Heavens

Astronomers have constructed the largest-ever three-dimensional map of massive galaxies and distant black holes, which will help the investigation of the mysterious "dark matter" and "dark energy" that make up 96 percent of the universe.

The map was produced by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III).

The Third Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) has issued Data Release 9 (DR9), the first public release of data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). In this release BOSS, the largest of SDSS-III's four surveys, provides spectra for 535,995 newly observed galaxies, 102,100 quasars, and 116,474 stars, plus new information about objects in previous Sloan surveys (SDSS-I and II).

Tropical Storm Haikui is headed for landfall in southeastern China, and NASA's Aqua satellite caught a stunning image of its size and its ragged, but wide eye when it was a typhoon earlier today, August 7. As a result of interaction with land, Haikui has weakened to a tropical storm.

The National Hurricane Center warned that Ernesto is expected to produce rainfall accumulations of 3 to 5 inches along the northern coast of honduras...with isolated amounts as high as 8 inches over mountainous terrain. Belize, the Yucatan Peninsula and northern Guatemala can expect between 4 and 8 inches with as much as a foot of rain in isolated areas, so flooding is expected and mudslides are possible.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the coast of Honduras from west of Punta Sal to the Honduras/Guatemala border.

Infrared satellite imagery from shows how cold cloud top temperatures are in a tropical cyclone, and recent imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite shows the cloud-top temperatures have been warming in Tropical Storm 13W. Warming cloud top temperatures indicate less strength, and Tropical Storm 13W is weakening.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance orbiter captured this picture of the Curiosity rover still connected to its parachute as it descended towards its landing site at Gale Crater on Mars.

The image was taken while MRO was 211 miles (340 kilometers) away from the parachuting rover. Curiosity and its rocket-propelled backpack had yet to be deployed. At the time, Curiosity was about two miles above the Martian surface.

NOAA's GOES-13 satellite has been continuously providing imagery of Ernesto. A visible image of Tropical Storm Ernesto from GOES-13 on August 6 at 11:45 a.m. EDT showed an organized, rounded storm with strong convection (rising air that forms the thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone).

When NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared view of the northwestern Pacific's latest tropical storm, Tropical Storm 13W, the data revealed the bulk of the heavy rainfall on the northern side of the center.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm 13W on August 6 at 0205 UTC (Aug. 5 10:05 a.m. EDT). The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared image of the cloud temperatures that showed the strongest storms (purple) and heaviest rainfall north and east of the center of circulation.

The sixth tropical storm of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season formed over the past weekend, and NASA kept an on its progression. Tropical Storm Florence was born in the eastern Atlantic and weakened when it interacted with dry air.

Two NASA satellites have captured data on the activity of Typhoon Haikui as it nears the China coast. NASA's Terra satellite provided a visible look at the storm, while NASA's Aqua satellite investigated it in infrared light. Both showed some strong thunderstorms within that were likely packing heavy rainfall.

A new statistical analysis by NASA scientists has found that Earth's land areas have become much more likely to experience an extreme summer heat wave than they were in the middle of the 20th century. The research was published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The fifth Atlantic Ocean tropical depression strengthened into Tropical Storm Ernesto on Thursday, August 2 at 5 p.m. EDT and tracked over St. Lucia early on August 3. NASA's Terra satellite captured an image of Ernesto from space as it approached the island.

The AIRS image caught the western edge of Tropical Depression Haikui, and it showed a large area of very cold cloud top temperatures, indicating a lot of strength in uplift and strong, high thunderstorms. A good portion of Haikui's cloud top temperatures were as cold as -63 Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius). Those strong storms are indicative of areas where heavy rain is falling. Satellite imagery revealed that the low-level circulation center is partly exposed. There is also a fragmented, banding of thunderstorms wrapping from the northeast quadrant into the northwest quadrant of the storm.

Washington, D.C.—Type Ia supernovae are violent stellar explosions. Observations of their brightness are used to determine distances in the universe and have shown scientists that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. But there is still too little known about the specifics of the processes by which these supernovae form. New research led by Carnegie's Stella Kafka identifies a star, prior to explosion, which will possibly become a type Ia supernova. The work will be published by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is available online.

Salmon conservation shouldn't narrowly focus on managing flows in streams and rivers or on preserving only places that currently have strong salmon runs.

Instead, watersheds need a good mix of steep, cold-running streams and slower, meandering streams of warmer water to keep options open for salmon adapted to reproduce better in one setting than the other, new research shows.Preserving that sort of varied landscape serves not just salmon, it provides an all-summer buffet that brown bears, gulls and other animals need to sustain themselves the rest of the year.