#EARTH OBSERVATORY

[curitibacitybrazil]

Panoramic Tower

Observatory

Curitiba - Brazil 🇧🇷

[odinsblog]

A solar eclipse as seen from space (credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens)

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Northwest Territories Ablaze

The boreal forests of northern Canada have evolved to burn. These forests are dominated by black spruce, a type of evergreen that is not just tolerant of fire but dependent on it.

Black spruce has waxy, resinous needles adapted to ignite during lightning storms and burn vigorously. The forests thrive if they burn every century or so because fires open the canopy up to light, stimulate new growth, and help maintain biodiversity. Fires also melt away the waxy coating on cones of black spruces allowing them to deposit seeds uniquely designed to thrive in charred, acidic soils. But Canada’s black spruce boreal forests have been burning more frequently in recent decades, putting even these fire-loving forests under strain.

When the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-20 satellite captured this image of smoke streaming throughout the region on August 11, 2024, the sensor detected nearly 100 active fires burning in the Northwest Territories, according to data posted by the territory’s government. The Canadian government, including the Northwest Territories, uses hotspot data from the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), a fire monitoring system developed by NASA, to help detect and track wildfires.The image below, captured by NASA’s EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) on NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite, shows a river of smoke from the fires in western Canada winding its way over the Hudson Bay.

Most fires in the Northwest Territories burn far from towns or infrastructure, so authorities let many of them burn themselves out, a process that can take weeks or even months depending on the weather. Of the 96 fires active on August 11, Canadian authorities reported that 88 of them burned unhindered by firefighting efforts. Firefighters had controlled five fires and were in the process of suppressing one, according to the territory’s government. None of the fires were close enough to settlements to trigger evacuation orders. However, dense smoke has triggered air quality warnings for fifteen Northwest Territories communities, including settlements in the North Slave, South Slave, Dehcho, and Sahtu regions.

The fires coincided with a drought classified as moderate to extreme by the North American Drought Monitor and a week of extreme warmth that broke temperature records in several places in the Northwest Territories, including the towns of Aklavik, Inuvik, Fort McPherson, and Tuktoyaktuk. All four communities surpassed 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit); Fort McPherson’s temperature soared to a remarkable 34.9°C (94.8°F) on August 7 and 8.

Though Canada’s black spruce forests are accustomed to fire, ecologists who study them are finding that some forests in the region are struggling to recover after fires due to the increasing frequency and size of fires in the region. One study led by Jennifer Baltzer, an ecologist at Wilfrid Laurier University, found that black spruce’s ability to regenerate declined at 38 percent of the 1,500 recently burned forest sites included in the study and failed to regenerate entirely at 18 percent of the sites—unusually high percentages compared to the historic norm. The analysis was based on tree regeneration data compiled and analyzed as part of NASA’s Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE).

Many of the areas burning in this image also burned in 2023, during Canada’s worst wildfire season on record. However, the total number of fires and the number of hectares burned in the Northwest Territories through mid-August 2024 are below the 10-year average so far, according to data released by Canadian authorities. The extent of burning in neighboring British Columbia and Alberta through mid-August 2024, however, was above average.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) and data from DSCOVR EPIC. Story by Adam Voiland.

[covenawhite66]

On September 1, 1859 there was a solar storm that took out telegraph lines and lights from Auroras were spotted from Cuba to Hawaii. This was decades before the world was more dependent on electricity for railroad lines and electric lightning.

They detected certain radio-isotopes in tree rings. Which backed up the information from old data during that time. Now papers on the solar flare have been digitized and archived for further study.

Since 1838, local geomagnetism was measured at Greenwich by shining light onto mirrors on the ends of magnetized pieces of metal suspended so they could swing freely, with the reflected light falling on photosensitive paper.

As solar activity disturbed the Earth’s magnetic field, the magnets twisted, causing the light to move across the paper. The stronger the disruption, the further the light shifted. The paper was mounted on a slowly rotating drum, similar to those disaster films have taught us to associate with seismometers.

