Heavens

The tropical low pressure area known as System 94S still has some punch in it as the low-level center of circulation continues to track over Western Australia and the Northern Territory. NASA's Aqua satellite showed that thunderstorms in the low had the potential for heavy rain as it continues to track over land, and heavy rainfall warnings are in effect in the Northern Territory.

The tropical low pressure area known as System 91W that has been plaguing the central and southern Philippines for the last couple of days continues to bring floods and heavy rainfall today, January 16. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over System 91W and identified powerful thunderstorms with the potential for heavy rainfall, moving back toward the Visayas and Mindanao regions.

The ninth tropical cyclone of the Southern Indian Ocean season was born hours after NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead and gathered important infrared data on the developing storm.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over System 95S on January 15 at 21:59 UTC/4:59 p.m. EST and saw two large areas of powerful thunderstorms within the developing low pressure area. Thunderstorms with cloud top temperatures exceeding -63F/-52C indicated powerful uplift in the low pressure area.

According to ABC News Channel 24 in Australia: "The Country Fire Service is battling several bushfires across South Australia, one of which threatened a house." All of the fires are bushfires which are being fueled by grass and detritus. As the record temperatures in South Australia soar, it is not uncommon for these fires to break out.

This is a key finding from an international multi-model analysis by the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum (EMF28) and comes at a crucial time, as the European Commission is set to announce next week its plans whether to scale up its efforts on emissions reduction in the next decade. However, beyond 2040, according to the scientists the costs risk to rise substantially. Technological innovation would be needed to counter this.

By observing a high-speed component of a massive galaxy cluster, Caltech/JPL scientists and collaborators have detected for the first time in an individual object the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, a change in the cosmic microwave background caused by its interaction with massive moving objects.

The Subaru Telescope, an 8.2-meter telescope operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, has been combing the night sky since 1999. Located at the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii, the telescope has been systematically surveying each degree of space, whether it looks promising or not, in search of objects worthy of further investigation. One of the most fascinating objects to emerge from the Subaru Telescope's wide-field survey—Himiko—was discovered in 2009.

Look up at the night sky ... do you see it? The stars of the cosmos bursting in magnificent explosions of death and rebirth! No? Well, then maybe you are not looking through the "eyes" of the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) investigation, mounted on the exterior of the International Space Station Kibo module. MAXI, along with other sky watching instruments, such as Swift, collect data that help researchers discover, study and understand the physics behind the powerful lifecycle of our universe.

CHICAGO --- After a heart attack, much of the damage to the heart muscle is caused by inflammatory cells that rush to the scene of the oxygen-starved tissue. But that inflammatory damage is slashed in half when microparticles are injected into the blood stream within 24 hours of the attack, according to new preclinical research from Northwestern Medicine® and the University of Sydney in Australia.

When biodegradable microparticles were injected after a heart attack, the size of the heart lesion was reduced by 50 percent and the heart could pump significantly more blood.

RENO - This week a new study published in Nature and co-authored by Drs. Chris Moore and Daniel Obrist of Nevada's Desert Research Institute establishes, for the first time, a link between Arctic sea ice dynamics and the region's changing atmospheric chemistry potentially leading to increased amounts of mercury deposited to the Earth's northernmost and most fragile ecosystems.

Tropical Cyclone Colin is becoming an extra-tropical system in the Southern Pacific Ocean and NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of the transitioning storm.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued their final warning on Colin on January 15 at 1500 UTC/10 a.m. EST. At that time, Colin had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots/40 mph/62 kph and was weakening. It was centered near 31.8 south latitude and 77.7 east longitude, about 1,090 nautical miles/1,254 miles/2,019 km northeast of Kerguelen Island. Colin was moving to the southeast at 23 knots/26.4 mph/42.6 kph.

Tropical low pressure area System 94S continues to soak Australia's Northern Territory near Darwin. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured an image that showed the areas being affected by the developing low.

System 94S' center was located near 14.3 south and 131.3 east, about 115 nautical miles south-southeast of Darwin, Australia. According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC, maximum sustained surface winds are estimated at 20 to 25 knots/23.0 to 28.7 mph/37.0 to 46.3 kph.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Julie Boergers, Ph.D., a psychologist and sleep expert from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center, recently led a study linking later school start times to improved sleep and mood in teens. The article, titled "Later School Start Time is Associated with Improved Sleep and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents," appears in the current issue of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

NASA's TRMM satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Ian three days in a row and captured rainfall and thunderstorm cloud height data about the deadly storm as it strengthened and weakened.

Tropical Cyclone Ian meandered in an area of the Pacific Ocean between Fiji and Tonga as it intensified from a tropical storm with winds of 35 knots/41 mph on January 5, 2014 to a deadly tropical cyclone with winds of 125 knots/144 mph on January 11, 2014. Tropical cyclone Ian caused extensive damage and an unknown number of deaths when it passed through Tonga at the peak of its intensity.

Astronomers have used ESO's HARPS planet hunter in Chile, along with other telescopes around the world, to discover three planets orbiting stars in the cluster Messier 67. Although more than one thousand planets outside the Solar System are now confirmed, only a handful have been found in star clusters. Remarkably one of these new exoplanets is orbiting a star that is a rare solar twin — a star that is almost identical to the Sun in all respects.