Where on Earth - Play Geographical Detective Conducted by NASA, JPL, or MISR

Welcome back to a chance to play geographical detective!

This image was taken by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), and represents an area of about 238 kilometers by 223 kilometers. North is at the top. These questions refer to a country within the image. Please answer the questions below and tell us where on Earth you think the location is. You may use any reference materials you like to answer the quiz.

A. From the statements below, please indicate which are TRUE and which are FALSE.

B. What country is shown in this image?

1. The small island off the coastal inlet in the lower left corner of the image is dominated by mangrove swamps, and considered home to protected sea bird sanctuaries. Parts of the island are off-limits for visitors.

2. Settlers were, perhaps, over-optimistic in their naming policy of this country.

3. The body of water shown on the right side of the image is considered so shallow and is situated on a single plate, that it is known for its tranquil calm waters and geologic inactivity.

4. The streams and rivers of this country used to be home to a sacred reptile, which has since gone extinct.

5. For centuries, coastal farmers used a powerful fertilizer that covered the rocks on the tip of this peninsula area during the dry season. Thus giving this area its descriptive name.

6. This animal, which can be found in the National Park located just below the bottom right corner of the image, comes down from its perch twice a day to feed its young.

Send us your answers, name (initials are acceptable if you prefer), and your hometown by the quiz deadline of Wednesday, November 9, 2011, 4 p.m. PST, using the Quiz answer form. Answers will be published on the MISR website. The names and home towns of respondents who answer all questions correctly by the deadline will also be published in the order responses were received. The first three people on this list who are not affiliated with NASA, JPL, or MISR and who have not previously won a prize will be sent a print of the image.

For more information, visit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=76315

Birth of an Iceberg

Birthing large icebergs is nothing new for the Pine Island Glacier. Among the fastest moving glaciers in Antarctica, Pine Island drains about 79 cubic kilometers (19 cubic miles) of ice per year from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The end of the glacier stretched about 48 kilometers (30 miles) past the edge of land, floating on the ocean. As more ice flows toward the water, the tongue grows longer. Eventually, a piece will break off, forming a large iceberg.

The last calving event occurred in late 2001 and resulted in an iceberg that measured 42 kilometers by 17 kilometers (26 by 11 miles). That event, too, was preceded by a large crack that was observed in satellite imagery in late 2000.

While satellites have tracked the formation of new icebergs, this is the first detailed airborne survey of such an event. “We are actually now witnessing how it happens,” said IceBridge project scientist Michael Studinger. “It’s part of a natural process but it’s pretty exciting to be here and actually observe it while it happens.”

IceBridge scientists were surveying the Pine Island Glacier to learn how the glacier is changing and why. In the largest airborne survey of Earth’s polar ice, the airplanes of Operation IceBridge carry an array of instruments to measure the ice from top to bottom. The research team is gathering data about how thick the ice is (about 500 meters or 1,640 feet in the region of the crack); what the ground beneath it looks like; and how the glacier has changed over time. All of this information will help scientists understand why the Pine Island Glacier drains so much ice to the ocean and how much it could contribute to sea level rise in the future.

Heavy Snow in Northeastern United States

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on October 30, 2011. A swath of snow sweeps from West Virginia northeastward to Maine. Clouds hover east and west of the snow, blocking the satellite sensor’s view of western Pennsylvania and parts of the Atlantic Ocean.

The storm broke snowfall-total records in cities throughout the U.S. Northeast, Capital Weather Gang reported. The nor’easter was also surprisingly intense, causing wind gusts along the Massachusetts coastline of 69 miles (111 kilometers) per hour.

More than 3 million homes and businesses lacked electricity in the wake of the storm, according to news reports. Capital Weather Gang reported that this storm caused a record loss of electricity in Connecticut—worse than the power loss caused by Hurricane Irene. As residents headed back to work on October 31, closed or icy roads complicated commutes in multiple states. Fortunately, rising temperatures were expected to help melt the snow.

Fresh Lava Flows Surround Pu'u 'O'o

Since it began in 1983, the eruption of Kilauea Volcano has usually been centered at Pu’u ’O’o. Gray and brown lava flows radiate from the crater, the varying shades due to differences in weathering, composition, and the lava’s initial temperature. Photographs of Pu’u ’O’o from the United States Geological Survey reveal the remarkable variety of colors and textures in the lava. The overlapping flows form a record of the evolving eruption. The extent of change since early September is remarkable.

This natural-color satellite image (top), acquired by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) on October 29, 2011, shows the recent lava flows. On September 21, 2011, a fissure opened in the flank of Pu’u ’O’o, draining a lava pond and spawning an ’a’a flow: thick lava that moves relatively slowly and hardens into rough blocks.

Over the next few days, the narrow ’a’a flow reached 3,400 meters (11,000 feet) from the vent, before petering out. More recently, gray pahoehoe lava (more fluid than ’a’a) covered most of the dark a’a’ flow. In a false-color image that combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (above, lower), the fresh lava is bright red, an indication that it was active at the time the satellite flew overhead.

