Heavens

This Atlantic hurricane season has now spawned 14 tropical depressions and 12 of them have strengthened into tropical storms. The latest is now called Tropical Storm Lisa and is in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean. NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Lisa when she was still a low pressure area, but showed a center of circulation and banding of thunderstorms circling it, indicating the storm was getting organized.

Scientists from the California Institute of Technology and UCLA have discovered evidence of "universal ubiquitous magnetic fields" that have permeated deep space between galaxies since the time of the Big Bang.

Caltech physicist Shin'ichiro Ando and Alexander Kusenko, a professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, report the discovery in a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters; the research is currently available online.

Titan, one of Saturn's moons, is the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere ― ten times denser than the atmosphere of Earth. Five years ago, the Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn, a collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA, sent a probe through Titan's atmosphere, revealing that Titan is home to a landscape that includes hills, valleys and most notably lakes.

Snowmelt in the Colorado River basin is occurring earlier, reducing runoff and the amount of crucial water available downstream. A new study shows this is due to increased dust caused by human activities in the region during the past 150 years.

The study, led by a NASA scientist and funded by the agency and the National Science Foundation, showed peak spring runoff now comes three weeks earlier than before the region was settled and soils were disturbed. Annual runoff is lower by more than five percent on average compared to pre-settlement levels.

Snowmelt in the Colorado River basin is occurring earlier, reducing runoff and the amount of crucial water available downstream. A new study shows this is due to increased dust caused by human activities in the region during the past 150 years.

The study, led by a NASA and UCLA scientist and funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), showed peak spring runoff now comes three weeks earlier than before the region was settled and soils were disturbed. Annual runoff is lower by more than 5 percent on average, compared with pre-settlement levels.

Dust has been blowing into the Eastern Atlantic Ocean from Africa's Saharan Desert, and a NASA satellite captured some of that dust east of Tropical Storm Julia.

Hurricane Karl made landfall near Veracruz, Mexico on Friday, Sept. 17 and moved inland over Mexico's rugged terrain, which took the punch out of the storm. As Karl was moving into Mexico, NASA aircraft and NASA satellites were gathering data from this storm that jumped from a tropical storm to a Category 3 hurricane the day before.

Jerusalem, Sept. 19, 2010 -- A new type of nanoparticle resembling the six-pointed Star of David (Magen David) that is the symbol on the flag of Israel has been discovered by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (One nanometer is a billionth of a meter.) The discovery, the researchers say, may lead to new ways for sensing of glucose in diagnosing diabetes or provide a catalyst to capture the sun's energy and turn it into clean fuel.

Julia is waning in the eastern Atlantic Ocean because of outflow from massive Hurricane Igor, despite his distance far to the west. Satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed that Julia's eye was no longer visible, a sign that she's weakening.

Infrared satellite data from NASA's Aqua satellite revealed strong convection and a tight circulation center within Typhoon Fanapi as it heads for a landfall in Taiwan this weekend.

The moon was bombarded by two distinct populations of asteroids or comets in its youth, and its surface is more complex than previously thought, according to new results from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft featured in three papers appearing in the Sept. 17 issue of Science.