LOGAN - Understanding a system as complex as the Earth often requires seeing the big picture, and space is a great vantage point. NASA researcher Fritz Hasler presents some of the most beautiful of those big pictures in E-Theater 2004, September 27 at Utah State University.

The event, co-sponsored by the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station (UAES) and the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL), is free and the public is invited. Hasler presents two programs, one primarily for USU students at 2:30 p.m. as part of College of Agriculture Week activities, and a second presentation at 7 p.m. for people of all ages. Both showings are in the Eccles Conference Center Auditorium on the Utah State campus.

Hasler says audiences will see how high definition television is changing science communication, allowing researchers to "take the pulse of the planet" on a daily, yearly and 30-year time scale. Audiences will "fly in" to Logan from space, get satellite views of venues at the Athens Summer Olympic Games, and see how events like hurricane Charley and the 2003 fire storms in San Diego impact the Earth and atmosphere.

"The Agricultural Experiment Station is pleased to co-sponsor this event with the Space Dynamics Lab," says UAES Director Paul Rasmussen,. "This may seem like an unusual partnership, but we believe this will show people how Earth science and agriculture are closely linked to space science and engineering. A lot of people know that some of our researchers have helped produce food aboard spacecraft, but this is an opportunity to see how we're learning more about growing food and managing resources on Earth using data gathered from space."

E-Theater 2004 contrasts views of the 1972 Apollo 17 photographs of Earth with the latest U.S. and international global satellite images. The show also includes looks fires in Africa, the annual greening of land masses and oceans in the northern hemisphere, dust storms in Iraq, and how ocean currents bring up nutrients that feed plankton and draw fish, whales and fishermen.

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