PHENOMENA 

Hurricane Earl from space

This photograph was taken 08/31/10 by astronaut Douglas Wheelcock on board

the orbiting International Space Station.  The eye can be clearly seen.

(Photo upload 08/31/10 courtesy Douglas Wheelcock) 

Mixed bag of space rocks found near Earth

Old star's super-hot water vapor surprises scientists

Phantom planet comes back from oblivion

Massive coral die-off hits Indonesia

Coral bleaches white as it dies.  A huge die-off has been recorded

in the ocean waters around Indonesia, where sea water temperatures

have risen into the 90's, setting records.  Over 60% of coral in the

area has been affected.

(Photo courtesy Wildlife Conservation Society)

Sponges identified as Earth’s oldest animal life

Planets spotted in changing orbits

The Kepler planet-hunting probe has spotted a system where 

two giant planets are locked in constantly changing orbits —

with a super-Earth potentially pinned down between them.

(Artist's rendering)

Sun caused partial collapse of Earth's atmosphere

Space station cooling normally after spacewalk fix

It took more than two weeks and several space walks to repair one

of the two main ammonia cooling pumps on the ISS.

(File photo courtesy NASA)

  China tests space station module for 2011 launch

  Moon may be shrinking, but very, very slowly

Massive mega-star challenges black hole theories

  Proof of aliens could come within 25 years, scientist says

Do we dare let aliens know we’re here?

Stephen Hawking: Let’s get off Earth by 2110

Perseid meteor shower lives up to its promise

 Giant ice island breaks off Greenland

  Huge ice island could pose threat to oil, shipping

This is a satellite image taken Thursday 08/05/10, showing the

ice island that broke off of the end of the Petermann Glacier west

of Greenland.  The ice island is about the size of Rhode Island.

Scientists believe it is the largest instance of calving in history.

(Photo courtesy Professor Andreas Muenchow, University of Delaware)

Briton first known man to walk entire length of the Amazon River

It took Ed Stafford, a former British Army captain, two years and four months to

complete the trek from the source of the Amazon in Peru to the river's mouth on

the Brazilian coast, a distance of some 4,000 miles.  He said he had to contend 

with giant snakes, man-eating fish, disease and hostile natives. His goal was to

bring attention to the destruction of the rain forest brought on by clear-cutting.

(Photo courtesy AP)

Another sun storm may be coming our way

Get the most out of the meteors

The big night for the Perseid Meteor shower is next Thursday,

but anytime now is a great time for skywatching.

(Photo courtesy Reuters)

 Giant ice island breaks off Greenland

This is a satellite image taken Thursday 08/05/10, showing the

ice island that broke off the end of the Petermann Glacier west

of Greenland.  The ice island is about the size of Rhode Island.

Scientists believe it is the largest instance of calving in history.

(Photo courtesy Professor Andreas Muenchow, University of Delaware)

British X-Files describe secret UFO study

Here comes the sun storm

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a global disturbance on the surface

of the sun 08/01/10. Scientists say a coronal mass ejection of plasma could create a

geomagnetic storm and a spectacular light show and possibly threaten certain 

satellites in orbit and certain communications.

(Photo courtesy NASA)

Area on Mars could hold fossilized remains of life

Asteroid could threaten Earth in 2182

Quark by quark, atom smasher closing in on 'God particle'

Buckyballs Found in Space

Video courtesy NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory/CalTech

Saturn's Moon Spawning Moonlets

Black hole knocked off axis by galaxy collision

Want to call aliens? Keep it simple, scientists say

Largest molecules ever known in space found

Most Massive Star Detected

Astronomers used the European Space Observatory's Very Large Telescope,

located in Chile's Atacama Desert, to discover the star, dubbed R136a1.

It's among the cluster of very large stars in a galaxy 160,000 light years

from our solar system.  The huge star's mass is estimated at over 300

times that of our sun and is believed to be about 1-million years old.

(Photo courtesy European Space Agency/AFP)

Solar flare activity continues to increase

Solar flare eruptions on the surface of the sun.

(Photo courtesy Solar.SEC.NOAA.gov)

WISE Discovers 95 New Near-Earth Asteroids

The red dot in the center of the image above is an asteroid, .6miles in diameter,

one of 95 discovered in so-called 'near-earth orbit,' meaning 30-million miles or

less from our planet.  It was discovered by Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer,

or WISE for short, designed specifially to root out possible asteroid threats.

