Heavens

AMARILLO – One potato field west of Bushland hosts three separate studies, all aimed at helping growers nationwide, even internationally, understand the habits and controls of the potato psyllid.

The potato psyllid is the insect that transmits a bacterium that causes the relatively new disease in potatoes known as zebra chip, according to Dr. Charlie Rush, Texas AgriLife Research plant pathologist.

New Haven, Conn.—Astronomers have probed into the distant universe and discovered that galaxies display one of two distinct behaviors: they are either awake or asleep, actively forming stars or are not forming any new stars at all.

PITTSBURGH—Driver assistance technologies, such as adaptive cruise control and automatic braking, promise to someday ease traffic on crowded routes and prevent accidents. Proving that these automated systems will work as intended is a daunting task, but computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have now demonstrated it is possible to verify the safety of these highly complex systems.

Tropical Storm Beatriz developed from a low pressure area that NASA was watching last week. Beatriz is now expected to reach hurricane force and hit western coastal Mexico today and tomorrow. NASA satellite imagery today revealed powerful thunderstorms bubbling within, indicating further strengthening is occurring.

Johns Hopkins graduate students have invented a system to significantly boost the number of stem cells collected from a newborn's umbilical cord and placenta, so that many more patients with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood disorders can be treated with these valuable cells.

Fathers stumbling through child-rearing are a familiar sitcom theme. But a growing body of research at the University of California, Berkeley, is challenging the perception that dads are goofy, uncaring or incompetent caregivers. On the contrary, preliminary findings suggest their parenting skills are crucial to their kids' social and academic success, and that teamwork in parenting is the ideal.

Fairbanks, Alaska—Nearly one year ago, a repurposed NASA spacecraft flew by the comet Hartley 2. As a result, a multitude of high-resolution images were gathered over 50 days that allow scientists to understand the nature of the comet's surface and it's hidden interior.

New research from the University of Warwick and the IZA Institute in Bonn shows that 10% of middle-aged Europeans took antidepressants in 2010. The researchers looked in detail at the lives of a randomly selected sample of nearly 30,000 Europeans. The study covered 27 countries.

The first six of 18 segments that will form NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror for space observations completed final cryogenic testing this week. The ten week test series included two tests cycles where the mirrors were chilled down to -379 degrees Fahrenheit, then back to ambient temperature to ensure the mirrors respond as expected to the extreme temperatures of space.

A second set of six mirror assemblies will arrive at Marshall in late July to begin testing, and the final set of six will arrive in the fall.

A low pressure area in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, located off the western coast of Mexico, is still getting organized, and System 92E and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite spotted heavy rain and strong thunderstorms within.

The sixth western Pacific tropical cyclone (06W) of 2011 has developed near the Philippines and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite saw some heavy rainfall in the storm. Tropical Depression 06W was dropping the heaviest rain over the open waters of the Western North Pacific Ocean on June 17 as the storm continues to move toward China.

Earlier this month, ESA's Mars Express performed a special manoeuvre to observe an unusual alignment of Jupiter and the martian moon Phobos. The impressive images have now been processed into a movie of this rare event.

At the moment when Mars Express, Phobos, and Jupiter aligned on 1 June 2011, there was a distance of 11 389 km between the spacecraft and Phobos, and a further 529 million km to Jupiter.

The largest fire in the history of the state of Arizona continues to burn and emergency managers and responders are using satellite data from a variety of instruments to plan their firefighting containment strategies and mitigation efforts once the fires are out.

In a Landsat 5 satellite image captured June 11, 2011, flooding is still evident both east and west of the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, Miss. Standing water is most apparent, however, in the floodplain between the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers north of Vicksburg.

Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A.

Hubble's panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust.