Exciting Science and Astronomy

The emphasis on this blog will be on timeliness. I will scour all my sources for the very latest information I can find on Exciting Science, Astronomy and World-Wide Disasters.

Sep 3, 2010, Hubble Revisits Supernova 1987A

In the September 2nd edition of Science Express, a star-studded international team of astronomers describe observations of the supernova made with STIS earlier this year, the first in six years.The ejected ring is still there, now studded with about 30 hotspots. Over time, as the supernova's shock wave continues to barrel outward, these should merge into a single bright band.

More interesting is the insight being gleaned from a second shock wave, this one triggered by the ring itself and propagating back toward what's left of the progenitor star and through the supernova's expanding debris. The team reports that spectra of this inner shock reveal lots of hydrogen, as you'd expect, but they also see some other emissions that are probably from nitrogen and perhaps from carbon.

Essentially, the now-gone star has laid bare whatever was inside when it exploded, and over time careful observations by HST and other telescopes will, in Humpty Dumpty fashion, attempt to put the progenitor star back together again.

"I think a great thing here is the resurrection of STIS," notes coauthor Robert Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). "Astronauts zipping out 114 screws while wearing boxing gloves were not just doing it for the challenge! This paper shows that the instrument is back working, and that we're finding out new things about an object that is about the same age as HST."

Supernova 1987A's ring, about a light-year across, was probably shed by the star about 20,000 years before it exploded. The dozens of bright spots around the ring mark where a shock wave unleashed by the stellar blast is slamming into the ring's material.

NASA / ESA / K. France / P. Challis / R. Kirshner

Aug 31, 2010, Hurricane Earl

At 14:20 Universal Time(UTC) on August 29, 2010, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image of Hurricane Earl over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. At 15:00 UTC on August 29, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that Earl had sustained winds of 75 miles (120 km) per hour,with minimum air pressures of 985 millibars.

At the time, the hurricane was centered near 17 degrees North latitude, 58 degrees West longitude, about 225 miles (360 kilometers) east of Antigua and 315 miles (510 km) east of St. Martin. Both islands are among the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles chain of the Caribbean.

Researchers participating in NASA's Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes field campaign have already made two flights over Tropical Storm/Hurricane Earl, which formed on August 29. By the afternoon of August 30, it was a major hurricane with 120 mph (205 kph) winds and hurricane warnings in effect for Anguilla, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, St. Maarten, Saba, St. Eustatius, the British Virgin Islands, the U.S.Virgin Islands and the Puerto Rican islands of Culebra and Vieques.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.

Aug 24, 2010, Flooding in Pakistan

Floods on the Indus River continued to surge downstream into southern Pakistan more than three weeks after the initial floods started. By August 19, 2010, when the Landsat-5 satellite acquired the false-color image, the floods had started to reach the Kotri Barrage, an irrigation structure immediately north of Hyderabad. The Kotri Barrage is the final such structure before the river empties into the Arabian Sea.The floods began in late July when unusually intense monsoon rains fell over northern Pakistan. By August 19, about one-fifth of Pakistan was flooded. The floods were expected to reach Hyderabad, a city of 1.5 million people, between August 20 and August 22, reported The New York Times.

Image Credit: NASA image by Robert Simmon, based on Landsat 5 data from the USGS Global Visualization Viewer. Caption by Holli Riebeek.

Aug 19, 2010, Stampede at the Calgary Stampede

On July 12, 2010, Calgary, where I currently live got plastered with hail in some parts. Some of the stones were golf-ball sized and the insurance claims

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Aug 9, 2010, Heatwave in Russia

In the summer of 2010, the Russian Federation had to contend with multiple natural hazards: drought in the southern part of the country, and raging fires in western Russia and eastern Siberia. The events all occurred against the backdrop of unusual warmth. Bloomberg reported that temperatures in parts of the country soared to 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit), and the Wall Street Journal reported that fire- and drought-inducing heat was expected to continue until at least August12.

This map shows temperature anomalies for the Russian Federation from July 20–27, 2010, compared to temperatures for the same dates from 2000 to 2008. The anomalies are based on land surface temperatures observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Areas with above-average temperatures appear in red and orange, and areas with below-average temperatures appear in shades of blue. Oceans and lakes appear in gray.The highest temperature anomaly , shown in red, is nearly 22 degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal, over Moscow.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, based on MODIS landsurface temperature data available through the NASA Earth Observations(NEO) Website. Caption by Michon Scott.

