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Shrinking Aral Sea In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook a major water diversion project on the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The region’s two major rivers, fed by snowmelt and precipitation in faraway mountains, were used to transform the desert into farms for cotton and other crops. Before the project, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers flowed down from the mountains, cut northwest through the Kyzylkum Desert, and finally pooled together in the lowest part of the basin. The lake they made, the Aral Sea, was once the fourth largest in the world. Although irrigation made the desert bloom, it devastated the Aral Sea. This series of images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite documents the changes. At the start of the series in 2000, the lake was already a fraction of its 1960 extent (black line). The Northern Aral Sea (sometimes called the Small Aral Sea) had separated from the Southern (Large) Aral Sea. The Southern Aral Sea had split into eastern and western lobes that remained tenuously connected at both ends. By 2001, the southern connection had been severed, and the shallower eastern part retreated rapidly over the next several years. Especially large retreats in the eastern lobe of the Southern Sea appear to have occurred between 2005 and 2009, when drought limited and then cut off the flow of the Amu Darya. Water levels then fluctuated annually between 2009 and 2014 in alternately dry and wet years. Dry conditions in 2014 caused the Southern Sea’s eastern lobe to completely dry up for the first time in modern times. In a last-ditch effort to save some of the lake, Kazakhstan built a dam between the northern and southern parts of the Aral Sea. Completed in 2005, the dam was basically a death sentence for the southern Aral Sea, which was judged to be beyond saving. All of the water flowing into the desert basin from the Syr Darya now stays in the Northern Aral Sea. Between 2005 and 2006, the water levels in that part of the lake rebounded significantly and very small increases are visible throughout the rest of the time period.; -
Fall Colors Arriving A few days after autumn showed up on the calendar in the Northern Hemisphere, it showed up on the landscape of North America. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this view of fall colors around the Great Lakes on Sept. 26, 2014. The changing of leaf color in temperate forests involves several causes and reactions, but the dominant factors are sunlight and heat. Since temperatures tend to drop sooner and sunlight fades faster at higher latitudes, the progression of fall color changes tends to move from north to south across North America from mid-September through mid-November. Image Credit: Jeff Schmaltz at NASA GSFC. Caption by Mike Carlowicz. #fall #autumn #leaves #fallleaves #autumnleaves #seasons #seasonalchange #greatlakes #nasa #earth #earthpics #modis; -
Astronaut Reid Wiseman aboard the International Space Station posted this image and wrote, "The #MilkyWay steals the show from #Sahara sands that make the #Earth glow orange." The Expedition 41 crew, which doubled the number of humans in space when three new crew members arrived last week, began its first full workweek as a six-person crew Monday with biological research and preparations for a pair of U.S. spacewalks. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #space #spacestation #iss #galaxy #science #exp41 334FFB64-23D4-4F60-8226-8DD2CE94C8E4; -
Ocean Data Shows 'Climate Dance' of Plankton: The greens and blues of the ocean color provide new insights into how climate and ecosystem processes affect the growth cycles of phytoplankton-microscopic aquatic plants important for fish populations and Earth's carbon cycle. Image: near the Pribilof Islands off the coast of Alaska, in the Bering Sea. The turquoise waters are likely colored by a type of phytoplankton called coccolithophores. This Sept. 22, 2014, image was created with Landsat 8 data. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Norman Kuring; USGS #nasa #climate #earth #earthrightnow #ocean #alaska #beringsea #landsat #science C5B3873E-412F-49C0-AA5B-431F22CA55C7; -
Mid-level Solar Flare Captured: A mid-level solar flare, M5.1 class, erupts from the sun, peaking at 10:58 p.m. EDT on Sept. 27, 2014, in this image from our Solar Dynamics Observatory. The bright flash of light shows material at some 18 million F. SDO captures such temperatures by focusing on light with a wavelength of 131 Angstroms, which is typically colorized in teal. Image Credit: NASA/SDO #nasa #sun #flare #solarflare #sdo #science;
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Hubble Finds Jets and Explosions Spiral Galaxy: This new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Sculptor some 13 million light-years away from Earth. It is one of the brightest galaxies in the Sculptor Group, one of the closest groups of galaxies to the Local Group — the group of galaxies containing our galaxy, the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds. The image shows its spiral arms and small central bulge. Unlike some other spirals, this one doesn’t have a very pronounced spiral structure, and its shape is further muddled by the mottled pattern of dark dust that stretches across the frame. The occasional burst of bright pink can be seen in the galaxy, highlighting stellar nurseries containing newly-forming baby stars. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts) and the LEGUS Team #nasa #galaxy #astronomy #hubble #hst #milkyway #science; -
A twisted blob of solar material – a hot, charged gas called plasma – can be seen erupting off the side of the sun on Sept. 26, 2014. The image is from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, focusing in on ionized Helium at 60,000 degrees C. Image Credit: NASA/SDO; -