Midwestern USA at Night with Aurora Borealis

The artificial light from human settlements appears with a characteristic yellow tinge. The green light of the aurora borealis also shines brightly in this view—even seeming to reflect off Earth’s surface in Canada. A small white patch of light is almost certainly lightning from a storm on the East coast (image top right). Part of the ISS appears across the top of the image.

This astronaut photograph highlights the Chicago metropolitan area as the largest cluster of lights, next to the dark patch of Lake Michigan. The other largest metropolitan areas include St. Louis, Minneapolis–St. Paul, and the Omaha–Council Bluffs region on the Nebraska–Iowa border. The northeastern seaboard lies just beyond the Appalachian Mountains, a dark winding zone without major cities.

City light clusters give an immediate sense of relative city size. Demographers have used nighttime satellite imagery to make estimates of city populations, especially in the developing world, where growth can be rapid.

The sense of scale changes significantly in oblique views. Des Moines is 200 kilometers from Omaha and 375 kilometers from Minneapolis, yet the distances appear roughly the same in this view

NASA Invites Students to Study the Sun During Solar Week

Nasa invited students for Solar Week Fall 2011, October 17-21 – a lively week of online activities and curriculum for students about the Sun, including games and lesson plans for the whole week. In addition, there’s a message board where your classroom can submit a question to leading solar scientists.

Every fall and spring since 2000, Solar Week has provided a weeklong series of Web-based educational classroom activities and games geared for upper elementary, middle and early high school students with a focus on our dynamic Sun and its effects on Earth. Students learn about solar eclipses, sunspots, solar flares and solar storms through a series of activities, games, and lessons.

Solar Week is ideal for students studying the solar system, the stars, or astronomy in general. It's also for kids wondering what it's like being a scientist, and pondering possible career choices. Participation makes for a fun computer lab activity as well. After doing the activities, students can interact on the bulletin board with leading scientists at the forefront of Sun-Earth research. It’s a great place for any student interested in our nearest star, the Sun!

Solar Week is a collaboration between University of California, Berkeley and Rice University.

Mid-Latitude Cyclone over the United States

At 3:05 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on September 26, 2011, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite observed a mid-latitude cyclone over the mid western United States. The center of the storm appeared immediately west of Lake Michigan.

Mid-latitude cyclones drive most of the stormy weather in the continental United States. Development of these cyclones often involves a warm front from the south meeting a cold front from the north. In the Northern Hemisphere, cyclones move in a counterclockwise direction. (In the Southern Hemisphere, cyclones are clockwise.) The bands of cold and warm air wrap around a center of low pressure, and air rising near the center spurs the development clouds and precipitation.

Justin Berk, a meteorologist based in Baltimore, explains that in this region, “cold air eventually wins out and wraps completely around a storm. This is called a ‘cold core’ storm and has cut itself off from the main flow of the jet stream.” This, says Berk, is why the September 26 storm appears stalled near Chicago.

Dunphy Complex Fires in Nevada

Ignited by lightning on September 30, 2011, the three fires in the Dunphy Complex raced through sagebrush and grass in northern Nevada during the first week of October. By October 6, the fires had burned 204,487 acres in a remote area between the towns of Elko and Winnemucca.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite took this image on October 3 when gusty winds pushed the fires to double their size. Active fires are outlined in red.

Dense smoke rises from the Indian Creek fire, the largest of the three in the complex. The smoke blows north into northern Idaho, before becoming too thin to be seen in the satellite image. The Chukkar Canyon and Izzenhood fires show less activity, but dark, charred land reveals where the fires burned.

On October 3, the fast-moving fires grew from a collective 88,000 acres to 160,000 acres and forced the evacuation of the community of Tuscarora. They also caused power outages at mining operations in the region, reported the Elko Interagency Dispatch Center. The Dunphy Complex became the top priority for wild land fire fighters in the United States that day. Cooler weather and rain helped suppress the fires from October 4 through October 6.

Parinacota Volcano in South America

Volcan Parinacota (“flamingo lake” in the Aymara language) is a potentially active stratovolcano located on the Altiplano, a high plateau in the Andes mountains of west-central South America. While no direct observations of eruptive activity have been recorded, surface exposure dating of lava flows suggests that activity occurred as recently as 290 AD (± 300 years). Local Aymara stories also suggest that the volcano has erupted within the past 1000 years.

This astronaut photograph from the International Space Station highlights the symmetrical cone of Parinacota, with its well-developed summit crater (elevation 6,348 meters, or 20,827 feet, above sea level). Dark brown to dark gray surfaces to the east and west of the summit include lava flows, pyroclastic deposits, and ash.

A companion volcano, Pomerape, is located across a low saddle to the north. This volcano last erupted during the Pleistocene Epoch (approximately 3 million to 12,000 years ago). Together, Parinacota and Pomerape form the Nevados de Payachata volcanic area. The summits of both volcanoes are covered by white snowpack and small glaciers.

