work of the quest to find the value of 1 AU. Radio telemetry from
space probes and radar measurements have yielded the value of 92,955,807.273 miles
(149,597,870.700 kilometres), give or take about 100 feet. But just because this one big question
has been answered doesn’t mean the 2004 and 2012 transits have to break the tradition of
astronomers using the event to further our understanding of the Universe around us. This
generation just has a very different goal in mind. Instead of measuring our Solar System, this pair of
transits is helping astronomers measure the atmospheres of exoplanets.
2004 was the first transit since quantitative astronomical spectroscopy was invented, and
astronomers took the opportunity to make detailed spectroscopic measurements of Venus’ upper
atmosphere. Spectroscopy, which came onto the astronomical scene in the first half of the 20th
century, allows astronomers to determine the chemical composition of a planet’s atmosphere. As
sunlight passed through Venus’ atmosphere, the gases absorbed light at certain known
wavelengths. The light that reached Earth had an absorption spectrum that astronomers read to
find exactly what makes up the planet’s atmosphere.
Learning more about Venus wasn’t the only reason to decipher its atmosphere in 2004. Taking
spectroscopic measurements was a practice run for applying the same method to determining the
atmospheric composition of exoplanets – planets that orbit stars other than the Sun. Astronomers
are using this 2012 transit to test another method of studying exoplanets.
Hubble will use its advanced Camera for Surveys, Wide Field Camera 3, and Space Telescope
Imaging Spectrograph to view the transit in a range of wavelengths and perform spectroscopic
analysis. But because its cameras are too sensitive to point directly at the Sun, Hubble will measure
the light passing through Venus’ atmosphere as it reflects off the Moon. If Hubble can get an
accurate reading of Venus this way, it will be another tool in astronomers’ arsenal for determining
the atmospheric composition of exoplanets. If there’s an Earth out there, this could be the way to
find it.
Over the course of astronomy’s history, Venus transits have shaped and given size to our Solar
System. Now, transits are helping us understand our place in the Universe relative not only to other
planets and stars but to other possible worlds and life forms. As you watch a small dot cross in front
of a circle later, try to keep in mind the significance of and rich history behind this seemingly tiny
event.
7. View of a lifetime: Flag residents watch Venus transit
Flagstaff residents once again showed their love of astronomy on Tuesday as people came out in
droves to catch a glimpse of Venus as it passed in front of the sun.
The next Venus transit won't happen again until 2117.

13. Lowell Observatory filled to capacity within 30 minutes of the transit starting, and traffic was diverted
at the bottom of Mars Hill.
At the U.S. Naval Observatory Flagstaff station, the roads were lined with cars, and the parking lot
was also completely full.
"I wanted to see this once in my lifetime," said Flagstaff resident Cindy May after looking through a
small telescope at the Naval Observatory.
She added that Venus' tiny black spot was a reminder of just how small the planet was compared to
the sun's massive orb.
"We forget the whole world is moving around us," she said.
At the Naval Observatory, children and adults waited patiently in short lines to peek through
telescopes with solar filters.
The observatory was also giving out free solar glasses so people could see the tiny dot directly as it
moved across the uppermost part of the sun's disk.
The excitement was obvious as each eyeball met the eyepiece and the viewer witnessed looping
solar flares strung along the edge of the solar disk, as well as strings of sunspots and Venus itself.
Many said they had gone out to watch the recent solar eclipse as well.
It wasn't just the novice astronomers excited, either. Both Lowell Observatory and the Naval
Observatory made their staff available to help show people the sun.
"I love doing research," said Naval Observatory astronomer Bob Zavala, "but I rarely just get to
look. It's like recess."
The telescope highest in demand was a large brass telescope that Naval Observatory staff had
restored just for the occasion.
The telescope was one of seven that played a historic role in astronomical history by helping
determine just how far away Earth was from the sun and, by deduction, the size of our solar
system.
The Navy sent astronomers with the telescopes to China and South Africa to view the last two
Venus transits in 1874 and 1882.
"I think it has a beautiful view, and hopefully a century from now the Naval Observatory will be able
to pull it out for a repeat," said U.S. Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station Director Paul Shankland.
The telescope will be kept in its current setup and used for public viewing nights like the Flagstaff
Festival of Science this fall.

14. 8. Astronomical Interest in Transit
By Olivia Caldwell
Nearly 140 years ago, the transit of Venus was observed in Queenstown by a United States Naval
Observatory scientific expedition and on Wednesday modern stargazers gathered at the same spot
to watch the planet appear once again between the earth and the sun.
