Heavens

Wildfires have broken out in four provinces in Argentina including forest land in Cordoba. The high temperatures and gusty winds have wreaked havoc on the growth of these wildfires and the local meteorologists predict more of the same conditions in the coming days.

SYDNEY: A UNSW-led team of astronomers has begun to map the location of the most massive and mysterious objects in our galaxy – the giant gas clouds where new stars are born.

Using a telescope at Coonabarabran that narrowly escaped devastation in a recent bushfire, the team identifies the galactic clouds of molecular gas - which can be up to 100 light years across - from the carbon monoxide they contain.

NASA's TRMM satellite saw heavy rain falling south of Tropical Storm Humberto's center as it continues to strengthen in the Eastern Atlantic.

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite called TRMM passed near Humberto on September 10, 2013 at 0147 UTC (9:47 p.m. Sept. 9) and collected data used in this rainfall analysis. TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) showed a large area of heavy rain south of Humberto's center of circulation. Rain was falling at a rate of 2 inches/50 mm per hour.

After NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead, NASA sent out an unmanned aircraft from the Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel or HS3 mission. HS3 features NASA's two remotely piloted Global Hawks. During the mission, both aircraft are being flown remotely from the HS3 mission base at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va. At 9:58 a.m. EDT today, Sept. 10, NASA's Global Hawk 871 took off to begin HS3 Science Flight number 7 to fly into Tropical Storm Gabrielle.

Some things are not always what they seem—even in space. For 30 years, scientists believed a large near-Earth object was an asteroid. Now, an international team including Joshua Emery, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has discovered it is actually a comet.

WASHINGTON — The science and engineering capabilities that underpin the nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship and nonproliferation missions at the nation's three national security laboratories are "healthy and vibrant," says a new report from the National Research Council. The committee that wrote the report found no problems with the quality of science and engineering that would prevent certification of the stockpile. However, the report identifies several issues that, if not addressed, have the potential to erode the ability to perform high-quality work at the laboratories.

Hot and extremely dry conditions combined with shifting winds and low humidity continue to plague firefighter efforts at the Rim Fire in California. To date over 254,000 acres have been burned. Pockets of unburned vegetation around Thompson Peak and at the South edge of the fire's perimeter continue to burn. Fire crews successfully contained 15 spot fires along the Tioga Road today and the plan is to set a fire in a three quarter mile section of land within the park to contain an additional spot fire.

WASHINGTON, DC—Smart as the Mars Curiosity mission has been about landing and finding its own way on a distant world, the rover is pretty brainless when it comes to doing the science that it was sent 567 million kilometers to carry out. That has to change if future rover missions are to make discoveries further out in the solar system, scientists say.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated a new mechanism for extracting energy from light, a finding that could improve technologies for generating electricity from solar energy and lead to more efficient optoelectronic devices used in communications.

Tropical Depression Nine formed yesterday, Sept. 8 in the far eastern Atlantic, and NASA's Aqua satellite saw it strengthen into Tropical Storm Humberto today, Sept. 9 at 5 a.m. EDT. As that storm strengthened, the remnants of the once-tropical-storm Gabrielle continued to struggle near the Bahamas as NASA's HS3 mission investigated.

Tropical Storm Humberto is affecting the Cape Verde Islands, so there's a tropical storm warning in up for the southern islands of Maio, Santiago, Fogo, and Brava.

Inciweb.org updates the Rim Fire with this information: "Firefighters will face continued hot and extremely dry conditions. Shifting winds coupled with low humidity will provide conditions for active fire behavior. Pockets of unburned vegetation within the fire perimeter will continue to burn creating the potential for spot fires across containment lines. Today's top priority is to contain all spot fires especially along Tioga Road. Firefighters will continue to patrol mop up and monitor lines while maintaining structure defense.

PITTSBURGH—A wearable, picture-taking health monitor created by University of Pittsburgh researchers has received a recent facelift. Now, in addition to documenting what a person eats, the eButton prototype can accurately match those images against a geometric-shape library, providing a much easier method for counting calories.

SALT LAKE CITY -- University of Utah electrical engineers have developed a network of wireless sensors that can detect a person falling. This monitoring technology could be linked to a service that would call emergency help for the elderly without requiring them to wear monitoring devices.

The eighth tropical depression of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season formed in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico at 2 p.m. EDT on Sept. 6, and NOAA's GOES-East satellite captured a visible image of the storm.

NOAA's GOES-East satellite image showed a large circulation associated with Tropical Depression 8 or TD8 after it was officially designated a depression by the National Hurricane Center. The image was created by NASA's GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Two NASA satellites and one of NASA's Global Hawk aircraft got good looks at Gabrielle when it weakened from a tropical storm to a depression. Although Gabrielle is now a remnant low pressure area, there are a couple of other developing low pressure areas in the Atlantic Ocean basin to keep an eye on.