“Despite being one of the most active volcanoes in Papua New Guinea, Bagana is poorly monitored. Located on the mountainous spine of Bouganville Island, it is both far from any cities or large towns and hard to reach due to the rough terrain. [...] Satellites provide the most reliable way to watch this activity. [...] This natural-color image reveals a fresh lava flow on Bagana’s eastern flank. Imagery from Landsat 7 shows that the flow was established some time between March 2011 and February 2012.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
“The joint JAXA/NASA Hinode mission captured this video of an annular eclipse of the Sun on May 20, 2012. During an annular eclipse the moon does not block the entirety of the sun, but leaves a bright ring of light visible at the edges. For the May eclipse, the moon was at the furthest distance from Earth that it ever achieves – meaning that it blocked the smallest possible portion of the sun.” Quoted from the NASA video release.
The launch of a spacecraft owned by private company, SpaceX, has been rescheduled for Tuesday. If successful it will become the first commercial vehicle to transport supplies from Earth to the International Space Station.
“A plume of smoke stretched across the Bering Sea on May 11, 2012, just off of far eastern Russia. [...] The smoke may have arisen from wildfires in the region around Lake Baikal, where numerous wildfires burned in early May.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
“Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. The PHAs have the closest orbits to Earth’s, coming within five million miles, and they are big enough to survive passing through Earth’s atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
NASA has published a .pdf document titled: “Exploring the Moon: a Teacher’s Guide with activities for Earth and Space Sciences”. It has lots of introductory content and several activities that can be done with students.
“Dawn’s residence at Vesta of nearly a year has made the asteroid’s planet-like qualities obvious and shown us our connection to that bright orb in our night sky. [...] Scientists now see Vesta as a layered, planetary building block with an iron core – the only one known to survive the earliest days of the solar system.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
“NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a “super-Earth” planet beyond our solar system for the first time. While the planet is not habitable, the detection is a historic step toward the eventual search for signs of life on other planets.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
On Saturday the distance between the Moon and the Earth will be at a minimum at about 11:35 PM as the Moon makes its elliptical orbit around the earth. The moon will appear bigger and brighter than normal.
“Saturn’s giant moon Titan hides behind a thick, smoggy atmosphere that’s well known to scientists as one of the most complex chemical environments in the solar system. It’s a productive “factory” cranking out hydrocarbons that rain down on Titan’s icy surface and cloak it in soot.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
“The expansion of massive salt evaporation projects on the Dead Sea are clearly visible in this time series of images taken by Landsat satellites operated by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.” Quoted from the NASA image release.
“This visualization shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through December 2007. The visualization does not include a narration or annotations; the goal was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.” Quoted from the NASA visualization release.
“Heavy rains soaked northeastern Australia in February and March 2012, with some areas receiving more than 1,500 millimeters (59 inches) of precipitation. This image shows rainfall, as observed by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, over parts of Queensland, Northern Territory, and the Gulf of Carpentaria. The date range is from February 22 to March 23, 2012.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
A group of scientists has produced the first global geologic map of Jupiter’s Moon, Io. “The map illustrates the geologic character of some of the most unique and active volcanoes ever documented in the solar system.” Quote from the USGS press release.
“The dust storm that started on March 17 continued its southward movement two days later, drifting off the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula and over the Gulf of Aden.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
“There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there… So here is the scientific reality on the celestial happenings in the year 2012.”
“A team of volunteers has pored over observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and discovered more than 5,000 “bubbles” in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy. Young, hot stars blow these bubbles into surrounding gas and dust, indicating areas of brand new star formation.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
Pale green patterns tinted the water along the Namibian coast in late February 2012. But unlike other bright hues that occasionally show up in the ocean, these colors didn’t result from a phytoplankton bloom. [...] The sediments in the local seafloor are also rich with organic matter. When organic matter decays in an oxygen-poor environment, hydrogen sulfide emissions can result.