The Queenstown site was one of eight stations set up worldwide in 1874 to witness the transit,
which occurs only four times each 243 years and is not due again until 2117.
The rarity of the occasion meant Wednesday's gathering, featuring mulled wine and a sausage
sizzle in Melbourne St, behind the Millennium Hotel, was one of huge significance.
"I've got on my door 'Back by 1,"' Queenstown resident Diane Smith said.
"I don't know a lot about astronomy, but this is a significant occasion."
Diane Smith, Jo Champion and Jessie Champion, all of Queenstown, observe the transit of Venus
at the Melbourne St plaque on Wednesday.
Mrs Smith gathered with several others who wanted to witness the event at the historic 1874
monument in Melbourne St.
On December 9, 1874, the transit was observed by the American scientists, putting Queenstown on
the map in an era of astronomical discovery.
In 1874, the group, led by Dr C.H.F. Peters, stayed in Queenstown for 11 weeks and arrived with
equipment such as a large equatorial travelling telescope housed in an octagonal building with a
revolving roof, a telegraph office and a darkened chamber for photographers.
By December 19, the party had taken 239 pictures of the sun.
The rare transit occurs when Venus revolves around the sun inside the earth's orbit and crosses the
face of the sun, making it appear as a tiny dot on the sun's surface.
The patterned interval runs between transits of 8, 121.5, 8, 105.5, 8 and 121.5 years - which means
those who witnessed this week's transit will most likely miss the next in 105.5 years.
Historically, the rare alignment gave scientists a rare chance to measure the size of the solar
system.
In 1769, Captain Cook voyaged to Tahiti for the Royal Society to observe the event and calculate
the distance between the sun and the earth.
It was on that voyage he became the first explorer to circumnavigate New Zealand.
Since then, the transit of Venus has occurred in 1874, 1882, and 2004, before Wednesday's event.
The next will come in 2117.
9. Brown to lead Stennis
The Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command at Stennis Space Center is getting a new
commander.

15. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says Capt. Brian B. Brown is being promoted to rear admiral and will be
posted to Stennis.
A news release says Brown is currently executive assistant to the director for oceanography, space,
and maritime domain awareness at the Pentagon.
10. NOAA Administrator Dr. Lubchenco names new Deputy Under Secretary for Operations
It gives me great pleasure to announce Rear Admiral David Titley as the next Deputy Under
Secretary for Operations (DUS/O) at NOAA. As NOAA’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Titley will be
responsible for managing operations across NOAA’s entire portfolio and will serve as one of my key
advisors on NOAA program and policy issues.
Dr. Titley brings to this position a wealth of knowledge and experience in leading large, complex
organizations and directing major operations around the world. A naval officer since 1980, Rear
Admiral Titley’s distinguished career has included seven deployments to the Mediterranean Sea,
Indian Ocean, and Western Pacific region and multiple commands (Fleet Numerical Meteorological
and Oceanographic Center, Naval Oceanography Operations Command, and Naval Meteorology
and Oceanography Command). Shore tours include serving on the staff of the U.S. Commission on
Ocean Policy and as the senior military assistant to the director of Net Assessment in the Office of
the Secretary of Defense
In 2009, he assumed the duties of the oceanographer and navigator of the Navy, and in 2012, he
became acting assistant deputy chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance. Dr. Titley’s
education includes a Bachelor of Science in meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University, a
Master of Science in meteorology and physical oceanography, and a Ph.D. in meteorology, both
from the Naval Postgraduate School. His dissertation focused on better understanding tropical
cyclone intensification. He was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2009.
I couldn’t be more pleased that Dr. Titley will be joining our senior leadership team in July.
11. 20,000 colleagues under the sea
SAILING the seven seas is old hat. The latest trick is to glide them. Sea gliders are small
unmanned vessels which are now cruising the briny by the hundred. They use a minuscule amount
of power, so they can stay out for months. And, being submarines, they are rarely troubled by the
vicissitudes of weather at the surface. Their only known enemies are sharks (several have come
back covered in tooth marks) and fishing nets.
Sea gliders are propelled by buoyancy engines. These are devices that pump oil in and out of an
external bladder which, because it deflates when it is empty, means that the craft’s density changes
as well. This causes the glider to ascend or sink accordingly, but because it has wings some of that
vertical force is translated into horizontal movement. Such movement is slow (the top speed of most
gliders is about half a knot), but the process is extremely efficient. That means gliders can be sent
on long missions. In 2009, for example, a glider called Scarlet Knight, operated by Rutgers
University, in New Jersey, crossed the Atlantic on a single battery charge, though it took seven
months to do so.
