Eclectic Perambulations in the Noosphere
"Midway down the Baja California Peninsula lies a land- and seascape that the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared a World Heritage site and a Biosphere Reserve. Encompassing two lagoons and a large stretch of land between them, El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve provides a winter home for gray whales and other marine mammals, and habitat for thousands of migratory waterfowl. Plant life includes Sonoran Desert vegetation and, at the water’s edge, mangroves."
"Why do we explore? Simply put, it is part of who we are, and it is something we have done throughout our history. In NASA's new video, "We Are the Explorers," we take a look at that tradition of reaching for things just beyond our grasp and how it is helping us lay the foundation for our greatest journeys ahead."
"Is this the best video footage ever of photos taken from the International Space Station? ISS astronaut and Expedition 29 commander Mike Fossum seems to think so."
This Envisat image features the Galapagos Islands, an archipelago situated some 1,000 km to the west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. Galapagos’s largest island is Isabela (visible). The five volcanoes seen on the island are (from north to south): Wolf Volcano, Darwin Volcano, Alcedo Volcano, Sierra Negra Volcano and Cerro Azul Volcano. The bigger island to the right of Isabela is Santiago Island.
"Ten years ago on March 1, the European Space Agency launched an 8-ton satellite called Envisat that would deliver back to Earth some of the most beautiful images of our planet taken from space.
Since then, Envisat has orbited Earth more than 50,000 times and has lived twice as long as planned.
The satellite has more than seven instruments on board that can use radar to see through clouds, capture ocean color and land cover, monitor the ozone layer and atmospheric pollutants, measure thermal-infrared radiation, and register surface topography.
To celebrate the satellite's 10th anniversary, we've selected a few of its most beautiful images for this gallery."
"Researchers at The University of Auckland have reported a decreasing trend in average global cloud heights from 2000 to 2010, based on data gathered by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) on NASA’s Terra satellite. The change over the ten-year span was 30 to 40 meters (about 100 to 130 feet), and was mostly due to fewer clouds at higher altitudes."
"A record-breaking snowstorm struck Colorado in early February 2012, closing an interstate highway, grounding flights, and dropping more than a foot of snow on the Denver area. After moving out of northeastern Colorado, the storm left heavy snow across Nebraska.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on February 5, after skies had largely cleared over the region. Snow and mountain peaks create a mottled appearance in western Colorado. Elsewhere, the snow cover forms a wide, uneven track over Wyoming, Kansas, and Nebraska.
This snowfall did not break all-time records in Colorado, but it did break records for the month of February. The storm deposited 15.9 inches (40.4 centimeters) in Denver and 22.7 inches (57.7 centimeters) in Boulder. The National Weather Service also reported up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) of snow west of Omaha, Nebraska.
NWS meteorologists explained that northeastern Colorado generally experiences storms of this magnitude in March or April. This February storm showed some of the same characteristics of powerful spring storms, as a weather front from the Pacific Northwest converged with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico."