Eruptive activity at Parinacota has directly influenced development of the local landscape, beyond the placement of volcanic deposits. Approximately 8,000 years ago, the western flank of the volcano collapsed, creating a debris avalanche that traveled 22 kilometers (14 miles) to the west. The debris blocked rivers and streams, leading to the formation of Chungará Lake to the south (lower left). The uneven, hummocky surface of the avalanche debris provides ample catchments for water, as evidenced by the numerous small ponds and Cotacotani Lake to the west.

NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers - World Orbiting Two Stars

The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth.

Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it.

"This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life," Kepler principal investigator William Borucki said. "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars. This milestone discovery confirms a theory that scientists have had for decades but could not prove until now."

NASA Awards Historic Green Aviation Prize

NASA has awarded the largest prize in aviation history, created to inspire the development of more fuel-efficient aircraft and spark the start of a new electric airplane industry. The technologies demonstrated by the CAFE Green Flight Challenge, sponsored by Google, competitors may end up in general aviation aircraft, spawning new jobs and new industries for the 21st century.

The first place prize of $1.35 million was awarded to team Pipistrel-USA.com of State College, Pa. The second place prize of $120,000 went to team eGenius, of Ramona, Calif.

Fourteen teams originally registered for the competition. Three teams successfully met all requirements and competed in the skies over the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, Calif. The competition was managed by the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation under an agreement with NASA.

"NASA congratulates Pipistrel-USA.com for proving that ultra-efficient aviation is within our grasp," said Joe Parrish, NASA's acting chief technologist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Today we've shown that electric aircraft have moved beyond science fiction and are now in the realm of practice."

Fires in Russia and China

Smoke clouds the skies across northeastern China and southeastern Russia in this image taken on October 8, 2011, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Widespread fires are marked in red.

The dry, windy weather of autumn created hazardous fire conditions in northeast China. On October 9, officials in Heilongjiang, the province shown here, raised the fire alert level to its second-highest level, said Xinhua news. Russian officials, meanwhile, reported monitoring four large wildfires in the Far Eastern Federal District, which includes the area shown here.

NASA Tests Deep Space J-2X Rocket Engine at Stennis

NASA conducted a 40-second test of the J-2X rocket engine Sept. 28, the most recent in a series of tests of the next-generation engine selected as part of the Space Launch System architecture that will once again carry humans into deep space. It was a test at the 99 percent power level to gain a better understanding of start and shutdown systems as well as modifications that had been made from previous test firing results.

The test at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi came just two weeks after the agency announced plans for the new SLS to be powered by core-stage RS-25 D/E and upper-stage J-2X engines. The liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen J-2X is being developed for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.

NASA's Moon Twins Going Their Own Way

NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)-B spacecraft successfully executed its first flight path correction maneuver Wednesday, Oct. 5. The rocket burn helped refine the spacecraft's trajectory as it travels from Earth to the moon and provides separation between itself and its mirror twin, GRAIL-A. The first burn for GRAIL-A occurred on Sept. 30.

"Both spacecraft are alive and with these burns, prove that they're kicking too, as expected," said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "There is a lot of time and space between now and lunar orbit insertion, but everything is looking good."

GRAIL-B's rocket burn took place on Oct. 5 at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT). The spacecraft's main engine burned for 234 seconds and imparted a velocity change of 56.1 mph (25.1 meters per second) while expending 8.2 pounds (3.7 kilograms) of propellant. GRAIL-A's burn on Sept. 30 also took place at 11 a.m. PDT. It lasted 127 seconds and imparted a 31.3 mph (14 meters per second) velocity change on the spacecraft while expending 4 pounds (1.87 kilograms) of propellant.

These burns are designed to begin distancing GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B's arrival times at the moon by approximately one day and to insert them onto the desired lunar approach paths.

For more information about GRAIL visit: http://www.nasa.gov/grail and http://grail.nasa.gov .

Dust Storm over Northeastern Afghanistan

A dust storm spanning hundreds of kilometers stretched from northern Afghanistan into neighboring countries in early October 2011. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on October 5, 2011.

In places, the dust is thick enough to completely hide the land surface below, especially over southern Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan. In mountainous northeastern Afghanistan, dust-clogged air infiltrates valleys while skies over mountain peaks remain clear.

Sandy deserts extend from Turkmenistan into Uzbekistan and northern Afghanistan, providing material for dust plumes. Clouds fringe eastern margin of this dust storm, and the clouds could result from the same weather system that stirred the dust.

Long Cold Spell Leads to First Arctic Ozone Hole

The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) looks through the edge of Earth’s atmosphere to measure gases, in this case ozone and chlorine monoxide, one of the most dominant ozone-destroying gases. These MLS images of ozone and chlorine monoxide concentrations were made with data collected on March 18, 2011. In both cases, high concentrations of the gas are dark, while low concentrations are light. The left image shows high ozone concentrations over most of the planet, but very low concentrations—the ozone hole—over the Arctic. The right image shows chlorine monoxide concentrations. In this case, the gas is concentrated over the Arctic in the region where the ozone hole developed.