Note : Image severely cropped.

Aug 5, 2010, The Great Hurricane of Sept. 19, 1846

I was born in 1938, the year of the Great Hurricane. I grew up in a New England seaport town. I remember how exciting the hurricanes were for, after

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Aug 3, 2010, View of Curvature of Earth

This view of Normandy (left) and Brittany (right) along the Atlantic coast of France shows the curve of the Earth’s surface from the Space Shuttle in low Earth orbit. Taken at an oblique angle, this is an example of the widest possible area that can be seen from either the Space Shuttle or International Space Station. Also, clouds shroud Britain.

Image STS106-702-78 courtesy NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.)

Aug 2, 2010, What are Phytoplankton?

Phytoplankton are extremely diverse, varying from photosynthesizing bacteria (cyanobacteria), to plant-like diatoms, to armor-plated coccolithophores (drawings not to scale). Like land plants,phytoplankton have chlorophyll to capture sunlight, and they use photosynthesis to turn it into chemical energy. They consume carbon dioxide, and release oxygen. All phytoplankton photosynthesize, but some get additional energy by consuming other organisms. Phytoplankton growth depends on the availability of carbon dioxide, sunlight, and nutrients. Phytoplankton, like land plants, require nutrients such as nitrate, phosphate, silicate, and calcium at various levels depending on the species. Some phytoplankton can fix nitrogen and can grow in areas where nitrate concentrations are low. They also require trace amounts of iron which limits phytoplankton growth in large areas of the ocean because iron concentrations are very low. Other factors influence phytoplankton growth rates, including water temperature and salinity, water depth, wind, and what kinds of predators are grazing on them.

Credit:Collage adapted from drawings and micrographs by Sally Bensusen, NASA EOS Project Science Office.

Jul 31, 2010, The Ongoing Administration-Wide Response to the Deepwater BP Oil Spill

The administration has authorized the deployment of 17,500 National Guard troops from Gulf Coast states to respond to this crisis; currently, 1,676 are active. Approximately 30,100 personnel are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife and cleanup vital coastlines.

More than 3,700 vessels are currently responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts—in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units. More than 3.43 million feet of containment boom and 7.82 million feet of sorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill—and approximately 835,000 feet of containment boom and 2.72 million feet of sorbent boom are available.

More than 34.7 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered. Approximately 1.84 million gallons of total dispersant have been applied—1.07 million on the surface and 771,000 sub-sea. Approximately 577,000 gallons are available. 411 controlled burns have been conducted, efficiently removing a totalof more than 11.14 million gallons of oil from the open water in an effort to protect shoreline and wildlife. Because calculations on the volume of oil burned can take more than 48 hours, the reported total volume may not reflect the most recent controlled burns.

17 staging areas are in place to protect sensitive shorelines. Approximately 637 miles of Gulf Coast shoreline is currently oiled—approximately 362 miles in Louisiana, 109 miles in Mississippi,70 miles in Alabama, and 96 miles in Florida. These numbers reflect a daily snapshot of shoreline currently experiencing impacts from oil so that planning and field operations can more quickly respond to new impacts; they do not include cumulative impacts to date, or shoreline that has already been cleared. Approximately 57,539 square miles of Gulf of Mexico federal waters remain closed to fishing in order to balance economic and public health concerns. Approximately 76 percent remains open. Details can be found at http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/.

To date, the administration has leveraged assets and skills from numerous foreign countries and international organizations as part of this historic, all-hands-on-deck response, including Argentina, Belgium, Canada, China, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Spain,Sweden, Taiwan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization, the European Union’s Monitoring and Information Centre, and the European Maritime Safety Agency.

