SpaceWeekly.com

Click here to visit Original posting
NASA and the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) presented the 2013 William T. Pecora Award for achievement in Earth remote sensing to Dudley B. Chelton, distinguished professor of Earth, ocean, and atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore.

Click here to visit Original posting
NASA Television will provide coverage of the upcoming Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus cargo spacecraft mission to resupply the International Space Station this month.

Click here to visit Original posting
In a view from high altitude, height can be a difficult thing to gauge. The highest of clouds can appear to sit on a flat plane, as if they were at the same elevation as the ocean or land surface. In this image, however, texture, shape and shadows lend definition to mushrooming thunderheads over the Indonesian island of Flores. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image on the afternoon of Dec. 2, 2013.
The towering clouds are so well defined that it is easy to visualize the rapidly rising air that is fueling them. “This looks like a classic example of island convection that is enhanced by topography,” says NASA scientist Joseph Munchak.
During the day, sunlight heats the land more quickly than it heats the ocean. The warm air over land rises, creating an area of low pressure that pulls in cool air from the ocean. The result is a sea breeze. On this Indonesia island, the sea breeze from the Flores Sea on the north blows inland and clashes with the sea breeze blowing inland from the Savu Sea in the south. When the two breezes meet in the center of Flores, they push the air up. The rising air cools and condenses into a line of clouds.
Sea breeze convection is not the only force at work here. On Flores, cloud formation has help from the shape of the land. A line of tall volcanoes runs down the spine of the island, and their steep slopes also force air to rise. So, moist ocean air blows inland, hits the mountains and volcanoes and rises with the slope. Above the mountains, the rising air meets the rising sea breeze from the other side, and the upward motion is reinforced.
The combination of the two forces pushes air high into the atmosphere, resulting in large towering clouds of the sort that usually produce thunderstorms. In fact, a weather station on Flores reported rain and thunderstorms on December 2. This type of convection is strongest in the early afternoon, says Munchak, just about the time when Aqua MODIS acquired the image. The clouds were just beginning to form when Terra MODIS passed over earlier in the day.
> Read more
Image Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Caption: Holli Riebeek

Click here to visit Original posting

Technology image of the week: ESA’s Proba-2 minisatellite contributes to a spectacular multiwavelength composite of the Sun dwarfed by its surrounding corona

Click here to visit Original posting
Thirteen California organizations, including NASA’s Ames Research Center, were recognized with the 2013 Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award (GEELA), the state’s highest environmental honor.

Click here to visit Original posting
The Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters has invited the Kepler project to submit a funding proposal for a two-wheel mission, dubbed K2, to its 2014 Senior Review of operating missions.

The current Space Badge will be renamed the Space Operations Badge beginning Jan. 1, 2014. Wear of the badge will be focused on personnel with core 13S and 1C6 Air Force Specialty Codes, grandfathered are space professionals of all other AFSCs awarded the badge prior to Jan. 1, 2014, and non-operations personnel awarded the badge after meeting certain criteria.

In a recent memorandum, General William L. Shelton, Commander, Air Force Space Command said, "In order to clarify space mission roles and responsibilities, I am restricting wear of the Space Operations Badge to primarily space operations specialties and selected individuals who have performed operations-focused duties."
more...

Click here to visit Original posting
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has revealed to scientists slender dark markings — possibly due to salty water – that advance seasonally down slopes surprisingly close to the Martian equator.

Click here to visit Original posting
This mosaic of images from Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) shows geological members of the Yellowknife Bay formation. The scene has the Sheepbed mudstone in the foreground and rises up through Gillespie Lake member to the Point Lake outcrop. These rocks record superimposed ancient lake and stream deposits that offered past environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. Rocks here were exposed about 70 million years ago by removal of overlying layers due to erosion by the wind.
The scene is a portion of a 111-image mosaic acquired during the 137th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity’s work on Mars (Dec. 24, 2012). The foothills of Mount Sharp are visible in the distance, upper left, southwest of camera position.
Related:
> Annotated View of Yellowknife Bay Formation, With Drilling Sites
> NASA Rover Results Include First Age Measurement on Mars and Help for Human Exploration
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS