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More Los Angeles Fire Images
Triple-digit temperatures, e
…
9/1/09
| Description |
Triple-digit temperatures, extremely low relative humidities, dense vegetation that has not burned in decades, and years of extended drought are all contributing to the explosive growth of wildfires throughout Southern California. The Station fire, which began Aug. 26, 2009, in La Canada/Flintridge, not far from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had reportedly burned 105,000 acres (164 square miles) of the Angeles National Forest by mid-day Aug. 31, destroying at least 21 homes and threatening more than 12,000 others. It is one of four major fires burning in Southern California at the present time. This image was acquired mid-morning on Aug. 30 by the backward (northward)-viewing camera of the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite. The image is shown in an approximate perspective view at an angle of 46 degrees off of vertical. The area covered by the image is 245 kilometers (152 miles) wide. Several pyrocumulus clouds, created by the Station Fire, are visible above the smoke plumes rising from the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles in the left-center of the image. Smoke from the Station fire is seen covering the interior valleys along the south side of the San Gabriel Mountains, along with parts of the City of Los Angeles and Orange County, and can be seen drifting for hundreds of kilometers to the east over the Mojave Desert. The accompanying plots are histograms that display the heights of the smoke plumes and wind speeds. In this data set, the plume is injecting smoke more than 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) above sea level. MISR observes the daylit Earth continuously and every 9 days views the entire globe between 82 degrees north and 82 degrees south latitude. This image was generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 51601. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The MISR data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team |
| Date |
9/1/09 |
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Titan Sea and Lake Superior
| Description |
Titan Sea and Lake Superior |
| Full Description |
This side-by-side image shows a Cassini radar image (on the left) of what is the largest body of liquid ever found on Titan's north pole, compared to Lake Superior (on the right). This close-up is part of a larger image (see Titan (T25) Viewed by Cassini's Radar - Feb. 22, 2007) and offers strong evidence for seas on Titan. These seas are most likely liquid methane and ethane. This feature on Titan is at least 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles), which is greater in extent than Lake Superior (82,000 square kilometers or 32,000 square miles), which is one of Earth's largest lakes. The feature covers a greater fraction of Titan than the largest terrestrial inland sea, the Black Sea. The Black Sea covers 0.085 percent of the surface of the Earth, this newly observed body on Titan covers at least 0.12 percent of the surface of Titan. Because of its size, scientists are calling it a sea. The image on the right is from the SeaWiFS project, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. *Credit:* NASA/JPL/GSFC |
| Date |
March 13, 2007 |
|
Warm Fractures on Enceladus
| Description |
Warm Fractures on Enceladus |
| Full Description |
This image shows the warmest places in the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The unexpected temperatures were discovered by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer during a close flyby on July 14, 2005. The image shows how these temperatures correspond to the prominent, bluish fractures dubbed "tiger stripes," first imaged by Cassini's imaging science subsystem cameras. Working together the two teams were able to pinpoint the exact location of the warmest regions on Enceladus. The composite infrared spectrometer instrument measured the infrared heat radiation from the surface at wavelengths between 9 and 16.5 microns within each of the 10 squares shown here. Each square is 6 kilometers (4 miles) across. The color of each square, and the number shown above it, describe the composite infrared spectrometer's measurement of the approximate average temperature of the surface within that square. The warmest temperature squares, at 91 and 89 degrees Kelvin (minus 296 and minus 299 degrees Fahrenheit), are located over one of the "tiger stripe" fractures. They contrast sharply with the surrounding temperatures, which are in the range 74 to 81 degrees Kelvin (minus 326 to minus 313 degrees Fahrenheit). The detailed composite infrared spectrometer data suggest that small areas near the fracture are at substantially higher temperatures, well over 100 degrees Kelvin (minus 279 degrees Fahrenheit). Such "warm" temperatures are unlikely to be due to heating of the surface by the feeble sunlight striking Enceladus' south pole. They are a strong indication that internal heat is leaking out of Enceladus and warming the surface along these fractures. Evaporation of this relatively warm ice probably generates the cloud of water vapor detected above Enceladus' south pole by several other Cassini instruments. Scientists are unsure how the internal heat reaches the surface. The process might involve liquid water, slushy brine, or soft but solid ice. The imaging science subsystem image is an enhanced color view with a pixel scale of 122 meters (400 feet) that was acquired at the same time as the composite infrared spectrometer data. It covers a region 125 kilometers (75 miles) across. The spacecraft's distance from Enceladus was 21,000 kilometers (13,000 miles). The broad bluer fractures that can be seen running from the upper left to the lower right of the image are 1 to 2 kilometers (0.6 to 1.2 miles) wide and more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) long. The fractures are thought to be bluer than the surrounding surface because coarser-grained ice (which has a blue color just as thick masses of ice, like glaciers and icebergs, do on Earth) has been exposed in the fractures. The color image was constructed using an ultraviolet filter (centered at 338 nanometers) in the blue channel, a clear filter in the green channel, and an infrared filter (centered at 930 nanometers) in the red channel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA,, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The composite infrared spectrometer team homepage is http://cirs.gsfc.nasa.gov/ . The imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
July 29, 2005 |
|
Enceladus Temperature Map
| Description |
Enceladus Temperature Map |
| Full Description |
This image shows the surprise that startled Cassini scientists on the composite infrared spectrometer team when they got their first look at the infrared (heat) radiation from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. There is a dramatic warm spot centered on the pole that is probably a sign of internal heat leaking out of the icy moon. The data were taken during the spacecraft's third flyby of this intriguing moon on July 14, 2005. Based on data from previous flybys, which did not show the south pole well, team members expected that the south pole would be very cold, as shown in the left panel. Enceladus is one of the coldest places in the Saturn system because its extremely bright surface reflects 80 percent of the sunlight that hits it, so only 20 percent is available to heat the surface. As on Earth, the poles should be even colder than the equator because the sun shines at such an oblique angle there. The right hand panel shows a global temperature image made from measurements of Enceladus' heat radiation at wavelengths between 9 and 16.5 microns. Cassini made the observation from a distance of 84,000 kilometers (52,000 miles) on the approach to Enceladus, and the image shows details as small as 25 kilometers (16 miles). Equatorial temperatures are much as expected, topping out at about 80 degrees Kelvin (-315 degrees Fahrenheit), but the south pole is occupied by a well-defined warm region reaching 85 Kelvin (-305 degrees Fahrenheit). That is 15 degrees Kelvin (27 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than expected. The composite infrared spectrometer data further suggest that small areas of the pole are at even higher temperatures, well over 110 degrees Kelvin (-261 degrees Fahrenheit). Evaporation of this relatively warm ice probably generates the cloud of water vapor detected above Enceladus' south pole by several other Cassini instruments. The south polar temperatures are very difficult to explain if sunlight is the only energy source heating the surface, though exotic sunlight-trapping mechanisms have not yet been completely ruled out. It therefore seems likely that portions of the polar region are warmed by heat escaping from the interior of the moon. This would make Enceladus only the third solid body in the solar system, after Earth and Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, where hot spots powered by internal heat have been detected. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The composite infrared spectrometer team homepage is, http://cirs.gsfc.nasa.gov/ . Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC |
| Date |
July 29, 2005 |
|
Phoebe Temperature Maps
| Description |
Phoebe Temperature Maps |
| Full Description |
A montage of maps of Saturn's moon Phoebe shows surface temperatures at various times of day as determined by the composite infrared spectrometer onboard Cassini during the June 11, 2004, Phoebe flyby. The asterisk on each map shows the location of the subsolar point, where the Sun is directly overhead. This point moves across the surface as Phoebe rotates. It is morning in regions to the left of the subsolar point, and afternoon in regions to the right. Like a newspaper weather map, different colors indicate different temperatures, though Phoebe's temperatures are distinctly cooler than even the coldest January day on Earth. Equatorial temperatures peak in the early afternoon near 112 Kelvin (-257 Fahrenheit), plunging to 78 Kelvin (-319 Fahrenheit) before dawn, and are even colder at higher latitudes. The large day/night temperature contrasts imply that Phoebe's surface is covered in loose dust or ice particles that store little heat and thus cool off rapidly at night. Regions of Phoebe's surface that were not observed are shown in black. Most of the maps show the effect on surface temperatures of the large crater-like depression seen in Cassini's visible-wavelength images of Phoebe, which is located just left of center in these maps. Crater walls that are shadowed and cold in the early morning in the first map are sunlit and warm in the late afternoon in the final map. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini composite infrared spectrometer home page at http://cirs.gsfc.nasa.gov/ . Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Goddard Space Flight Center |
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Zoom into NASA's Goddard Spa
…
| Title |
Zoom into NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, using Landsat Imagery (WMS) |
| Abstract |
The WMS Global Mosaic dataset was developed at NASA's Jet Propulstion Laboratory (JPL). This global mosaic was produced from visual and near infrared bands taken by the Landsat-7 satellite. Using the panchromatic band to sharpen the final image, a final resolution of 0.5 arc seconds (about 15 meters) can be achieved. This mosaic is available through the Web Mapping Services (WMS) protocol at JPL. This series of images was obtained using a software program called the Digital Earth PC which can use the WMS protocol to obtain images covering an arbitrary region of the earth. These images can be arranged in such a way with the Digital Earth PC software that a nearly continuous zoom effect can be achieved. |
