Heavens

NASA sees Eastern Pacific get first tropical storm: Alvin

NASA sees Eastern Pacific get first tropical storm: Alvin

NASA's Aqua satellite and NOAA's GOES-15 satellite captured imagery of the Eastern Pacific Ocean's first named tropical storm, Alvin. Aqua and GOES-15 provided imagery of Alvin that provided a look at the overall storm and the temperatures of its cloud tops.

NASA satellite data helps pinpoint glaciers' role in sea level rise

NASA satellite data helps pinpoint glaciers' role in sea level rise

A new study of glaciers worldwide using observations from two NASA satellites has helped resolve differences in estimates of how fast glaciers are disappearing and contributing to sea level rise.

World's melting glaciers making large contribution to sea rise

World's melting glaciers making large contribution to sea rise

While 99 percent of Earth's land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world's glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder.

Weather on the outer planets only goes so deep

Weather on the outer planets only goes so deep

South Africa's new radio telescope reveals giant outbursts from binary star system

South Africa's new radio telescope reveals giant outbursts from binary star system

An international team of astronomers have reported the first scientific results from the Karoo Array Telescope (KAT-7) in South Africa, the pathfinder radio telescope for the $3 billion global Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project.

The results appear in the latest issue of the prestigious international astronomical journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).

NASA completes first part of Webb Telescope's 'eye surgery' operation

NASA completes first part of Webb Telescope's 'eye surgery' operation

Much like the inside of an operating room, in the clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., engineers worked meticulously to implant part of the eyes of the James Webb Space Telescope. They scrubbed up and suited up to perform one of the most delicate performances of their lives. That part of the eyes, the MIRI, or Mid-Infrared Instrument, will glimpse the formation of galaxies and see deeper into the universe than ever before.

HiRISE Mars camera reveals hundreds of impacts each year

HiRISE Mars camera reveals hundreds of impacts each year

Scientists using images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, have estimated that the planet is bombarded by more than 200 small asteroids or bits of comets per year forming craters at least 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) across.

Researchers have identified 248 new impact sites on parts of the Martian surface in the past decade, using images from the spacecraft to determine when the craters appeared. The 200-per-year planetwide estimate is a calculation based on the number found in a systematic survey of a portion of the planet.

NASA satellites eye Cyclone Mahasen as Bangladesh prepares for landfall

NASA satellites eye Cyclone Mahasen as Bangladesh prepares for landfall

Tropical Cyclone Mahasen has been strengthening and expanding as it moves through the northern Bay of Bengal for a landfall on Thursday, May 16. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the cyclone as it was hugging the central India coastline. Rainfall data from NASA's TRMM satellite was compiled in an animation to reveal large rainfall totals as the storm tracked through the Bay of Bengal earlier this week.

Nanotechnology could help fight diabetes

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin.

High-testosterone competitors more likely to choose red

Why do so many sports players and athletes choose to wear the color red when they compete? A new study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that it may have to do with their testosterone levels.

The new study, conducted by psychological scientist Daniel Farrelly of the University of Sunderland and colleagues, demonstrated that males who chose red as their color in a competitive task had higher testosterone levels than other males who chose blue.