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Joel C. Wordekemper Greeted
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| Name of Image |
Joel C. Wordekemper Greeted By Astronauts and MSFC Personnel |
| Date of Image |
1972-06-02 |
| Full Description |
West Point, Nebraska high school student, Joel C. Wordekemper, is greeted by (left to right): Astronauts Russell L. Schweickart, and Owen K. Garriott, Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Skylab Program Manager, Leland Belew, and MSFC Director of Administration and Technical Services, David Newby, during a tour of MSFC. Wordekemper was among 25 winners of a contest in which some 3,500 high school students proposed experiments for the following year?s Skylab mission. The nationwide scientific competition was sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The winning students, along with their parents and sponsor teachers, visited MSFC where they met with scientists and engineers, participated in design reviews for their experiments, and toured MSFC facilities. Of the 25 students, 6 did not see their experiments conducted on Skylab because the experiments were not compatible with Skylab hardware and timelines. Of the 19 remaining, 11 experiments required the manufacture of additional equipment. |
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Plant Growth/Plant Phototrop
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| Name of Image |
Plant Growth/Plant Phototropism - Skylab Student Experiment ED-61/62 |
| Date of Image |
1973-01-01 |
| Full Description |
This chart describes the Skylab student experiment ED-61, Plant Growth, and experiment ED-62, Plant Phototropism. Two similar proposals were submitted by Joel G. Wordekemper of West Point, Nebraska, and Donald W. Schlack of Downey, California. Wordekemper's experiment (ED-61) was to see how the lack of gravity would affect the growth of roots and stems of plants. Schlack's experiment (ED-62) was to study the effect of light on a seed developing in zero gravity. The growth container of the rice seeds for their experiment consisted of eight compartments arranged in two parallel rows of four. Each had two windowed surfaces to allow periodic photography of the developing seedlings. In March 1972, NASA and the National Science Teachers Association selected 25 experiment proposals for flight on Skylab. Science advisors from the Marshall Space Flight Center aided and assisted the students in developing the proposals for flight on Skylab. |
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Blizzard Hits Colorado
| Title |
Blizzard Hits Colorado |
| Description |
Parts of Colorado and Wyoming were engulfed in a record-setting blizzard between March 18 and 19, 2003. The Rocky Mountains were hammered with as much as 87 inches (7.25 feet) of snow in places, and Denver received about 30 inches, which shut down the airport and stranded motorists. Several people lost their lives in snow-related accidents, and more than one hundred roofs collapsed in Denver from the weight of the heavy, wet snow. Avalanche danger skyrocketed, and an avalanche blocked the road to a mountain ski resort, forcing guests and employees to sleep overnight on floors. The danger was too high for them to venture out onto the slopes. This false-color Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image shows the skies clearing over Colorado and Wyoming on Thursday afternoon (March 20, 2003) at the time of the Terra satellite overpass. In the image, snow on the ground is bright blue, liquid water clouds are white, vegetation is green, naturally bare ground is tan, and water is deep blue. The blanket of snow softens the sharp peaks of the Rockies that are normally visible. The storm left behind a blanket of snow that stretched from Wyoming and Nebraska (top left and right), through Colorado (center), and down into the peaks of New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the north-central part of the state. In Colorado, the snow reached well out into the plains. In a state desperate for water, the huge snowfall should provide some relief. However, with temperatures expected rise rapidly by the weekend in places like Denver, residents in the lower elevations must prepare themselves for flooding after what is being reported as the worst blizzard in the last century. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC |
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Blizzards in the Western Uni
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| Title |
Blizzards in the Western United States |
| Description |
A series of heavy winter storms pummeled parts of the western United States between December 24, 2003, and January 3, 2004, blanketing the region with deep snow. Salt Lake City, Utah, reported more than six feet of snow, according to news reports. The blizzards that rolled through California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado closed roads, knocked out power, and claimed at least two lives in subsequent avalanches. These Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (MODIS) images, taken on January 5, 2004, by the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite, show the extent of the snowfall from California in the west to the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado in the east. The Great Salt Lake is the two-toned body of water in the center of the images. In the top image, shown in true color, only a sliver of green land west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains can be see on the left side of the image?clouds and snow obscure the rest of the landscape. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Here, snow and ice are dark red and orange, while clouds are white and peach. Water is black. The false color image helps differentiate between cloud cover and snow and ice on the ground. The high resolution images provided above are at 500 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC |
