Heavens

Gabrielle is a fighter. Tropical Storm Gabrielle regained tropical storm status on Sept. 12 at 11 a.m. EDT after being knocked down to tropical depression status earlier in the day. NASA's GOES Project used NOAA's GOES-East satellite data to create an image that showed wind shear is still having a big effect on Gabrielle, and another low pressure area appears to be organizing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hubble previously observed this cluster back in 2002. However, this new image combines visible and infrared data from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to reveal this patch of sky in greater detail than ever before, with a combined total exposure time of over 34 hours.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 12, 2013 — Glimpses of the events that nurtured life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago are coming from an unlikely venue almost 1 billion miles away, according to the leader of an effort to understand Titan, one of the most unusual moons in the solar system.

The birth of stars is an event that eludes intuitive understanding. It is the collapse of dense molecular clouds under their own weight that offers the best sites of star formation. Now, Pralay Kumar Karmakar from the Department of Physics at Tezpur University, Assam province, India, and his colleague have proposed a new model for investigating molecular cloud fluctuations at sites of star formation and thus are able to study their pulsational dynamics, in a paper published in EPJ D.

The birth of stars is an event that eludes intuitive understanding. It is the collapse of dense molecular clouds under their own weight that offers the best sites of star formation. Now, Pralay Kumar Karmakar from the Department of Physics at Tezpur University, Assam province, India, and his colleague have proposed a new model for investigating molecular cloud fluctuations at sites of star formation and thus are able to study their pulsational dynamics, in a paper published in EPJ D.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 12, 2013 — Hints that a favorite ingredient in Mexican, Southeast Asian and other spicy cuisine may be an inexpensive new way of purifying drinking water are on the menu today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

The meeting, which began Sunday and ends today, included almost 7,000 reports on new discoveries in science and other topics.

One of the most important and massive parts of the galaxy is the galactic bulge. This huge central cloud of about 10 000 million stars spans thousands of light-years, but its structure and origin were not well understood.

Unfortunately, from our vantage point from within the galactic disc, the view of this central region — at about 27 000 light-years' distance — is heavily obscured by dense clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers can only obtain a good view of the bulge by observing longer wavelength light, such as infrared radiation, which can penetrate the dust clouds.

Three ancient river systems, now buried, may have created viable routes for human migration across the Sahara to the Mediterranean region about 100,000 years ago, according to research published September 11 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Tom Coulthard from the University of Hull, UK, and colleagues from other institutions.

More than one billion people worldwide rely on fish as an important source of animal protein, states the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. And while fish provide slightly over 7 per cent of animal protein in North America, in Asia they represent about 23 per cent of consumption.

At work on the International Space Station, researchers studying plant and cell growth in space encountered a challenge. Imaging revealed interesting spaceflight-associated root morphologies. They needed to fix the tissues for further study back on Earth, but conventional fixation methods require separate fixatives depending on whether the sample is intended for molecular or morphological study.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Hurricane Humberto and analyzed the storm in infrared light using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder known as AIRS and visible light using the MODIS instrument. AIRS gathered data on Sept. 11 at 03:29 UTC/Sept. 10 at 11:29 p.m. EDT and revealed cloud cloud-top temperatures in excess of -63F/-52C in thunderstorms around the hurricane's center of circulation and in bands of thunderstorms west of the center. The MODIS or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument showed a thick band of thunderstorms wrapping into the center from the west.

A small beach ball-sized satellite designed and built by a team of University of Colorado Boulder students to better understand how atmospheric drag can affect satellite orbits is now slated for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Sept. 15.

AMES, Iowa – It happens to all kinds of flat, disk galaxies – whether they're big, little, isolated or crowded in a cluster. They all grow out of their irregular, clumped appearance and their older stars take on the same smooth look, predictably fading from a bright center to a dim edge.

Or, as Curtis Struck, an Iowa State University astronomer, wrote in a research summary: "In galaxy disks, the scars of a rough childhood, and adolescent blemishes, all smooth away with time."

But how does that happen?

Data obtained from NASA's TRMM satellite was used to create a 3-D image of Tropical Storm Gabrielle's rainfall that clearly showed wind shear pushed all of the storm's the rainfall east of its center.

Firefighters faced extremely hot and dry conditions which contributed to more active fire activity with isolated flare-ups inside current containment lines. The fire is active in the Clavey River Reynolds Creek and Jawbone Creek drainages as well as to the west of Harden Lake, Harden Road and Tioga Road. Moderate fire spread to the northeast into Yosemite Wilderness areas north of Hetch Hetchy reservoir is expected. Unburned tinder within and adjacent to the fire perimeter continue to consume and create spotting near or across planned containment lines.