But unfortunately the solar storm was too strong to fully measure with the tools available at that time.

Digitized Continuous Magnetic Recordings for the August/September 1859 Storms From London, UK

Advancing Earth and Space Science: Space WeatherVolume 22, Issue 3

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023SW003807

Continuous magnetogram traces are available in London, United Kingdom for August and September 1859

Serendipitously, two observatories recorded the Carrington flare and the subsequent storm

We digitize the archive paper records to produce a correctly timed and scaled digital set of digital values for further analysis

[randomtrippics]

Copenhagen, Denmark 🇩🇰

[anthony-usa-today]

[2nd-book-of-lamentations]

Dirges of the Damned

V

We were not taught to understand our thought We are prone to identifying with feelings As if we possess every cloud that drifts by

Sometimes it is hard to take a good look Without picking up the object Rotating it in our hands Moving it into better light

Sometimes it is hard to take a good look When our eyes are pressed to the object When our hands clutch it too tight

[sakuraswordly]

Source: These shallow Arctic waters frequently produce phytoplankton blooms spanning hundreds of kilometers in the summer.

Image of the Day for August 13, 2024

Instrument: NOAA-21 — VIIRS

[azu---ri-v]

[scumfuckloverboy]

film, by me.

[astro-wrld1]

Observatory exploration

For the first time this week, I was lucky enough to step foot inside an observatory. This experience was quite unreal to me due to me having no prior knowledge to what an observatory carried. Being apart of this experience has taught me a lot of things about the observatory and what they exactly are capable of. While in the observatory we learned that the dome has the ability to rotate and the microscope can be adjusted manually. Another thing that caught me off guard regarding the observatory is just how small the telescope within the middle is. Despite being deceivingly little, the telescope shown here has the power to study objects that are 4.5 billion light years away(Quasar 3C66a). This camera also has the options to put different filters over the lenses to get different looking pictures from the same angle. An observation I noticed while in the observatory was that the whole room was illuminated with a red light. It made me curious as to why the room would need to be red in order to observe space. After researching I came to the conclusion that red-light has a peak wavelength of 635-700 nanometers, while normal light is 530. This makes it easier for the pictures to come out darker and get the color they're looking for. Also present in the room was a lot of high tech equipment that operated the telescope. It's captivating how much work truly comes with taking pictures of the stars at night. It also makes me wonder how pictures can be taken during the day, with such a high exposure coming from the sun. After doing some of my own research I learned that without a specialized lens there isn't a way to take pictures during the day. The lens has the ability to dim the exposure of the sun making it possible to photograph past the sun. This experience was very interesting and made me want to learn a lot more about space and astrophotography. I am extremely happy that I was able to experience something such as this since it's not often you get offered a tour of a whole observatory. It amazes me the amount of knowledge required to capture these truly intricate pictures of things located within the sky.

[jcmarchi]

Bottled Water Can Contain Hundreds of Thousands of Previously Uncounted Tiny Plastic Bits - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/bottled-water-can-contain-hundreds-of-thousands-of-previously-uncounted-tiny-plastic-bits-technology-org/

Bottled Water Can Contain Hundreds of Thousands of Previously Uncounted Tiny Plastic Bits - Technology Org

In recent years, there has been rising concern that tiny particles known as microplastics are showing up basically everywhere on Earth, from polar ice to soil, drinking water and food. Formed when plastics break down into progressively smaller bits, these particles are being consumed by humans and other creatures, with unknown potential health and ecosystem effects. One big focus of research is bottled water, which has been shown to contain tens of thousands of identifiable fragments in each container.

Image credit: Naixin Qian

Now, using newly refined technology, researchers have entered a whole new plastic world: the poorly known realm of nanoplastics, the spawn of microplastics that have broken down even further. For the first time, they counted and identified these minute particles in bottled water. They found that on average, a liter contained some 240,000 detectable plastic fragments—10 to 100 times greater than previous estimates, which were based mainly on larger sizes.