Earth Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center

Jul 29, 2010, Bull Fire in California’s Sequoia National Forest

The fast-growing Bull Fire burned on the southern edge of California’s Sequoia National Forest on July 27, 2010. Outlined in red, the fire was producing thick plumes of smoke when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image at 2:40 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time. The smoke was blowing north over the forest.The Bull Fire started on Monday, July 26 at about 1:46 a.m., accordingto the multi-agency incident report for the fire. Burning through grass, brush, oak, and scattered pine and aided by high temperatures,the fire grew quickly on steep, hard-to-access ground. As of about 10 p.m. on July 27, the fire had burned 11,000 acres.The fire forced evacuations in the community of Riverkern, where six homes were destroyed, reported CNN. The Bull Fire was one of two large fires burning in Kern County on July 27. Though the cause is still under investigation, the fire may have been started by people.The Sequoia National Forest is at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada range.

Earth NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek. Instrument: Aqua - MODIS Note: This image has been highly cropped.

Jul 26, 2010, Please enter your story

The viewer willbe asked to tell a story

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Jul 24, 2010, TORNADOES

Tornadoes are everywhere

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Jul 20, 2010, Dead Zones

The size and number of marine dead zones—areas where the deep water is so low in dissolved oxygen that sea creatures can’t survive—have grown explosively in the past half-century. Red circles on this map show the location and size of many of our planet’s dead zones. Black dots show where dead zones have been observed, but their size is unknown. It’s no coincidence that dead zones occur downriver of places where human population density is high (darkest brown). Some of the fertilizer we apply to crops is washed into streams and rivers. Fertilizer-laden runoff triggers explosive planktonic algae growth in coastal areas. The algae die and rain down into deep waters, where their remains are like fertilizer for microbes. The microbes decompose the organic matter, using up the oxygen. Mass killing of fish and othersea life often results.

Satellites can observe changes in the way the ocean surface reflects and absorbs sunlight when the water holds a lot of particles of organic matter. Darker blues in this image show higher concentrations of particulate organic matter, an indication of the overly fertile waters that can culminate in dead zones.

Naturally occurring low-oxygen zones are regular features in some parts of the ocean. These coastal upwelling areas, which include the Bay of Bengal and the Atlantic west of southern Africa, are not the same as dead zones because their bottom-dwelling marine life is adapted to the recurring low-oxygen conditions. However, these zones may grow larger with the additional nutrient inputs from agricultural runoff.

Map by Robert Simmon & Jesse Allen; based on data from RobertDiaz, Virginia Institute of Marine Science (dead zones); the GSFC OceanColor team (particulate organic carbon); and the Socioeconomic Data andApplications Center (SEDAC) (population density).Instrument: Aqua - MODIS

Note this image is a highly cropped version of the original image.

Jul 5, 2010, Aurora Australis - Image of the Week

Wednesday June 30, 2010 About.comSpace / Astronomy

Observing an aurora from space is really nothing new. Astronauts aboard one of the space shuttles or orbiting on the International Space Station (ISS) have been seeing them for years. But this image captured of an aurora Australis is quite unusual in that it appeared over the southern Indian Ocean. Auroras, created when charged particles interact with Earth's atmosphere, typically only occur near the poles. This is because the Earth's magnetic field funnels these particles as they come streaming toward Earth -- mostly from the Sun. In this case, however, this event occurred during a geomagnetic storm -- a disturbance in the Earth's magnetosphere caused by solar events, like solar flares or coronal mass ejecta. A magnetospheric disturbance can cause a temporary shift in the Earth'smagnetic field, allowing for auroras to appear where they don't normally. This particular instance was captured by astronauts aboard the ISS in May of this year. It sure makes for quite a spectacular image.

Image Credit: NASA

Jul 1, 2010, Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean'

A 60km crack opened in Ethiopia in 2005 and has been expanding ever since. Geologists working in the remote Afar region of Ethiopia say the ocean will eventually split the African continent in two, though it will take about 10 million years. Lead researcher Tim Wright who is presenting the research at the Royal Society's Summer Exhibition, described the events as "truly incredible". Used to understanding changes in the planet on time scales of millions of years, the international team of scientists including Dr Wright have seen amazing changes in Afar in the past five years, where the continent is cracking open, quite literally underneath their feet. In 2005, a 60km long stretch of the earth opened up to a width of eight metres over a period of just ten days. Hot, molten rock from deep within the Earth is trickling to the surface and creating the split. Underground eruptions are still continuing and, ultimately, the horn of Africa will fall away and a new ocean will form.