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Blizzards in the Western Uni
…
| Title |
Blizzards in the Western United States |
| Description |
A series of heavy winter storms pummeled parts of the western United States between December 24, 2003, and January 3, 2004, blanketing the region with deep snow. Salt Lake City, Utah, reported more than six feet of snow, according to news reports. The blizzards that rolled through California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado closed roads, knocked out power, and claimed at least two lives in subsequent avalanches. These Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (MODIS) images, taken on January 5, 2004, by the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite, show the extent of the snowfall from California in the west to the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado in the east. The Great Salt Lake is the two-toned body of water in the center of the images. In the top image, shown in true color, only a sliver of green land west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains can be see on the left side of the image?clouds and snow obscure the rest of the landscape. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Here, snow and ice are dark red and orange, while clouds are white and peach. Water is black. The false color image helps differentiate between cloud cover and snow and ice on the ground. The high resolution images provided above are at 500 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC |
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Blizzards in the Western Uni
…
| Title |
Blizzards in the Western United States |
| Description |
A series of heavy winter storms pummeled parts of the western United States between December 24, 2003, and January 3, 2004, blanketing the region with deep snow. Salt Lake City, Utah, reported more than six feet of snow, according to news reports. The blizzards that rolled through California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado closed roads, knocked out power, and claimed at least two lives in subsequent avalanches. These Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (MODIS) images, taken on January 5, 2004, by the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite, show the extent of the snowfall from California in the west to the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado in the east. The Great Salt Lake is the two-toned body of water in the center of the images. In the top image, shown in true color, only a sliver of green land west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains can be see on the left side of the image?clouds and snow obscure the rest of the landscape. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Here, snow and ice are dark red and orange, while clouds are white and peach. Water is black. The false color image helps differentiate between cloud cover and snow and ice on the ground. The high resolution images provided above are at 500 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC |
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Floods in the Midwestern Uni
…
| Title |
Floods in the Midwestern United States |
| Description |
The rivers of northwestern Missouri were still swollen in the wake of intense spring storms when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured the top image on May 10, 2007. The image is made from a combination of infrared and visible light to make the floods more visible than they would be in a photo-like image. In this type of image, water is dark blue or black, clouds are light blue and white, plant-covered land is bright green, and bare earth is pink-tinted tan. Fires are outlined with red boxes. The Missouri River runs along the left edge of the image, then curves east along the bottom of the image. Though the most flooded regions were covered in clouds, a few breaks reveal that the Missouri was swollen far beyond its banks. Nestled in a bend in the river near the Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri border is the town of Big Lake. The image shows that the river's curve has turned into a broad lake. The town was completely submerged in the flood when levees along the river broke, reported the Associated Press. [ http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/05/11/missouri.flooding.ap/index.html ] Beyond Big Lake, many communities along the Grand and the Platte Rivers and their tributaries have also been flooded or threatened by floods. All of these rivers are clearly running high in the image. MODIS captured the lower image on April 29, 2007, not quite a week before the rains began. By providing a clear view of normal water levels, the image illustrates just how extensively the rivers were flooded on May 10. Photo-like versions of both the April 29 [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA3/2007119/USA3.2007119.aqua ] and May 10 [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA3/2007130/USA3.2007130.terra ] images are available from the MODIS Rapid Response System. NASA images courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC. |
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Floods in the Midwestern Uni
…
| Title |
Floods in the Midwestern United States |
| Description |
