Heavens

Scientists have found evidence that there was once an ancient lake on Mars that may have been able to support life, in research published today in the journal Science.

The region located between the surface of the sun and its atmosphere has been revealed as a more violent place than previously understood, according to images and data from NASA's newest solar observatory, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS.

The low pressure area known as "System 90L" in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean is no longer suspect for tropical or subtropical development. On Sunday, December 8, System 90L's showers had diminished. The low was non-tropical and was located about 100 mile south of the central Azores Islands. Since then, upper-level winds have become hostile and the low pressure area has no chance of becoming tropical or subtropical. On December 8, NOAA's GOES East satellite captured a visible image of the low pressure area and at that time the circulation was even difficult to identify.

Since the beginning of the financial crises that erupted in 2008, numerous governments have injected public funds into the banking system in order to prevent the failure of some entities and avoid the collective collapse of the system itself. Furthermore, to strengthen the robustness of the banking system, central banks increase the reserve capital requirements, that is, the percentage of money that banks must hold, and not loan out.

Rainfall data from the TRMM satellite was compiled and analyzed for tropical cyclones affecting the Philippines in 2013 and made into a movie. Satellite data showed that almost four feet of rain fell in parts of the northern and central Philippines.

ST. LOUIS -- Psychiatric nurses offer a missing and critical point of view in treating adolescents in foster care who have mental health issues, an instructor at Saint Louis University School of Nursing found.

"Adding a mental health nurse to the treatment team would be ideal. He or she could bring a much-needed medical perspective to caring for teens in foster care who have psychiatric disorders. Child welfare workers and social workers don't have the specific training they need to track health problems," said Julie Bertram, MSN, who also is lead author of the article.

NASA's Aqua satellite provided visible and infrared satellite imagery to forecasters helping confirm the birth of the sixth tropical cyclone of the Northern Indian Ocean cyclone season.

NASA's infrared instrument called AIRS that flies aboard the Aqua satellite gave scientists another look at the clouds and convection happening in a non-tropical low pressure area that's struggling to organize into a sub-tropical or tropical cyclone.

Until recently, Etienne Benson, an assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of History and Sociology of Science, has trained his academic eye on the history of conservation of large, charismatic wildlife, such as tigers, grizzly bears and orcas.

With his latest publication, however, he consciously chose to investigate a creature that may be considered less exotic, and is certainly smaller.

Office buildings have an enormous carbon footprint, but often energy is being wasted maintaining empty rooms and spaces at a comfortable temperature. Research to be published in the International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems shows how the ubiquity of smart phones connected to the office network could be used to monitor occupancy and reduce heating or air conditioning for unused spaces.

Planetary instruments from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., hit the trifecta on Dec. 4, running three experiments of the same kind at different places in space.

The instruments, all flying on NASA missions, are mass spectrometers, designed to take in atmospheric, rock or soil samples and identify particular molecules in them. The investigations lined up because of the operating schedules for the three, which must take turns with other instruments on their respective spacecraft.

New York (December 5, 2013)—Seven cities can boast of world-class bike-share systems, according to a new publication by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) that identifies the best practices embraced by these cities. An estimated 400 cities on five continents have implemented bike share, according to ITDP, because it addresses pressing urban mobility issues that include traffic, air pollution, transit finance, and the "last mile" problem of getting commuters to and from rail and bus stops.

System 90L has developed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean today and NASA's Aqua satellite took an infrared look at the low pressure area to see if it had development potential. System 90L was located near 31.8 north and 28.1 west, about 450 miles south of the Azores Islands.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the low pressure area on Dec. 5 and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument captured infrared data on the clouds, revealing the strongest thunderstorms northeast of the center. The low is non-tropical and is generating tropical-storm-force winds near 60 mph.

The Northern Indian Ocean typhoon season usually lasts until the end of December, but it's not going out without a fight this year. Infrared satellite data from NASA's Aqua satellite showed bands of thunderstorms wrapping around low pressure System 92B's center. If this system develops it would become Tropical Depression 06B.

An international team of astronomers, led by a University of Arizona graduate student, has discovered the most distantly orbiting planet found to date around a single, sun-like star. It is the first exoplanet – a planet outside of our solar system – discovered at the UA.

Weighing in at 11 times Jupiter's mass and orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance, planet HD 106906 b is unlike anything in our own Solar System and throws a wrench in planet formation theories.