ISS crew captures spectacular view of earth’s atmosphere

A breathtaking new image taken by astronauts on the International Space Station clearly shows the various layers of Earth's atmosphere during sunset over the Indian Ocean. 

 

 

A brilliant sequence of colors in the image denotes each of the layers of Earth's atmosphere, which are visible here because the picture was taken while the space station had an edge-on, or limb, view of the Earth. From this vantage point, the Earth's curvature can also be made out.
The troposphere — the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere and the one in which humans dwell and weather occurs — appears in deep oranges and yellows. The troposphere can extend from the planet's surface to a height between 3.5 to 12.5 miles (6 and 20 km).
This lowest layer contains more than 80 percent of the mass of the atmosphere and almost all of the water vapor, clouds, and precipitation.
Several dark cloud layers are visible within this layer in the image. Variations in the colors are due mainly to varying concentrations of either clouds or aerosols (airborne particles or droplets).
Next up is the stratosphere, which appears as a pink to white region above the clouds. This atmospheric layer generally has little or no clouds and extends up to approximately 30 miles (50 km) above the Earth's surface.
The stratosphere is also home to the layer of ozone that protects the Earth's surface and the creatures that live on it from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.
Above the stratosphere, blue layers mark the upper atmosphere (including the mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, and exosphere) as it gradually fades into the blackness of outer space.
The astronaut aboard the space station was facing west when they snapped this picture. Astronauts in low-Earth orbit see 16 sunrises and sunsets every day due to their high orbital velocity (more than 17,000 mph, or 28,000 kph).

Aurora Alert! Solar Flare Heading Our Way!

This image shows a three and a half hour (0000 - 0330 UT) time lapse movie of the flare and filament event. Credit: NASA/SDO

An active sunspot (1123) erupted on (Nov. 12th), producing a C4-class solar flare and apparently hurling a filament of material in the general direction of Earth. Coronagraph images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA’s twin STEREO spacecraft show a faint coronalsun-Earth line. The cloud could deliver a glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field sometime on Nov. 14th or 15th. High latitude sky watchers could see auroras on those dates. 

New sunspot 1123 in the Sun's southern hemisphere is crackling with C-class solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI.

 Here’s a look at the two sunspots currently visible on the Sun.

Taurid meteors, get your binoculars ready.

WHEN: Over peak periods between 22:00 and dawn  The radiant positions of the Northern and Southern Taurids throughout November in the constellation of Taurus -look out for bright fireballs! The radiant positions of the Northern and Southern Taurids throughout November in the constellation of Taurus -look out for bright fireballs!  THE TAURID METEOR Shower is active at the start of November and, with a new Moon on the 6th, the conditions are favorable this year. Shower meteors appear to emanate from a single area of the sky known as the shower radiant, but in the case of the Taurids there are two separate radiants. The Northern Taurids are active from 12 October to 2 December and show peak activity from 4-7 November. The Southern Taurids are active from 17 September to 27 November and show peak activity from 30 October to 7 November, Even at their peak, both showers are relatively weak with zenithal hourly rates of around 7 meteors per hour. This means you might see 1-3 meteors per hour if you're lucky. Low though these figures are, the Taurids do have a couple of compelling features that definitely make them worth watching out for. First, the peak of both showers lasts over several nights. Contrast this with the August Perseids, which show a sharp rise in activity over just one night. Second, it is thought that the main swarm of sand grain-sized particles that give rise to the Taurids is accompanied by a swarm of pebble-sized particles. These can produce meteor fireballs - a spectacular sight.

Hunting down alien volcanoes

Hubble's successor could spot eruptions on extrasolar planets

 

NASA'S JAMES WEBB Space Telescope (JWST), due for launch in 2014, could spot the tell-tale signs of violent volcanoes erupting on alien planets. Astronomers are still decades away from being able to image the surface of an extrasolar planet. But they have been able to see chemical signatures of certain gases in the atmospheres of gas giants orbiting close to their stars.

Violent landscape: intense volcanic eruptions that the next generation JWST could spot on an extrasolar planet

Violent landscape: intense volcanic eruptions that the next generation JWST

could spot on an extrasolar planet

A new theoretical study by scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts now suggests that JWST could detect sulphur dioxide from very explosive eruptions on nearby exoplanets. Large amounts of the gas would be produced by the eruptions and sulphur dioxide is very slow to wash out of the air.

"You would need something truly earth-shaking, an eruption that dumped a lot of gases into the atmosphere," says team member Lisa Kaltenegger. She estimates that JWST could detect a volcanic eruption 10 to 100 times as powerful as the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, provided it was on a planet circling a nearby star. www.jwst.nasa.gov