By Matt McGrath BBC News Science reporter .

Jun 25, 2010, Lofts In Space: NASA Challenges College Students To Design Inflatable Space Habitats

WASHINGTON -- NASA is challenging college students to design concepts for inflatable habitat lofts for the next generation of space explorers. The winning concepts may be applied to the exploration habitats of the future. The X-Hab Academic Innovation Competition is a university-level challenge designed to encourage further studies in spaceflight-related engineering and architecture disciplines. This design competition requires undergraduate students to explore NASA's work to develop space habitats, while also helping the agency gather new and innovative ideas to complement its current research and development. Students will design, manufacture and assemble an inflatable loft that will be integrated into NASA's operational hard-shell prototype lab unit. The competition winner will participate in a demonstration of the submitted design during the 2011 Desert Research and Technology Studies, or a similar field test next summer. NASA's Exploration Mission Directorate and the Office of the Chief Technologist's Innovative Partnerships Program are sponsoring this new technology challenge. NASA is dedicated to supporting research that enables sustained and affordable human and robotic exploration. This educational competition contributes to the agency's efforts to train and develop a highly skilled scientific, engineering and technical workforce for the future.

For information about competition registration and requirements, visit:http://www.spacegrant.org/xhab

Jun 17, 2010, Summer Clouds

Sitting on my patio overlooking Salem Harbor in New England, I looked toward the heavens and caught these glorious summer clouds. These clouds make me remember as a child how I used to lie on the grass and look for images in the clouds. My mother used to read aloud the following poem:

”How I love to watch the clouds
Peacefully, peacefully drifting by
Silently upon the breeze
They ease across the clear blue sky.

How they build and roll and tumble
Just like angels out to play
Dancing with the sylphs and fairies
Head o'er heels along the way.

Each new shape is quite amusing:
Puffs to great majestic towers
Building for their loving gift
To bless the earth with loving showers."

---Craig Nicholson

Story and digital camera photo by Patricia Lee Fougère

Jun 14, 2010, Sunset Seen from the International Space Station

This spectacular image of sunset on the Indian Ocean was taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The image presents an edge-on, or limb view, of the Earth’s atmosphere as seen from orbit. The Earth’s curvature is visible along the horizon line, or limb, that extends across the image from center left to lower right. Above the darkened surface of the Earth, a brilliant sequence of colors roughly denotes several layers of the atmosphere. Deep oranges and yellows appear in the troposphere, which extends from the Earth’s surface to 6–20 km high. This layer contains over 80 percent of the mass of the atmosphere and almost all of the water vapor, clouds, and precipitation. Several dark cloud layers are visible within this layer. Variations in the colors are due mainly to varying concentrations of either clouds or aerosols (airborne particles or droplets).The pink to white region above the clouds appears to be the stratosphere; this atmospheric layer generally has few or no clouds, and it extends up to approximately 50 km above the Earth’s surface. Above the stratosphere, blue layers mark the upper atmosphere (including the mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, and exosphere), as it gradually fades into the blackness of outer space.The ISS was located over the southern Indian Ocean when this picture was taken, with the astronaut looking towards the west. Astronauts aboard the ISS see 16 sunrises and sunsets per day due to their high orbital velocity (greater than 28,000 km per hour). The multiple chances for photography are fortunate because at that speed, each sunrise or sunset only lasts a few seconds!

Astronaut photograph ISS023-E-57948 was acquired on May 25, 2010 with a Nikon D3 digital camera, 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 23 crew. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISSNational Lab 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. Caption by William L. Stefanov, NASA-JSC.Instrument: ISS - Digital Camera

Jun 1, 2010, Smoke From Quebec Fires Wafts Over Boston

BOSTON — Eastern Massachusetts is under an air quality alert until 8p.m. Monday night as smoke from almost 60 wildfires in Quebec drifts down the Eastern seaboard. Winds from the northwest have been carrying the smoke from 57 different fires down to the Greater Boston area,as well as most of the Atlantic Seaboard, casting a smelly haze over Memorial Day barbecues and other outdoor activities.

