Heavens

When CloudSat passed overhead, Typhoon Neoguri had a notably large eye with meso vorticies (small scale rotational areas usually found in an intensifying tropical cyclone as was the case with Neoguri) in the inner eye. CloudSat passed over Neoguri from northwest to southeast and cut through the center of the storm. CloudSat found a wide area of moderate to heavy rainfall and convection (rising air that forms thunderstorms) south of the eyewall and outer bands.

A team of researchers in the U.S. and Germany has measured the highest level of ultraviolet radiation ever recorded on the Earth's surface. The extraordinary UV fluxes, observed in the Bolivian Andes only 1,500 miles from the equator, are far above those normally considered to be harmful to both terrestrial and aquatic life. The results are being published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.

URBANA, Ill. - It takes a synchronized lock and dam system—operating like a motorized flight of stairs on the Illinois River, using gravity to move the water—to maintain a minimum depth for boat traffic. A disastrous domino effect occurred on April 19, 2013, when heavy rain and runoff, strong winds, and river currents resulted in seven unmoored barges crashing into the dam at Marseilles. University of Illinois soil scientist Ken Olson studied the extensive repercussions of the incident.

Pasadena, CA—Something is amiss in the Universe. There appears to be an enormous deficit of ultraviolet light in the cosmic budget.

The vast reaches of empty space between galaxies are bridged by tendrils of hydrogen and helium, which can be used as a precise "light meter." In a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists finds that the light from known populations of galaxies and quasars is not nearly enough to explain observations of intergalactic hydrogen. The difference is a stunning 400 percent.

DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, Alaska — When a breeding wolf dies, its sex and the size of its pack can determine whether that pack continues, according to research published July online by the Journal of Animal Ecology.

In 2012, biologists at Denali National Park and Preserve noted a drop in wolf sightings following the death of a breeding female from a pack that lived along the Denali Park Road. This was one of several instances where the death of an individual wolf from legal trapping or hunting sparked widespread attention in recent years.

New research by academics at the University of Sheffield has solved a long-standing mystery surrounding the evolution of galaxies, deepening our understanding of the future of the Milky Way.

The supermassive black holes in the cores of some galaxies drive massive outflows of molecular hydrogen gas. As a result, most of the cold gas is expelled from the galaxies. Since cold gas is required to form new stars, this directly affects the galaxies' evolution.

SALT LAKE CITY, July 8, 2014 – An observatory run by the University of Utah found a "hotspot" beneath the Big Dipper emitting a disproportionate number of the highest-energy cosmic rays. The discovery moves physics another step toward identifying the mysterious sources of the most energetic particles in the universe.

From July 4 to July 7 Tropical Cyclone Neoguri strengthened from a tropical storm into a supertyphoon. NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites passed over the rapidly intensifying storm and provided forecasters with visible, infrared and microwave data on the powerful supertyphoon.

Light from tiny galaxies over 13 billion years ago played a larger role than previously thought in creating the conditions in the universe as we know it today, a new study has found. Ultraviolet (UV) light from stars in these faint dwarf galaxies helped strip interstellar hydrogen of electrons in a process called reionization.

Irvine, Calif., July 7, 2014 – Data from NASA satellites can greatly improve predictions of how likely a river basin is to overflow months before it does, according to new findings by UC Irvine. The use of such data, which capture a much fuller picture of how water is accumulating, could result in earlier flood warnings, potentially saving lives and property.

The research was published online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

One of the TRMM Precipitation Radar's most useful functions has been it's ability to provide 3-D vertical profiles of precipitation from the surface up to a height of about 20 km (12 miles). TRMM PR data were used to create a 3-D view of hurricane Arthur and showed tall thunderstorm towers near the center of the hurricane. These "hot towers" found reaching heights of over 15.0 km (about 9.3 miles) are often a sign that a hurricane is becoming more powerful. Even taller thunderstorm tops were found reaching heights of 16km (about 9.9 miles) in the states of North and South Carolina.

By the time they realized that the lens was not one star, but two, they had captured a considerable amount of data—and made a surprising discovery: the distortion.

Weeks after all signs of the planet had faded, the light from the binary-lens caustic crossing became distorted, as if there were a kind of echo of the original planet signal.

Mysteries about controversial signals coming from a dwarf star considered to be a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life now have been solved in research led by scientists at Penn State University. The scientists have proven, for the first time, that some of the signals, which were suspected to be coming from two planets orbiting the star at a distance where liquid water could potentially exist, actually are coming from events inside the star itself, not from so-called "Goldilocks planets" where conditions are just right for supporting life.

An international team of researchers have been monitoring the "heartbeats" of baby stars to test theories of how the Sun was born 4.5 billion years ago.

In a paper published in Science magazine today, the team of 20 scientists describes how data from two space telescopes – the Canadian Space Agency's MOST satellite and the French CoRoT mission – have unveiled the internal structures and ages of young stars before they've even emerged as full-fledged stars.

Acoustic vibrations – sound waves – are produced by radiation pressure inside stars. First author Konstanze Zwintz, a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven's Institute for Astronomy, and her colleagues studied the vibrations of 34 stars aged under 10 million years and sized between one and four times the mass of our sun.

"Our data shows that the youngest stars vibrate slower while the stars nearer to adulthood vibrate faster. A star's mass has a major impact on its development: stars with a smaller mass evolve slower. Heavy stars grow faster and age more quickly," says Dr. Zwintz.