The rivers of northwestern Missouri were still swollen in the wake of intense spring storms when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured the top image on May 10, 2007. The image is made from a combination of infrared and visible light to make the floods more visible than they would be in a photo-like image. In this type of image, water is dark blue or black, clouds are light blue and white, plant-covered land is bright green, and bare earth is pink-tinted tan. Fires are outlined with red boxes. The Missouri River runs along the left edge of the image, then curves east along the bottom of the image. Though the most flooded regions were covered in clouds, a few breaks reveal that the Missouri was swollen far beyond its banks. Nestled in a bend in the river near the Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri border is the town of Big Lake. The image shows that the river's curve has turned into a broad lake. The town was completely submerged in the flood when levees along the river broke, reported the Associated Press. [ http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/05/11/missouri.flooding.ap/index.html ] Beyond Big Lake, many communities along the Grand and the Platte Rivers and their tributaries have also been flooded or threatened by floods. All of these rivers are clearly running high in the image. MODIS captured the lower image on April 29, 2007, not quite a week before the rains began. By providing a clear view of normal water levels, the image illustrates just how extensively the rivers were flooded on May 10. Photo-like versions of both the April 29 [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA3/2007119/USA3.2007119.aqua ] and May 10 [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA3/2007130/USA3.2007130.terra ] images are available from the MODIS Rapid Response System. NASA images courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC. |
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Heavy Rain in the US Midwest
| Title |
Heavy Rain in the US Midwest |
| Description |
The powerful storms that moved across the U.S. Midwest during the first week of May 2007 brought wind, hail, tornadoes, and drenching rain. This image shows rainfall totals over parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska between May 1 and May 8, based in part on measurements made by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM [ http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ]) satellite. More than 400 millimeters (15.7 inches) of rain fell over some regions, corresponding with locations where the National Weather Service reported severe weather. [ http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/070506_rpts.html ] A wide swath of red and orange (between 240 and 400 millimeters of rain) arcs in a clockwise direction from western Oklahoma, through central Kansas, and into southeastern Nebraska. The reddish-orange bull's-eye over southeastern Louisiana is evidence of the torrential rains that pounded visitors to the annual New Orleans Jazz Festival. South-central Texas' Edward Plateau was soaked with more than 240 millimeters of rain during the period, as well. From May 4 to May 8, the National Weather Service [ http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ ] received approximately 683 reports of severe weather, 140 of which were reports of tornadoes, including the massive F5 [ http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=ddc&storyid=7828&source=0 ] tornado that devastated the city of Greensburg, Kansas. Beyond the damaging winds and tornadoes, the torrential rain triggered extensive flooding throughout the Central Plains. On the evening of May 7, flood warnings [ http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=crh&storyid=7865&source=0 ] were in effect from South Dakota to southern Texas, and by May 8, the Hydrologic Information Center [ http://www.weather.gov/ahps/ ] reported moderate to major flooding at 53 stream gauge sites in South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas. The floods could be as severe as the 1993 flood, [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16881 ] one of the costliest floods in U.S. history, reported the Associated Press. [ http://www.wlos.com/template/inews_wire/wires.national/203d853a-www.wlos.com.shtml ] NASA image by Hal Pierce |
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Drought on the Great Plains
| Title |
Drought on the Great Plains |
| Description |
Across the Great Plains of the United States and Canada, devastating drought spread across grasslands and croplands in summer 2006. Poor winter snowfall and a blisteringly hot summer [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13742 ] following several years of dry conditions have created a dire situation for many farmers and ranchers across the region. According to a recent article [ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/us/29drought.html?ex=1157688000&en=13a216546b7d4243&ei=5070 ] on the New York Times Website, many people are comparing the conditions to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The widespread drought conditions are obvious in this vegetation anomaly image based on data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov ] satellite. Places where vegetation is healthier or more abundant than average are green, places where vegetation is about the same as average are pale yellow, and places where vegetation is not as healthy or abundant as average are brown. Gray patches show where no data were available, probably because of persistent clouds. One of the most common satellite-based vegetation maps is a scale, or index, of vegetation greenness called the "NDVI," short for Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. This image compares NDVI values from July 28-August 12, 2006, to the average values from 2001-2005. Vegetation was faring worst along the Missouri River through North and South Dakota, but below-average vegetation conditions stretch across parts of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, northwestern Nebraska, and Minnesota as well. The plains of Canada's Saskatchewan and Manitoba provinces were suffering drought, too. A few small pockets of green in the image reveal where vegetation greenness values observed by MODIS were higher than average: the mountains of north-central Colorado, southeastern Nebraska, and the Red River Valley. The Red River Valley experienced widespread snowfall and heavy rains in the spring of 2006, leading to significant flooding. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13500 ] The early-season moisture may have helped the vegetation in the area withstand the hot summer. According to the August 29, 2006, update from the U.S. Drought Monitor, [ http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html ] most of the Northern Great Plains, as well as much of Oklahoma and Texas, was still in the midst of drought, with many areas falling into the highest category: exceptional drought. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided by Inbal Reshef as part of the Global Agricultural Monitoring Project [ http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/glam.cfm ] between NASA, USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), and the University of Maryland. |
