Best and newest image of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico as seen yesterday from NASA satellite Aqua. Using its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Aqua gives us a great image of the Gulf of Mexico 101 days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on July 28, 2010. Around the location of the oil leak, and around the Mississippi Delta, relatively light swirls and patches appear on the ocean surface. These areas might be oil slicks, although other factors could affect the water’s ability to reflect sunlight, especially near the shore. If these pale-hued sheens are oil-slicked areas, they contain very little recoverable oil, according to NOAA.

An amazing view of an impact crater as seen on the planet Mars on July 9th from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. MRO has been orbiting the red planet since August 12th 2006 and providing the best images yet from its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE). This image was one of six released today.

What caused the central pit within this impact crater: unusual subsurface layering or a lucky second impact?

Impacts into layers of alternately strong and weak material – for example, ice rich versus non-ice-rich – produce terracing such as that seen between the inner pit and the outer rim. Scientists have used terraced craters to estimate the thickness of lava flows on the Moon and elsewhere. Uneven sublimation and periglacial erosion of exposed ice-rich material in the interior of the crater may explain why the small central pit is slightly offset from center relative to the terrace and rim of the larger crater.

The pit in the center of the main feature could also be from a later impact crater striking inside and slightly off-center from the original. It has a raised rim, which is characteristic of impact craters and is difficult to explain with a layered target. While no ejecta from this later impact can be seen, the ejecta could have been removed by extensive periglacial modification. Additionally, the floor fill around the inner crater resembles impact ejects elsewhere at this latitude, and some of the “landslides” to the East could be flow-back of ejecta off the walls of the larger crater.

Written by: Sarah Milkovich

Moscow Russia, the capital city is being smothered by smoke caused by peat fires. The result of a sweltering heatwave, the smog is proving to be a grave risk to the population. NASA imaged yesterday the situation from above with their Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the earth observation satellite Terra.

Acquired July 27, 2010

Smoke from peat fires hovered over a sweltering Moscow in late July 2010, the BBC reported. As firefighters tried to put out some 60 fires in the surrounding countryside, authorities advised Muscovites with breathing difficulties to stay inside or wear gauze masks. As peat bogs burned, officials urged employers to give workers siesta breaks during the hottest part of the day, and urged farmers to harvest at night, according to Bloomberg.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image of Moscow and the surrounding region on July 27, 2010. A cloudbank stops short of hiding the city from the satellite’s view, and north of the clouds, a dull blue-gray haze hangs over the area. East-southeast of Moscow, multiple fires (marked by red outlines) send thick plumes of smoke toward the northwest.

The Moscow heat wave arrived amid a severe drought that threatened to raise grain prices. The Russian Federation’s agriculture ministry declared weather-related emergencies in more than 20 crop-producing regions.

Latest release by European Southern Observatory, image details below.

A spectacular new image from ESO’s Wide Field Imager at the La Silla Observatory in Chile shows the brilliant and unusual star WR 22 and its colourful surroundings. WR 22 is a very hot and bright star that is shedding its atmosphere into space at a rate many millions of times faster than the Sun. It lies in the outer part of the dramatic Carina Nebula from which it formed.

A spectacular new image from ESO’s Wide Field Imager at the La Silla Observatory in Chile shows the brilliant and unusual star WR 22 and its colourful surroundings. WR 22 is a very hot and bright star that is shedding its atmosphere into space at a rate many millions of times faster than the Sun. It lies in the outer part of the dramatic Carina Nebula from which it formed.

Very massive stars live fast and die young. Some of these stellar beacons have such intense radiation passing through their thick atmospheres late in their lives that they shed material into space many millions of times more quickly than relatively sedate stars such as the Sun. These rare, very hot and massive objects are known as Wolf–Rayet stars [1], after the two French astronomers who first identified them in the mid-nineteenth century, and one of the most massive ones yet measured is known as WR 22. It appears at the centre of this picture, which was created from images taken through red, green and blue filters with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. WR 22 is a member of a double star system and has been measured to have a mass at least 70 times that of the Sun.

WR 22 lies in the southern constellation of Carina, the keel of Jason’s ship Argo in Greek mythology. Although the star lies over 5000 light-years from the Earth it is so bright that it can just be faintly seen with the unaided eye under good conditions. WR 22 is one of many exceptionally brilliant stars associated with the beautiful Carina Nebula (also known as NGC 3372) and the outer part of this huge region of star formation in the southern Milky Way forms the colourful backdrop to this image.