The study was just published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nanoplastics are so tiny that, unlike microplastics, they can pass through intestines and lungs directly into the bloodstream and travel from there to organs including the heart and brain. They can invade individual cells, and cross through the placenta to the bodies of unborn babies. Medical scientists are racing to study the possible effects on a wide variety of biological systems.

“Previously this was just a dark area, uncharted. Toxicity studies were just guessing what’s in there,” said study coauthor Beizhan Yan, an environmental chemist at  Columbia Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “This opens a window where we can look into a world that was not exposed to us before.”

Worldwide plastic production is approaching 400 million metric tons a year. More than 30 million tons are dumped yearly in water or on land, and many products made with plastics including synthetic textiles shed particles while still in use. Unlike natural organic matter, most plastics do not break down into relatively benign substances; they simply divide and redivide into smaller and smaller particles of the same chemical composition. Beyond single molecules, there is no theoretical limit to how small they can get.

Microplastics are defined as fragments ranging from 5 millimeters (less than a quarter inch) down to 1 micrometer, which is 1 millionth of a meter, or 1/25,000th of an inch. (A human hair is about 70 micrometers across.) Nanoplastics, which are particles below 1 micrometer, are measured in billionths of a meter.

Plastics in bottled water became a public issue largely after a 2018 study detected an average of 325 particles per liter; later studies multiplied that number many times over. Scientists suspected there were even more than they had yet counted, but good estimates stopped at sizes below 1 micrometer—the boundary of the nano world.

A tiny particle of polystyrene plastic as imaged by a new microscopic technique. It is about 200 nanometers across, or 200 billionths of a meter. Image credit: Naixin Qian

“People developed methods to see nano particles, but they didn’t know what they were looking at,” said the new study’s lead author, Naixin Qian, a Columbia graduate student in chemistry. She noted that previous studies could provide bulk estimates of nano mass, but for the most part could not count individual particles, nor identify which were plastics or something else.

The new study uses a technique called stimulated Raman scattering microscopy, which was co-invented by study coauthor Wei Min, a Columbia biophysicist. This involves probing samples with two simultaneous lasers that are tuned to make specific molecules resonate. Targeting seven common plastics, the researchers created a data-driven algorithm to interpret the results. “It is one thing to detect, but another to know what you are detecting,” said Min.

The researchers tested three popular brands of bottled water sold in the United States (they declined to name which ones), analyzing plastic particles down to just 100 nanometers in size. They spotted 110,000 to 370,000 plastic fragment in each liter, 90% of which were nanoplastics; the rest were microplastics. They also determined which of the seven specific plastics they were, and charted their shapes—qualities that could be valuable in biomedical research.

One common one was polyethylene terephthalate or PET. This was not surprising, since that is what many water bottles are made of. (It is also used for bottled sodas, sports drinks and products such as ketchup and mayonnaise.) It probably gets into the water as bits slough off when the bottle is squeezed or gets exposed to heat. One recent study suggests that many particles enter the water when you repeatedly open or close the cap, and tiny bits abrade.

However, PET was outnumbered by polyamide, a type of nylon. Ironically, said Beizhan Yan, that probably comes from plastic filters used to supposedly purify the water before it is bottled. Other common plastics the researchers found: polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride and polymethyl methacrylate, all used in various industrial processes.

A somewhat disturbing thought: the seven plastic types the researchers searched for accounted for only about 10% of all the nanoparticles they found in samples; they have no idea what the rest are. If they are all nanoplastics, that means they could number in the tens of millions per liter. But they could be almost anything, “indicating the complicated particle composition inside the seemingly simple water sample,” the authors write. “The common existence of natural organic matter certainly requires prudent distinguishment.”

The researchers are now reaching beyond bottled water. “There is a huge world of nanoplastics to be studied,” said Min. He noted that by mass, nanoplastics comprise far less than microplastics, but “it’s not size that matters. It’s the numbers, because the smaller things are, the more easily they can get inside us.”

