Space : Science World Report

Mar 28, 2012 08:50 AM EDT

NASA Satellite Sees Thunderstorms Banding Around Developing System 96W

A low pressure system that has been lingering in the western North Pacific Ocean for several days appears to be coming together today in infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite.

Mar 28, 2012 06:31 AM EDT

"Tens of Billions" of Habitable Worlds in Milky Way

Astronomers hunting for rocky planets with the right temperature to support life estimate there may be tens of billions of them in our galaxy alone.

Mar 27, 2012 01:40 PM EDT

West Antarctic Ice Shelves Tearing Apart at the Seams

A new study examining nearly 40 years of satellite imagery has revealed that the floating ice shelves of a critical portion of West Antarctica are steadily losing their grip on adjacent bay walls, potentially amplifying an already accelerating loss of ice to the sea.

Mar 27, 2012 12:01 PM EDT

ATREX Mission Successfully Launched from Wallops

NASA successfully launched five suborbital sounding rockets this morning from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia as part of a study of the upper level jet stream.

Mar 27, 2012 10:10 AM EDT

Signs of Thawing Permafrost Revealed from Space

Permafrost is ground that remains at or below 0Â°C for at least two consecutive years and usually appears in areas at high latitudes such as Alaska, Siberia and Northern Scandinavia, or at high altitudes like the Andes, Himalayas and the Alps. About half of the world's underground organic carbon i...

Mar 26, 2012 01:25 PM EDT

Geologists Correct a Rift in Africa

The huge changes in the Earth's crust that influenced human evolution are being redefined, according to research published today in Nature Geoscience.

Mar 26, 2012 11:43 AM EDT

Expedition to Undersea Mountain Yields New Information About Sub-Seafloor Structure

Scientists recently concluded an expedition aboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution to learn more about Atlantis Massif, an undersea mountain, or seamount, that formed in a very different way than the majority of the seafloor in the oceans.

Mar 26, 2012 08:55 AM EDT

Hubble Sees Glittering Jewels of Messier 9

The Hubble Space Telescope has produced the most detailed image so far of Messier 9, a globular star cluster located close to the center of the galaxy. This ball of stars is too faint to see with the naked eye, yet Hubble can see over 250,000 individual stars shining in it.

Mar 26, 2012 08:46 AM EDT

Dust Storm in Southwest Asia

Dust storms have been raging across southwestern Asia and the Middle East in mid-March 2012. Intense dust events spanned thousands of kilometers from the Red Sea to Afgashistan, and from the Arabian Peninsula to India. Earlier in the month, dust was on the move in Iraq and Syria and along Africa's A...

Mar 26, 2012 08:18 AM EDT

Earth Observatory: Pagan Island, Northern Marianas

A steam plume flows blows south from the peak of Pagan Island's northernmost volcano in this photograph by an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS). Pagan is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, an island chain of volcanoes that form the margin between the Pacific Ocean (t...

Mar 25, 2012 06:52 AM EDT

Debris Prompts Space Station Crew to Seek Shelter

A passing piece of potentially dangerous space debris forced astronauts at the International Space Station to temporarily seek refuge in escape ships early on Saturday, U.S. officials said.

Mar 24, 2012 07:55 AM EDT

Flooding along the Darling River

The Darling River flows roughly southwest across the Australian state of New South Wales, and in March 2012, the river flooded. On March 14, the State Emergency Service reported major flooding at Louth and warned of an expected floodwater peak at Tilpa over the coming days. Floods were receding, how...