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Tropical Depression 8E forms on Mexican coastline, watches up

The Mexican government has issued a tropical storm watch for the coast of southwestern Mexico from Zihuatanejo to Punta San Telmo as Tropical Storm 8E formed this morning. The GOES-11 satellite captured an image of its rounded clouds hugging this coast this morning, and NASA's TRMM satellite noticed some heavy rainfall in the system yesterday.

Forecasters noticed the depression develop more rounded characteristics on imagery from NOAA's GOES-11 satellite today. The image was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

NASA sees Tropical Storm Nanmadol's landfall, Talas headed to Japan

Tropical Storm Nanmadol made landfall in southeastern China's Fujian Province and is now a depression, while further east, Tropical Storm Talas is still headed for Japan.

Infrared satellite imagery from The Atmospheric Sounder Instrument (AIRS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite shows two different stories in the tropical cyclones.

AIRS captured an infrared image of Nanmadol on Aug. 31 at 1:05 EDT dissipating quickly over mainland China with a lack of high, thunderstorm clouds. Most of the remnants of Nanmadol are lower, warmer clouds.

TRMM satellite sees heavy rain, towering clouds in Tropical Storm Katia

While parts of the East Coast and New England are still recovering from Hurricane Irene, a new storm is brewing in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Katia. The TRMM satellite looked "under the hood" of the storm and saw heavy rainfall rates and towering clouds providing a clue that she was going to strengthen and may become a hurricane later today.

NASA satellite observes unusually hot July in the Great Plains

Much of the United States sweated through an unusually humid heat wave during July, a month that brought record-breaking temperatures to many areas across the Great Plains. As temperatures soared, NASA satellites observed the unusual weather from above.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), an instrument launched on the Aqua satellite in 2002, is unique in its ability to yield highly accurate data about the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere and the part that most directly affects life on Earth.

Low mass, low metal: SDSS J102915+172927 is the star that should not exist

A faint star in the constellation of Leo (The Lion), called SDSS J102915+172927 [1], has been found to have the lowest amount of elements heavier than helium (what astronomers call "metals") of all stars yet studied. It has a mass smaller than that of the Sun and is probably more than 13 billion years old.

Dramatic satellite image shows daylight breaking over newborn Atlantic Tropical Storm Katia

Tropical Depression 12 strengthened into tropical storm Katia as daylight broke in the eastern Atlantic this morning. Stunning satellite imagery from the GOES-13 satellite revealed a well-formed tropical storm as the sun's first rays reached it.

Hubble: 14 years of supersonic jets from three young stars

Stars aren't shy about sending out birth announcements. They fire off energetic jets of glowing gas travelling at supersonic speeds in opposite directions through space.

Although astronomers have looked at still pictures of stellar jets for decades, now they can watch movies, thanks to the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

A new radio atlas of the Milky Way

It may not be much use to hitchhikers through the galaxy, but it is extremely valuable to astronomers: the new radio atlas of the Milky Way. After almost ten years of work, researchers at the Max Planck Society and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have completed their investigation into the polarised radio emission in the galactic plane. The atlas is based on observations undertaken with the 25-metre radio telescope in the Chinese city of Urumqi and shows an area of 2,200 square degrees of the sky.

Epic search for evidence of life on Mars heats up with focus on high-tech instruments

DENVER, Aug. 30, 2011 — Scientists are expressing confidence that questions about life on Mars, which have captured human imagination for centuries, finally may be answered, thanks in part to new life-detection tools up to 1,000 times more sensitive than previous instruments.

NASA continues tracking soaking remnants of Hurricane Irene into Canada

warnings and high wind warnings remain in effect for parts of the northern Mid-Atlantic into New England as rivers continue to move floodwaters downstream.

Researchers build a tougher, lighter wind turbine blade

Efforts to build larger wind turbines able to capture more energy from the air are stymied by the weight of blades. A Case Western Reserve University researcher has built a prototype blade that is substantially lighter and eight times tougher and more durable than currently used blade materials.

How do young galaxies take in matter?

A team of scientists has discovered a distant galaxy that may help answer two fundamental questions about galaxy formation: How do galaxies take in matter and how do they give off energetic radiation?

Simulating what it takes to create a Milky Way-like galaxy

SANTA CRUZ, CA--After nine months of number-crunching on a powerful supercomputer, a beautiful spiral galaxy matching our own Milky Way emerged from a computer simulation of the physics involved in galaxy formation and evolution. The simulation by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Zurich solves a longstanding problem that had led some to question the prevailing cosmological model of the universe.

If we go to Mars, what will astronauts eat?

A green thumb and a little flair as a chef may help the first men and women who travel to Mars - whenever it happens, since it is apparently okay for each new president to wipe out his predecessor's space program.

Maya R. Cooper, speaking at the latest American Chemical Society meeting, said that provisioning the astronauts with food stands as one of the greatest challenges in scripting the first manned mission to Mars.

40-year-old Mariner 5 solar wind problem finds answer -- turbulence doesn't go with the flow

Research led by astrophysicists at the University of Warwick has resolved a 40 year old problem with observations of turbulence in the solar wind first made by the probe Mariner Five. The research resolves an issue with what is by far the largest and most interesting natural turbulence lab accessible to researchers today.