Among other things, the team plans to look at tap water, which also has been shown to contain microplastics, though far less than bottled water. Beizhan Yan is running a project to study microplastics and nanoplastics that end up in wastewater when people do laundry—by his count so far, millions per 10-pound load, coming off synthetic materials that comprise many items. (He and colleagues are designing filters to reduce the pollution from commercial and residential washing machines.) The team will soon identify particles in snow that British collaborators trekking by foot across western Antarctica are currently collecting. They also are collaborating with environmental health experts to measure nanoplastics in various human tissues and examine their developmental and neurologic effects.

“It is not totally unexpected to find so much of this stuff,” said Qian. “The idea is that the smaller things get, the more of them there are.”

Source: Columbia University

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[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Alaska’s Iconic Columbia Glacier Still Retreats

The Columbia Glacier in southern Alaska has long been an archetype of the world’s most rapidly changing glaciers. Today, additional tidewater glaciers across the planet have garnered attention from scientists for their collective potential to contribute to sea level rise. In the meantime, the remainder of Columbia Glacier has continued its decades-long course of retreat and thinning.

The ice of a tidewater glacier originates on land and flows downslope into seawater, where the glacier loses mass through the calving of icebergs. Columbia’s ice descends from an icefield 3,050 meters (10,000 feet) above sea level, down the flanks of the Chugach Mountains, and into a fjord that leads into Prince William Sound. The glacier once reached south across Columbia Bay to Heather Island. But since the 1980s, it has lost more than half of its total thickness and volume, and its front has retreated more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) north into the bay.

These images (above) reveal some of the more recent changes, showing the glacier’s position during the summers of 2019 (TOP) and 2024 (LOWER). Both images were acquired with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8.

Notable changes persist on the glacier’s Main Branch and West Branch. (The glacier split into these two branches around 2011.) The Main Branch was constricted for several years by the rocky outcrop north of the Great Nunatak, visible in 2016 in the photograph below. Christopher McNeil, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, pointed out that the Main Branch has since pulled away from this pinning point.

“That peninsula represented a constriction point for the glacier in the 2019 image,” McNeil said. “Since retreating back, the calving face has less constraint and thus a more unstable configuration.”

The West Branch appears to have already lost its tidewater terminus by 2019, as suggested that year by Shad O’Neel, a glaciologist at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. That means it no longer reaches fjord waters where it once spawned icebergs, as the Main Branch continues to do. “The fjord size looks relatively constant through the past few years, but you can see a lot of terrestrial retreat now,” O’Neel said. “It looks like a lot of new gravelly real estate.”

The rapid retreat of glaciers like Columbia can leave the surrounding land unstable. “Entire mountainsides once held back by a glacier’s ice can start to move, increasing the risk of landslides and subsequent tsunamis for coastal communities, local fishers, and shipping lanes,” McNeil said.

Tidewater glaciers tend to cycle between periods of advance and retreat. The position of a glacier’s terminus and its rate of retreat are influenced by factors such as fjord shape, sea level change, iceberg calving, and water and air temperature. These dynamics can mitigate or reinforce the effects of climate, making tidewater glaciers highly variable in how rapidly they respond to climate change.

Mauri Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols College, noted that increases in melt-accelerating feedbacks have contributed to the rapid losses observed at Columbia Glacier. A similar scenario is unfolding elsewhere in Alaska, including at Taku Glacier and Muir Inlet’s East Arm. And roughly 15,000 kilometers away, tidewater glaciers in West Antarctica have come under scientific focus for the changes occurring there.

“The wider implication of tidewater glaciers like Columbia is that they have the ability to rapidly contribute to sea level rise—much faster than their land terminating counterparts,” McNeil said. “However, not all tidewater glaciers have the same configuration as Columbia Glacier, so improving our understanding of the forcings of tidewater glaciers could help further constrain sea level rise projections from these glacier changes globally.”

View the related World of Change story to see these images in context with changes at Columbia Glacier since 1986.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Photo “Glaciar de marea (Tidewater) - Columbia Glacier, Alaska,” by Banco de Imágenes Geológicas, is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

[ufosightingsfootage]

Mysterious "Ghostly Skull" in The Sahara Desert Revealed

This is a fantastic "image of the day" on NASA's Earth Observatory website. It was released on 2nd November and shows A Ghostly Face in the Rock from space.