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Dust Storm in Texas
| Title |
Dust Storm in Texas |
| Description |
The same hot, dry, windy conditions that allowed grassfires [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13301 ] to rage throughout parts of Oklahoma and Texas at the end of 2005 kicked up dust at the beginning of the new year. On January 1, 2006, a dust storm approximately 500 kilometers (300 miles) across swept through northern Texas and into Oklahoma. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] flying onboard the Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image on January 1, 2006. Swirling in a counter-clockwise direction toward the northeast, the dust storm appears in a light shade of tan, partially obscuring the view of the darker ground surface. The storm appears to start near the Texas-New Mexico border. Smoke from wildfires mixes with the dust in places. The "hot spots" where these fires rage on the ground appear in red, and some of the fires emit substantial plumes of smoke, especially two fires immediately south of the dust storm. Another fire, almost hidden by clouds, burns north of the dust storm. The hot, dry, windy conditions that prevailed in this part of North America in late 2005 set the stage for a dust storm in a couple different ways. Winds stir up particles on the ground and eventually suspend them in the air. Once aloft, dust particles can remain airborne even after wind speeds drop. Meanwhile, a dearth of rain can decrease vegetation cover, leading to extreme daytime heating of the ground. This heat causes an unstable boundary layer, the lowest 1 to 2 kilometers (0.6 to 1.2 miles) of atmosphere. An unstable boundary layer often encourages air to rise, carrying dust even higher into the air. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, significant portions of Texas faced drought conditions in late December 2005, including areas of extreme drought along the border with Mexico, and exceptional drought along the border with Oklahoma and Arkansas. Under these conditions, fires and dust storms could continue to threaten the region. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team. |
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North and South Platte River
…
| Title |
North and South Platte Rivers, Nebraska |
| Description |
Lake McConaughy and a tan-and-green patchwork of thousands of agricultural fields dominate this astronaut photo of western Nebraska and northeastern Colorado. The astronaut who shot this view was looking towards the east-northeast, focusing on the thin, green lines of the floodplains of the North and South Platte rivers. These join to form the Platte River near image upper right. From a geographical perspective, the photograph demonstrates how the Platte River system has determined transportation and settlement patterns for centuries. Modern Highway 80 follows the North Platte, and Highway 76 follows the South Platte. The presence of transport routes and riversas sources of water in a semiarid regionin turn determine the location of towns: the city of North Platte stands out as a light gray area on the floodplain at the confluence of the North and South Platte rivers, as do two smaller towns, Gothenburg and Cozad, farther downstream (image top right). The distribution of cropland visible in this image also reveals interesting geographical information about the characteristics of the land surface. The flattest surfaces are easiest to farm and have the highest density of farmed fields. These flat surfaces lie on the river floodplains, but are also present on the higher surrounding surfaces. Between the heavily cultivated land in the river floodplain and the uplands is a strip of rough country that is difficult to farm. As a result, it stands out as a gray strip running parallel to the green croplands of the floodplains. The famous Nebraska Sand Hills, recognizable by their characteristic scalloped texture north of Lake McConaughty, are a hummocky sand dune field (now vegetated). According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, [ http://www.drought.unl.edu ] westernmost Nebraska was abnormally dry in the last three monthscovering the time when this image was taken (September 5, 2007). The impact of the water deficit on grass cover can be seen in the image: dry areas are brown (image lower left), and moister areas farther east are greener (image right). Astronaut photograph ISS015-E-27232 [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS015&roll=E&frame=27232 ] was acquired on September 5, 2007, with a Kodak 760C digital camera using a 70 mm lens.. The image was taken by the Expedition 15 crew [ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/index.html ], and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program [ http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html ], supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ ] |
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Rain in the U.S. Midwest
| Title |
Rain in the U.S. Midwest |
| Description |