Our Rover Drill Pulls First Taste From Mars Mountain: This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the first sample-collection hole drilled in Mount Sharp, the layered mountain that is the science destination of the rover's extended mission. The hole is 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and about 2.6 inches (6.7 centimeters) deep, at a target called "Confidence Hills" on the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop at the base of the mountain. This is a merged-focus image product combining information from multiple images that MAHLI took from a position 2 inches (5 centimeters) away from the target. The images were taken on Sept. 24, 2014, during the 759th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS #nasa #mars #journeytomars #space #planets #msl #curiosity #science; -
And liftoff! The Soyuz TMA-14M launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 4:25 p.m. EDT. NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova now are safely in orbit. Wilmore, Samokutyaev and Serova will dock with the station's Poisk module at 10:15 p.m. later today. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky) #nasa #isscrew #iss #spacestation #soyuz #space #astronauts #launch #exp41; -
Boarding for Launch: Expedition 41 Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), bottom, Flight Engineer Barry Wilmore of NASA, middle, and Flight Engineer Elena Serova of Roscosmos, top, wave farewell prior to boarding the Soyuz TMA-14M rocket for launch, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Samokutyaev, Serova, and Wilmore will spend the next five and a half months aboard the International Space Station. Serova will become the fourth Russian woman to fly in space and the first Russian woman to live and work on the station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky) #nasa #isscrew #iss #spacestation #soyuz #space #astronauts #launch #exp41;
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Looking for Comets in a Sea of Stars: On a July night this summer, a 5,200-pound balloon gondola hangs from a crane and moves toward the open doors of a building at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Md. The telescopes and instruments carried by the gondola, which are part of our Balloon Observation Platform for Planetary Science (BOPPS), are calibrated by taking a long look at the stars and other objects in the sky. This photo was created from 100 separate 30-second-exposure photos, composited together to make the star trail that "spins" around Polaris, the North Star. BOPPS is a high-altitude, stratospheric balloon mission, which will spend up to 24 hours aloft to study a number of objects in our solar system, including an Oort cloud comet. Two comets that may be visible during the flight include Pan STARRS and Siding Spring, which will pass very close to Mars on Oct. 19. The mission may also survey a potential array of other targets including asteroids Ceres and Vesta, Earth’s moon, and Neptune and Uranus. BOPPS is scheduled to launch on Sept. 25 from the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Research Facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL #nasa #balloon #comet #solarsystyem #planets #apl #johnshopkins #oortcloud #earth science; -
On July 23, 2012, a massive cloud of solar material erupted off the sun's right side, zooming out into space. It soon passed one of NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft, which clocked the CME as traveling between 1,800 and 2,200 miles per second as it left the sun. This was the fastest CME ever observed by STEREO. Two other observatories – NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and the joint European Space Agency/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory -- witnessed the eruption as well. The July 2012 CME didn't move toward Earth, but watching an unusually strong CME like this gives scientists an opportunity to observe how these events originate and travel through space. STEREO's unique viewpoint from the sides of the sun combined with the other two observatories watching from closer to Earth. Together they helped scientists create models of the entire July 2012 event. They learned that an earlier, smaller CME helped clear the path for the larger event, thus contributing to its unusual speed. Such data helps advance our understanding of what causes CMEs and improves modeling of similar CMEs that could be Earth-directed. Image Credit: NASA/SDO/STEREO/ESA/SOHO/Wiessinger #CMEWeek #CME #NASA #Sun #Heliophysics; -
King Fire in California, False-Color Infrared On Sept. 19, 2014, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite captured these images of the King fire in Eldorado National Forest. In the false-color image, burned forest appears red; unaffected forests are green; cleared forest is beige; and smoke is blue. As of Sept. 23, the blaze had charred 36,320 hectares (89,571 acres). Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey #NASA #Landsat #Wildfire #KingFire #fire #forest #burn; -
Sunrise at the Soyuz Launch Pad: The sun rises as the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft is rolled out by train to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Sept. 23, 2014. Launch of the Soyuz rocket is scheduled for Sept. 25 at 4:25 p.m. EDT (Sept. 26 at 2:25 a.m. Kazakh time) and will carry Expedition 41 Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Flight Engineer Barry Wilmore of NASA, and Flight Engineer Elena Serova of Roscosmos into orbit to begin their five and a half month mission on the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky #nasa #space #spacestation #iss #soyuz #astronauts #exp41; -
An Odd Trio: The Cassini spacecraft captures a rare family photo of three of Saturn's moons that couldn't be more different from each other! As the largest of the three, Tethys (image center) is round and has a variety of terrains across its surface. Meanwhile, Hyperion (to the upper-left of Tethys) is the "wild one" with a chaotic spin and Prometheus (lower-left) is a tiny moon that busies itself sculpting the F ring. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 1 degree above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 14, 2014. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 22 degrees. Image scale is 7 miles (11 kilometers) per pixel. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #space #cassini #saturn #moon #astronomy #planets #science C54CC064-ED65-454C-9C72-E8EC206FA02D;
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