[tygerland]

The Great Comet of 1881. From The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings Manual (1882) by Étienne Léopold Trouvelot.

[artist-in-training-wheels]

Nexus' 7 Drones

With his sense back, Nexus first decided to make drones so that he could spy check in on his family, so he made each of them their own personal drone!

I will add little profiles of each drone under the cut and go into more detail on some of them!

Drone #1 - Name: Good_egg Follows: Sunrise

Notes: Nexus was originally going to make several versions of the egg drone but decided to only redo one (i.e. I only wanted to recreate one :)), thus creating Good_Egg. Because it can't blend in as easily, he managed to make it, so this drone, in particular, has invisibility! Good_Egg is the one to go around to the more stationary drone, get their data, and report everything back to Nexus itself. Due to the little device on it's head, it can create portals wherever it wants (like Molten).

Drone #2 - Name: Snack_Time Follows: Moondrop

Notes: Though it is not in the image, this jar is constantly full of snacks/goodies. Moon currently seems to think that this was a gag gift from either Sun or Monty (though he's leaning towards Monty). Snack_Time can move around, but normally, it's to ensure it doesn't fall off an edge.

Drone #3 - Name: Observatory Follows: Lunar

Notes: Mimics the mini star observatories you can find in stores that double as a nightlight. The little "eye" in the middle will show the moon's current phase when in idle stage. Much like Snack_Time, Observatory can also move around, but it only does so to ensure it doesn't fall over.

Drone #4 - Name: Plant_Pot Follows: Earth

Notes: Easily one of the most hidden drones, but obviously, that's the idea. Much like Snack_Time and Observatory, Plant_pot can move, but it struggles a bit due to its size. If it does move- it'll need to be an emergency. Earth seems to enjoy growing various things in the pot, changing out the plant every now and then with something else.

Drone #5 - Name: Better_Times Follows: Solar

Notes: Better_Times is a well-hidden tablet with a stand; due to this, it is the only drone that can't move on its own. However, it can act as a communication device- should something bad happen. Nexus had a few breakdowns while making Solar's drone, it went through several rough drafts. Ruin ended up having to finish it, per Nexus' request.

Drone #6 - Name: Playmate_[V.J] Follows: Dazzle

Notes: A handmade doll that Nexus took his time to create (taking advantage of the inconsistent time flow of the pocket dimension). It was sent alongside Playmate_[V.D] so it wouldn't be too suspicious. Both had a note that said, "A secret gift from me, don't mention it. -Moon". Both drones have magnets in their hands, so they can hold onto each other or even the individual they're following. When he saw their reactions, Nexus was very proud of himself- they loved their new dolls! He's even outfitted them with (most likely) nanomachines so they can get up and move around when given certain directions.

Drone #6 - Name: Playmate_[V.D] Follows: Jack O'Moon

Notes: A handmade doll that Nexus took his time to create (taking advantage of the inconsistent time flow of the pocket dimension). It was sent alongside Playmate_[V.J] so it wouldn't be too suspicious. Both had a note that said, "A secret gift from me, don't mention it. -Moon". Both drones have magnets in their hands, so they can hold onto each other or even the individual they're following. When he saw their reactions, Nexus was very proud of himself- they loved their new dolls! He's even outfitted them with (most likely) nanomachines so they can get up and move around when given certain directions.

-_-_-_-_-_-

Side Note: When I tell y'all I STRUGGLED with Moon and Solar's drones but I love how Dazzle and Jack's drones came out! Also, yes, that is the Gemini constellation on Observatory. Obviously, I had to put them there! I think the main way that the drones would be discovered is by either Jack or Dazzle accidentally tearing one of their dolls. So they go to Moon like "can you fix this, please?" and he's just sitting there like "????? I didn't make those." Thus, everyone starts realizing that they should prooooobably check their mystery gifts! That or they manage to find Good_Egg getting data from all the other drones before reporting to Nexus. =)