Plasma clouds can provide early space weather warnings

September 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Thunderstorms kept the space shuttle Discovery from landing late Thursday at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The landing was originally set for 7.05 p.m.

September 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have just shown for the first time that one component of interstellar clouds emitting unusual infrared light know as the Unidentified Infrared Bands (UIRs) is a gaseous version of naphthalene, the chief component of mothballs back on Earth. The research was led by Michael Duncan, Regents Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia (UGA).

September 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at the University of Warwick, UK, have found what could be the signal of ideal wave "surfing" conditions for individual particles within the massive turbulent ocean of the solar wind. The discovery could give a new insight into just how energy is dissipated in solar system sized plasmas such as the solar wind and could provide significant clues to scientists developing fusion power that relies on plasmas.

August 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The mystery of why temperatures in the sun's outer atmosphere soar to several million degrees, far hotter than temperatures near the sun's surface, has been solved. New observations made with instruments aboard Japan's Hinode satellite reveal the hotter outer atmosphere is due to nanoflares.

July 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has shown strong evidence that as the oceans warm, clouds appear to scatter, indicating that changes in these clouds may increase global warming. The role of clouds in climate change has been a major question for decades.

July 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - New data from NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander has revealed that every night during the Martian winter, water-ice crystals fall from high, thin clouds over the north pole, just like "diamond dust" that falls through the air in the Arctic. According to a report in National Geographic News, the clouds resemble cirrus clouds on earth and the precipitation is similar to ice crystals that fall through the air in the Arctic in the middle of winter, called diamond dust.

June 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has confirmed that the mysterious 1908 Tunguska explosion that leveled 830 square miles of Siberian forest was almost certainly caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere. The research connects the two events by what followed each about a day later: brilliant, night-visible clouds, or noctilucent clouds, that are made up of ice particles and only form at very high altitudes and in extremely cold temperatures.

June 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An international team of researchers claim to have identified the 'hijacking mechanism' of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)- a finding that could lead to novel treatments for the AIDS. The team at McGill University and the affiliated Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital - along with colleagues at the University of Manitoba and the University of British Columbia have pinpointed the key cellular machinery co-opted by HIV-1 to hijack the human cell for its own benefit.

June 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at the University of Leicester, UK, have developed a new radar mode that allow observations of space weather, which can have devastating impacts for technologies on earth. The researchers have implemented a "double pulse" radar-operating mode on two radars, which form part of a global network of ground based coherent scatter radars called SuperDARN (Super Dual Auroral Radar Network).

June 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission, studying Saturn's moon Titan say its clouds are still noticeable in the southern hemisphere while fall is approaching. They monitored Titan's atmosphere for three-and-a-half years, between July 2004 and December 2007, and observed more than 200 clouds.

April 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A NASA spacecraft provided scientists with their very first view of the speed, trajectory and three-dimensional shape of powerful detonations from the sun known as coronal mass ejections (CME). This new capability will dramatically enhance scientists' ability to predict if and how these solar tsunamis could affect the Earth.

April 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Twin NASA spacecraft have provided scientists with their first view of the speed, trajectory, and three-dimensional shape of powerful explosions from the sun known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. This new capability will dramatically enhance scientists' ability to predict if and how these solar tsunamis could affect Earth.

April 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists at the University of Liverpool, UK, have discovered a five-sided ice chain structure that could be used to form clouds in the atmosphere and modify future weather patterns. Researchers, in collaboration with University College London and the Fritz-Haber Institut in Berlin, created the first moments of water condensing on matter - a process vital for the formation of clouds in the atmosphere - by analysing how the two interact on a flat copper surface.

February 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Jets of matter streaming out of stars are among the most striking cosmic phenomena, but astrophysicists were unable to explain how they achieve varied shapes. 'The predominant theory says that jets are essentially fire hoses that shoot out matter in a steady stream, and the stream breaks up as it collides with gas and dust in space - but that doesn't appear to be so after all,' said Adam Frank, professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester and co-author of the paper.

January 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Extreme solar eruptions could disrupt communications, power grids and other technology on earth by 2012. These eruptions are expected to increase in frequency and intensity towards the next solar maximum cycle which peaks in 2012, up from the current minimum of its 11-year activity cycle.