The correlation between high chlorine monoxide and the ozone hole is no accident. Chlorine monoxide reacts with sunlight and ozone in a series of reactions that ultimately destroy ozone. What is unusual about the image is the concentration of chlorine monoxide. The gas forms naturally in the atmosphere only in very cold conditions where clouds or other particles are present in the atmosphere. Such conditions are extremely rare and are usually only found over Antarctica in the winter. In 2011, however, the Arctic also stayed cold long enough for ozone-destroying chlorine gases to build in the atmosphere.

For more information, visit, http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=60598

Saturn's Geyser Moon Enceladus Shows off for NASA's Cassini

NASA's Cassini spacecraft successfully completed its Oct. 1 flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus and its jets of water vapor and ice. At its closest approach, the spacecraft flew approximately 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the moon's surface. The close approach was designed to give some of Cassini's instruments, including the ion and neutral mass spectrometer, the chance to "taste" the jets themselves.

At a higher vantage point during the encounter, Cassini's high-resolution camera captured pictures of the jets emanating from the moon's south polar region.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Dust over the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Dust from the Arabian Peninsula lingered over the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea on September 29, 2011. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite took this picture the same day.

Dust plumes nearly surround the island of Cyprus, but leave skies over the center of the island largely clear. Dust extends far enough northward to reach the southern shores of Turkey. Thick dust also lingers over part of Syria.

Thick dust hovered over Jordan on September 28, and that is where the dust storm likely arose. Sand seas and dry salt lakes cover much of the country, supplying material for frequent dust storms.

Fires in Northern Territory, Australia

Large fires burned throughout Australia’s Northern Territory on September 30, 2011, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image. The fires are marked in red. Fire fighters were monitoring 21 fires, said news report, but many more are shown in the image. The fires are burning through thick grass in remote areas.

The top image provides a closer view of three large fires around Alice Springs. The lower image shows a broader area of fire activity in central Australia. Smoke from the fires creating hazardous driving conditions in the Alice Springs region and forced some roads to close. Fires have burned nearly 150,000 square kilometers (58,000 square miles) in Northern Territory in September, said ABC News.

The fire season in 2011 is proving to be one of the most extreme in recent years. La Niña rains allowed thick grass to grow across Australia’s normally dry interior. The grass dried over the winter and is now an abundant source of fuel.

Ash and Lava Flows at Nabro Volcano

Satellite imagery suggests that the eruption of Nabro Volcano, which began in June 2011, continues. The volcano is located on the edge of the Danakil Desert, a remote and sparsely populated area on the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and few eyewitness accounts of the eruption are available. Orbiting instruments such as the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard Earth Observing-1 (EO-1), which acquired these images, may be the only reliable way to monitor Nabro.

The images show the volcano in false-color (above) and natural-color (below) on September 28, 2011. Heat from vents in Nabro’s central crater is visible as a red glow in the false-color image. Another hotspot about 1,300 meters (4,600 feet) south of the vents reveals an active lava flow. A pale halo surrounding the vents indicates the presence of a tenuous volcanic plume. South of Nabro’s crater, the dark, nearly black areas are coated with ash so thick it completely covers the sparse vegetation. On either side of this region is a thinner layer of ash with some bright green vegetation (exaggerated in false-color) poking through.

In the natural-color image, the arid landscape is light brown where it is not covered by ash. The ash is black, while a fresh lava flow, spewed out in the last two weeks of June, is dark brown. More fresh lava flows surround the active vents. On either side of Nabro’s caldera, ephemeral streams have washed away the ash, leaving light-colored channels behind—a first sign of the erosion that will reshape, and eventually remove, what the eruption built.

Flooding in India

In September 2011, two episodes of heavy rain in a 15-day period inundated the Indian state of Orissa. On September 27, 2011, the Hindustan Times reported that the second period of heavy rainfall had claimed 27 lives.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the top image on September 27, 2011. For comparison, the bottom image shows the same area a year earlier, on September 28, 2010. These images show parts of the Brahmani and Mahanadi Rivers near the Bay of Bengal.

Both images use a combination of infrared and visible light to increase contrast between water and land. Water varies in color from electric blue to navy. Vegetation is bright green. Bare ground is earth toned. Clouds range from off-white to pale blue-green.
The most striking difference between these images is the large expanse of flood water around the city of Jajpur. Jajpur District was hardest hit by the second round of flooding in September 2011, being cut off from overland transportation, according to The Hindu. A significant area of flood water also occurs along the Mahanadi River east of Cuttack.
At the mouth of the Brahmani River, water in the Bay of Bengal is much lighter in color in 2011 than in 2010. This may result from increased sediment loads in the flooded river.
ABC News Australia linked the floods to unusually heavy rains late in the monsoon season. By September 27, the Hindustan Times reported, flooding had eased somewhat in parts of Orissa, but many villages remained marooned. The government planned to continue air drops of food and supplies to isolated areas.