The powerful storms that moved across the U.S. Midwest during the first week of May 2007 brought wind, hail, tornadoes, and drenching rain. This image shows rainfall totals over parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska between May 1 and May 8, based in part on measurements made by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM [ http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ]) satellite. More than 400 millimeters (15.7 inches) of rain fell over some regions, corresponding with locations where the National Weather Service reported severe weather. [ http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/070506_rpts.html ] A wide swath of red and orange (between 240 and 400 millimeters of rain) arcs in a clockwise direction from western Oklahoma, through central Kansas, and into southeastern Nebraska. The reddish-orange bull's-eye over southeastern Louisiana is evidence of the torrential rains that pounded visitors to the annual New Orleans Jazz Festival. South-central Texas' Edward Plateau was soaked with more than 240 millimeters of rain during the period, as well. From May 4 to May 8, the National Weather Service [ http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ ] received approximately 683 reports of severe weather, 140 of which were reports of tornadoes, including the massive F5 [ http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=ddc&storyid=7828&source=0 ] tornado that devastated the city of Greensburg, Kansas. Beyond the damaging winds and tornadoes, the torrential rain triggered extensive flooding throughout the Central Plains. On the evening of May 7, flood warnings [ http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=crh&storyid=7865&source=0 ] were in effect from South Dakota to southern Texas, and by May 8, the Hydrologic Information Center [ http://www.weather.gov/ahps/ ] reported moderate to major flooding at 53 stream gauge sites in South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas. The floods could be as severe as the 1993 flood, [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16881 ] one of the costliest floods in U.S. history, reported the Associated Press. [ http://www.wlos.com/template/inews_wire/wires.national/203d853a-www.wlos.com.shtml ] NASA image by Hal Pierce. |
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Rocky Mountain Fires
| Title |
Rocky Mountain Fires |
| Description |
This view of the fires in the western United States, collected on June 10, 2002, by the Sea-Viewing Wide Field of View Sensor (SeaWiFS) shows several of the larger smoke plumes as well as a band of smoke over Nebraska and the Dakotas that appears to be getting pulled into a low pressure system centered over northern Montana. Image courtesy the SeaWiFS Project [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/redirect?http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEAWIFS.html ], NASA GSFC, and ORBIMAGE |
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Severe Weather in the US Mid
…
| Title |
Severe Weather in the US Midwest |
| Description |
A stationary front draped across the Midwest provided the focus for several days of strong springtime thunderstorms that delivered severe weather and heavy rains to the region. On May 21, 2004, a strong complex of thunderstorms known as an MCS or mesoscale convective system moved across southern Michigan, Ohio and into parts of the Appalachians leaving behind numerous reports of wind damage. Long-lived MCSs that generate wind damage over a wide area are also known as 'derechos' as was the case for this event. On May 22, there were numerous reports of tornados from Nebraska into Iowa. One woman was killed in Nebraska, and the town of Hallam, Nebraska was flattened by a tornado. On May 23, two children were swept away in Wisconsin as runoff from heavy rains drained into the Milwaukee river. And on May 24, there were more tornados, large hail and wind damage across parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. In addition to tornados, hail and wind damage, strong thunderstorms can produce heavy rains and flooding especially when storms occur over the same area. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite uses onboard sensors to measure rainfall from space. The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center monitors rainfall over the global tropics. MPA rainfall totals are shown for May 21-24, 2004 over the Midwest. Red areas indicate rainfall totals in excess of 10 inches across portions of northern Iowa, southern Minnesota, Wisconsin, eastern Michigan, northeast Ohio and southeast Ontario. Areas in between shaded in green received near 5 inches. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. Images produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC). |
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Severe Weather in the US Mid
…
| Title |
Severe Weather in the US Midwest |
| Description |
A stationary front draped across the Midwest provided the focus for several days of strong springtime thunderstorms that delivered severe weather and heavy rains to the region. On May 21, 2004, a strong complex of thunderstorms known as an MCS or mesoscale convective system moved across southern Michigan, Ohio and into parts of the Appalachians leaving behind numerous reports of wind damage. Long-lived MCSs that generate wind damage over a wide area are also known as 'derechos' as was the case for this event. On May 22, there were numerous reports of tornados from Nebraska into Iowa. One woman was killed in Nebraska, and the town of Hallam, Nebraska was flattened by a tornado. On May 23, two children were swept away in Wisconsin as runoff from heavy rains drained into the Milwaukee river. And on May 24, there were more tornados, large hail and wind damage across parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. In addition to tornados, hail and wind damage, strong thunderstorms can produce heavy rains and flooding especially when storms occur over the same area. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite uses onboard sensors to measure rainfall from space. The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center monitors rainfall over the global tropics. MPA rainfall totals are shown for May 21-24, 2004 over the Midwest. Red areas indicate rainfall totals in excess of 10 inches across portions of northern Iowa, southern Minnesota, Wisconsin, eastern Michigan, northeast Ohio and southeast Ontario. Areas in between shaded in green received near 5 inches. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. Images produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC). |