(Photo courtesy (NASA/JP-Caltech/UCLA)

China UFO sightings Alarm Residents)   

This object was videotaped on July 9th in China. It appeared over Hangzhou,

in eastern China, shutting down air traffic at the local airport.  Chinese Authorities

had no explanation.  There have been several other non-similar UFO sightings over

various areas of China in the past year.

(Video courtesy State-run Xinhua News Agency 

Earth atmosphere collapse puzzles scientists

A NASA graphic illustrating the various atmospheric levels. One scientist said of the

collapse of the upper level, the thermosphere by as much as 28% was unprecedented

and, to quote: "Something is going on that we do not understand."

(Image courtesy NASA)

Deep-ocean cameras capture ‘living fossils’

On the left, a fierce-looking deep-sea angle fish.  On the right, a deep-sea amphipod,

a shrimp-like crustracean. The photos were taken recently by Scientists from the

Queensland Brain Institute have used high-tech cameras to photograph sea creatures

at a depth of 4,600 feet at the Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea.

(Composite image by WydeWorld.com from photos courtesy Getty Images)

Comet Probe Visits An Asteroid

A startlingly clear image of the asteroid known as Lutetia in an orbit 280-million

miles from earth between the planets Jupiter and Mars.  It is believed to be

about 83-miles in diameter.  The image was snapped by 'Rosetta,' a European

Space Agency satellite launched in 2004 to chase down the Comet known as 

67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko with which it is to rendezvous in 2014.

(Photo courtes European Space Agency) 

Solar plane completes historic 24-hour flight

 Raw footage of the 'Solar Impulse' plane in flight and landing at Payerne

Airport in Western Switzerland 07/08/10.  The prototype was built to test

the ability to collect enough solar energy and store it for powered flight

through the darkness of night. The flight was deemed a complete success.

(Video courtesy Russian Television)

 Stargazers in awe as total eclipse arcs across Pacific

Total eclipse of the sun as seen Sunday 07/11/10 from Easter Island.

(Photo courtesy Getty Images)

 Scientists find surprises in deep Atlantic Ocean

One of the deep sea creatures photographed in the Atlantic Ocean off the mid-

Atlantic Ridge.  This translucent species is known as Benthic Holothurian.

Using remote-controlled deep-sea vessels, the research was conducted by

the MAR-ECO International Research Program. 

Air Force plans to launch satellite that would keep tabs on space junk

Successful second try at space station docking

An image of an unmanned Russian resupply ship, Progress 26, launched

in 2007. A similar ship, Progress 38, sailed right past the ISS 07/02/10

into its own orbit instead of docking on autopilot.  Engineers figured out

what the problem was and the craft docked with the ISS 2 days later.

The ship was carrying 2.5 tons of resupplies for the ISS crew,

including fresh food, clothing and assorted equipment.

(File photo)

NASA delays end of space shuttle program to 2011

Indonesia's last glacier will melt within years

The last receding glacier in the Puncak Jaya mountain range in eastern Indonesia.

(Photo courtesy AP)

Mars Rover Sees Huge Crater Better Than Ever

A higher-resolution shot of the rim of the Endeavor Crater on Mars taken by NASA's

Mars Rover Opportunity.  The crater is 13-miles wide.

(Photo courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University)

Mars Was Wet, Globally

Solar cycle sparks doomsday buzz

Don’t panic over reports that solar storms could cause high-tech disruptions

in 2013. But scientists say don’t ignore them either.

(Solar photo courtesy Yohkoh / Montana State)

7th-Graders Discover Mysterious Cave on Mars

The area on the surface of Mars where 7th graders from Evergreen

Middle School in Cottonwood, California discovered the unusual cave.

The kids were part of a research project to study NASA images.

(Photo courtesy NASA)

Real tornado hits farm featured in movie 'Twister'

 NBC News posted the above raw video taken of a massive tornado

as it moved across South Dakota farmland.

Scientists: Giant meteor caused Jupiter fireball this month

Moon may have more water than believed

New Comet Visible in Early Morning Sky

The newly discovered comet, McNaught C/2009 R1, has turned out to be

so bright that it could be seen for a time with the naked eye in the northeastern

morning sky away from urban areas.  It was discovered last September.

