Heavens

EPFL researchers have a better understanding of the asteroid Vesta and its internal structure, thanks to numerical simulations and data from the space mission Dawn. Their findings, published today in Nature, question contemporary models of rocky planet formation, including that of Earth.

With its 500 km diameter, the asteroid Vesta is one of the largest known planet embryos. It came into existence at the same time as the Solar System. Spurring scientific interest, NASA sent the Dawn spacecraft into Vesta's orbit for one year between July 2011 and July 2012.

Typhoon Rammasun passed through the central Philippines overnight and NASA satellite imagery showed that the storm's center moved into the South China Sea. NASA's TRMM satellite showed the soaking rains that Rammasun brought to the Philippines as it tracked from east to west.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (July 14, 2014) -- When envisioning a new structure, engineers often have to balance design choices against the environmental impact of materials used. It is estimated that 40 to 50 percent of greenhouse gases are produced by the construction industry, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board. Lessening the impact of construction on the environment is a work in progress.

One of the great, unanswered questions for space weather scientists is just what creates two gigantic donuts of radiation surrounding Earth, called the Van Allen radiation belts. Recent data from the Van Allen Probes -- two nearly identical spacecraft that launched in 2012 -- address this question.

The Magnetometer instrument that will fly on NOAA's GOES-R satellite when it is launched in early 2016 has completed the development and testing phase and is ready to be integrated with the spacecraft.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Chemists and students in science and engineering at Oregon State University have created a new type of chemical test, or assay, that's inexpensive, simple, and can tell whether or not one of the primary drugs being used to treat malaria is genuine – an enormous and deadly problem in the developing world.

Early on July 15, Typhoon Rammasun began making landfall in the eastern part of the central Philippines and NASA's Aqua and TRMM satellites spotted the 20 nautical-mile-wide (23 mile/37 km) eye of the storm close to landfall.

Typhoon Rammasun was making landfall in the Visayas region. Visayas is located in the central Philippines.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite passed over Typhoon Rammasun early on July 14 and captured a visible image of the storm that showed large bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the center as it approached the central Philippines.

The once-powerful Super Typhoon Neoguri weakened to a tropical storm when it dropped heavy rainfall over southern Japan during the week of July 7, 2014. NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite measured that soaking from its orbit in space and data was used to create a maps showing the rainfall totals.

Heavy rainfall from Neoguri fell on land that was already soaked earlier this month by a slow moving seasonal frontal system. Neoguri was reported to have caused up to five deaths and 50 injuries in Japan.

An archaeological dig in southeast Turkey has uncovered a large number of clay tokens that were used as records of trade until the advent of writing, or so it had been believed.

But the new find of tokens dates from a time when writing was commonplace – thousands of years after it was previously assumed this technology had become obsolete. Researchers compare it to the continued use of pens in the age of the word processor.

The tokens – small clay pieces in a range of simple shapes – are thought to have been used as a rudimentary bookkeeping system in prehistoric times.

Every full moon, Landsat 8 turns its back on Earth. As the satellite's orbit takes it to the nighttime side of the planet, Landsat 8 pivots to point at the moon. It scans the distant lunar surface multiple times, then flips back around to continue its task of collecting land-cover information of the sunny side of Earth below.

Sea ice in summer looks dramatically different than sea ice in winter, even in the polar Arctic. Summer snowmelt, pools of water on thinning ice and exposed ocean replace vast winter expanses of white snow-covered ice – and this weekend NASA's high-flying laser altimeter begins a campaign to investigate these features.

Astronomers analyzing a long-lasting blast of high-energy light observed in 2013 report finding features strikingly similar to those expected from an explosion from the universe's earliest stars. If this interpretation is correct, the outburst validates ideas about a recently identified class of gamma-ray burst and serves as a stand-in for what future observatories may see as the last acts of the first stars.

There were many fires burning in eastern New South Wales, Australia when NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead on July 11.

At 03:35 UTC on July 11 (12:35 p.m. local time/11:35 p.m. EDT on July 10), when Aqua passed over eastern New South Wales (NSW), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard captured a natural-color visible image of the region and spotted smoke (light brown) from various fires. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.

The Mills Canyon fire started near the City of Entiat on Tuesday, July 8, 2014. Despite the efforts of local resources, the fire quickly grew to over 1,000 acres by evening. Three outbuildings were damaged. The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Washington Department of Natural Resources. The fire team is working with existing local resources in developing fire control strategies and tactics. Other cooperators include the U.S.