Since that crossing, gliders have been deployed on many previously unthinkable missions. In 2010
teams from the American navy, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and iRobot, a robot-maker

16. based in Bedford, Massachusetts, used them to track the underwater effects of the Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. That same year a glider owned by Oregon State University
watched an underwater volcano erupting in the Lau basin near Tonga. In 2011 a glider made by
another firm, Teledyne Webb of East Falmouth, also in Massachusetts, tracked seaborne radiation
leaked from the tsunami-damaged reactors in Fukushima, Japan. And the University of
Newfoundland is planning to use gliders equipped with sonar to inspect icebergs, to work out
whether they are a threat to underwater cables and other seabed infrastructure.
Skipping under the ocean
Ten years ago there were fewer than 30 gliders in the world, all built either by academic institutions
or the armed forces. Now there are at least 400, and most are made by one of three firms: iRobot,
whose product is called, simply, Seaglider; Teledyne Webb, which manufactures the Slocum Glider
(named after Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail solo around the world); and Bluefin Robotics (the
third member of the Massachusetts sea-glider cluster, based in Quincy), which sells the Spray
Glider. Broadly speaking, these machines have three sorts of application: scientific, military and
commercial.
At the moment, science rules the roost. For cash-strapped oceanographers, gliders are a blessing.
Their running costs are negligible and, though buying one can cost as much as $150,000, that sum
would purchase a mere three days of, say, a manned trip to the Southern Ocean.
Gliders, moreover, give a continuous view of what is going on, rather than the series of snapshots
yielded by equipment lowered from a vessel at the surface. Besides tracking pollution, watching
volcanoes and measuring icebergs, they are following fish around, monitoring changing
temperatures in different layers of seawater and mapping the abundance of algae. The Ice Dragon,
a modified Seaglider operated by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, has explored under the
Antarctic ice shelf, and another modified Seaglider, the Deepglider, can plumb the depths down to
6km (20,000 feet). Teledyne Webb’s Storm Glider, meanwhile, lurks in hurricane-prone areas,
bobbing up to take readings during extreme weather.
Gliders are also quiet—so quiet that, as one researcher puts it, you can use them “to hear a fish
fart”. This was demonstrated by a recent project run by the University of South Florida, in which a
glider successfully mapped the locations of red grouper and toadfish populations on the West
Florida Shelf from the noises the fish made.
Military applications are growing, too. America’s navy, for example, has ordered 150 gliders from
Teledyne Webb’s sister company, Teledyne Brown, for what it calls its Littoral Battlespace Sensing-
Glider programme. To start with, these gliders will be used individually, to measure underwater
conditions that affect things like sonar. Eventually, the plan is to link them into a network that moves
around in a co-ordinated manner.
Gliders are also ideal for gathering intelligence. Having no propellers and no engine noise, they are
difficult to detect. They can be delivered by submarine, and can lurk unseen for as long as is
necessary. Any shipping, whether on the surface or under it, which passes near a glider can be
detected, identified and pinpointed without it realising it has been spotted. Indeed, the American
navy is now evaluating a design called the Waveglider, made by Liquid Robotics of Sunnyvale,
California, for submarine-detection work.

17. The third use, commerce, seems, at the moment, to be the smallest—though that may be because
the companies involved are keeping quiet about what they are doing. But Joe Dyer, the chief
strategy officer at iRobot, thinks oil-and-gas exploration will be a big market for the firm’s gliders,
because they can survey large areas of seabed in detail at low cost.
ACSA, a French glider firm, has a similar market in mind. In March it launched the SeaExplorer, a
streamlined, wingless glider with a speed of one knot—twice as fast as the American competition.
According to Patrice Pla, ACSA’s marketing manager, SeaExplorer’s lack of wings reduces the
chance of its getting tangled in nets. Its payload bay, meanwhile, is designed to take
interchangeable modules so that it can hold whatever equipment is required. That means
customers do not have to buy different gliders for different applications.
A glide path to discovery
Nor is ACSA the only non-American in the field. A glider called Sea Wing, for example, has been
developed at the Shenyang Institute of Automation, in China, by Yuan Dongliang of the country’s
Institute of Oceanography. It was tested last year and operated successfully in the western Pacific
at depths of up to 800 metres. Meanwhile, at Tianjin University, a team of glider researchers is
trying to improve the machines’ endurance. They are testing fuel cells instead of batteries and are
also working on the idea of powering them with a thermal engine that draws its energy from the
differences in temperature between seawater at different depths.