(Photo courtesy Michael Jäger of Austria)

Hubble catches planet being devoured by its star

Artificial gravity could solve space problems

Out-of-control satellite threatens other spacecraft

The Intelsat Galaxy 15 has moved out of its orbital position

and space experts are worried it could crash into other

orbital objects, like another communication satellite.

(Image provided by Orbital Sciences Corp.)

Are We Infecting Mars With Our Germs?

Ice Asteroids Likely Source of Earth's Water

Science Fact?  Hawking says Aliens may pose risks to Earth

Britain's astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, one of the world's leading scientists,

says it's a simple mathematical certainty that aliens exist.  In a new documentary

for the Discovery Channel, Hawking warns humans not to try and interract with them.

(Photo courtesy AFP)

Dark matter can clump into cigar shapes

Shedding New Light on a Pulsar Mystery

VISTA telescope Captures the Cat's Paw Nebula

This is the first image inside the so-called 'Cat's Paw Nebula' taken by the VISTA

telescope in Chile that uses both natural an infrared light to 'see' into gaseous

regions of space.  It's a stunning look into the birth of young stars.  VISTA is an

acronym for Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy.

(Photo courtesy Discovery News)

Browse here: For the dazzling views VISTA captured soon after it went online.

Hubble team marks 20 years with a new view  

The latest image from the Hubble orbiting space telescope.

It's a view of a pillar of space gas and dust, about three light

years tall in the Carina Nebula, 7,500 light years from earth.

(Photo courtesy NASA)

Is Time Travel Possible?

Oregon Fungus Spreading South

Acidic oceans worsening, experts warn

Flowering Plants Bloom Earlier With Warming

‘Spectacular’ sights come from new spacecraft observatory

A multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken

by the new Solar Dynamics Observatory on March 30, 2010.

 The probe was launched on an extended mission in February.

(Image provided by NASA) 

The Neutron Star Cooling Mystery

Piece of Midwestern Meteor Found

Saturn's North Pole Hexagon Mystery Solved?  

Boom! On 04/13/10, the Sun Unleashes a Huge CME

NYT: Scientists discover heavy new element

Climate link found in strange Arctic bird deaths

Earth Gets Geomagnetic Wallop

A huge blast of solar wind pummels Earth's magnetosphere, creating powerful geomagnetic

storms, with northern skies brightly-lit with dancing auroras like this over Alaska.

(Photo courtesy Discovery News)

Rogue Brown Dwarf Lurks in Our Cosmic Neighborhood

Comet That Killed Mammoths Could Strike Again

Comet-Kaze Strikes The Sun

In amazing imagery, a comet fragment, lower left, approaches the

sun (blanked out in center by observation disc) at 300 miles per second.

The object in the lower right is not a space ship, but the planet Mercury.

(Image provided by SOHO, The NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory)

Watch the impact sequence of two fragments below.

NASA: Chilean quake may have tipped the earth's axis 

Scientist: Alien Life Forms May Be on Earth

No, not little green men, but Paul Davies, an Arizona State University

physicist believes alien life forms could be microbial.  He says

less than 1% of earth's microbes have been identified or studied.

(Photo courtesy Getty Images)

Thousands of strange creatures found deep in ocean

The Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations Comes of Age

Meteorite Crashes Through Virginia Doctor's Office

Past Decade Warmest Ever, NASA Data Shows

Mystery object whizzes past Earth harmlessly

Near-earth object identifed as 2010 AL30 passed Earth only 80,000 miles away,

extremely close by planetary standards.  It was believed to be an errant asteroid. 

More information about the object can be found at : NASA's Solar System Dynamics Web site

(Image courtesy AFAM/CARA)

Kepler telescope discovers five new planets, all bigger than Earth

Incoming asteroid under close watch

The orbit of Adophis, an 885 foot-long asteroid.  Some scientists predict it's course will

intersect with earth in 2036.  Russian scientists are urging an "intervention," to force

the object off course.  NASA says the chances of Adophis hitting earth is 1 in 250,000.

(Graphic courtesy MSNBC)

Mystery Spiral Appears Over Norway

(Photo of mystery spiral in the sky over Norway by Jan Petter Jørgensen via Vaeret.  It appeared

just 2 months after another mystery spiral, different in shape, appeared over Moscow, pictured below.)

Mystery halo cloud that appeared over Moscow in October, 2009.

 This page was last modified on Friday, September 03, 2010 10:34:03 AM