| Completed |
2004-10-21 |
|
Zoom into NASA's Goddard Spa
…
| Title |
Zoom into NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, using Landsat Imagery (WMS) |
| Abstract |
The WMS Global Mosaic dataset was developed at NASA's Jet Propulstion Laboratory (JPL). This global mosaic was produced from visual and near infrared bands taken by the Landsat-7 satellite. Using the panchromatic band to sharpen the final image, a final resolution of 0.5 arc seconds (about 15 meters) can be achieved. This mosaic is available through the Web Mapping Services (WMS) protocol at JPL. This series of images was obtained using a software program called the Digital Earth PC which can use the WMS protocol to obtain images covering an arbitrary region of the earth. These images can be arranged in such a way with the Digital Earth PC software that a nearly continuous zoom effect can be achieved. |
| Completed |
2004-10-21 |
|
A Summer View of Russia's Le
…
| Title |
A Summer View of Russia's Lena Delta and Olenek River |
| Description |
These views of the Russian Arctic were acquired by NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on July 11, 2004. The brief arctic summer had transformed the frozen tundra and the thousands of lakes, channels, and rivers of the Lena Delta into a fertile wetland, and the usual blanket of thick snow had melted from the vast plains and taiga forests. The images show an area in the northern part of the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia. The Olenek River wends northeast from the bottom of the images to the upper left, and the delta through which the mighty Lena River empties into the Laptev Sea dominate the top portions of the images. Creating accurate maps of vegetation structure is essential for understanding the seasonal exchanges of energy and water at the Earth's surface and for preserving biodiversity. The left-hand image is a natural-color image from MISR's nadir (vertical-viewing) camera, in which the rivers appear murky due to sediment, and photosynthetically active vegetation appears green. The center image is also from MISR's nadir camera, but is a false-color view in which the predominant red color is due to the brightness of vegetation at near-infrared wavelengths. Apart from the Lena Delta, the most photosynthetically active regions are within the lower half of the image and throughout the great stretch of land that curves across the Olenek River.  The relatively barren ranges of the Volyoi Mountains appear as the pale tan-colored area to the right of image center. The right-hand image is a multiangle, false-color view made from the red band data of the 60-degree-backward, nadir, and 60-degree-forward cameras, displayed as red, green and blue, respectively. Water appears blue in this image because sun glint makes smooth, wet surfaces look brighter at the forward camera's view angle. Much of the landscape and many low clouds appear purple because these surfaces are both forward and backward scattering, and clouds that are further from the surface appear in a different spot for each view angle, creating a rainbow-like appearance. The highly vegetated region in the natural-color nadir image exhibits a faint greenish hue in the multi-angle composite. This subtle effect suggests that the nadir camera is observing more of the brighter, underlying surface than the oblique cameras, providing information about the distribution and density of trees and shrubs in this area. The Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, and every 9 days views the entire globe between 82 degrees north and 82 degrees south latitude. The MISR Browse Image Viewer [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/redirect?http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/MISRBR/ ], provides access to low-resolution true-color versions of these images. These data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 24273. The panels cover an area of about 230 kilometers x 420 kilometers, and utilize data from blocks 30 to 34 within World Reference System-2 path 134. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. [ http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] Text by Clare Averill (Raytheon/JPL). |
|
Cloud Heights of Frances and
…
| Title |
Cloud Heights of Frances and Ivan |
| Description |
NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer [ http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov ] (MISR) captured these images and cloud-top height retrievals of Hurricane Frances on September 4, 2004, when the eye sat just off the coast of eastern Florida, and Hurricane Ivan on September 5, after the storm had devastated Grenada and was heading toward the central and western Caribbean. Hurricane Frances made landfall in the early hours of September 5, and was downgraded to Tropical Storm status as it swept inland through the Florida panhandle and continued northward. Following on the heels of Frances is Hurricane Ivan, which is on record as the strongest tropical hurricane to form at such a low latitude in the Atlantic, and was the most powerful storm to have hit the Caribbean in nearly a decade. The ability of forecasters to predict the intensity and amount of rainfall associated with hurricanes still requires improvement, especially on the 24- to 48-hour timescale vital for disaster planning. To improve the operational models used to make hurricane forecasts, scientists need to better understand the multi-scale interactions at the cloud, mesoscale and synoptic scales that lead to hurricane intensification and dissipation, as well as the various physical processes that determine hurricane intensity and rainfall distributions. Because these uncertainties with regard to how to represent cloud processes still exist, it is vital that the model findings be evaluated against hurricane observations whenever possible. Two-dimensional maps of cloud height such as those shown here offer an unprecedented opportunity for comparing simulated cloud fields against actual hurricane observations. The lefthand panel in each image pair is a natural-color view from MISR's nadir camera. The righthand panels are cloud-top height retrievals produced by automated computer recognition of the distinctive spatial features between images acquired at different view angles. These results indicate that at the time that these images were acquired, clouds within Frances and Ivan had attained altitudes of 15-16 kilometers (9-10 miles) above sea level, respectively. The height fields pictured here are uncorrected for the effects of cloud motion. Wind-corrected heights (which have higher accuracy but coarser spatial coverage) are within about 1 kilometer of the heights shown here. (Visit the Earth Observatory's Natural Hazards Severe Storms [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?topic=storm ] section to view more recent images of Hurricanes Ivan and Frances.) The MISR observes the daylit Earth continuously and every 9 days views the entire globe between 82° north and 82° south latitude. These data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov ], orbits 25081 and 25094. The panels cover an area of 380 kilometers x 924 kilometers, and utilize data from within blocks 65 to 87 within World Reference System-2 paths 14 and 222, respectively. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. NASA image courtesy GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. [ http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov ] Text acknowledgment: Clare Averill (Raytheon/Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). |
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Hurricane Katrina
| Title |
Hurricane Katrina |
| Description |
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Images and movie courtesy of NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Caption details provided by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory), David J. Diner, Mike Garay and Ralph Kahn (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)., MISR stereo-height estimates (not shown here) indicate that the highest clouds reach 18-19 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. The stereo anaglyph shows relative height variations and enhances the appearance of thin clouds, such as those that mark the series of gravity waves north-east of the eyewall. Atmospheric gravity waves are caused by air displacements in an otherwise stable air layer. In this case, the gravity waves are above the hurricane arms in the upper troposphere, and were probably generated as the towering storm updraft tried to push into the stable air between the troposphere and the stratosphere (known as the tropopause). Some of Katrina's cloud tops were about 2 kilometers above the tropopause. Such high "overshooting tops" are also characteristic of strong and rapidly growing storms. The animation progresses from MISR's most forward-pointing camera, which views the scene first, to the most backward-pointing camera, which views the scene last. It was created by aligning the views from all 9 cameras using the high clouds within the eyewall as a reference point. North is at the top. The convective cloud towers, especially those along the eastern sides of the inner and outer eyewalls, attain the highest altitudes and indicate that the storm is strengthening. Those areas that do not exhibit cloud-top convection are clouds experiencing vertical wind shear, and tend to be lower than the towering cloud structures. The vertical and horizontal development of the convective clouds and the formation of an outer ring of growing clouds (referred to as an "eyewall replacement cycle") also indicate rapid strengthening. During this stage of hurricane development, an outer band of clouds may gradually move inward to replace the existing hurricane eyewall, causing the central pressure to increase and weaken the storm in the short term. However, eyewall replacement may sometimes be a forerunner for rapid strengthening in the longer term. This was the case with Hurricane Katrina, whose central pressure increased slightly on Saturday, but then dropped again significantly on Sunday when Katrina became a Category 5 storm. Observing the development of a concentric eyewall at this spatial and temporal resolution is a unique feature of these MISR observations. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. The still images each cover an area of about 827 kilometers by 380 kilometers, and the animation covers an area of about 202 kilometers by 214 kilometers. The data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 30280 and utilize data from blocks 69 to 74 within World Reference System-2 path 17. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's, This image and animation from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday, August 27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico. Over 7 minutes during which all 9 MISR cameras viewed Katrina, the animation captures the cloud-top sides, the counterclockwise rotation of the eyewall, and the bubbling growth of the towering cloud structures. At this time, Katrina was undergoing rapid development— it had just been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, and within 24 hours it would reach Category 5. On Monday morning when the eyewall made landfall over the United States, it was a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful and destructive storms on record for the Atlantic Basin. The image above is a false-color view (near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths of reflected light displayed as red, green and blue) from MISR's nadir (pointing straight down) camera. In the image above, north is up. The high resolution image linked above shows a wider view of this false-color image, with north to the left. The vegetated Alabama coast in the upper left-hand corner in this high-resolution image appears in red hues. The bottom panel in the high-resolution image is a 3-D stereo anaglyph created with red band data from MISR's 70-degree-forward-viewing and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras, displayed as red and green/blue, respectively. To observe the height variations in 3-D, you will need to use red/blue glasses. [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/VendorList.html#Glasses ] |