Fire in the Sky and on the Ground

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) used a digital camera to capture several hundred photographs of the aurora australis, or “southern lights,” while passing over the Indian Ocean on September 17, 2011. If you click on the movie linked above, you can see the flowing ribbons and rays below as the ISS passed from south of Madagascar to just north of Australia between 17:22 and 17:45 Universal Time. Solar panels and other sections of the ISS fill some of the upper right side of the photograph.

Auroras are a spectacular sign that our planet is electrically and magnetically connected to the Sun. These light shows are provoked by energy from the Sun and fueled by electrically charged particles trapped in Earth’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere. In this case, the space around Earth was stirred up by an explosion of hot, ionized gas from the Sun—a coronal mass ejection—that left the Sun on September 14, 2011.

The pressure and magnetic energy of the solar plasma stretches and twists the magnetic field of Earth like rubber bands, particularly in the tail on the night side. This energizes the particles trapped in our magnetic field; that energy is released suddenly as the field lines snap the particles down the field lines toward the north and south magnetic poles.

Fast-moving electrons collide with Earth’s upper atmosphere, transferring their energy to oxygen and nitrogen molecules and making them chemically “excited.” As the gases return to their normal state, they emit photons, small bursts of energy in the form of light. The color of light reflects the type of molecules releasing it; oxygen molecules and atoms tend to glow green, white or red, while nitrogen tends to be blue or purple. This ghostly light originates at altitudes of 100 to 400 kilometers (60 to 250 miles).

In the second image above, and in the last frames of the movie, light from the ground replaces the light show in the sky. Wildfires and perhaps some intentionally set agricultural fires burn on the continent of Australia, with smoke plumes faintly visible in the night sky. A gold and green halo of atmospheric airglow hangs above the horizon in the distance.

Every Flight is a Mission to Planet Earth

When the Space Shuttle Columbia first rocketed into space on a pillar of fire in April 1981, it was the maiden voyage of the world’s first re-useable spacecraft. Launched nine years after the last Apollo voyage to the Moon and six years after the joint Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the shuttle was built to ferry humans and cargo into low-Earth orbit. It was part space plane, part rocket-propelled pick-up truck, and part orbiting launch platform.

The Space Shuttle launched major satellites that helped revolutionize our study of the Earth. Its on-board experiments provided discoveries and new climatologies never before available. It provided for multiple flight opportunities for highly calibrated instruments to help verify results from satellites. Shuttle flights provided for on-orbit demonstration of techniques that helped pave the way for subsequent instruments and satellites. The shuttle enabled international cooperation.

Approaching the 2011 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum

On September 9, the sea ice extent was very close to the record low set in 2007, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Scientists at the University of Bremen, who use a slightly different method to calculate sea ice extent from AMSR-E measurements, declared that 2011 surpassed 2007, setting a new record low.

On September 9, sea ice covered 4.33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles), NSIDC reported. The 2011 low is 2.38 million square kilometers (919,000 square miles) below the average minimum extent measured between 1979 and 2000. Late season melt or a shift in wind patterns could still decrease the sea ice extent before the winter freeze-up begins.

In 2007—the last time sea ice reached similarly low levels—conditions were ideal for melt. Skies were clear, wind patterns thinned the ice, and warm air temperatures melted the ice. Weather patterns in 2011, by contrast, were typical. This means, NSIDC scientists say, that the ice was thin and spread out before the melting even started in the summer of 2011. It is a sign that Arctic sea ice is thinning. Indeed the last five years include the five lowest sea ice extents since records began in 1979, and much of that trend has been caused by global warming, says NASA Cryosphere Program manager Tom Wagner in his video interpretation of the 2011 sea ice record (43 MB MPEG-4).

Owens Lake in California

This astronaut photograph highlights the mostly dry bed of Owens Lake, located in theOwens River Valley between the Inyo Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Shallow groundwater, springs, and seeps support minor wetlands and a central brine pool. Two bright red areas along the margins of the brine pool indicate the presence of halophilic (salt-loving) organisms known as archaeans. Gray and white materials within the lake bed are exposed sediments and salt crusts. The nearby towns of Olancha and Lone Pine are marked by the presence of green vegetation, indicating a more constant availability of water.

The present-day Owens Lake was once part of a much larger lake and river system along the northeastern border of California and Nevada during the Pleistocene Epoch (about 3 million to 12,000 years ago). Melt water from alpine glaciers in the Sierra Nevada filled the regional valleys of the Basin and Range to form glacial lakes—ancestors of the now-dry lakebeds (or playas) of Owens, Searles Lake, and China Lake.

While Searles and China Lakes dried out because of regional changes to a hotter and drier climate, Owens Lake became desiccated largely due to the diversion of the Owens River in the early 20th century to serve the needs of Los Angeles, 266 kilometers (165 miles) to the south. Following complete desiccation of the lakebed in 1926, significant amounts of windblown dust were produced. Residents of the now largely abandoned town of Keeler (on the eastern side of the lake) coined the term “Keeler fog” to describe the airborne dust.