Japanese researchers, too, are building gliders. At Osaka University, Masakazu Arima is involved in
several glider projects. One is a small, low-cost version called ALEX that has independently
movable wings. Another is a solar-powered device called SORA. Though SORA has to surface to
recharge, its requirements are so modest that it does not take long to do so. It can travel
underwater for months, surface for a few days, then carry on. It can therefore stay at sea
indefinitely.
Dr Arima’s greatest interest, though, is like America’s navy’s: that his gliders should collaborate. His
plan is to deploy 1,000 of them in a network that surveys and measures the oceans. If it works, the
single spies of sea-gliding really will have become battalions, and the ocean’s fish will find
themselves shadowed by shoals of mechanical counterparts.
12. How Navy supercomputers help sailors beat an ancient nemesis
By Daniel Terdiman
MONTEREY, Calif.--One after another, the framed pictures on both walls of the narrow hallway tell
the story: submarines and naval ships churning white wakes as they slash through open ocean,
each photo accompanied by unbidden gratitude.
"Thank you for your team's efforts & hard work! You ensure my safety and enhance my tactical
advantage," one reads.
Welcome to the U.S. Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology & Oceanography Center. That long-and-
hard-to-say name notwithstanding, this is one of the United States military's sharpest weapons in
the never-ending battle for survival in rough seas all around the globe.

18. A supercomputer center hidden behind guarded gates in an unassuming residential neighborhood
in this coastal California city about two hours south of San Francisco, Fleet Numerical, as it's
known, counts among its many tasks giving sailors the world's most up-to-date and reliable weather
forecasts, information they can use to try to withstand the mariner's ancient nemesis --
unpredictable weather -- while also attempting to stay one step ahead of any potential human foes.
At its core, Fleet Numerical's mission is simple: it must use its collection of supercomputers -- Top
Secret, classified and unclassified -- to provide the best possible weather forecasting to both Navy
fleet weather centers in Norfolk, Va., and San Diego, and to Navy aviation assets around the world.
And, since 2008, the facility has been responsible for sending the Navy's submarine fleet weather
data that can help them decide when to surface, or more importantly, when not to. That mission
was added after a Naval tragedy in which a number of submariners died at sea when their ship
encountered a storm of unexpected ferocity.
There are other weather centers, of course, but as commanding officer, Capt. Erika Sauer (see
video below), told me when I visited Fleet Numerical yesterday as part of Road Trip 2012, the
facility benefits from its immediate proximity to weather and supercomputing experts at the Naval
Research Laboratory, the National Weather Service, and the Naval Postgraduate School, all of
which are in Monterey. That allows Fleet Numerical's team of just 13 officers, 13 enlisted, and 128
civilians to do a job that the National Weather Service's own forecasting center needs at least three
times the resources to do, while the U.S. Air Force's needs twice as much, Sauer explained.
NOGAPS
Fleet Numerical got its start as the Navy Numerical Weather Problems Group in 1958 in Suitland,
Md. A year later, it relocated to Monterey, and in 1961, it was renamed the Fleet Numerical
Weather Facility. Last year, the facility celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Today, its major product is what is known as NOGAPS, or the Navy Operational Global
Atmospheric Prediction System. This provides forecasting at a resolution of about 21 nautical miles
and 42 vertical levels up to 106,000 feet. But Fleet Numerical has other products it provides its
"customers" in the Navy, the Department of Defense, and among coalition partners, including the
Coupled Ocean/Atmospheric Mesoscale Prediction System, which is a "regional mesoscale model,
multi-nested to (about) 1,800 yards to 14 (nautical miles) resolution (and) 45 vertical levels.
As well, there's the WaveWatch III, a spectral ocean wave model with global (21 nautical mile) and
regional (3 nautical mile) implementations; the Ensemble Forecast System, a 20-simulation, 15-day
forecast; and the Navy Atmospheric Aerosol Prediction System, "the only operational global aerosol
model," which is used to feed the military's Target Acquisition Weapons Software.
Fleet Numerical's most powerful supercomputer is a Dell Linux cluster system known as A2
Emerald with 27.3 peak teraflops. But that runs the center's unclassified global modeling, which
brings in giant amounts of data from countries all around the world. Its classified and Top Secret
computers are smaller, and are geared towards much finer resolution regional and local modeling.