|
Hurricane Katrina
| Title |
Hurricane Katrina |
| Description |
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Images and movie courtesy of NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Caption details provided by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory), David J. Diner, Mike Garay and Ralph Kahn (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)., MISR stereo-height estimates (not shown here) indicate that the highest clouds reach 18-19 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. The stereo anaglyph shows relative height variations and enhances the appearance of thin clouds, such as those that mark the series of gravity waves north-east of the eyewall. Atmospheric gravity waves are caused by air displacements in an otherwise stable air layer. In this case, the gravity waves are above the hurricane arms in the upper troposphere, and were probably generated as the towering storm updraft tried to push into the stable air between the troposphere and the stratosphere (known as the tropopause). Some of Katrina's cloud tops were about 2 kilometers above the tropopause. Such high "overshooting tops" are also characteristic of strong and rapidly growing storms. The animation progresses from MISR's most forward-pointing camera, which views the scene first, to the most backward-pointing camera, which views the scene last. It was created by aligning the views from all 9 cameras using the high clouds within the eyewall as a reference point. North is at the top. The convective cloud towers, especially those along the eastern sides of the inner and outer eyewalls, attain the highest altitudes and indicate that the storm is strengthening. Those areas that do not exhibit cloud-top convection are clouds experiencing vertical wind shear, and tend to be lower than the towering cloud structures. The vertical and horizontal development of the convective clouds and the formation of an outer ring of growing clouds (referred to as an "eyewall replacement cycle") also indicate rapid strengthening. During this stage of hurricane development, an outer band of clouds may gradually move inward to replace the existing hurricane eyewall, causing the central pressure to increase and weaken the storm in the short term. However, eyewall replacement may sometimes be a forerunner for rapid strengthening in the longer term. This was the case with Hurricane Katrina, whose central pressure increased slightly on Saturday, but then dropped again significantly on Sunday when Katrina became a Category 5 storm. Observing the development of a concentric eyewall at this spatial and temporal resolution is a unique feature of these MISR observations. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. The still images each cover an area of about 827 kilometers by 380 kilometers, and the animation covers an area of about 202 kilometers by 214 kilometers. The data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 30280 and utilize data from blocks 69 to 74 within World Reference System-2 path 17. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's, This image and animation from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday, August 27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico. Over 7 minutes during which all 9 MISR cameras viewed Katrina, the animation captures the cloud-top sides, the counterclockwise rotation of the eyewall, and the bubbling growth of the towering cloud structures. At this time, Katrina was undergoing rapid development— it had just been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, and within 24 hours it would reach Category 5. On Monday morning when the eyewall made landfall over the United States, it was a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful and destructive storms on record for the Atlantic Basin. The image above is a false-color view (near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths of reflected light displayed as red, green and blue) from MISR's nadir (pointing straight down) camera. In the image above, north is up. The high resolution image linked above shows a wider view of this false-color image, with north to the left. The vegetated Alabama coast in the upper left-hand corner in this high-resolution image appears in red hues. The bottom panel in the high-resolution image is a 3-D stereo anaglyph created with red band data from MISR's 70-degree-forward-viewing and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras, displayed as red and green/blue, respectively. To observe the height variations in 3-D, you will need to use red/blue glasses. [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/VendorList.html#Glasses ] |
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Hurricane Katrina
| Title |
Hurricane Katrina |
| Description |
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Images and movie courtesy of NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Caption details provided by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory), David J. Diner, Mike Garay and Ralph Kahn (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)., MISR stereo-height estimates (not shown here) indicate that the highest clouds reach 18-19 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. The stereo anaglyph shows relative height variations and enhances the appearance of thin clouds, such as those that mark the series of gravity waves north-east of the eyewall. Atmospheric gravity waves are caused by air displacements in an otherwise stable air layer. In this case, the gravity waves are above the hurricane arms in the upper troposphere, and were probably generated as the towering storm updraft tried to push into the stable air between the troposphere and the stratosphere (known as the tropopause). Some of Katrina's cloud tops were about 2 kilometers above the tropopause. Such high "overshooting tops" are also characteristic of strong and rapidly growing storms. The animation progresses from MISR's most forward-pointing camera, which views the scene first, to the most backward-pointing camera, which views the scene last. It was created by aligning the views from all 9 cameras using the high clouds within the eyewall as a reference point. North is at the top. The convective cloud towers, especially those along the eastern sides of the inner and outer eyewalls, attain the highest altitudes and indicate that the storm is strengthening. Those areas that do not exhibit cloud-top convection are clouds experiencing vertical wind shear, and tend to be lower than the towering cloud structures. The vertical and horizontal development of the convective clouds and the formation of an outer ring of growing clouds (referred to as an "eyewall replacement cycle") also indicate rapid strengthening. During this stage of hurricane development, an outer band of clouds may gradually move inward to replace the existing hurricane eyewall, causing the central pressure to increase and weaken the storm in the short term. However, eyewall replacement may sometimes be a forerunner for rapid strengthening in the longer term. This was the case with Hurricane Katrina, whose central pressure increased slightly on Saturday, but then dropped again significantly on Sunday when Katrina became a Category 5 storm. Observing the development of a concentric eyewall at this spatial and temporal resolution is a unique feature of these MISR observations. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. The still images each cover an area of about 827 kilometers by 380 kilometers, and the animation covers an area of about 202 kilometers by 214 kilometers. The data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 30280 and utilize data from blocks 69 to 74 within World Reference System-2 path 17. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's, This image and animation from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday, August 27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico. Over 7 minutes during which all 9 MISR cameras viewed Katrina, the animation captures the cloud-top sides, the counterclockwise rotation of the eyewall, and the bubbling growth of the towering cloud structures. At this time, Katrina was undergoing rapid development— it had just been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, and within 24 hours it would reach Category 5. On Monday morning when the eyewall made landfall over the United States, it was a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful and destructive storms on record for the Atlantic Basin. The image above is a false-color view (near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths of reflected light displayed as red, green and blue) from MISR's nadir (pointing straight down) camera. In the image above, north is up. The high resolution image linked above shows a wider view of this false-color image, with north to the left. The vegetated Alabama coast in the upper left-hand corner in this high-resolution image appears in red hues. The bottom panel in the high-resolution image is a 3-D stereo anaglyph created with red band data from MISR's 70-degree-forward-viewing and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras, displayed as red and green/blue, respectively. To observe the height variations in 3-D, you will need to use red/blue glasses. [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/VendorList.html#Glasses ] |
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Rice Cultivation in Northwes
…
| Title |
Rice Cultivation in Northwest Italy |
| Description |