Credit: By Jess Bidgood For WBUR Published May 31, 2010 UPDATED 7:01 PM

May 31, 2010, Solar Transit of The Shuttle Atlantis

Amateur astronomer Thierry Legault took this remarkable image of the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on May 22,2010 as it transited the Sun. The zoomed-in image shows Atlantis and the ISS in great detail. You can check out the original, full sized images, as well as information about his equipment at www.astrophoto.fr/

Credit: By John Millis, About.com Guide to Space / Astronomy

May 27, 2010, Signs of Life: Sulfur Deposits at Borup Fiord Pass, Canadian Arctic

High in the Canadian Arctic is a glacier-carved valley that is like none other on Earth. Borup Fiord Pass on Ellesmere Island, is the only known place where sulfur from a natural spring is deposited over ice. The sulfur leaves a pale yellow stain that almost seems to glow in the image, a photo taken from a helicopter in July 2006. At the Borup Pass spring, hydrogen sulfide gas in the water is converted to stable deposits of either elemental sulfur, the most common material in the deposit, or gypsum. The process by which hydrogen sulfide becomes sulfur is complex, and most often occurs when microbes, like bacteria, are present. The very presence of elemental sulfur deposits on the ice in Borup Pass is an indicator that life is likely there.The study of the Arctic sulfur spring is more than a mere curiosity; what scientists learn from it may help us find life elsewhere in the solar system. Near the top of the short list of places in our solar system that might harbor extraterrestrial life is Jupiter’s rocky moon Europa. Smaller than our moon, Europa is covered in water ice that might conceal an ocean of liquid water. Liquid water is a key ingredient for life. If Europa has an ocean, could there be life in it? Clues could come from dark, non-ice deposits that have been detected on Europa’s icy surface. The dark deposits may be seeping up from the ocean through cracks in the ice, and observations from the Galileo spacecraft suggest that the dark deposits may contain sulfur. Are the deposits on Europa’s ice similar to the one known sulfur deposit over ice on Earth?

Credit: Aerial photograph and Hyperion detection data provided by Damhait Gleeson, NASA JPL. Caption by Holli Riebeek.

May 26, 2010, Supermassive Black Holes May Frequently Roam Galaxy Centers

An American Astronomical Society Meeting Release / A News Nugget Release: May 25, 2010: A team of astronomy researchers at Florida Institute of Technology and Rochester Institute of Technology in the United States and University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, find that the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of the most massive local galaxy (M87) is not where it was expected. Their research, conducted using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), concludes that the SMBH in M87 is displaced from the galaxy center. The most likely cause for this SMBH to be off center is a previous merger between two older, less massive, SMBHs. The iconic M87 jet may have pushed the SMBH away from the galaxy center, say researchers. The research is being presented today at the 216th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Miami. It will also be published in The Astrophysical Journal Lettters.

Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Batcheldor and E. Perlman (Florida Institute of Technology), the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and J. Biretta, W.Sparks, and F.D. Macchetto (STScI)

May 25, 2010, A Clash of Clusters Provides New Clue to Dark Matter

A powerful collision of galaxy clusters has been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory. This clash of clusters provides striking evidence for dark matter and insight into its properties. The observations of the cluster known as MACS J0025.4-1222 indicate that a titanic collision has separated the dark from ordinary matter and provide an independent confirmation of a similar effect detected previously in a target dubbed the Bullet Cluster. These new results show that the Bullet Cluster is not an anomalous case. MACS J0025 formed after an enormously energetic collision between two large clusters. Using visible-light images from Hubble, the team was able to infer the distribution of the total mass — dark and ordinary matter. Hubble was used to map the dark matter (colored in blue) using a technique known as gravitational lensing. The Chandra data enabled the astronomers to accurately map the position of the ordinary matter, mostly in the form of hot gas, which glows brightly in X-rays (pink).As the two clusters that formed MACS J0025 (each almost a whopping quadrillion times the mass of the Sun) merged at speeds of millions of miles per hour, the hot gas in the two clusters collided and slowed down, but the dark matter passed right through the smashup. The separation between the material shown in pink and blue therefore provides observational evidence for dark matter and supports the view that dark-matter particles interact with each other only very weakly or not at all, apart from the pull of gravity. The international team of astronomers in this study was led by Marusa Bradac of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Steve Allenof the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Their results will appear in an upcoming issue of The AstrophysicalJournal.