In addition to adverse health effects on local residents, dust from Owens Lake has been linked to reductions of visibility in nearby national parks, forests, and wilderness areas. Recently, the City of Los Angeles has undertaken efforts to control dust evolution from the lakebed.

Aland Islands

The Aland Islands (also known as the Aaland Islands) lie at the southern end of the Gulf of Bothnia, between Sweden and Finland. The archipelago consists of several large islands and roughly 6,500 small isles, many of them too small for human habitation.

Aland vegetation is a combination of pine and deciduous forest, meadows, and farmed fields. On nearly every island, however, the region’s characteristic red rapakivi granite appears.

Modern residents of Aland cut and use the granite in buildings and pavement, but much earlier, ice sculpted these rocks. About 20,000 years ago, a massive ice sheet stretched over Scandinavia and the Gulf of Bothnia, and glacial action gradually wore the granite smooth.

The granite in this region is actually far older than the glaciers that smoothed its surface, having formed in the Proterozoic Era. The rapakivi was deposited tens of millions of years before the first amphibians crawled out of water and onto land, and hundreds of millions of years before the first dinosaurs evolved.

Solar Activity Subsiding - Auroras Ablaze

Solar activity is subsiding after last week's flurry of strong flares from sunspot 1283. The sunspot remains capable of M-class eruptions, but Earth would be unaffected by further blasts as the sunspot rotates over the sun's western limb.
A coronal mass ejection (CME) struck Earth's magnetic field on Sept. 9, sparking more than 18 hours of bright auroras around the Arctic Circle. In the United States, Northern Lights were spotted as far south as Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont, Montana, Maine, Minnesota and North and South Dakota. A similar display could be in the offing on Sept. 12-13 when another CME from sunspot 1283 is expected to sail past Earth.

Meteor Likely Cause of Southwest U.S. Light Show

A meteor is the most probable cause of a bright, colorful fireball witnessed by people in a wide swath of the southwestern United States, according to Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL.

Residents from Southern California to Arizona to Las Vegas reported seeing a streak of light move rapidly from west to east around 7:45 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, Sept. 14.

"We're virtually certain this bright display was caused by a meteor, probably the size of a baseball or basketball, that burned up in Earth's atmosphere. It appeared much larger because of the heated and glowing atmosphere along its path," said Yeomans.

Many eyewitnesses described seeing brilliant colors of blue, green and orange. Yeomans said the blue or green colors indicate the meteor contained nickel or magnesium, while orange would mean the object was traveling relatively slowly for a meteor, but still moving a few miles per second.

A meteor is a small fragment of an asteroid. Yeomans said that similar fireballs from asteroids enter Earth's atmosphere every week or so, but they usually take place over the ocean or in a sparsely populated area.

This time, Yeomans says, "The fireball was very bright and provided a harmless but memorable light show for people in numerous cities and towns in the southwestern states."

Sunspot 1283 Bristling With Flares: An X1.8 and An M6.7

A strong geomagnetic storm is in progress following the impact of a CME around 7:30 EDT on Sept. 9th. This could be the first of several hits from a series of CMEs expected to reach Earth during the weekend, related to the sunspot 1283 flares during the week. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras after nightfall.

A high-speed solar wind stream flowing from a large coronal hole should reach Earth on Sept. 11-12 sparking even more aurora.

A third and fourth flare have erupted from sunspot 1283. The third came on September 7 at 6:36 PM ET, and was categorized as an X1.8 by the GOES spacecraft, making it the second X-class flare within 24 hours. There was a coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with all three of the recent flares, but none of them are expected to travel directly toward Earth, and the first two were unlikely to cause aurora. NASA computer models suggest that the latest CME may give a glancing blow to Earth on the morning of September 11, and might create some aurora.

The fourth flare from this same sunspot was detected by GOES at 11:36 AM ET on September 8. This was an M6.7 flare, considered moderate.

Lava Flow on Kizimen Volcano

A prominent lava flow descends the eastern flank of Kamchatka’s Kizimen Volcano in this false-color satellite image acquired on September 4, 2011 (top). An image of the peak from September 6, 2009 (lower), shows the extent of the changes that have occurred since Kizimen began erupting in late 2010.
Volcanic deposits (colored brown) have covered much of the vegetation (red) on the slopes of the volcano, especially to the east. Likewise, material has filled rivers and streams around the volcano. A modest volcanic plume rises from Kizimen’s summit, accompanied by a smaller plume from a fumarole to the northwest.

These images illustrate the growth of a stratovolcano: layers of lava flows alternate with layers of “volcanic ash, cinders, blocks, and bombs.” Unlike fluid hawaiian-style lava, the flow on Kizimen is a block-lava flow, so viscous it’s almost solid. As the flow slowly advances down the east side of the volcano, the surface crumbles, sending boulders, rocks, pebbles, and other material tumbling into the valley below.
In less than a year, this rubble piled high enough to block several drainages, and a new lake was formed. Ash and fine sediment color the lake brilliant blue, in contrast to the nearly black shade of the lake in 2009. Famous stratovolcanoes include Mount St. Helens, Mount Fuji, and Popocatepetl.