The lowlands of Lombardy and Piedmont in northwest Italy are some of the most highly developed irrigation areas in the world. Irrigated lands cover at least 160,000 acres in this part of Italy, where rice is the most important crop. These views of the region were acquired on May 8, 2005, by NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR). The multiple viewing angles provided by MISR's nine cameras make it possible to tell wet surfaces, including flooded lands, from other surfaces, and they also make cities easy to locate. The left-hand image is a natural-color view acquired by MISR's downward-looking (nadir) camera, and the right-hand image is a combination of red band data from MISR's 60-degree-backward-, nadir, and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras. (Red band is what scientists call the "channel" on the sensor that detects red light.) Color changes indicate surface texture, which is influenced by terrain, vegetation structure, soil type, and surface wetness. Wet surfaces or areas with standing water appear in blue or purple-blue hues. The purple-blue areas that dominate the center-left part of the image are part of the extensive irrigation network that exists throughout the plains and meadows of the region. Cities with tall buildings appear in red-orange hues. In this type of image, the city of Milan is the most obvious. The small orange area in the center of the purple inundated area indicates the location of Vercelli, and the larger city of Milan is the orange area to the northeast, on the other side of the Ticino River. To a lesser extent, the cities of Novara, Pavia, Galliate, Mortara, and Vigevano are also identifiable by their orange hues. MISR can tell various surface features like cities or irrigated areas apart because of the way surfaces reflect light. A smooth water surface tends to reflect sunlight away from the Sun. This effect is most apparent when a satellite views the surface with the Sun in front of the camera. Similarly, rough surfaces tend to reflect light back towards the Sun, and this "backward scattering" is most obvious when a satellites views a surface with the Sun behind the camera. Clouds present over the high country to the west of the Lago Maggiore (upper left corner) and along the coast of the Golfo di Genova (bottom) appear in a different spot for each view angle, creating a rainbow-like appearance. Mountains also have a "wavy" look in the multi-angle combination because, like clouds, their height above the surface makes them appear in a different spot in each camera's view angle. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. This image covers an area of about 131 kilometers by 191 kilometers. These data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 28660 and utilize data from block 54 within World Reference System-2 path 193. MISR was, built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. [ http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] Text by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/JPL) |
|
Tropical Cyclone Monty
| Title |
Tropical Cyclone Monty |
| Description |
The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) acquired these natural color images and cloud top height measurements for Monty before and after the storm made landfall over the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia, on February 29 and March 2, 2004 (shown as the left and right-hand image sets, respectively). On February 29, Monty was upgraded to category 4 cyclone status. After traveling inland about 300 kilometers to the south, the cyclonic circulation had decayed considerably, although category 3 force winds were reported on the ground. Some parts of the drought-affected Pilbara region received more than 300 millimeters of rainfall, and serious and extensive flooding has occurred. The natural color images cover much of the same area, although the right-hand panels are offset slightly to the east. Automated stereoscopic processing of data from multiple MISR cameras was utilized to produce the cloud-top height fields. The distinctive spatial patterns of the clouds provide the necessary contrast to enable automated feature matching between images acquired at different view angles. The height retrievals are at this stage uncorrected for the effects of the high winds associated with cyclone rotation. Areas where heights could not be retrieved are shown in dark gray. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously and every 9 days views the entire globe between 82 degrees north and 82 degrees south latitude. These data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbits 22335 and 22364. The panels cover an area of about 380 kilometers x 985 kilometers, and utilize data from blocks 105 to 111 within World Reference System-2 paths 115 and 113. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL MISR Team [ http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ ], caption courtesy Clare Averill, Raytheon/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. |
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A Piece of Interplanetary Du
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| Title |
A Piece of Interplanetary Dust |
| Explanation |
The dust that pervades our Solar System is not the dust that pervades our homes. Solar System [ http://www.nineplanets.org/overview.html ] dust comes from comets [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/comets.html ] and asteroids [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/asteroids.html ], whereas house dust [ http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~ohioline/cd-fact/0191.html ] is most likely lint or dead cells. Pictured above [ http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/sd-particle.html ] is a piece of interplanetary dust [ http://www.astro.washington.edu/brownlee/ ] caught by a high-flying U2 [ http://142.26.194.131/aerodynamics1/Appendix/Aircraft/U2.html ]-type aircraft. It likely originates in the early days of our Solar System [ http://www.fourmilab.ch/solar/solar.html ], being stored and later ejected by a passing comet [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010527.html ]. The particle is composed of glass [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000322.html ], carbon [ http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/6.html ], and a conglomeration of silicate mineral grains [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010523.html ]. It measures only 10 microns [ http://www.physlink.com/reference_conversion.cfm ] across, a tenth the width of a typical human hair [ http://library.thinkquest.org/26829/text-only_3-hairy_e.htm ]. NASA's STARDUST [ http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/cool.html ] mission, launched [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990405.html ] in 1999, is scheduled to pass through the tail of Comet Wild 2 in 2004 and return [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990218.html ] many more interstellar dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap981121.html ] samples to Earth [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010204.html ] in 2006. |
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Auroras Over Both Earth Pole
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| Title |
Auroras Over Both Earth Poles |
| Explanation |
Auroras [ http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/auroras/ ] in the north and south can be nearly mirror images of each other. Such mirroring had been suspected for centuries but dramatically confirmed [ http://eiger.physics.uiowa.edu/%7Evis/conjugate_aurora/ ] only last month by detailed images from NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ]'s orbiting Polar spacecraft [ http://www.geophys.washington.edu/Space/SpaceExp/POLAR/ ]. Pictured above [ http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011025aurora.html ], a time-lapse movie shows simultaneous changes in aurora borealis [ http://www.imv.uit.no/english/science/publicat/waynorth/wn1/contents.htm ], at the top, and aurora australis [ http://ast.leeds.ac.uk/haverah/spaseman/aurora.shtml ], at the bottom. A cloud of electrons and ions moving out from the Sun on October 22 [ http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_21oct01.html ] created [ http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/imf.html ] the auroras [ http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/whaur1.html ]. The solar explosion [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000309.html ] that released the particles [ http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/waurora2.html ] occurred about three days earlier. |
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A Radar Image of Planet Eart
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| Title |
A Radar Image of Planet Earth |
| Explanation |
This image of Mt. Rainier, Washington USA, planet Earth [ http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/img_rainier.html ], was produced by the Spaceborne Radar Laboratory [ http://southport.jpl.nasa.gov/desc/SIRCdesc.html ] which flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950807.html ] in 1994. Radar, short for RAdio Detection And Ranging, is a technique which coordinates the operation of a radio transmitter and receiver to measure the direction, strength, and timing of radio echos from the surface of distant objects. An actual image of an object can be constructed by recording and analyzing many echos. One advantage of using radar imaging in planetary studies is that images can be made regardless of cloud cover or lighting conditions. During the early 90s, NASA's Magellan spacecraft [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/magellan.html ] was able to use radar imaging to produce similar high resolution maps of the surface of Venus [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950822.html ]. For more information about the picture click here [ http://southport.jpl.nasa.gov/pio/volcanos/captions/srl2-rainier_cap.html ]. Tomorrow's picture: A World Explorer |
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Summer at the South Pole
| Title |
Summer at the South Pole |
| Explanation |
December 22 marks the Winter [ http://www.astro.washington.edu/strobel/naked-eye/naked-eye.html#A1.2.4.5 ] Solstice - the beginning of winter in the Earth's northern hemisphere, and the first day of summer [ http://www.astro.washington.edu/strobel/naked-eye/naked-eye.html#A1.2.4.5 ] in the south! This view of Earth's southern hemisphere [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/slides/slide7.html ] near the beginning of its summer was created using images from the Galileo spacecraft taken during the December 1990 flyby [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/messenger/oldmess/Earth2.html ]. Dramatically centered on the South Pole [ http://www-news.uchicago.edu/South_Pole/South_Pole.html ], this mosaic was constructed by piecing together images made over a 24 hour period so that the surface appears to be entirely in sunlight. South America (middle left), Africa [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950622.html ] (upper right), and Australia (lower right), are visible as dark masses while Antarctica [ http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/livefrom/livefrom.html ] gleams brightly in the center. Swirling clouds marking the major weather systems are also prominent. |
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Where to See Comet Hyakutake
| Title |
Where to See Comet Hyakutake |
| Explanation |
People the world over are preparing to witness the closest approach of the brightest comet of the past twenty years. Comet Hyakutake [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/comet/hyakutake/ ], discovered just two months ago, will pass nearest the Earth Monday morning. All during the coming week, Comet Hyakutake [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960319.html ] will be visible in the northern sky [ http://www.skypub.com/comets/hyaku3.html#top ] as an unusual extended fuzzy patch. To see the comet is not difficult - just go outside and look up [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/lib/gliba960322.html ] - no telescope is required! The comet's location in the sky during late March is charted above. The horizon is drawn for about 8 pm in your local time. By about 11 pm, Comet Hyakutake [ http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/info1996B2.html ] will be high in the sky and well placed for viewing. Although Comet Hyakutake [ http://www.astro.washington.edu/astro422/comets.html ] is whizzing past the Earth at a blistering speed of almost 100,000 miles per hour, and it is practically streaking across the sky by astronomical standards, it will appear to move only a few degrees on any given night. Each night this weekend and in the coming week, the comet will be visible. Please don't miss this rare and exciting astronomical event! |
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Europa: Oceans of Life?
