Author: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center

  • NASA Studies Cosmic Radiation to Protect High-Altitude Travelers

    NASA scientists studying high-altitude radiation recently published new results on the effects of cosmic radiation in our atmosphere. Their research will help improve real-time radiation monitoring for aviation industry crew and passengers working in potentially higher radiation environments. Imagine you’re sitting on an airplane. Cruising through the stratosphere at 36,000 feet, you’re well above the clouds…

  • NASA Sees Development of Tropical Cyclone 3S along Western Australia's Coast

    A NASA satellite provided a look at heavy rainfall occurring in a tropical low pressure system as it was consolidating and strengthening into what became Tropical Storm 3S in Southwest Indian Ocean.On January 26 the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) warned that System 90P, a low pressure area moving westward over northwestern Australia would strengthen…

  • NASA Analyzes Heavy Rainfall Over Southern Thailand

    Widespread flooding has recently caused the deaths of dozens of people in southern Thailand. Frequent and persistent downpours have resulted in record rainfall totals and NASA calculated rainfall over the region from January 5 to January 12, 2017.The Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite is part of a constellation of satellites that can…

  • NASA Spots Short-Lived Tropical Depression 01W

    In just 24 hours after Tropical Depression 01W formed in the Philippine Sea it was already falling apart. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the depression and saw the large, weakening depression being affected by wind shear.Tropical depression 01W, known in the Philippines as Tropical Depression Auring, formed near Mindanao on Jan. 8, 2017 and…

  • NASA Study Finds a Connection Between Wildfires and Drought

    For centuries drought has come and gone across northern sub-Saharan Africa. In recent years, water shortages have been most severe in the Sahel—a band of semi-arid land situated just south of the Sahara Desert and stretching coast-to-coast across the continent, from Senegal and Mauritania in the west to Sudan and Eritrea in the east. Drought…

  • NASA Sees Storms Affecting the Western U.S.

    Extreme rain events have been affecting California and snow has blanketed the Pacific Northwest. NASA/NOAA's GOES Project created a satellite animation showing the storms affecting the region from January 6 through 9, 2017, and NASA's Aqua satellite captured a look at the snowfall. At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, an animation of visible…

  • NASA Sees Tropical Cyclone 05B Form

    An area of tropical low pressure designated System 99B has consolidated and developed into Tropical Cyclone 05B. On Dec. 7 the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone 05B over the Anadaman and Nicobar Islands. The VIIRS image showed bands of thunderstorms wrapping around…