NASA Sees the Major Midwestern Snowstorm in Infrared Light

by Rob Gutro for Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD (SPX) Dec 28, 2012

On Dec. 21 at 2:29 a.m. EST, the AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this infrared image of the massive low pressure area that caused a major snowstorm in the Midwest and beyond. The darkest blue and purple (-63.6 Fahrenheit/-53.5 Celsius) areas indicate the highest clouds and coldest cloud top temperatures, where precipitation is heaviest. Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen. Download NOAA's GOES-13 satellite animation of the storm here.

NASA and NOAA satellites have been providing data on the powerful low pressure area that dropped more than a foot of snow. The AIRS infrared image was false-color enhanced to show temperatures. In the false color image, the darkest blue and purple areas indicate the highest clouds and coldest cloud top temperatures, where precipitation is heaviest.
Those coldest cloud top temperatures were near 220 kelvin (-63.6 Fahrenheit/-53.5 Celsius) and were over the New England states and southeastern Canada. Those were also areas where the heaviest precipitation was falling.
The infrared image also showed that the low pressure center of circulation was located over northern Ohio. The southern extent of the storm brought wind damage to Alabama and spawned tornadoes in Arkansas. AIRS imagery is created at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
According to USA today, the storm had taken at least eight lives, caused about 1,000 flight cancelations and power outages, caused closures of schools and government offices, multiple car accidents and road closures and dropped more than a foot of snow in parts of Wisconsin and Iowa.
The National Weather Service noted that the storm system caused Blizzard Warnings in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa. The storm also triggered Winter Weather Advisories from Washington state to Maine and covered parts of 17 states.

40 Unbelievably Interesting Google Earth Photos

By Akhter on October 28, 2011

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Google Earth lets the user explore rich geographical content and find out the places they plan to go. Google Earth provides users with satellite images, maps, landscapes and 3D building view to give them a better understanding of the surroundings.
One can search anything whether it is a building, a road, a landscape or any other thing. In this round up, we are sharing some bizarre and interesting Google Earth photos that will inspire you. Enjoy!
Bodies and Body Parts
We’re not sure what the lake is called but the picture is astonishing. It looks just similar to a man with top hat and bamboo taking a walk across the countryside, quite literally.

Google Escher Effect – Paris, France
Stitching up together satellite pictures and aero pictures of cities can bring about situations like this where the special aerial vantage points give rise to buildings’ pictures being taken at diverse angles.

Amazing House
Another glamorous house with inherent smiling face, this time with a body. It looks completely intentional.

KFC space logo
Yum! Brands Inc produced the logo near Rachel, Nevada, and asserted it’s the primary ad that can be viewed from space. If you remember, the same corporation had formerly wanted to broadcast a laser ad up onto the moon for Pizza Hut, however had afterward scaled back to purchasing ad placement on the side of a Russian rocket.

Impact Scars from MSL Cruise Stage and Two Balance Weights

These images from the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show several impact scars on Mars made by pieces of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft that the spacecraft shed just before entering the Martian atmosphere.
Examining these features with knowledge of what made them could aid researchers in interpreting hundreds of scars on Mars made by unknown impactors.
The entry vehicle portion of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, containing the Curiosity rover for delivery to the surface, separated from the mission's cruise stage 10 minutes before reaching the top of the atmosphere on Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (Aug. 6, UTC). The cruise stage had performed vital functions during the flight from Earth to Mars. Two minutes after letting go of the cruise stage, the entry vehicle jettisoned two 165-pound (75-kilogram) blocks of tungsten called "cruise balance mass devices."
The Context Camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired an image of the predicted impact site for the tungsten blocks, revealing four large impact markings that appear very recent. The site is about 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) west Curiosity's landing site. The orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera subsequently covered these impact sites in the two images combined here, showing the impacts in greater detail, and also revealing a large number of new small impact sites.