| Title |
Europa: Oceans of Life? |
| Explanation |
Is there life beneath Europa's frozen surface? Some believe the oceans found there of carbon-enriched water are the best chance for life [ http://www.etext.org/Zines/Quanta/life.html ], outside the Earth [ http://ucmp1.berkeley.edu/alllife/threedomains.html ], in our Solar System [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950819.html ]. Europa [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/europa.html ], the fourth largest moon of Jupiter [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950714.html ], was recently discovered [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/press-releases/95-12.txt ] to have a thin oxygen atmosphere by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950810.html ]. Although Earth's atmospheric [ http://www.aspire.cs.uah.edu/~jonesj/r.html ] abundance of oxygen is indicative of life [ http://www.gtri.gatech.edu/rh-win96/oxygen.htm ], astronomers speculate that Europa's oxygen arises purely from physical processes. But what an interesting coincidence! The above picture was taken by a Voyager spacecraft [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogallery-voyager.html ] in 1979, but the spacecraft Galileo [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/index.html ] is currently circling Jupiter [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/lib/jupiter.html ] and has been photographing [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/countdown/g1time.html ] Europa [ http://bang.lanl.gov/solarsys/europa.htm ]. The first of these pictures will be released two days from today. Will they show the unexpected? [ http://www.vsc.washington.edu/academic/499/Resources/europa.html ] |
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The Equal Night
| Title |
The Equal Night |
| Explanation |
Today the Sun crosses the celestial equator [ http://www.astro.washington.edu/strobel/naked-eye/ naked-eye.html#A1.2.4 ] heading south -- marking the Autumnal Equinox, the first day of Autumn. Equinox means "equal night" and with the Sun on the celestial equator [ http://www.physics.csbsju.edu/astro/CS/CSintro.html ], Earthlings will experience 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Then, for those in the northern hemisphere, the days will begin to grow shorter with the Sun marching [ http://www.lalc.k12.ca.us/laep/smart/Sunrise/k3les1.html ] lower in the sky as winter approaches [ http://www.astro.washington.edu/strobel/naked-eye/ naked-eye.html#A1.2.4.5 ]. A few weeks after the Autumnal Equinox of 1994, the Crew of the Shuttle Endeavor [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950807.html ] recorded this image [ http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/STS68/20172510.htm ] of the Sun poised above the Earth's limb. The glare illuminates Endeavor's vertical tail (pointing toward the Earth) along with radar equipment [ http://southport.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] in the payload bay. |
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A Martian Day's End
| Title |
A Martian Day's End |
| Explanation |
A Day or "Sol" on Mars is only 40 minutes longer than an Earth day - and Pathfinder's first [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970705.html ] day on Mars, Sol 1 according to its local calendar, was an eventful one [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970704.html ]. Still, late in the martian afternoon [ http://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/resources/mars_data-information/mars_overview.html ] of Sol 1, the camera on board the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft recorded [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/default.html ] this panorama of the ancient floodplain Ares Vallis [ http://members.aol.com/space7/exper.html ]. Two of the three landing petals lie in the foreground at the edges of this scene surrounded by deflated and partially gathered airbags. The martian soil near the spacecraft has been disturbed by the airbag retraction. The petal holding the undeployed robot rover Sojourner [ http://mars.compuserve.com/mpf/rover.html ] is at the left. One of Sojourner's planned routes to the surface will be down the ramp [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970420.html ] seen rolled up at the petal's edge. Mission teams have overcome some rover communications [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/rovercom/rovcom.html ] problems and are proceding carefully with plans to roll the Sojourner out onto the martian surface [ http://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/index.html ]. NASA has announced that the Pathfinder station on Mars will be renamed in honor of astronomer Carl Sagan [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961226.html ]. |
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A Martian Sunset
| Title |
A Martian Sunset |
| Explanation |
You've had a hard day rolling past Martian rocks [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970722.html ], so now just relax your APXS [ http://mars.sgi.com/mpf/sci_desc.html#APXS ] and enjoy the Martian sunset. The above pictures [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/ops/sol20-21.html ] taken by Mars Pathfinder [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/default1.html ] highlight how clouds vary during the end of a Martian day. The atmosphere on Mars [ http://humbabe.arc.nasa.gov/mgcm/faq/climate_study.html ] is much thinner than on Earth [ http://pegasus.phast.umass.edu/a100/handouts/earthatm/earthatm.html ] and dominated by carbon dioxide [ http://hydrolab.arsusda.gov/csl/bsum.html ] rather than nitrogen [ http://cst.lanl.gov/CST/imagemap/periodic/7.html ]. Clouds on Mars [ http://marswatch.tn.cornell.edu/jgr_co2.html ] can be water [ http://www.sciam.com/1196issue/1196kargelbox2.html ] or carbon dioxide based, depending on conditions [ http://bang.lanl.gov/solarsys/marscld.htm ], whereas Earth's clouds are all water based. At night the temperature [ http://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/mars/pathfinder.html ] at Sagan Memorial Station [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970710.html ] will dip from about -15 degrees Celsius [ http://144.26.13.41/phyhist/celsius.htm ] (+4 Fahrenheit) to -77 degrees Celsius (-107 Fahrenheit). Temperatures [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/ops/asimet.html ] only this cold won't bother Sojourner [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970707.html ]. |
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Mars Global Surveyor: Aerobr
…
| Title |
Mars Global Surveyor: Aerobraking |
| Explanation |
Completing a 10 month journey, another spacecraft from Earth arrives at Mars today [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/overvu/mplan/moi/moi.html ]. The Mars Global Surveyor [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/overvu/overview.html ] (MGS) is scheduled to fire its main rocket engine for 22 minutes at 6:17 p.m. PDT and enter a highly elliptical orbit [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/status/rtstatus.html ], with a low point 186 miles and a high point 34,800 miles above the surface of Mars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970528.html ]. This robot spacecraft is aptly named. Its mission is to undertake a detailed planetwide survey [ http://www.msss.com/mars/global_surveyor/mgs.html ] of Mars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970627.html ]. But first MGS must circularize its orbit, lowering the high point to about 250 miles. Instead of relying solely on its rocket engine, MGS mission controllers will use a fuel-saving technique known as aerobraking [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/overvu/mplan/ab/ab.html ] - dipping the spacecraft [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/ ] into the Martian atmosphere where it will encounter increased atmospheric drag [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf16-2.htm#atmospheric ]. This early artist's conception emphasizes the drag created by the wing-like solar panels. The cumulative effect [ http://barsoom.msss.com/mars/global_surveyor/camera/ images/c10/aerobraking.html ] should find MGS in a more circular mapping orbit by March 1998 [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/overvu/mplan/map/map.html ]. To successfully use aerobraking, mission controllers must achieve an exact orbit and will be handicapped by a limited knowledge of the thickness of the Martian atmosphere [ http://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/resources/ mars_data-information/pressure_overview.html ]. They may even need to alter the spacecraft's course to compensate for changes in Martian weather [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/ops/asimet.html ]. |
|
A Sundial for Mars
| Title |
A Sundial for Mars |
| Explanation |
When Mars Surveyor [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/2001/index.html ] arrives at Mars in 2002, it will carry a sundial. Even though batteries and a solar array will power the Mars Surveyor Lander [ http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/2001/lander/lander_home.html ], the sundial has been included to allow a prominent public display of time. The sundial idea was the brainchild of Bill Nye the Science Guy [ http://disney.go.com/DisneyTelevision/BillNye/ ], who noticed that a post originally used for camera calibration could be redesigned. Millennia ago, sundials [ http://www.sundials.co.uk/home3.htm ] were state-of-the-art timekeepers [ http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/078time/3.html ] for humans on Earth. Since the Sun casts similar shadows on Mars and Earth, accurate calibration of the shadow placement on the Martian Sundial [ http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/1999archive/04-99archive/k042199.html ] will tell a curious inspector of returned images both the time of day and the season. |
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Ant nebula
| Title |
Ant nebula |
| Description |