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Snow Across the Western Unit
…
| Title |
Snow Across the Western United States |
| Description |
The Sunday after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year in the United States as people return home from the four-day weekend. Sunday, November 28, 2004, was no exception, but this year, Mother Nature snarled traffic across a large swath of the west with an intense snow storm. The storm dumped up to 24 inches (0.6 meters) of snow on the mountains of southern Utah, and blanketed the surrounding states. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image the following day, on November 29, after the clouds moved out. The storm's path is clearly visible in this image: a track of white extends from southeastern Oregon and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California to Colorado and New Mexico in the east. The National Weather Service reports that the storm moved east across the Plains States of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Iowa on November 29 and November 30. The snow highlights some interesting features of the Western United States that might not otherwise be obvious in satellite imagery. Sandwiched between the straight diagonal line of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the west (the straight edge of the snow) and the Rocky Mountains in Central Utah in the east is the Great Basin Desert. This high desert basin covers a heart-shaped region of southern Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and southern Idaho and is clearly outlined in snow. Hemmed between two large mountain ranges that trap moisture from the east and the west, it is the United States' largest desert. It receives on average 7-12 inches of precipitation every year. The water that does fall in the region drains to interior, closed basins instead of the ocean, giving the region its name. The Great Basin Desert is made up of a series of mostly north-south running mountain ranges and valleys that give the land a wrinkled, wash-board appearance, particularly in Nevada. The snow highlights elevation change elsewhere in the image. The imposing Rocky Mountains appear slightly darker than the valleys around them, and the peaks and high plateaus in the south are covered in snow while the pink desert lowlands remain bare. On the right edge of the image, the flat plains of eastern Wyoming and Colorado are an even, uninterrupted white. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the Goddard Land Processes DAAC |
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Snow Across the Western Unit
…
| Title |
Snow Across the Western United States |
| Description |
As much as 18 inches of snow coated the Sierra Nevada Mountains on November 27 and 28, 2004, stranding thousands of holiday travelers. In this Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]), captured by NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov/ ] satellite on November 28, 2004, the mountains seem to have acted as a barrier to the storm, which moved in from the northwest, according to the National Weather Service. The east side of the mountains and the Great Desert Basin are white with snow, while the west side remains green. After this image was acquired, the storm moved east, blanketing Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska with heavy snow. NASA image courtesy Liam Gumley, University of Wisconsin-Madison from data acquired by direct broadcast at Oregon State University |
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Snow Storm in Colorado
| Title |
Snow Storm in Colorado |
| Description |
A big snowstorm brought much-needed moisture to the state of Colorado on January 19, 2006. As reported by the Rocky Mountain News, before the storm, the state's assistant climatologist had warned that drought was beginning to affect the foothills west of the Denver metro area and the plains to the east of the city. A week later, relief arrived, although opinions varied as to whether it was enough to stop the developing drought conditions. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] flying onboard the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite took this picture of Colorado and surrounding states on January 20, 2006. In this image, snow blankets the Rocky Mountains and extends to the east in a counterclockwise direction towards Kansas and Nebraska. The same storm system that brought moisture to Colorado continued dropping precipitation through the Midwest. For Colorado residents, the snow was a mixed blessing. On January 19, temperatures remained warm enough to melt much of the snow as soon as it hit the ground. Overnight temperatures, however, plummeted. The day this image was taken, commuters throughout the state were contending with roads like ice rinks. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, authorities urged commuters to drive slowly to avoid crashes. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the Goddard Earth Sciences DAAC. |
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Snowstorm in the American Mi
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| Title |
Snowstorm in the American Midwest |
| Description |