The subtle colours of the rich background tapestry are a result of the interactions between the intense ultraviolet radiation coming from hot massive stars, including WR 22, and the vast gas clouds, mostly hydrogen, from which they formed. The central part of this enormous complex of gas and dust lies off the left side of this picture as can be seen in image eso1031b. This area includes the remarkable star Eta Carinae and was featured in an earlier press release (eso0905).

NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft continues to speed towards the Pluto system for its eventual close up exploration for the first time, last month though it completed its 4th annual checkout of instruments and the spacecraft in general. During which these images were taken with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager. Unfortunately there is no larger image as with most posted on this site, but still great images that I hope you’ll enjoy.

Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) observed Neptune on June 23, as part of a test of the critical optical navigation during the mission’s latest annual checkout (ACO-4). In this 100-millisecond exposure, taken when the spacecraft was 23.2 astronomical units (about 2.15 billion miles) from Neptune, the planet appears slightly larger than a star. At the time of this observation, the solar phase angle (the spacecraft-planet-Sun angle) was 34 degrees and the solar elongation angle (planet-spacecraft -Sun angle) was 95 degrees. Only New Horizons can observe Neptune at such large solar phase angles, which can be used to study the light-scattering properties of Neptune’s atmosphere.

Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

New Horizons had an exciting flyby encounter with Jupiter in early 2007, and the spacecraft has been rapidly moving away from the giant planet ever since. The New Horizons team looked back at Jupiter during Annual Checkout (ACO) 4 to test the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI)’s ability to image targets close, in angle, to the Sun. This image was taken on June 24, when New Horizons was 16.3 astronomical units (about 1.5 billion miles) from Jupiter, at a spacecraft-Sun-planet angle of only 17 degrees. Looking like Earth’s moon at a quarter phase, Jupiter is clearly resolved, with an apparent diameter of nearly 12 LORRI pixels. LORRI also picks up the moons Ganymede and Europa, even though the exposure time was only nine milliseconds and these Galilean satellites are extremely faint in comparison to Jupiter.

NASA’s newest rover Curiosity may have just taken its first test drive here on Earth last week, but Opportunity one of two Mars rovers currently operating on Mars is doing a great job in trekking towards the 22 kilometers (13.70 miles) in diameter Endeavour crater. This image is from Sol 2312 (July 26) from the navigation camera, enjoy.

Hurricane season in the Atlantic has been mostly quiet thankfully and us folks in Florida haven’t had any tropical cyclones at all this season. Those of you who don’t know, I live in Homestead Florida. Just south of Miami, and its been pouring and leaking through my roof quiet a bit. Thankfully things have quieted again, blues skies are showing and while there are rumblings of thunder away from here I’m happy to report I’m dry for the moment. Now though, the second named storm of the season heads to the Gulf of Mexico. Halting the progress on the relief well that is nearly complete for up to two weeks. The cap at least will continue to hold the oil from further spewing forth, but alas it will be quiet a bit time before they get back to killing the well. So stay dry and enjoy the image as well as video below. Both are from the NOAA GOES-13 satellite, for further updates on Bonnie I’d suggest the National Hurricane Center.

This visible image from the GOES-13 satellite on July 23 at 1140 UTC (7:40 am. EDT) shows Tropical Storm Bonnie’s cloud-covered center south of Miami, Fla.

The latest satellite image of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico as viewed on July 19th. NASA satellites continue to give a broader view of the disaster still unfolding after 91 days on. You can also see all the satellite images NASA has taken of the oil slick in the gulf on their Earth Observatory website.

The Gulf of Mexico was speckled and streaked with small clouds on the afternoon of July 19, 2010, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image. Between the clouds, however, silvery-gray streaks of oil remained visible offshore of the Mississippi River Delta. The tan-colored waters around the river delta are full of sediment.

High definition flyover images of the central peak of Aristarchus crater. Taken March 6th earlier this year. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter continues to send back a wealth of data as it continues its mission around the moon a year after it was inserted into its polar orbit, giving us some of the best images ever taken of our nearest celestial neighbor. These images were taken with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, one of seven instruments aboard the lunar satellite with further information about its mission and instruments on its Goddard Space Flight Center Website.

The latest news and happenings with NASA. This week at NASA includes news on 22 baby turtles released off of Kennedy Space Center impacted by the Deepwater Horizon spill, the arrival of ET-138 at Kennedy in preparation for STS-134, OREOS the mini satellite from Ames Research Center, a Star Trek star from the original series at Johnson Space Center, Moon Art, and the 35th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test mission. The very first meet up in space by two nations, the first step in cooperation in space that eventually led us to the International Space Station that we have today.