A new Hubble Space Telescope image of a celestial object called the Ant Nebula may shed new light on the future demise of our Sun. The image is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/wfpc . The nebula, imaged on July 20, 1997, and June 30, 1998, by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, was observed by Drs. Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., Bruce Balick of the University of Washington in Seattle, and Vincent Icke of Leiden University in the Netherlands. JPL designed and built the camera. The Ant Nebula, whose technical name is Mz3, resembles the head and thorax of an ant when observed with ground-based telescopes. The new Hubble image, with 10 times the resolution revealing 100 times more detail, shows the "ant's" body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from a dying, Sun- like star. The Ant Nebula is located between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth in the southern constellation Norma. The image challenges old ideas about what happens to dying stars. This observation, along with other pictures of various remnants of dying stars called planetary nebulae, shows that our Sun's fate will probably be much more interesting, complex and dramatic than astronomers previously believed. Although the ejection of gas from the dying star in the Ant Nebula is violent, it does not show the chaos one might expect from an ordinary explosion, but instead shows symmetrical patterns. One possibility is that the central star has a closely orbiting companion whose gravitational tidal forces shape the outflowing gas. A second possibility is that as the dying star spins, its strong magnetic fields are wound up into complex shapes like spaghetti in an eggbeater. Electrically charged winds, much like those in our Sun's solar wind but millions of times denser and moving at speeds up to 1,000 kilometers per second (more than 600 miles per second) from the star, follow the twisted field lines on their way out into space. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is available at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. |
| Date |
12.10.1999 |
|
Rotten Egg Nebula
| Title |
Rotten Egg Nebula |
| Description |
Violent gas collisions that produced supersonic shock fronts in a dying star are seen in a new, detailed image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The picture, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Stars like our Sun will eventually die and expel most of their material outward into shells of gas and dust. These shells eventually form some of the most beautiful objects in the universe, called planetary nebulae."This new image gives us a rare view of the early death throes of stars like our Sun. For the first time, we can see phenomena leading to the formation of planetary nebulae. Until now, this had only been predicted by theory, but had never been seen directly," said Dr. Raghvendra Sahai, research scientist and member of the science team at JPL for the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The object is sometimes called the Rotten Egg Nebula, because it contains a lot of sulphur, which would produce an awful odor if one could smell in space. The object is also known as the Calabash Nebula or by the technical name OH231.8+4.2. The densest parts of the nebula are composed of material ejected recently by the central star and accelerated in opposite directions. This material, shown as yellow in the image, is zooming away at speeds up to one and a half million kilometers per hour (one million miles per hour). Most of the star's original mass is now contained in these bipolar gas structures. A team of Spanish and American astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to study how the gas stream rams into the surrounding material, shown in blue. They believe that such interactions dominate the formation process in planetary nebulae. Due to the high speed of the gas, shock-fronts are formed on impact and heat the surrounding gas. Although computer calculations have predicted the existence and structure of such shocks for some time, previous observations have not been able to prove the theory. This new Hubble image used filters that only let through light from ionized hydrogen and nitrogen atoms. Astronomers were able to distinguish the warmest parts of the gas heated by the violent shocks and found that they form a complex double-bubble shape. The bright yellow-orange colors in the picture show how dense, high-speed gas is flowing from the star, like supersonic speeding bullets ripping through a medium in opposite directions. The central star itself is hidden in the dusty band at the center. Much of the gas flow observed today seems to stem from a sudden acceleration that took place only about 800 years ago. The astronomers believe that 1,000 years from now, the Calabash Nebula will become a fully developed planetary nebula, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. The Calabash Nebula is 1.4 light years (more than 8 trillion miles) long and located some 5,000 light years (2,900 trillion, miles) from Earth in the constellation Puppis. The image was taken in December 2000 by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The image was originally released by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre, with a website at http://sci.esa.int/hubble. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov . Other scientists on the team include Valentin Bujarrabal and Javier Alcolea of Observatorio Astronomico Nacional, Spain, and Carmen Sanchez Contreras of JPL. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.02.1999 |
|
Doradus Nebula
| Title |
Doradus Nebula |
| Description |
A panoramic view of a vast, sculpted area of gas and dust where thousands of stars are being born has been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, is online at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/21 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The photo offers an unprecedented, detailed view of the entire inner region of the fertile, star-forming 30 Doradus Nebula. The mosaic picture shows that ultraviolet radiation and high-speed material unleashed by the stars in the cluster, called R136 (the large blue blob left of center), are weaving a tapestry of creation and destruction, triggering the collapse of looming gas and dust clouds and forming pillar-like structures that incubate newborn stars. The 30 Doradus Nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located 170,000 light-years from Earth. Nebulas like 30 Doradus are signposts of recent star birth. High-energy ultraviolet radiation from young, hot, massive stars in R136 causes surrounding gaseous material to glow. Previous Hubble telescope observations showed that R136 contains several dozen of the most massive stars known, each about 100 times the mass of the Sun and about 10 times as hot. These stellar behemoths formed about 2 million years ago. The stars in R136 produce intense "stellar winds," streams of material traveling at several million miles an hour. These winds push the gas away from the cluster and compress the inner regions of the surrounding gas and dust clouds (seen in the image as the pinkish material). The intense pressure triggers the collapse of parts of the clouds, producing a new star formation around the central cluster. Most stars in the nursery are not visible because they are still encased in cocoons of gas and dust. This mosaic image of 30 Doradus consists of five overlapping pictures taken between January 1994 and September 2000 by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Several color filters enhance important details in the stars and the nebula. Blue corresponds to the hot stars. The greenish color denotes hot gas energized by the central cluster of stars. Pink depicts the glowing edges of the gas and dust clouds facing the cluster, which are being bombarded by winds and radiation. Reddish-brown represents the cooler surfaces of the clouds, which are not receiving direct radiation from the central cluster. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov . The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight, Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.01.1999 |
|
Edge-on Galaxy
| Title |
Edge-on Galaxy |
| Description |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has imaged an unusual edge-on galaxy, revealing remarkable details of its warped dusty disc and showing how colliding galaxies trigger the birth of new stars. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), is online at http://heritage.stsci.edu and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc. The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. During observations of the galaxy, the camera passed a milestone, taking its 100,000th image since shuttle astronauts installed it in Hubble in 1993. The dust and spiral arms of normal spiral galaxies, like our Milky Way, look flat when seen edge- on. The new image of the galaxy ESO 510-G13 shows an unusual twisted disc structure, first seen in ground-based photographs taken at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. ESO 510-G13 lies in the southern constellation Hydra, some 150 million light-years from Earth. Details of the galaxy's structure are visible because interstellar dust clouds that trace its disc are silhouetted from behind by light from the galaxy's bright, smooth central bulge. The strong warping of the disc indicates that ESO 510-G13 has recently collided with a nearby galaxy and is in the process of swallowing it. Gravitational forces distort galaxies as their stars, gas, and dust merge over millions of years. When the disturbances die out, ESO 510-G13 will be a single galaxy. The galaxy's outer regions, especially on the right side of the image, show dark dust and bright clouds of blue stars. This indicates that hot, young stars are forming in the twisted disc. Astronomers believe star formation may be triggered when galaxies collide and their interstellar clouds are compressed. The Hubble Heritage Team used WFPC2 to observe ESO 510-G13 in April 2001. Pictures obtained through blue, green, and red filters were combined to make this color-composite image, which emphasizes the contrast between the dusty spiral arms, the bright bulge, and the blue star-forming regions. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.stsci.edu. More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.30.1999 |
|
Spring Flooding on the Missi
…
| Title |
Spring Flooding on the Mississippi |
| Description |