The vernal equinox marks the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. But after a record-setting warm winter, the start of spring 2006 came with an ironic twist: a powerful snowstorm that blanketed most of the American Midwest in heavy snow. According to the Associated Press, snow fell as rapidly as two inches an hour in Illinois and Indiana, while in parts of Nebraska, total accumulations were as much as two feet (roughly 60 centimeters) of snow, closing sections of Interstate 80. In Colorado and Kansas, the same snow system also forced closings along Interstate 70 on March 20. The AP was also reporting that at least five deaths had been attributed to the snow in Colorado, Nebraska, and Texas. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite observed the wake behind the storm at 12:55 p.m. Mountain Time (19:45 UTC) on March 21, 2006. In this false-color image, clouds appear white, snow and ice appear blue, and land colors vary from reddish tans to greens in areas of lesser or greater vegetation. While a thin layer of cloud covers much of the area where the heaviest snow fell the previous day, the long, wide swath of blue, occasionally visible through the thin cloud cover, shows the path of the snowstorm. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team. |
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Tornadoes Spawn near Deshler
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| Title |
Tornadoes Spawn near Deshler, Nebraska |
| Description |
*Animations* small animation (1.4 MB QuickTime) large animation (2.5 MB QuickTime) broadcast animation (105 MB QuickTime) On the evening of Sunday, June 22, 2003, severe storms pounded southern Nebraska and northern Kansas with about a foot (30 cm) of rain, large hailstones, and at least seven tornadoes. The image above shows the tops of the thunderheadswith their characteristic "anvil clouds" extending eastwardat 7:15 p.m. central time. The image above and accompanying animation were produced using NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) data. Shortly before this image was acquired, four tornadoes touched down around Deshler, Nebraskaa town of about 900 people located 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Lincoln. The twisters damaged or destroyed at least 100 homes and 25 businesses, according to local news reports. Images courtesy NASA GOES Project Science Office. [ http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ ] Animations by Robert Simmon. |
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Tornadoes Spawn near Deshler
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| Title |
Tornadoes Spawn near Deshler, Nebraska |
| Description |
*Animations* small animation (1.4 MB QuickTime) large animation (2.5 MB QuickTime) broadcast animation (105 MB QuickTime) On the evening of Sunday, June 22, 2003, severe storms pounded southern Nebraska and northern Kansas with about a foot (30 cm) of rain, large hailstones, and at least seven tornadoes. The image above shows the tops of the thunderheadswith their characteristic "anvil clouds" extending eastwardat 7:15 p.m. central time. The image above and accompanying animation were produced using NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) data. Shortly before this image was acquired, four tornadoes touched down around Deshler, Nebraskaa town of about 900 people located 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Lincoln. The twisters damaged or destroyed at least 100 homes and 25 businesses, according to local news reports. Images courtesy NASA GOES Project Science Office. [ http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ ] Animations by Robert Simmon. |
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Tornadoes Spawn near Deshler
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| Title |
Tornadoes Spawn near Deshler, Nebraska |
| Description |
*Animations* small animation (1.4 MB QuickTime) large animation (2.5 MB QuickTime) broadcast animation (105 MB QuickTime) On the evening of Sunday, June 22, 2003, severe storms pounded southern Nebraska and northern Kansas with about a foot (30 cm) of rain, large hailstones, and at least seven tornadoes. The image above shows the tops of the thunderheadswith their characteristic "anvil clouds" extending eastwardat 7:15 p.m. central time. The image above and accompanying animation were produced using NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) data. Shortly before this image was acquired, four tornadoes touched down around Deshler, Nebraskaa town of about 900 people located 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Lincoln. The twisters damaged or destroyed at least 100 homes and 25 businesses, according to local news reports. Images courtesy NASA GOES Project Science Office. [ http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ ] Animations by Robert Simmon. |
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Tornadoes Spawn near Deshler
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| Title |
Tornadoes Spawn near Deshler, Nebraska |
| Description |
*Animations* small animation (1.4 MB QuickTime) large animation (2.5 MB QuickTime) broadcast animation (105 MB QuickTime) On the evening of Sunday, June 22, 2003, severe storms pounded southern Nebraska and northern Kansas with about a foot (30 cm) of rain, large hailstones, and at least seven tornadoes. The image above shows the tops of the thunderheadswith their characteristic "anvil clouds" extending eastwardat 7:15 p.m. central time. The image above and accompanying animation were produced using NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) data. Shortly before this image was acquired, four tornadoes touched down around Deshler, Nebraskaa town of about 900 people located 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Lincoln. The twisters damaged or destroyed at least 100 homes and 25 businesses, according to local news reports. Images courtesy NASA GOES Project Science Office. [ http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ ] Animations by Robert Simmon. |
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View east over the Rocky Mou
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| Title |
View east over the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains |
| Description |