Shrinking Aral Sea

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook a major water diversion project on the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The region’s two major rivers, fed from snowmelt and precipitation in faraway mountains, were used to transform the desert into fields for cotton and other crops.

Although irrigation made the desert bloom, it devastated the Aral Sea. This series of images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite documents the changes throughout the past decade. At the start of the series in 2000, the lake was already a fraction of its 1960 extent (black line). The Northern Aral Sea (sometimes called the Small Aral Sea) had separated from the Southern (Large) Aral Sea. The Southern Aral Sea had split into eastern and western lobes that remained tenuously connected at both ends.

By 2001, the southern connection had been severed, and the shallower eastern part retreated rapidly over the next several years. Especially large retreats in the eastern lobe of the Southern Sea appear to have occurred between 2005 and 2009, when drought limited and then cut off the flow of the Amu Darya. Water levels increased in 2010 after the drought broke and then began to dwindle again in 2011.

In a last-ditch effort to save some of the lake, Kazakhstan built a dam between the northern and southern parts of the Aral Sea. Completed in 2005, the dam was basically a death sentence for the southern Aral Sea, which was judged to be beyond saving. All of the water flowing into the desert basin from the Syr Darya now stays in the Northern Aral Sea. Between 2005 and 2006, the water levels in that part of the lake rebounded significantly and very small increases are visible throughout the rest of the time period. The differences in water color are due to changes in sediment.

Wildfire Smoke Plumes over Texas

This panoramic view of east-central Texas on September 6, 2011, highlights numerous smoke plumes caused by wildfires burning across the state. The image was taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), who used a short focal-length lens (12 mm) to capture a wide field of view. Smoke plumes are clearly visible to the east of Austin; to the north of Houston; to the northwest of Lake Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend Reservoir; and to the west of Shreveport, Louisiana. Diffuse smoke is moving offshore into the Gulf of Mexico at image bottom. Part of an ISS photovoltaic radiator panel is visible at image top center.

Record-setting drought conditions have affected much of Texas since early 2011drying out both forest and grassland and providing ample fuel for wildfires. Relatively high winds and low humidity levels have also contributed to the rapid spread and expansion of fires. According to a report dated September 7, 2011, the Texas Forest Service had responded to 172 fires affecting an area of 546.53 square kilometers (135,051 acres) over the preceding seven days. Fires near Bastrop (to the east of Austin) had destroyed 785 homes as of September 7, 2011.

India-Pakistan Borderlands at Night

Clusters of yellow lights on the Indo-Gangetic Plain reveal numerous cities large and small in this astronaut photograph of northern India and northern Pakistan. Of the hundreds of clusters, the largest are the capital cities of Islamabad, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India. (For scale, these metropolitan areas are approximately 700 kilometers or 435 miles apart.) The lines of major highways connecting the cities also stand out. More subtle, but still visible at night, are the general outlines of the towering and partly cloud-covered Himalayas to the north.

A striking feature is the line of lights, with a distinctly orange hue, snaking across the center of the image. It appears to be more continuous and brighter than most highways in the view. This is the fenced and floodlit border zone between India and Pakistan. The fence is designed to discourage smuggling and arms trafficking. A similar fenced zone separates India’s eastern border from Bangladesh (not visible).

This image was taken with a 16 mm lens, which provides the wide field of view, as the International Space Station (ISS) was tracking towards the southeast across India. The ISS crew took the image as part of a continuous series of frames, each with a one-second exposure time to maximize light collection. Unfortunately, this also causes blurring of some ground features.

The distinct, bright zone above the horizon (visible at image top) is airglow, a phenomena caused by excitation of atoms and molecules high in the atmosphere (above 80 kilometers, or 50 miles altitude) by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Part of the ISS Permanent Multipurpose Module and a solar panel array are visible at image right.

NASA’s Space Shuttle Program - Spanning 30 Years of Discovery

NASA's space shuttle fleet began setting records with its first launch on April 12, 1981 and continued to set high marks of achievement and endurance through 30 years of missions. Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, the spacecraft has carried people into orbit repeatedly, launched, recovered and repaired satellites, conducted cutting-edge research and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station. The final space shuttle mission, STS-135, ended July 21, 2011 when Atlantis rolled to a stop at its home port, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

As humanity's first reusable spacecraft, the space shuttle pushed the bounds of discovery ever farther, requiring not only advanced technologies but the tremendous effort of a vast workforce. Thousands of civil servants and contractors throughout NASA's field centers and across the nation have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to mission success and the greater goal of space exploration.

Sun Rising on the Final Shuttle Mission

Silhouetted against the Earth, Atlantis flies into the rising Sun in this photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station on July 19, 2011. On July 20, the shuttle undocked from the station for the final time and began preparations to return home. During their 13 days in space the shuttle astronauts supplied the International Space Station with a new logistics module, tested tools, technologies, and techniques to refuel satellites in space, and collected old equipment from the space station.

