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    EO’s Satellite Puzzler: August 2012

    Every month, NASA Earth Observatory will offer up a puzzling satellite image here on Earth Matters. The third puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section below to tell us what part of the world we’re looking at, when the image was acquired, and what’s happening in the scene. Bonus points if […]

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    Perseid Peak Performance

    The All Sky camera network captured over 183 multi-station Perseid meteors Saturday night. Some truly spectacular events — see images below. The Perseids have been observed for at least 2,000 years and are associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun once every 133 years. Each year in August, the Earth passes through a cloud …

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    Earth Indicator: 3σ

    Is that a three omicron? Nope. Three, rho? Strike two. Our latest Earth Indicator is three-sigma. In Greek, sigma (σ) is the 18th letter of the alphabet. In statistics, it’s a symbol for standard deviation, a measure of how spread out a set of data points are from the average (which is often called the […]

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    Moonlit Clouds Obscure Indian Blackout

    Earlier this week, as India endured the worst blackout in its history, many readers and members of the media asked us to show the vast country without lights. Just a few weeks ago, Earth Observatory showed the world what the Mid-Atlantic United States looked like before and after a massive storm-induced blackout. (We also showed […]

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    Siberia 2012: The Thirsty Kochechum

    Kochechum River   64°42’31’’M      100° 54’ 14’’ E 10:19 p.m.  Siberia   10:19 a.m. EDT 79°F   High    48°F Low      Sunny Dr. Ranson reports: We have finally just landed on a camping spot, after a long day on the Kochechum. We spent about hours on the river today.   Last night’s camp was about 100 miles upriver – a […]

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    Siberia 2012: After the Fire

    Embenchime River    65°16’35’’N    101°9’21’’E 11:00 p.m.  Siberia      11:00 a.m. EDT 78° F  High    49°F  Low       Sunny Dr. Ranson reports: We hopped out of our tents early this morning, broke camp, grabbed a quick breakfast and headed into the forest to make our measurements.  We were in the woods by 8:30 this morning, and didn’t return […]

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    Twelve Years of Fires

    Besides acquiring photo-like images of the surface of Earth, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites can detect the anomalously high temperatures associated with actively burning fires. Using this “hotspot” data, John Nelson of IDV Solutions made a map of major fires in the contiguous 48 United States from 2001 […]

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    Siberia 2012: Smoke and Rising Waters

    Embenchime River    66.34 N   100.63 E   11:30 p.m. Siberia, 11:30 a.m. EDT 78°F High   52°F Low      Partially cloudy Dr. Ranson reports: I am tired tonight.  Actually, I think everyone is tired, because it was a very long and intense day. The day started early.  Really early.  As in, today’s work started late last night. As […]

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    Tall Crops

    Sab Kim Jet Propulsion Laboratory Updates on the vegetation conditions are provided here, monitored by the crop structure team. There were localized thunderstorms on July 15th, which gave 8 mm rainfall according to the local weather data. I happened to be in the field(!) and believe the campaign fields received much more. Some fields outside […]

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    Siberia 2012: Laundry Day

    Embenchime River    66.57 N  99.28 E 79°F High  45°F Low 10:15 p.m. Siberia   10:15 a.m. EDT Dr. Ranson reports: Tonight, I’m calling in from my tent.  I’m not going to bed – I’ve turned it into an office, because it makes it easier to work on the computer and the data terminal if I’m shaded […]

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