For additional information, contact: Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.410-338-4514 villard@stsci.edu. Megan WatzkeChandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.617-496-7998 cxcpress@cfa.harvard.edu

Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, M. Bradac (University of California, SantaBarbara), and S. Allen (Stanford University)

May 8, 2010, Neandertals

Neandertals: From Nature, (May7) as reported in the Boston Globe, May 7. New evidence strongly suggests that there was interbreeding between now extinct Neandertals and early prehistoric humans.Neandertals and humans both descended from a common ancestor but Neandertals evolved separately for several hundreds of thousands of years.Fifty researchers spent four years collecting and analyzing Neandertal small bones and a skull found in a cave in Croatia. The bones are about 40,000 years old. Neandertals went extinct about 30,000 years ago, but the scientists found very strong DNA evidence, sufficient to construct a Neandertal genome, by meticulous and exquisite care in the extraction of pure genetic material.

Credit Nature May 7,2010

The researchers extracted genetic material from the bone, and created a set of fragments of DNA . They pieced these fragments together to reconstruct a genome using a chimpanzee and modern human genome as a template. Finally they compared the genome with complete genomes of five modern-day humans. The startling result is that modern Europeans and Asians are somewhere between one and four percent Neandertal while Western and Southern Africans show no Neandertal ancestry.

Apr 27, 2010, USGS to Award $4 Million in Earthquake Research Grants

USGS to Award $4 Million in Earthquake Research Grants

Earthquake research will receive approximately $4 million in grants from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in 2010, with support going to 47 universities, state geological surveys and private firms.

“These external research grants are an important component of our overall strategy for earthquake risk reduction,” said Marcia McNutt, USGS director. “They help us engage the creativity and imagination of the best researchers nationwide who develop new tools and insights that will ultimately make us safer from seismic hazards.”

USGS supports research on earthquake hazards in at-risk regions nationwide through its Earthquake Hazards Program. This program provides information to the public and private sectors on earthquake occurrence and effects.

Examples of grant recipients include the following:

In the Pacific Northwest, John Vidale of the University of Washington will develop computer simulations of ground shaking during earthquakes in the Seattle area. This study will provide a better understanding of the influence of large sedimentary basins (such as the sediment-filled basin underlying Seattle), on ground shaking and will provide more accurate estimates of ground shaking in the region.

In Alaska, researchers will continue developing a chronology of past earthquakes along the southern coast of Alaska. This will allow Ian Shennan and colleagues from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom to provide better estimates of recurrence times for large earthquakes, both in Alaska and in similar subduction-zone settings such as Chile.

For potential applicability both nationally and internationally, Jonathan Bray and colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley will investigate the possible use of smart phones and similar personal devices to rapidly deliver earthquake shaking information. Such information would then be used to more quickly and accurately quantify and locate earthquakes as they occur.

Roland Burgmann of the University of California at Berkeley and Brendan Meade of Harvard University will develop integrated models of northern California faults using GPS, InSAR and seismicity data. The inclusion of recent geodetic data into the revision and update of the this model of the San Francisco Bay Area is critical for estimates of seismic risk in the East Bay and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

In southern California, Peter Shearer at the University of California at San Diego and Egill Hauksson of the California Institute of Technology will investigate mechanisms and patterns of earthquakes. Shuo Ma of San Diego State University will simulate likely earthquakes for the fault system that borders Los Angeles to the north. Lisa Grant Ludwig at the University of California at Irvine will pursue a better record of prehistoric earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault. Don Helmberger at the California Institute of Technology will investigate earthquake source processes and improve methods for rapidly estimating earthquake source properties.

A complete list of funded projects and reports can be found on the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program website.

Applications are now being accepted for 2011.

Credit Elizabeth Lemersal 703-648-6701 gd-erp-coordinator@usgs.gov

Apr 24, 2010, SDO: The Extreme Ultraviolet Sun

This picture of the sun was made on March 30th by the recently launched NASA Goddard Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Shown in false-color, the composite view covers extreme ultraviolet wavelengths and traces hot plasma at temperatures approaching 1 million kelvins. At full resolution , SDO image data are intended to explore solar activity in unprecedented detail. New SDO data releases include a high-resolution movie of the large, eruptive prominence seen along the solar limb at the upper left.