The mighty Mississippi River, from its source at Lake Itasca, Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, is approximately 3780 kilometers long and has flooded many times during its history. In April 2001, residents of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois once again battled near-record water levels. These Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) images, acquired one month apart, illustrate the effects of snowmelt and heavy rainfall on areas traversed by the upper Mississippi River. Each image in this pair covers an identical 195-kilometer x 339-kilometer area. The one on the left was acquired March 26, 2001 (Terra orbit 6762), and the one on the right is from April 27 (Terra orbit 7228). Both are false-color composites, displaying data from the near-infrared band of the instrument's nadir (vertical-viewing) camera as red, the green band of the nadir camera as green, and the red band of the 26-degree forward camera as blue. Data from the forward-viewing camera is included to enhance the reflectivity of water. The near-infrared data provide a good indicator of the abundance of vegetation since plants are highly reflective in this spectral region. The redder color of the right-hand image is due to increased vegetation cover brought about by wet conditions and the onset of spring. Locations of major cities are marked on the left-hand image, major rivers are marked on the right. The portion of the Mississippi River captured in these views extends from just north of La Crosse, Wisconsin to south of Davenport, Iowa. The Wisconsin River joins the Mississippi just below Prairie du Chien. On March 26, snow can clearly be seen over much of the northern portions of the left-hand image. At this point in time, the snow had already begun to melt and the Wapsipinicon River was 52 centimeters above flood stage at De Witt, Iowa (between Clinton and Davenport). By mid-April heavy rainfall swelled the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers. In the early morning of April 25, two days before the right-hand image was acquired, the Mississippi River crested in Davenport, Iowa at 680 centimeters, slightly below the level reached in the record-setting flood of 1993. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. |
| Date |
07.11.2001 |
|
Stephan's Quintet
| Title |
Stephan's Quintet |
| Description |
A famous group of five compact galaxies featured in the holiday film classic "It's a Wonderful Life" appears in a new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In the movie, angelic figures take on the form of the galactic group called Stephan's Quintet. But the new pictures show the group has actually been doing some devilish things. At least two of its galaxies have been involved in high-speed, hit-and-run accidents, ripping stars and gas from neighboring galaxies and tossing them into space. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, is online at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/22 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The close-up view of Stephan's Quintet reveals a string of bright star clusters sparkling like a diamond necklace. The clusters, each harboring up to millions of stars, were born from the violent interactions between some members of the group. The rude encounters also have distorted the galaxies' shapes, creating elongated spiral arms and long, gaseous streamers. The photo showcases three regions of star birth: the long, sweeping tail and spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 7319 (near center), the gaseous debris of two galaxies, NGC 7318B and NGC 7318A (top right), and the area north of those galaxies, dubbed the northern starburst region (top left). The clusters' bluish color indicates that they're relatively young -- between about 2 million to more than 1 billion years old. The brilliant star clusters in NGC 7318B's spiral arm and the northern starburst region are between 2 million and more than 100 million years old. NGC 7318B instigated the starburst by barreling through the region. The bully galaxy is just below NGC 7318A at top right. Although NGC 7318B appears dangerously close to NGC 7318A, it's traveling too fast to merge with its neighbor. The partial galaxy on the far right is NGC 7320, a foreground galaxy not physically bound to the other galaxies in the picture. About 20 to 50 of the clusters in the northern starburst region reside far from the coziness of galaxies. The clusters were born about 150,000 light-years from the nearest galaxy. Another galaxy, NGC 7320C, which is no longer part of the group and is not seen in the photo, plowed through the quintet several hundred million years ago. It pulled out the long tail of gaseous debris from NGC 7319. The clusters in NGC 7319's streaming tail are 10 million to 500 million years old and may have formed at the time of the violent collision. The faint bluish object at the tip of the tail is a young dwarf galaxy, which formed in the gaseous debris. Stephan's Quintet is in the constellation Pegasus, 270 million light-years from Earth. The pictures in this mosaic were taken by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on Dec. 30, 1998 and June 17, 1999. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.stsci.edu . More, information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov . The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.02.1999 |
|
Galaxy M82
| Title |
Galaxy M82 |
| Description |
A colorful image showing violent star formation triggered when two galaxies bumped into each other has been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In the image, the starburst galaxy M82 has a disturbed appearance caused by violent activity after an ancient encounter with its large galactic neighbor, M81. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/wfpc . The huge lanes of dust that crisscross M82's disk are another telltale sign of the flurry of star formation. Below the center and to the right, a strong galactic wind is spewing knotty filaments of hydrogen and nitrogen gas. More than 100 super star clusters -- very bright, compact groupings of about 100,000 stars -- appear as white dots sprinkled throughout the galaxy's central area. The dark area just above center is a huge dust cloud. A collaboration of European and American scientists used these clusters to date the interaction between M82 and M81 to about 600 million years ago, when a region called M82 B (the bright area just below and to the left of the central dust cloud) exploded with new stars. Scientists have found that this ancient starburst was triggered by the encounter with M81. The results are published in the February 2001 issue of the Astronomical Journal. This discovery provides evidence linking the birth of super star clusters to violent interaction between galaxies. These clusters also provide insight into the rough-and-tumble universe of long ago, when galaxies bumped into each other more frequently. M82 is located 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. The picture was taken Sept. 15, 1997. The natural-color composite was constructed from three exposures taken with blue, green and red filters. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., for NASA under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is available at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. |
| Date |
12.02.1999 |
|
Galaxy NGC 1850
| Title |
Galaxy NGC 1850 |
| Description |
By spying on a neighboring galaxy, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of a young, globular-like star cluster -- a type of object unknown in our Milky Way Galaxy. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, is online at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/25 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc. The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The double cluster NGC 1850 lies in a neighboring satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. It has two relatively young components. The main, globular-like cluster is in the center. A smaller cluster is seen below and to the right, composed of extremely hot, blue stars and fainter red T-Tauri stars. The main cluster is about 50 million years old, the smaller one is 4 million years old. A filigree pattern of diffuse gas surrounds NGC 1850. Scientists believe the pattern formed millions of years ago when massive stars in the main cluster exploded as supernovas. Hubble can observe a range of star types in NGC 1850, including the faint, low-mass T-Tauri stars, which are difficult to distinguish with ground-based telescopes. Hubble's fine angular resolution can pick out these stars, even in other galaxies. Massive stars of the OB type emit large amounts of energetic ultraviolet radiation, which is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere. From Hubble's position above the atmosphere, it can detect this ultraviolet light. NGC 1850, the brightest star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud, is in the southern constellation of Dorado, called the Goldfish or the Swordfish. This image was created from five archival exposures taken by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 between April 3, 1994 and February 6, 1996. More information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.stsci.edu. More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.03.1999 |
|
Galaxy NGC 3079
| Title |
Galaxy NGC 3079 |
| Description |
A lumpy bubble of hot gas rises from a cauldron of glowing matter in a distant galaxy, as seen by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The new images, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, are online at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/28 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc. The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Galaxy NGC 3079, located 50 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, has a huge bubble in the center of its disc, as seen in the image on the left. The smaller photo at right shows a close-up of the bubble. The two white dots are stars. Astronomers suspect the bubble is being blown by "winds," or high-speed streams of particles, released during a burst of star formation. The bubble's lumpy surface has four columns of gaseous filaments towering above the galaxy's disc. The filaments whirl around in a vortex and are expelled into space. Eventually, this gas will rain down on the disc and may collide with gas clouds, compress them and form a new generation of stars. Theoretical models indicate the bubble formed when winds from hot stars mixed with small bubbles of hot gas from supernova explosions. Radio telescope observations indicate those processes are still active. Eventually, the hot stars will die, and the bubble's energy source will fade away. The images, taken in 1998, show glowing gas as red and starlight as blue/green. Results appear in the July 1, 2001 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. More information about the Hubble Space Telescope is at http://www.stsci.edu. More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.02.1999 |
|
Galaxy NGC 3079
| Title |
Galaxy NGC 3079 |
| Description |