And while even A2 Emerald can't hold a candle to the world's most powerful supercomputers, it is
nevertheless a system that has gotten better over time. In 1988, it took as much processing power
to produce a 72-hour forecast as it now takes to generate one of five days.
Overcoming uncertainty and providing an advantage
One of the key missions at Fleet Numerical is to help those who need it get an advantage when

19. having one is essential. That can range from the aftermath of regional disasters like Japan's
disastrous 2011 earthquake and tsunami to offering the best assessment of wind probabilities to
crews handling the Deepwater Horizon oil spill crisis in 2010. And of course, the U.S. military and its
friends can imagine many ways that knowing more about weather conditions at sea than its
enemies could be a big advantage. "By using this system and technique," Sauer said, "it allows you
to quantify uncertainty."
This involves an intelligence mission, known as the Information Dominance Corps. One example of
that, she explained, is how the Navy is utilizing Fleet Numerical's data in combating piracy off the
coast of Somalia. There, pirates are known to stick to calm waters, and with the data in had, the
U.S. military can pre-position itself in areas deemed likely to meet the pirates' needs.
In the end, Fleet Numerical is 24/7/365 facility geared toward ensuring that the Navy has the best-
possible weather data for taking on the many challenges it faces around the world every day,
weather that's on the surface of the sea, or well above it. And that's why that wall inside the center
is adorned with so many paeans from commanders who know that the work done here helped them
do their jobs better. That's why sailors like the commander of the submarine, USS Texas, wrote on
one of those photographs, "You directly supported our last mission with timely and vital information.
You make a difference to our success. THANK YOU!"
13. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific hosts NATO exercise
By Ashley Nekoui
SAN DIEGO -Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific was one of three locations
throughout the world to host the Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXploration, eXperimentation,
eXamination, (CWIX) Exercise, June 6-20.
CWIX is an annual North Atlantic Treaty Organization military committee approved event, designed
to bring about continuous improvement in interoperability for the alliance. Coalition partners
participating in the exercise included Finland, Poland, France, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey, the
United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and the United States. About 1,000 personnel participated in
CWIX.
The CWIX program primarily focuses on testing and improving the interoperability of NATO and
national command and control (C2) capabilities with a particular emphasis on those that would be
deployed within a Combined Joint Task Force or NATO Response Force.
During the exercise, systems and network engineers worked alongside military personnel from
various countries, solving interoperability issues while exploring and sharing potential solutions for
future operations.
This year's CWIX scenario was located off of the Horn of Africa. Participants tested multiple
technologies in support of maritime domain awareness, defense response, and threat response to
determine operability among their respective systems.
Participating coalition partners tested five capabilities from San Diego with systems in Bydgoszcz,
Poland.
Meteorology and oceanography (METOC) data from the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and

20. Oceanography Center (FNMOC) in Monterey, Calif., was passed through a data-diode in San Diego
into a classified coalition environment and shared with coalition partners. The METOC capability
allows users to view various weather situations in real time. This data is critical to air and sea
operations and used as a major planning factor in land-based operations.
"Something like this has never been done before in military history," said Jay Iannacito, project
manager for coalition interoperability at SSC Pacific.
Several versions of Global Command and Control System-Maritime were exchanged during CWIX,
which allowed users to share command messages, a common operational picture, and to track data
with various programs, including NATO's Maritime Command and Control System, Command and
Control Personal Computer, the Baseline for Rapid Iterative Transformation Experiment, and the
Web Information Service.
The Navy Automated Maritime Surveillance Systems (MEVAT), a Finnish global surveillance and
C2 system, supports the exchange of specific data that is shared among the groups.
"It was good to be able to share information within the cloud and test MEVAT in this environment,"
said Finnish Cmdr. Juha Ravanti, who participated in the CWIX Exercise at SSC Pacific.
Service Oriented Infrastructure for Maritime Traffic Tracking, an Italian global surveillance system,
was tested in an unclassified and classified environment and demonstrated the added capability of
data exchange among several servers and capabilities.
Tactical data links, including Link 16 and 22 were also tested during CWIX. Link 16 is an exchange
network that allows military aircraft, ships, and ground forces to exchange their tactical picture in
near-real time. Link 22 is a secure digital radio link and used alongside Link 16. Both links provide
data to the coalition command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, reconnaissance,
and surveillance systems.
"The ultimate goal for coalition interoperability testing at SSC Pacific is to move from a distributed
network environment to an operational exercise afloat in a radio-frequency environment in the Asian
Pacific Rim theatre," said Iannacito.