Not-so-secret NASA satellite launched to scan the oceans deep

There’s a real ruckus about photographer Trevor Paglen’s project to document all those secret satellites. It makes you forget sometimes that there are plenty of legitimate, non-spy satellites up there doing lots of good work. For instance, NASA has just successfully launched the Jason-2 satellite, which will be set up to monitor ocean currents, weather patterns, and all that good stuff so we’ll have more and better data to use for prediction of storm systems, global warming hotspots and the like.

If you’re interested in that stuff, there’s some more info here and video of the satellite separation here (upper right). Rock on, NASA.