Atlantis is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center at 5:56 a.m. local time on July 21, concluding NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program. In addition to the science the shuttle and earlier programs enabled, human space flight has given us a unique view of planet Earth, which includes the now iconic spectacle of Earth rising over the Moon taken during the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969, and the photographs taken from Atlantis during its last full day in space on July 20, 2011. In fact every flight is a mission to planet Earth as described in the Earth Observatory’s tribute to the shuttle program.
Astronaut photograph ISS028-E-017845 was acquired on July 19, 2011, with a Nikon D2Xs digital camera using a 14 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 28 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. The animation has been motion-stabilized.

Rising Water along the Ganga River

Flooding in more than 1,000 villages in Bihar forced residents from their homes by late August 2011, the Indo-Asian News Service reported. After two years of drought, the Kosi River and Ganga (Ganges) Rivers were rising rapidly.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these images of a stretch of the Ganga, or Ganges, River around Patna August 30, 2011 (top), and June 23, 2011 (bottom). These images use a combination of infrared and visible light to increase contrast between water and land. Water ranges in color from electric blue to navy. Vegetation is green. Clouds are pale blue-green.

Water often rises along the Ganga during monsoon season, which typically lasts from June to August. In August 2011, however, waters rose high enough to pass the danger mark in multiple locations. In the image from August, the swollen river has spilled onto floodplains to the north and south. The Indo-Asian News Service reported widespread damage to crops as well as destroyed homes.

Aquarius Rising

In mythology and astrology, Aquarius is known as the water-bearer. For NASA, Aquarius is the space agency's first new Earth-watching tool—actually, water-watching—since 2008.

At 7:20:13 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on June 10, 2011, the Aquarius/SAC-D observatory was launched on a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. About an hour later, the satellite separated from the rocket's second stage, established communication with ground controllers, and unfurled its solar arrays. Initial reports showed the observatory to be in excellent health, and operators will spend the next few weeks maneuvering it into a polar orbit and turning on the sensors.

The satellite is a joint project of Argentina's Comision Nacionale de Actividades Espaciales. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The full name of the spacecraft is the Satellite de Aplicaciones Scientifics-D, or SAC-D. Aquarius is a key instrument that will make NASA's first space observations of the salt content, or salinity of the ocean.

Salinity has traditionally been measured from ships and robotic ocean sensors. Aquarius will map the open ocean once every seven days for at least three years, allowing scientists to make the first global maps of salinity in the surface layer. Observing changes in salinity helps scientists understand ocean circulation and currents, the global water cycle and other fundamental features of the seas.

Super Typhoon Nanmadol

Nanmadol formed as a tropical depression over the western Pacific Ocean on August 22, 2011. It strengthened to a tropical storm a day later, and by August 26, it was a super typhoon.The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image of Super Typhoon Nanmadol at 12:50 p.m. Manila time on August 26, 2011. The eye of the storm appears east of the northern Philippines, and Nanmadol spans hundreds of kilometers.

As of 11:00 p.m. Manila time on August 26, 2011, the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that Nanmadol had maximum sustained winds of 135 knots (250 kilometers, or 155 miles, per hour) and gusts up to 165 knots (305 kilometers, or 190 miles, per hour). The storm was located roughly 585 nautical miles (1,085 kilometers, or 675 miles) south-southwest of Kadena Air Base, Japan. The storm was forecast to continue traveling toward the north-northwest before turning toward the northeast.

On August 26, 2011, the Associated Press reported that at least one person in the Philippines was missing and several towns in the northern Philippines were flooded by heavy rains from the slow-moving storm.

NASA's Mission Finds First Trojan Asteroid Sharing Earth's Orbit

Astronomers studying observations taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission have discovered the first known "Trojan" asteroid orbiting the sun along with Earth.

Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet near stable points in front of or behind the planet. Because they constantly lead or follow in the same orbit as the planet, they never can collide with it. In our solar system, Trojans also share orbits with Neptune, Mars and Jupiter. Two of Saturn's moons share orbits with Trojans.

Scientists had predicted Earth should have Trojans, but they have been difficult to find because they are relatively small and appear near the sun from Earth's point of view.

"These asteroids dwell mostly in the daylight, making them very hard to see," said Martin Connors of Athabasca University in Canada, lead author of a new paper on the discovery in the July 28 issue of the journal Nature. "But we finally found one, because the object has an unusual orbit that takes it farther away from the sun than what is typical for Trojans. WISE was a game-changer, giving us a point of view difficult to have at Earth's surface."

The asteroid is roughly 1,000 feet (300 meters) in diameter. It has an unusual orbit that traces a complex motion near a stable point in the plane of Earth's orbit, although the asteroid also moves above and below the plane. The object is about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) from Earth. The asteroid's orbit is well-defined and for at least the next 100 years, it will not come closer to Earth than 15 million miles (24 million kilometers).