The best way to grab a sample of a rotating comet that is racing through the inner solar system at up to 150,000 miles per hour while spewing chunks of ice, rock and dust may [...]
Tag Archives | goddard space flight center
Study shows more shrubbery in a warming world
Scientists have used satellite data from NASA-built Landsat missions to confirm that more than 20 years of warming temperatures in northern Quebec, Canada, have resulted in an increase in the amount and extent of shrubs and grasses. “For the first tim…
NASA postpones launch of Glory mission
WASHINGTON — The launch of NASA’s Glory spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California has been postponed at least 24 hours.
During the final 15 minutes before Wednesday’s scheduled launch of 5:09 a.m. EST, the vehicle interface control …
Catching space weather in the act
Close to the globe, Earth’s magnetic field wraps around the planet like a gigantic spherical web, curving in to touch Earth at the poles. But this isn’t true as you get further from the planet. As you move to the high altitudes where satellites …
NASA’s NPP satellite undergoing flight environmental testing
GREENBELT, Md. — The NASA National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) climate/weather satellite is undergoing flight environmental testing at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp’s production …
Tool makes search for Martian life easier
RICHLAND, Wash. — Finding life on Mars could get easier with a creative adaption to a common analytical tool that can be installed directly on the robotic arm of a space rover.
In a recent paper published online in the journal Planetary and S…
Surprise hidden in Titan’s smog: Cirrus-like clouds
Every day is a bad-air day on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Blanketed by haze far worse than any smog belched out in Los Angeles, Beijing or even Sherlock Holmes’s London, the moon looks like a dirty orange ball. Described once as crude oil wi…
GOES-13 Satellite sees Groundhog’s Day on ice
Punxsutawney Phil predicted that spring will come on time, and NASA satellite data suggests that residents in more than one-third of the U.S. are now anxious for the prediction to come true.
A massive winter storm touched 30 states over the…
NASA satellites capture data on monster winter storm affecting 30 states
It has already been called one of the largest winter storms since the 1950s and it is affecting 30 U.S. states today with snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain. NASA satellites have gathering data on the storm that stretches from Texas and the Rocki…
NASA’s TRMM Satellite sees TD10S strengthen into Tropical Storm Bianca
The life of a cyclone is a complex one, and NASA satellites have kept track of a low that has now become Tropical Storm Bianca just off the northern coast of Western Australia.
What began as a low pressure system designated as System 98S on …
Cyclone Wilma’s eye catches attention of NASA satellites
Wilma caught the eye of NASA. NASA’s Aqua satellite captured visible and infrared images of Cyclone Wilma in the Southwestern Pacific Ocean and her eye was clearly visible from space.
On January 25 at 00:59 UTC (8:59 p.m. EST on Jan. 24), the A…
NASA prepares to launch next Earth-observing satellite mission
WASHINGTON — NASA’s newest Earth-observing research mission is nearing launch. The Glory mission will improve our understanding of how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect Earth’s climate. Glory also will extend a leg…
Swift survey finds ‘missing’ active galaxies
Seen in X-rays, the entire sky is aglow. Even far away from bright sources, X-rays originating from beyond our galaxy provide a steady glow in every direction. Astronomers have long suspected that the chief contributors to this cosmic X-ray ba…
NASA’s TRMM Satellite sees Zelia born of System 94P
The low pressure area known as System 94P on January 13 strengthened into the seventh tropical cyclone of the South Pacific Cyclone season, today becoming Tropical Storm Zelia. NASA’s TRMM satellite found heavy rainfall was already occurring i…
NASA satellites capture a stronger La Nina
New NASA satellite data indicate the current La Niña event in the eastern Pacific has remained strong during November and December 2010.
A new Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 satellite image of the Pacific Ocean that averaged 1…
GOES satellites watch 2011 approach, look back at 2010
The GOES series of satellites keep an eye on the weather happening over the continental U.S. and eastern Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and had a busy time with wild weather in 2010. Today, GOES-13 captured one of the last images of North and Sou…
SOHO spots 2,000th comet
As people on Earth celebrate the holidays and prepare to ring in the New Year, an ESA/NASA spacecraft has quietly reached its own milestone: on December 26, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) discovered its 2000th comet.
Drawing on he…
GOES-13 satellite captures powerful snowmaker leaving New England
Snows are finally winding down in New England today, Dec. 27, as a powerful low pressure system brought blizzard conditions from northern New Jersey to Maine over Christmas weekend. The GOES-13 satellite captured an image of the low’s center o…
NASA’s LRO creating unprecedented topographic map of moon
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is allowing researchers to create the most precise and complete map to date of the moon’s complex, heavily cratered landscape.
“This dataset is being used to make digital elevation and terrain maps that w…
Plant consumption rising significantly as population grows and economies develop
Humans are consuming an increasing amount of the Earth’s total annual land plant production, new NASA research has found.
As the human population continues to grow and more societies develop modern economies, this rate of consumption is increasing…
Satellites pinpoint drivers of urban heat islands in the northeast
GREENBELT, Md. — The size, background ecology, and development patterns of major northeastern cities combine to make them unusually warm, according to NASA scientists who presented new research today at an American Geophysical Union meeting, …
Cassini’s CIRS reveals Saturn is on a cosmic dimmer switch
Like a cosmic light bulb on a dimmer switch, Saturn emitted gradually less energy each year from 2005 to 2009, according to observations by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.
But unlike an ordinary bulb, Saturn’s southern hemisphere consistently emit…
GOES-13 satellite sees cold front stalking remnant low of Tomas
The GOES-13 satellite is watching a flurry of activity in the Atlantic Ocean today as a cold front approaches the remnants of Hurricane Tomas and threatens to swallow it in the next couple of days.
Tomas is now a remnant low pressure area is…
GOES-13 Satellite sees Hurricane Tomas lashing Haiti and eastern Cuba today
Tomas strengthened to hurricane status and is currently lashing Hispaniola and eastern Cuba today and the GOES-13 satellite provided a visible image of its extensive cloud cover.
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite known as G…
NASA extends TIMED mission for fourth time
Nine years after beginning its unprecedented look at the gateway between Earth’s environment and space, not to mention collecting more data on the upper atmosphere than any other satellite, NASA’s Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics an…
GOES-13 catches Tropical Storm Tomas’ early morning strengthening
The GOES-13 satellite keeps a continuous eye on the eastern half of the U.S. and Atlantic Ocean basin, and has provided meteorologists with an infrared look at a strengthening Tropical Storm Tomas this morning.
The Geostationary Operational En…
NASA satellites see Typhoon Megi poised for southeastern China landfall
Typhoon Megi has run into winds that are weakening the storm, but it is forecast to make landfall in southeastern China late at night (EDT) on Oct. 22 (11 a.m. local time Hong Kong, Oct. 23) as a Category One Typhoon. NASA satellites have been m…
Category 4 Cyclone Giri hits Burma, NASA satellite sees heavy rainfall
Tropical Storm 04B grew quickly into powerful Cyclone Giri and was making landfall in Burma today as a powerful Category Four Cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson scale. NASA’s TRMM satellite noticed that the storm contained some heavy rainfall in ad…
Tropical Storm Richard born in the Caribbean, GOES-13, TRMM watching
The GOES-13 satellite is watching Tropical Storm Richard work its way through the western Caribbean, and residents of eastern Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula are bracing for its impacts as it is forecast to strengthe…