Heavens

Infrared satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite shows what looks like an arm from Tropical Storm Simon's northern quadrant, reaching over Baja California to mainland Mexico. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center noted that Simon is just an "arm's reach" to the southern U.S. and expect rainfall and rough surf to affect that area of the country.

Over the weekend of Oct. 5 and 6, Typhoon Phanfone's center made landfall just south of Tokyo and passed over the city before exiting back into the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. NASA's Aqua satellite captured a picture of the typhoon as Tokyo braced for its large eye.

Typhoon Vongfong has exited the Mariana Islands. Now, as the island of Iwo To begins recovery from Typhoon Phanfone, NASA's Aqua satellite is eyeing Typhoon Vongfong over 1,000 miles south of Iwo To. Although Vongfong is expected to turn north toward Iwo To, it is forecast to stay west of the island on its track.

We might love to reminisce and tell others about our extraordinary experiences — that time we climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, got to taste a rare wine, or ran into a celebrity on the street — but new research suggests that sharing these extraordinary experiences may come at a social cost. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Oceanus Procellarum, a vast dark patch visible on the western edge of the Moon's near side, has long been a source of mystery for planetary scientists. Some have suggested that the "ocean of storms" is part of a giant basin formed by an asteroid impact early in the Moon's history. But new research published today in Nature deals a pretty big blow to the impact theory.

New data obtained by NASA's GRAIL mission reveals that the Procellarum region on the near side of the moon — a giant basin often referred to as the "man in the moon" — likely arose not from a massive asteroid strike, but from a large plume of magma deep within the moon's interior.

Titan is unique in our solar system because of its dense nitrogen-methane atmosphere, which is very similar to Earth's in some ways, but very different in others. For example, air temperatures are around 200 degrees colder and, in contrast to the warm salt water seas of Earth, frigid hydrocarbon lakes populate Titan's surface.

Two NASA satellites captured data on Typhoon Phanfone as it continues to strengthen as it moves through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.

NASA's Terra satellite spotted the birth of Tropical Storm Vongfong in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean on Oct. 3. Vongfong is the nineteenth tropical storm of the Northwestern Pacific typhoon season.

A snaking, extended filament of solar material currently lies on the front of the sun-- some 1 million miles across from end to end. Filaments are clouds of solar material suspended above the sun by powerful magnetic forces. Though notoriously unstable, filaments can last for days or even weeks.

Luis Fernando Velásquez-García's group at MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) develops dense arrays of microscopic cones that harness electrostatic forces to eject streams of ions.

The technology has a range of promising applications: depositing or etching features onto nanoscale mechanical devices; spinning out nanofibers for use in water filters, body armor, and "smart" textiles; or propulsion systems for fist-sized "nanosatellites."

Researchers at the University of Granada have designed a new imaging system capable of obtaining up to twelve times more colour information than the human eye and conventional cameras, which implies a total of 36 colour channels. This important scientific development will facilitate the easy capture of multispectral images in real time, and in the not too distant future it could also be used to develop new asisted vehicle driving systems, identify counterfeit bills and documents or obtain medical images much more accurate than current ones, among many other applications.

yphoon Phanfone's eye appeared the size of a pinhole on visible imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite on Oct.3.

The MODIS instrument or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Phanfone moving through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean on Oct. 3 at 4:20 UTC (12:20 a.m. EDT). The tiny open eye of the storm was surrounded by a thick band of thunderstorms. The MODIS image also showed a very thick and large band of thunderstorms south of the center and spiraling into the eye.

By combining data from two high-energy accelerators, nuclear scientists have refined the measurement of a remarkable property of exotic matter known as quark-gluon plasma. The findings reveal new aspects of the ultra-hot, "perfect fluid" that give clues to the state of the young universe just microseconds after the big bang.

In the field experiment, the scientists set a drifting in situ chamber, called DISC, equipped with audio and video recording systems, near Fowey Rocks lighthouse in the northern Florida Keys to record larval orientation behavior in the pelagic environment. In total 58 deployments were conducted, 27 during the day and 31 at night. The team also recorded sounds in a laboratory setting to confirm that the sounds observed in the field were from gray snapper larvae.