“Using data from the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have detected for the first time cold water vapor enveloping a dusty disk around a young star. “
“NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has “sniffed” molecular oxygen ions around Saturn’s icy moon Dione for the first time, confirming the presence of a very tenuous atmosphere. The oxygen ions are quite sparse – one for every 0.67 cubic inches of space (one for every 11 cubic centimeters of space). [...] At the Dione surface, this atmosphere would only be as dense as Earth’s atmosphere 300 miles (480 kilometers) above the surface.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
“Volcanic activity in the Zubair Island Group appears to have ceased. On December 19, 2011, satellites detected sulfur dioxide and a small volcanic plume in the area, and by December 23 a new island had formed in the Red Sea. The island continued to grow in early January, but stopped by January 15th.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
“InSight, a proposed mission to quite literally dig deep into the planetary history of rocky worlds like Earth, will seek to answer one of science’s most fundamental questions: How were the planets created?” Quote from the NASA website.
“A set of recent papers, many of which draw on data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, reveal new details in the emerging picture of how Saturn’s moon Titan shifts with the seasons and even throughout the day.” Quote from the USGS press release.
“Astronomers using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres had been found only in gas form in the cosmos.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
“From February 17 to 19, a severe storm blasted the Lebanese coast with 100-kilometer (60-mile) winds and dropped as much as 2 meters (7 feet) of snow on parts of the country! Temperatures dropped to near freezing along the coast, while snowplows struggled to clear the main roadway between Beirut and Damascus.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory website.
“A NASA-led science team has created an accurate, high-resolution map of the height of Earth’s forests. The map will help scientists better understand the role forests play in climate change and how their heights influence wildlife habitats within them, while also helping them quantify the carbon stored in Earth’s vegetation.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
A study of ruptures in the Martian surface and associated “displaced” boulder suggest that earthquakes as powerful as M7.0 could have occurred in the past few million years.
“New images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft show the moon’s crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface. Scientists propose this geologic activity occurred less than 50 million years ago, which is considered recent compared to the moon’s age of more than 4.5 billion years.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
The space junk problem has been growing for decades – increasing the risk to a growing number of satellites and other space activities. The National Research Council recently released a report: Limiting Future Collision Risk to Spacecraft.
“In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth’s melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
“Severe flooding affected multiple communities along Australia’s Queensland-New South Wales border in early February 2012. On February 5, 2012, the Australian Associated Press reported that several thousand residents were isolated from the outside world by an inland sea.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
This enhanced-color image shows sand dunes trapped in an impact crater in Noachis Terra, Mars. Dunes and sand ripples of various shapes and sizes display the natural beauty created by physical processes.
NASA has a short article that summarizes how the “Blue Marble” images of earth were created from satellite data. “The new image is a composite of six separate orbits taken on January 23, 2012 by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite.” Quoted from the NASA article.
“Eight months of ceaseless activity have covered the landscape around Chile’s Puyehue Cordón Caulle Volcanic Complex in ash. The light-colored ash appears most clearly on the rocky, alpine slopes surrounding the active vent and Puyehue’s 2,236 meter (7,336 foot)-tall caldera.” Quote from the Earth Observatory image release.
NASA’s GRAIL mission has beamed back its first video of the far side of the moon. The imagery was taken on Jan. 19 by the MoonKAM aboard the mission’s “Ebb” spacecraft.
“Shown here are two natural-color views: a close-up of the Kilauea Caldera and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and a wide-area view showing Mauna Ulu and Pu’u ’O’o. Within the Kilauea Caldera lies Halema’uma’u Crater. A small plume of water vapor emerges from this crater and blows toward the southwest.” Quoted from the NASA image release.
“NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
“A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed ‘Suomi NPP’ on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
Sand dunes are a dominant surface feature on Saturn’s moon Titan. They cover about 13% of the moon’s surface – an area about the same size as the United States. Instead of quartz sand the sand is a solid hydrocarbon!
“Using data from NASA’s Kepler Mission, astronomers announced the discovery of two new transiting “circumbinary” planet systems–planets that orbit two stars.” Quoted from the San Diego State University press release.
NASA’s Earth Observatory has a new satellite image of the eruption of Kizimen Volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula. It shows a gas-steam plume and lava flow on the eastern flank of the mountain.
“Astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler mission have discovered the three smallest planets yet detected orbiting a star beyond our sun.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
“The stars we see today weren’t always as serene as they appear, floating alone in the dark of night. Most stars, likely including our own sun, grew up in cosmic turmoil, as illustrated in this new image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.”
“Torrential rain inundated southeastern Brazil in early January 2012, causing severe damage in multiple states. The floods forced thousands from their homes, damaged roads and homes, and broke through a levee in northern Rio de Janeiro State.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
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