Heavens

Be sure to check the sky if you ever set out for a nighttime stroll in southeastern Tanzania. If the moon is full, continue. But if the sky is dark, turn back – or you may be a lion's dinner.

The GOES-13 satellite captured a triple-header in the tropics today when it captured three tropical cyclones in one image in the Northern Hemisphere.

A visible image taken from the GOES-13 satellite on July 20 at 14:45 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT) and shows a consolidating low pressure area called System 99L in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Bret several hundred miles east of South Carolina, and a large Hurricane Dora off the west coast of Mexico. The image was created by the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Flooding along the Missouri River continues as shown in recent Landsat satellite images of the Nebraska and Iowa border. Heavy rains and snowmelt have caused the river to remain above flood stage for an extended period.

A Landsat 5 image of the area from May 5, 2011 shows normal flow. In contrast, a Landsat 7 image from July 17 depicts flood conditions in the same location.

A national overview map of streamflow provided by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) WaterWatch graphically portrays the immense geographic extent of flooding in the Missouri River basin.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A University at Buffalo-led research team has developed a mathematical framework that could one day form the basis of technologies that turn road vibrations, airport runway noise and other "junk" energy into useful power.

The concept all begins with a granular system comprising a chain of equal-sized particles -- spheres, for instance -- that touch one another.

Whether on their own or orbiting as a pair, black holes don't typically sit still.

Not only do they spin, they can also move laterally across their host galaxy. And according to astrophysicists at Brigham Young University, both types of movement power massive jets of energy known as quasars.

The study, which appears in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to compute what may fuel some of the brightest persistent lights in the universe.

Two NASA Satellites confirmed that the heaviest rainfall in Tropical Storm Bret is occurring in the eastern side of the storm. One satellite using precipitation radar measured rainfall, and another satellite using infrared light measured cloud-top temperatures which indicate strength of thunderstorms.

Extremely cold cloud top temperatures in thunderstorms are an indication of the strength they possess, and infrared satellite data from NASA revealed a large area of very cold and powerful thunderstorms around the center of Hurricane Dora.

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite – temporarily designated P4 -- was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet.

The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km).

The Large Magellanic Cloud is a small neighbouring galaxy to the Milky Way. It contains many regions where clouds of gas and dust are forming new stars. One such region, surrounding the star cluster NGC 1929, is shown in close-up in this new image from ESO's Very Large Telescope. This nebula is officially known as LHA 120–N 44, or just N 44 for short. Hot young stars in NGC 1929 are emitting intense ultraviolet light and causing the gas to glow. This effect highlights the aptly-named superbubble, a vast shell of material around 325 by 250 light-years across.

Some of the strongest thunderstorms within Typhoon Ma-on are now affecting the southeastern coast of Japan and appeared on satellite imagery from two NASA satellites. Rough surf, gusty winds and heavy rainfall is affecting eastern coastal Japan today.

Tropical Storm Dora was just a depression yesterday. Since then, NASA satellite imagery has watched Dora continue to strengthen as thunderstorm cloud tops have grown much colder. Dora is now stirring up high seas in the eastern Pacific and beach goers in southwestern will encounter warnings because of high surf Dora is kicking up. Warnings are also posted for three western Mexican states.

Tropical Storm Bret's cloud tops are getting warmer on NASA infrared satellite imagery. That's an indication that the cloud top heights are dropping and Bret is weakening.

High cloud tops in thunderstorms are a clue that there's strong convective uplift. Uplift is the force of warm, moist, and unstable air upward into the atmosphere that condenses into the thunderstorms that power a tropical cyclone. When the uplift is weak, the convection is weak and thunderstorms are less intense than they could be. Bret is now experiencing a weaker convective uplift.

INDIANAPOLIS – Indianapolis, St. Louis, Detroit, Buffalo, Richmond and Providence – cities scattered across the eastern half of the United States – have something in common, all have coal-fired power plants. A new study from the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis is among the first to investigate mercury deposits in industrialized city soil near this type of facility.

CHICAGO – Among Latinos living in the United States, acculturation is associated with sunscreen use, but not with use of sun-protective clothing, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Those solar panels on top of your roof aren't just providing clean power; they are cooling your house, or your workplace, too, according to a team of researchers led by Jan Kleissl, a professor of environmental engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.