Credit: NASA / Goddard / SDO AIA Team

Apr 24, 2010, Solar Prominence

Twisting streamers of ionized gas tower over the Sun in a large prominence captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory on March 30,2010.

Credit: NASA / Goddard / SDO AIA

Mar 29, 2010, Dark Matter and Dark Energy

My last entry into my astronomy page was a blockbuster which I am sure I did not understand and I doubt that many of my readers were able to understand it either.

I said the universe is composed of “hidden things” and that the stuff we are familiar with, such as ourselves, the earth, the solar system, atoms and molecules, make up only about four percent of the content of the universe. The rest is called “dark matter” and “dark energy." “Dark matter” is not terribly mysterious, but “dark energy” certainly is!

Dark matter may be composed of things like “WIMPS” , which are weakly interacting massive particles. We could compare these conjectured wimps with real particles called neutrinos, which are neutral (not charged) and extremely light and therefore incredibly difficult to detect; but they have been detected and positively identified.

Where did these ideas come from? First of all astronomers have used the marvelous “Hubble Space Telescope" to image and record a patch of sky which contains a galaxy cluster, thousands of galaxies, and all the space between the galaxies. The velocities of these galaxies have been measured and they are distributed in a strange way. They are all revolving about a common center but the outermost galaxies are traveling too fast! They should be traveling more slowly than their central cousins. The mass of the whole cluster is too small to keep them all together. In fact there is about five times as much matter required; thus “Dark Matter” is posited to fix the problem and add enough gravity.

There are several experiments now in operation to detect dark matter but so far the results are inconclusive.

Expansion

Since the pioneering work of Edwin Hubble we now know that the universe is expanding. Every object is going faster the farther it is away. Picture an ordinary balloon with spots painted on it. When the balloon is blown up all the spots move away from each other and the farther away they are the faster they travel.

The speed of the expansion is critical; if gravity were slowing down the expansion , as would be expected, the universe would eventually stop expanding (in many billions of years) . But the latest measurements have shown that the expansion is accelerating as if something were pulling the universe apart. This requires a force that repels gravity and has come to be called “dark energy”.

In fact this dark energy constitutes most of the stuff of the universe, about 70%. Dark matter constitutes about 26% and “ordinary matter, protons, neutrons, electrons, atoms, molecules, people, you and I, the solar system and the stars, contains only about 4% of the total.

This is a truly exciting revolution in science!

Mar 23, 2010, Solar Flare and Coronal Mass Ejection

Two active regions glow brightly in this ultraviolet image of the Sun. A small flare rises from the active area on the left. Flares are intense explosions on the Sun that blast radiation into space. This one paints a white line across the left horizon of the Sun. The active area on the right churns with magnetic loops. Arcs of charged particles risefrom the surface and are drawn back down again in the magnetic field. CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) are larger solar storms that both last longer and carry a larger cloud of particles and magnetic field into space than do flares. Both flares and coronal mass ejections can create space weather if aimed at Earth. The charged particles from large storms blast Earth’s magnetic field, which acts as a shield. The charged particles interacting with Earth’s magnetic field generate intense and beautiful aurora, but they can also be destructive. Solar storms in the past have damaged powergrids, causing blackouts, and harmed and destroyed satellites.

NASA image courtesy the STEREO science team. Acquired FEB 2,2010. Caption by the STEREO science team and Holli Riebeek.

Mar 23, 2010, Massive Dust Storm Sweeps Across Africa

Dust stretched from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean on March 19,2010, as a massive dust storm swept across the southern Sahara Desert. This image is made up of seven separate satellite overpasses acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites throughout the morning and early afternoon. Small gray triangles cover areas where the satellites did not collect data. The image spans more than 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles).The pale tan dust blurs the southern edge of the Sahara Desert across the entire continent. The front edge of the dust storm extends just past the Cape Verde Islands in the west. The widest part of the duststorm, in the center of the image, is over Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon. In the east, a thick wall of orange tan dust extends into the green Sahel region. A separate dust storm was also blowing across the Arabian peninsula in the upper right corner of the image.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard SpaceFlight Center. Caption by Michon Scott and Holli Riebeek. Acquired March 14 - 15, 2010.

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