Heavens

Bitter cold cloud tops tell forecasters that a storm has a lot of uplift, and the colder the cloud tops, the higher they are in the atmosphere, and the stronger the thunderstorms. NASA's Aqua satellite data showed that the cloud top temperatures in newborn Tropical Storm Carlotta became colder overnight and continue to grow colder as the low pressure area formely known as System 94E strengthened into a tropical storm. Carlotta is even expected to strengthen further and become a hurricane.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows a rare view of a pair of overlapping galaxies, called NGC 3314. The two galaxies look as if they are colliding, but they are actually separated by tens of millions of light-years, or about ten times the distance between our Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. The chance alignment of the two galaxies, as seen from Earth, gives a unique look at the silhouetted spiral arms in the closer face-on spiral, NGC 3314A.

The first of four instruments to fly aboard NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) has been delivered to NASA. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) will allow scientists to study cold and distant objects in greater detail than ever before.

MIRI arrived at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., May 29. It has been undergoing inspection before being integrated into Webb's science instrument payload known as the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM).

An active region on the sun, numbered AR 1504, rotated into view over the left side of the sun on June 10, 2012. The region fired off two M-class flares and two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on June 13 and June 14, 2012. The first flare lasted for a relatively long three hours, peaking on June 13, 2012 at 9:17 AM EDT. The associated CME traveled at approximately 375 miles per second and is directed toward Earth, though due to its slow speed, the effect on Earth is expected to be minimal.

SALT LAKE CITY, June 14, 2012 – In Israel's Negev Desert, a plant called sweet mignonette or taily weed uses a toxic "mustard oil bomb" to make the spiny mouse spit out the plant's seeds when eating the fruit. Thus, the plant has turned a seed-eating rodent into a seed spreader that helps the plant reproduce, says a new study by Utah and Israeli scientists.

Like many new measurement tools, the laser frequency comb seemed at first a curiosity but has found more practical uses than originally imagined. The technique for making extraordinarily precise measurements of frequency has now moved beyond physics and optics to advance biomedicine by helping researchers evaluate a novel instrument that kills harmful bacteria without the use of liquid chemicals or high temperatures.

NGC 3314A and B might look like they are in the midst of a galactic pile-up, but they are in fact separated by tens of millions of light years of void. Their apparent proximity is simply a trick of perspective.

Obesity among children has increased dramatically over the past 40 years and has been tied to many health problems. Now a new study has found that children's weight is associated with their math performance.

The longitudinal study, published in the journal Child Development, was carried out by researchers at the University of Missouri, Columbia, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Vermont.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Childhood obesity has increased dramatically throughout the past 40 years and has been tied to many health problems. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that children's weight is associated with their math performance.

"The findings illustrate the complex relationships among children's weight, social and emotional well-being, academics and time," said Sara Gable, associate professor in the MU Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, who led the study.

System 94E and System 95E are low pressure areas located off the western coast of Mexico that are being watched by forecasters and by satellites. Each of them has the potential for development into a tropical cyclone, although System 95E has a greater chance. That low was recently spotted by NASA's TRMM satellite, which provided rainfall and cloud height data to forecasters.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Even small telescopes can make big discoveries.

Though the KELT North telescope in southern Arizona carries a lens no more powerful than a high-end digital camera, it's just revealed the existence of two very unusual faraway planets.

One planet is a massive, puffed-up oddity that could change ideas of how solar systems evolve. The other orbits a very bright star, and will allow astronomers to make detailed measurements of the atmospheres of these bizarre worlds.

Cosmic cycle

Building a terrestrial planet requires raw materials that weren't available in the early history of the universe. The Big Bang filled space with hydrogen and helium. Chemical elements like silicon and oxygen - key components of rocks - had to be cooked up over time by stars. But how long did that take? How many of such heavy elements do you need to form planets?

For astrophysicist Bill Craig and his team, NASA's NuSTAR will open up a whole new world. In fact, NuSTAR will allow them to observe a new class of objects in space, called extreme objects, which have never been seen.

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (or NuSTAR), is the first focusing, high energy X-ray NASA satellite that will open the hard X-ray sky for sensitive study for the first time. It is scheduled for launch today (June 13) from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

'Modern' fathers have been around for far longer than we think, but they have only recently started to change nappies according to research from the University of Warwick.

In a new paper published on the History & Policy website today, Dr Laura King from the University of Warwick's Centre for the History of Medicine said the assumption that fathers have only become more involved in looking after their children over the past 20 years is not true. However, statistics show it has taken longer for dads to get to grips with dirty nappies.