A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet’s surface or crust, which allows hot magma, volcanic ash and gases to escape from the magma chamber below the surface. They are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. A mid-oceanic ridge, for example the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has examples of volcanoes caused…
Flooding in Thailand – Before & After Photograph by NASA Earth Observatory In this true-colour satellite image, we see flooding in Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani Provinces in Central Thailand (right), compared to before the flooding (left). The Chao Phraya River forms at the confluence of smaller rivers in central Thailand, and flows…
PLANET MERCURY Photograph by NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington This colorful view of Mercury was produced by using images from the color base map imaging campaign during MESSENGER’s primary mission. These colors are not what Mercury would look like to the human eye, but rather the colors enhance…
On June 23, 2013 at 11:32 UTC the full moon was not only the closest and largest full moon of the year, it will also be the moon’s closest encounter with Earth for all of 2013. It will not be this close again until August 10, 2014. Astronomers call this sort of close full…
AUSTRALIAN SUNSET FROM SPACE Photograph by NASA The sun is about to set in this scene showing parts of southwestern Australia, which was photographed by one of the Expedition 35 crew members aboard the International Space Station on April 1, 2013. Several of the orbital outpost’s solar array panels are seen in…
The Cupola is an ESA-built observatory module of the International Space Station (ISS). Its seven windows are used to conduct experiments, dockings and observations of Earth. It was launched aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-130 on 8 February 2010 and attached to the Tranquility (Node 3) module. The Cupola’s 80 cm (31 in) window is…
CAT’S EYE NEBULA Photograph by ESA, NASA, HEIC and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA) From spacetelescope.org: In this detailed view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the so-called Cat’s Eye Nebula looks like the penetrating eye of the disembodied sorcerer Sauron from the film adaptation of “Lord of the Rings.” The…
SUNRISE FROM SPACE Photograph by NASA In this beautiful capture, the sun is about to come up over the South Pacific Ocean. The colorful scene was photographed by one of the Expedition 35 crew members aboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station between 4 and 5 a.m. local time, May 5, 2013. The…
THE SUN – ONE YEAR, ONE IMAGE Photograph by NASA/GSFC/SDO In the three years since it first provided images of the sun in the spring of 2010, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has had virtually unbroken coverage of the sun’s rise toward solar maximum, the peak of solar activity in its regular 11-year…
Photograph by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn’s north pole. Scientists say the hurricane’s eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the…