Space : Science World Report

Mar 08, 2012 02:07 PM EST

NASA Sees Tropical Storm Irina Heading Back Toward African Mainland

Tropical Storm Irina continues to linger in the Mozambique Channel, and NASA satellite data revealed the strongest storms in the southern quadrant, and Irina is running into some dry air, which may help to weaken it as it moves back to the African mainland.

Mar 08, 2012 12:04 PM EST

NASA Sees Second Biggest Flare of the Solar Cycle

NASA models using data from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) have now provided more information about the two CMEs associated with the two March 6 flares. The first is traveling faster than 1300 miles per second; the second more than ...

Mar 08, 2012 09:45 AM EST

Ship Tracks off the Californian Coast

Ships churning across the Pacific Ocean left this cluster of bright cloud trails lingering in the atmosphere late last month. The narrow clouds, known as ship tracks, form when water vapor condenses around tiny particles of pollution that ships either emit directly as exhaust or that form as a resul...

Mar 08, 2012 09:39 AM EST

NASA Jet Stream Study will Light up the Night Sky

High in the sky, 60 to 65 miles above Earth's surface, winds rush through a little understood region of Earth's atmosphere at speeds of 200 to 300 miles per hour. Lower than a typical satellite's orbit, higher than where most planes fly, this upper atmosphere jet stream makes a perfect target for a ...

Mar 08, 2012 09:31 AM EST

Robotic Refueling Mission Begins with Space Station Robotics

NASA's highly anticipated Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) began operations on the International Space Station with the Canadian Dextre robot and RRM tools March 7-9, 2012, marking important milestones in satellite-servicing technology and the use of the space station robotic capabilities.

Mar 08, 2012 08:49 AM EST

Strong Solar Storm Heading for Earth

A strong geomagnetic storm is racing from the Sun toward Earth, and its expected arrival on Thursday could affect power grids, airplane routes and space-based satellite navigation systems, U.S. space weather experts said.

Mar 07, 2012 12:10 PM EST

NIST/CU 'Star Comb' Joins Quest for Earth-like Planets

Such a combâ€”a tool for precisely measuring frequencies, or colors, of lightâ€”has for the first time been used to calibrate measurements of starlight from stars other than the Sun. The good results suggest combs will eventually fulfill their potential to boost the search for Earth-like p...

Mar 07, 2012 10:03 AM EST

VLT Takes Most Detailed Infrared Image of the Carina Nebula

Deep in the heart of the southern Milky Way lies a stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula. It is about 7500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Carina (The Keel) [1]. This cloud of glowing gas and dust is one of the closest incubators of very massive stars to the Earth and includes seve...

Mar 07, 2012 09:57 AM EST

Galaxies Get Up Close and Personal

The Hercules galaxy cluster (also known as Abell 2151) lies about 500 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. It is unlike other nearby galactic assemblies in many ways. As well as being rather irregular in shape, it contains a wide variety of galaxy types, particularly young, sta...

Mar 07, 2012 09:12 AM EST

NASA Sees Tropical Cyclone Irina still Looping at Sea

NASA's Aqua satellite saw Tropical Cyclone Irina making a slow loop in the southern Mozambique Channel for the third day on March 6, 2012. Because of the different weather systems moving through the region, Irina's track has been hard to forecast.

Mar 07, 2012 08:00 AM EST

Tile Makers Creating Orion Shield

Workers recently began cutting and coating the first thermal protection system tiles - part of the heat shield that will protect an Orion spacecraft during an upcoming flight test which will simulate the re-entry speed and heating of returning from deep space.

Mar 07, 2012 06:43 AM EST

Dust over the Southern Arabian Peninsula

On March 4, 2012, the thick dust that had hovered over Saudi Arabia a day earlier traveled southward off the edge of the Arabian Peninsula. This natural-color image, acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite, shows a cloud of dust over Yemen, and...