A lumpy bubble of hot gas rises from a cauldron of glowing matter in a distant galaxy, as seen by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The new images, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, are online at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/28 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc. The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Galaxy NGC 3079, located 50 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, has a huge bubble in the center of its disc, as seen in the image on the left. The smaller photo at right shows a close-up of the bubble. The two white dots are stars. Astronomers suspect the bubble is being blown by "winds," or high-speed streams of particles, released during a burst of star formation. The bubble's lumpy surface has four columns of gaseous filaments towering above the galaxy's disc. The filaments whirl around in a vortex and are expelled into space. Eventually, this gas will rain down on the disc and may collide with gas clouds, compress them and form a new generation of stars. Theoretical models indicate the bubble formed when winds from hot stars mixed with small bubbles of hot gas from supernova explosions. Radio telescope observations indicate those processes are still active. Eventually, the hot stars will die, and the bubble's energy source will fade away. The images, taken in 1998, show glowing gas as red and starlight as blue/green. Results appear in the July 1, 2001 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. More information about the Hubble Space Telescope is at http://www.stsci.edu. More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.02.1999 |
|
Galaxy NGC 4013
| Title |
Galaxy NGC 4013 |
| Description |
An amazing "edge-on" view of a spiral galaxy 55 million light years from Earth has been captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The image, available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/wfpc , reveals in great detail huge clouds of dust and gas extending along and above the galaxy's main disk. The image was taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The galaxy, called NGC 4013, lies in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. If we could see it pole-on, it would look like a nearly circular pinwheel. In this Hubble image, NGC 4013 is seen edge-on, from our vantage point. Because the galaxy is larger than Hubble's field of view, the image shows only a little more than half the object, but with unprecedented detail. Dark clouds of interstellar dust stand out, since they absorb the light of background stars. Most of the clouds lie in the galaxy's plane and form the dark band, about 500 light years thick, that appears to cut the galaxy in two from upper right to lower left. Scientists believe that new stars form in dark interstellar clouds. NGC 4013 shows several examples of these stellar kindergartens near the center of the image, in front of the dark band along the galaxy's equator. One extremely bright star near the upper left corner is merely a nearby foreground star that lies in our Milky Way and happened to be in the line of sight. This new picture was constructed from Hubble images taken in January 2000 by Dr. J. Christopher Howk of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., and Dr. Blair D. Savage of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Images taken through three different filters have been combined into a color composite covering the region of the galaxy nucleus (behind the bright foreground star at the upper left) and extending along one edge of the galaxy to the lower right. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., for NASA under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is available at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. |
| Date |
12.15.1999 |
|
Globular Cluster M22
| Title |
Globular Cluster M22 |
| Description |
Scientists are mystified by what may be unexpected, wandering, planet-sized objects. A new image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope implies the presence of these objects. The image is available athttp://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html ]andhttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc ]. If confirmed, the new information collected by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 could yield new insights about how stars and planets formed. The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. In results published this week in the journal Nature, the scientists report six unusual "microlensing" events inside the globular cluster M22. Microlensing occurs when a background star brightens momentarily as a foreground object drifts by. The gravitational field of the object amplifies light from a distant background star in the huge central bulge of our galaxy. The objects believed to cause these events are too dim to be seen directly. The unusually short period (less than 20 hours) over which these microlensing events occurred indicates that the mass of the intervening objects could be as little as 80 times that of Earth. If confirmed, these bodies would be the smallest celestial objects ever seen beyond our solar system that are not orbiting any star. Theoretically, these objects might be planets that were gravitationally torn away from parent stars in the cluster. However, they are estimated to make up as much as 10 percent of the cluster's mass -- too numerous to be wandering, "orphaned" planets. Because these findings are so surprising, the astronomers caution that they must be confirmed by follow-up Hubble observations. The new Hubble image includes an inset photo showing the entire globular cluster of about 10 million stars. Globular cluster M22 is about 60 light-years wide. A light year equals about 9.5 trillion kilometers (5.9 trillion miles). The image was taken in June 1995 by the Burrell Schmidt telescope at the Case Western Reserve University's Warner and Swasey Observatory on Kitt Peak in Arizona. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online athttp://www.stsci.edu [ http://www.stsci.edu ]. More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is athttp://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov [ http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov ]. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. |
| Date |
12.01.1999 |
|
Cloud Heights of Frances and
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
NASA's www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov
…
Ivan_TMI2004249
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2004-09-04 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA image courtesy GSFC/LaRC/JPL, www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov MISR Team. Text acknowledgment: Clare Averill (Raytheon/Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). |
| identifier |
Ivan_TMI2004249 |
|
Mouth of the Amazon : Image
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
Flowing more than 6,450 kilo
…
amazon_mouth
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2000-09-08 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team |
| identifier |
amazon_mouth |
|
Burn Scars Across Southern C
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
Brush fires consumed nearly
…
SCalifornia_TMI2003322
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2003-11-18 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/'' target=''_blank MISR Team. Text by Clare Averill (Raytheon / Jet Propulsion Laboratory). |
| identifier |
SCalifornia_TMI2003322 |
|
Multi-angle views of the Fir
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
These true-color images cove
…
MISRLosAlamos
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2000-05-09 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Science Team |
| identifier |
MISRLosAlamos |
|
Tropical Cyclone Monty: Natu
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
The Multi-angle Imaging Spec
…
CycloneMonty_MISR2004062
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2004-03-02 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
CycloneMonty_MISR2004062 |
|
A Summer View of Russia's Le
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
These views of the Russian A
…
PIA04366
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2004-07-11 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ MISR Team. Text by Clare Averill (Raytheon/JPL). |
| identifier |
PIA04366 |
|
Rice Cultivation in Northwes
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
The lowlands of Lombardy and
…
PIA04380
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2005-05-08 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ MISR Team. Text by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/JPL) |
| identifier |
PIA04380 |
|
The Land of Ice and Fire : I
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
Due to an unusual combinatio
…
iceland_misr_med
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2001-08-16 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team |
| identifier |
iceland_misr_med |
|
The Land of Ice and Fire : I
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
Due to an unusual combinatio
…
iceland_misr_med
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2001-08-16 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team |
| identifier |
iceland_misr_med |
|
MISR Views Hurricane Carlott
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
With winds reaching 155 mph,
…
misr_carlotta
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2000-06-21 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Science Team |
| identifier |
misr_carlotta |
|
Where on Earth...? MISR Myst
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
.gov/education/answer.cfm Qu
…
PIA04375
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2005 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ MISR Team. Text by Mike Garay (JPL), Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/ JPL) and David Diner (JPL). |
| identifier |
PIA04375 |
|
Seasonal Changes in Earth's
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
Triggered by seasonal change
…
misr_albedo_2004
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2005 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ MISR Team. Text by John Martonchik (JPL) and Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/JPL). |
| identifier |
misr_albedo_2004 |
|
A Multi-angular Look at Etna
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
These images from the Multi-
…
Etna_TMI2002302
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2002-10-29 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ MISR Team. Text by Clare Averill (Acro Service Corporation/JPL). |
| identifier |
Etna_TMI2002302 |
|
|
