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In the wake of Cyclone Rusty's heavy rains from the week of Feb. 25 when it made landfall near Port Hedland on the Pilbara coast of Western Australia, sediment filled many rivers and tributaries that flowed northwest into the Southern Indian Ocean. In addition to sediment that was swept into the ocean, Rusty stirred up sediment from the ocean bottom. The sediment appears as swirls in this true-color satellite image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite on March 3, 2013 at 0600 UTC 1 a.m. EST).
Cyclone Rusty's Rains Stirred Up Sediment
12.04.2013
This photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station shows water of different colors within sub-basins of the Laguna (lake) Verde in the high Andes of northwest Argentina. The lake floor lies at 4,095 meters (13,438 feet) above sea level, whereas the peak of the local volcano (west of the lake, not shown) reaches over 3,000 meters higher (6,818 meters or 22,368 feet above sea level). <br><br> Laguna Verde (58 kilometers wide, 36 km long) often appears green, giving rise to its name. This image shows the turquoise tint in the central sub-basin (image center), with a yellow to black tinge to water in the southern sub-basin (left)—also known locally as Laguna Negro. The northernmost basin (right) appears black. The large gray zone comprising much of the rest of Laguna Verde is likely a combination of shallow water—only inches deep—and sunglint reflecting off the water surface. The reason for the color differences is that many different families of salt-loving organisms occupy hypersaline lakes such as Laguna Verde. These microscopic organisms appear as different colors, often bright, depending on the salinity and temperature of each water body or sub-basin. <br><br> The rest of the lake floor is dry and appears white from the build-up of thick salt deposits. Parallel lines around the southern subbasin (Laguna Negro) indicate prior shorelines of this shrinking water body. Evaporation removes water but leaves ephemeral shorelines marked with white salt. <br><br> Astronaut photograph ISS035-E-25019 was acquired on April 20, 2013, with a Nikon D3S digital camera using a 400 millimeter 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 35 crew. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National 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 M. Justin Wilkinson, Jacobs/JETS at NASA-JSC.
Laguna Verde
05.17.2013
Springtime has brought a substantial and long-lasting bloom of phytoplankton in the Bay of Biscay, off the western coast of France. Swirls of green, turquoise, and cyan on the water surface show the location of these microscopic, plant-like organisms, while also tracing the currents and eddies that mix them. <br><br> Phytoplankton are always present in the water but the stronger sunlight of the season—as well as pulses of nutrient-rich sediments and fresh water flowing out from the land—promote prodigious blooms that can last for weeks to months. Blooms can be a blessing to other marine species, as these tiny floating plants often feed everything from zooplankton to fish to whales. But some algae and plankton blooms can turn dangerous, either through the production of chemical toxins or by severely depleting the oxygen supply in the ocean and creating “dead zones” that suffocate marine creatures. <br><br> NASA satellites captured these natural-color images of a phytoplankton-filled Bay of Biscay in the spring of 2013. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite captured this image on May 4. <br><br> Such blooms tend to occur every March and April in the area, diminishing in May as ocean conditions change and surface nutrients run out. The colors of the blooms are mostly derived from the pigments in the phytoplankton, which use chlorophyll to turn sunlight into fuel (photosynthesis); some of the color is also attributable to the minerals in the fine shells of these organisms. Coccolithophores, for example, produce a calcite (limestone) shell that can give the water a milky appearance. <br><br> NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.
Swirls in the Waters off France
05.17.2013
NASA Project IceBridge completed the 2013 Arctic campaign on May 2 as the P3 returned to Wallops Island from Thule, Greenland. The NASA P3 aircraft flew over 200 hours on this deployment covering 96,000 km – this is almost 2.5 times around the Earth at the equator. Of the 200 hours 146 were for science data collection. The map shows the very good spatial coverage for the 26 land ice and sea ice research missions.
IceBridge 2013 Coverage
05.10.2013
NASA's new Earth-bound rover began testing on the Greenland ice sheet this week. <br /><br /> GROVER, which stands for both Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research, is an autonomous, solar-operated robot that carries a ground-penetrating radar to examine the layers of Greenland’s ice sheet. Its findings will help scientists understand how the massive ice sheet gains and loses ice. <br /><br /> The GROVER team, led by glaciologist Lora Koenig from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., arrived in Summit Camp, the highest spot in Greenland, on May 6, 2013. After loading and testing the rover’s radar and fixing a minor communications glitch, the team began the robot’s tests on the ice on May 8, defying winds of up to 23 mph (37 kph) and temperatures as low as minus 22 F (minus 30 C). <br /><br /> The GROVER tests will continue through June 8. GROVER, a prototype, was first developed in 2010 and 2011 during summer engineering boot camps at Goddard, before further refinement, with NASA funding, at Boise State University. Its trial in Greenland will also serve as a test of using rovers in harsh polar regions to gather data.
GROVER Debuts on Greenland's Ice Sheet
05.10.2013
IceBridge closed out the fourth week of its Arctic campaign with a flight over the striking landscape of eastern Greenland's Geikie Peninsula and a survey of a Canadian ice cap before taking two days off over the weekend. Soon the mission will return to Thule to finish up Arctic flights for 2013. <br /><br /> The morning of April 12, 2013 saw the P-3B take off for a flight to the west, across the Davis Strait to Canada's Baffin Island. This island, the largest one in Canada, is home to an ice formation known as the Penny Ice Cap. This mission was a repeat of airborne surveys by the ATM and radar teams flown in 1995, 2000 and 2005, and added new survey lines along ICESat ground tracks. Previous airborne surveys showed the ice cap thinning and glaciers retreating in the area and the April 12 mission aimed at measuring several glaciers in the area to see how much the Penny Ice Cap has melted in recent years. <br /><br /> The image captures ice covered fjord on Baffin Island with Davis Strait in the background. <br /><br /> Image Credit: NASA/Michael Studinger
IceBridge Flight Over Baffin Island
04.17.2013
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas-V rocket with the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) spacecraft onboard is seen on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) mission is a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey that will continue the Landsat Program's 40-year data record of monitoring the Earth's landscapes from space. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch Feb. 11. <br /><br /> Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
LDCM Prelaunch
02.10.2013
Snow-covered deserts are rare, but that’s exactly what the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite observed as it passed over the Taklimakan Desert in western China on January 2, 2013. Snow has covered much of the desert since a storm blew through the area on December 26. The day after the storm, Chinese Central Television (CNTV) reported that the Xinjian Uygyr autonomous region was one of the areas hardest hit. <br /><br /> The Taklimakan is one of the world’s largest—and hottest—sandy deserts. Water flowing into the Tarim Basin has no outlet, so over the years, sediments have steadily accumulated. In parts of the desert, sand can pile up to 300 meters (roughly 1,000 feet) high. The mountains that enclose the sea of sand—the Tien Shan in the north and the Kunlun Shan in the south—were also covered with what appeared to be a significantly thicker layer of snow in January 2013. <br /><br /> NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE MODIS Rapid Response.
Storm Turns the Taklimakan Desert White
01.02.2013
                                                                                                                                                                                         
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  • Last Updated: 05/23/2013