A color oblique view looking east over the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains (40.0N, 106.0W). This view covers a portion of the States of Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. This entire region, covered with snow, depicts much of the structural and topographic features of the Rocky Mountain chain. Only change to snow pattern seen here is the (right center) metropolitan areas of Denver and Colorado Springs, Colorado, which can be observed along the eastern edge of the mountain front. The major inter-montane valleys of South Park (right center), Middle Park (center), and North Park (left center) are clearly visible and separate the Colorado Rockies Front Range from the high rugged mountains that form the core of the Rocky Mountains. Individual mountains can be discovered such as Pikes Peak near right border (center), Mt. Cunnison region, circular feature accentuated by the Cunnison River (dark) in the right center (bottom) of the photograph. The snow covered peaks of Mts. Harvard, Princeton, |
| Date Taken |
1974-02-01 |
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Europa's Broken Ice
PIA00291
Jupiter
Solid-State Imaging
| Title |
Europa's Broken Ice |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Jupiter's moon Europa, as seen in this image taken June 27, 1996 by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, displays features in some areas resembling ice floes seen in Earth's polar seas. Europa, about the size of Earth's moon, has an icy crust that has been severely fractured, as indicated by the dark linear, curved, and wedged-shaped bands seen here. These fractures have broken the crust into plates as large as 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) across. Areas between the plates are filled with material that was probably icy slush contaminated with rocky debris. Some individual plates were separated and rotated into new positions. Europa's density indicates that it has a shell of water ice as thick as 100 kilometers (about 60 miles), parts of which could be liquid. Currently, water ice could extend from the surface down to the rocky interior, but the features seen in this image suggest that motion of the disrupted icy plates was lubricated by soft ice or liquid water below the surface at the time of disruption. This image covers part of the equatorial zone of Europa and was taken from a distance of 156,000 kilometers (about 96,300 miles) by the solid-state imager camera on the Galileo spacecraft. North is to the right and the sun is nearly directly overhead. The area shown is about 360 by 770 kilometers (220-by-475 miles or about the size of Nebraska), and the smallest visible feature is about 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) across. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science. |
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Front Range of the Rockies
PIA03406
Sol (our sun)
Multi-angle Imaging SpectroR
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| Title |
Front Range of the Rockies |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
These MISR images from May 12, 2001 (Terra orbit 7447) include portions of southern Wyoming, central Colorado, and western Nebraska. The top view is from the instrument's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera. The bottom image is a stereo "anaglyph" generated using data from the nadir and 46-degree-forward cameras. Viewing the anaglyph with red/blue glasses (red filter over your left eye) gives a 3-D effect. To facilitate stereo viewing, the images have been oriented with north at the left. Each image measures 422 kilometers x 213 kilometers. The South Platte River enters just to the right of center at the top of the images. It wends its way westward (down), then turns southward (right) where it flows through the city of Denver. Located at the western edge of the Great Plains, Denver is nicknamed the "Mile High City", a consequence of its 1609-meter (5280-foot) elevation above sea level. It shows up in the imagery as a grayish patch surrounded by numerous agricultural fields to the north and east. Denver is situated just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, located in the lower right of the images. The Rockies owe their present forms to tectonic uplift and sculpting by millions of years of erosion. Scattered cumulus clouds floating above the mountain peaks are visible in these images, and stand out most dramatically in the 3-D stereo view. To the north of Denver, other urban areas included within these images are Boulder, Greeley, Longmont, and Fort Collins, Colorado, Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, and Scottsbluff, Nebraska. 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. |
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| General Description |
International Space Station Imagery |
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| General Description |
International Space Station Imagery |
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| General Description |
Behind the Scenes : TRAINING Imagery |
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| General Description |
Behind the Scenes : TRAINING Imagery |
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -
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| Description |
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Three male and one female hooded mergansers swim in the quicksilver water of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which shares a boundary with Kennedy Space Center. Usually found from Alaska and Canada south to Nebraska, Oregon and Tennessee, hooded mergansers winter south to Mexico and the Gulf Coast, including KSC. The open water of the refuge provides wintering areas for 23 species of migratory waterfowl, as well as a year-round home for great blue herons, great egrets, wood storks, cormorants, brown pelicans and other species of marsh and shore birds. The 92,000-acre refuge is also habitat for more than 310 species of birds, 25 mammals, 117 fishes and 65 amphibians and reptiles. |
| Release Date |
01/08/2004 |
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