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Typhoon eye seen from space is terrifying and fascinating

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Typhoon Maysak looks imposing from orbit. ESA/NASA/Samantha Cristoforetti

Typhoon season is off to an early start this year and NASA's eyes in the skies are getting a good look at a super-typhoon that formed over the Pacific Ocean. Typhoon Maysak is still churning away, but European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti caught an image of it on March 31 as it strengthened into a super-typhoon.

Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman in space, is a member of the Expedition 42/43 crew on the International Space Station. The photo shows a massive, swirling cloud formation from an upside-down perspective. The typhoon's eye is visible as a hole in the clouds near the center. Heavy rainfall and strong thunderstorms are hidden underneath the floor of clouds.

NASA's weather satellites are tracking Typhoon Maysak, monitoring its movement, rainfall and winds. NASA notes that Maysak produced maximum sustained winds near 150 mph. The space agency's Aqua satellite captured another view of the storm system, looking almost directly down, showing the wide scope of the typhoon over the ocean.

Currently, Typhoon Maysak is heading towards the Philippines, though the Pacific Disaster Center reports it is now entering a weakening phase.

A NASA satellite takes another look at Maysak. NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

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Typhoon eye seen from space is terrifying and fascinating

'Story Time from Space' Raising Funds to Put Kids' Science in Orbit

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A few years ago, educator Patricia Tribe was cooking spaghetti and contemplating a tough question: How do you keep science in schools while still making enough time for literacy?

By 2011, the now-former director of education at Space Center Houston saw her vision realized: Astronaut Alvin Drew read a book by children's space author Jeffrey Bennett on the International Space Station during the STS-133 space shuttle mission.

"He read 'Max Goes to the Moon'" (Big Kid Science, 2012), Tribe told Space.com. Bennett was happy to contribute to the project, but at first didn't believe the messenger, she joked. "He thought it was a prank call." [Space.com's Favorite Sci-Fi and Space Books]

Four years later, Tribe's "Story Time from Space" group is bigger; members include Drew, Bennett and former Canadian astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason. There are now five books from Bennett on the station, launched on an Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares flight in January 2014. Several astronauts have read the books on video in the past year. But Tribe's group now wants to add science experiments to the stories.

The group is asking for $55,000 on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. They've raised a little more than $3,000 to date, and a Kickstarter campaign last year failed to achieve its goal. Tribe, however, says the group will keep seeking money through grants if this second campaign fails.

"We're not stopping, that's for sure," she said. The Indiegogo campaign concludes April 25.

The science experiments will deal with nine topics: balance, buoyancy, free fall, heat transfer, light, surface tension, orbit, pendulums and space's effects on the human body. Items for the experiments will include a spectrometer, a sensor to measure acceleration and discs with different colors to measure heat absorption through the station's huge cupola windows.

A typical experiment will be paired with material from one of the five books on the station, like using the spectrometer to watch the light changing during a sunset, for example. Data from the experiment will then be included in the lesson plan, which will be tailored according to student age (from primary school to university).

Despite the wide range of topics, the group's experiments fit in a box roughly 1 foot (30 centimeters) square that weighs only a couple of pounds (about 1 kilogram). They're expected to ride a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft to station on June 13, Tribe said.

The major partner for "Story Time from Space" is the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the sole operator for the United States science laboratory on the station, called Destiny. CASIS and NASA take care of the launch costs, while "Story Time", a nonprofit group, is responsible for paying for the payload creation, Tribe said.

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'Story Time from Space' Raising Funds to Put Kids' Science in Orbit

Plants use 'sixth sense' to grow on ISS

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April 2, 2015

These culture dishes hold seedlings and the growing medium for the Plant Gravity Sensing investigation, which were used during astronaut training at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agencys Tsukuba Space Center in March 2014. (Credit: European Space Agency/S. Corvaja)

Provided by Laura Niles,International Space Station Program Science Office and Public Affairs Office

Although it is arguable as to whether plants have all five human senses sight, scent, hearing, taste and touch they do have a unique sense of gravity, which is being tested in space. Researchers with theJapan Aerospace Exploration Agency will conduct a second run of thePlant Gravity Sensing study after new supplies are delivered by the sixthSpaceX commercial resupply mission to theInternational Space Station. The research team seeks to determine how plants sense their growth direction without gravity. The study results may have implications for higher crop yield in farming and for cultivating plants for long-duration space missions.

The investigation examines the cellular process of formation in thale cress, orArabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant related to cabbage. The genetic makeup of thale cress is simple and well-understood by the plant biology community. This knowledge allows scientists to easily recognize changes that occur as a result of microgravity adaptation.

NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg harvests plants from a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency investigation of Arabidopsis thaliana during Expedition 37. (Credit: NASA)

Understanding the cellular processes in plant development may translate to better knowledge of cellular processes in the human body. Since thale cress is considered amodel organism for biological research, there are genetic similarities that may reveal insights into our health. Specifically, this could impact medical science since research teams may gain a better understanding of mechanisms of diseases affected by gravity, such as osteoporosis and muscle loss.

In the Plant Gravity Sensing study, scientists examine whether the mechanisms of the plant that determine its growth direction the gravity sensor form in the absence of gravity. Specifically, the research team analyzes how concentrations of calcium behave in the cells of plants originally grown in microgravity when later exposed to a 1g environment, or gravity similar to that on Earth. Plant calcium concentrations have been shown to change in response to temperature and touch and adapt to the direction of gravity on Earth.

Plants cultivated in space are not experienced with gravity or the direction of gravity and may not be able to form gravity sensors that respond to the specific direction of gravity changes, said Hitoshi Tatsumi, Ph.D., principal investigator of the Plant Gravity Sensing investigation and associate professor at Nagoya University in Nagoya (present address: Kanazawa Institute of Technology), Japan.

Researchers use a centrifuge in theCell Biology Experiment Facility inKibo, the Japanese Experiment Module, to monitor the plants response to changes between microgravity and a simulated 1g condition. The research team does this to determine if the plants sense changes in gravitational acceleration and adapt the levels of calcium in their cells.

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Plants use 'sixth sense' to grow on ISS

The Spatials Review – Fun, Building, Conquest and Projectile Vomit – Video

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The Spatials Review - Fun, Building, Conquest and Projectile Vomit
In this video I take a look at The Spatials, a new space station sim from Weird and Wry games. In The Spatials, you #39;re given command of a new space station, and must complete missions on nearby...

By: Space Game Junkie

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The Spatials Review - Fun, Building, Conquest and Projectile Vomit - Video

Astronaut Scott Kelly sets out to break an American record in space – Video

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Astronaut Scott Kelly sets out to break an American record in space
his week, astronaut Scott Kelly arrived at the International Space Station, where he will stay for a year -- the longest duration of time any American has spent in space. While Scott is in...

By: PBS NewsHour

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Astronaut Scott Kelly sets out to break an American record in space - Video

Space Station Astronaut Snaps Breathtaking Pictures of Record-breaking Typhoon – Video

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Space Station Astronaut Snaps Breathtaking Pictures of Record-breaking Typhoon
Super Typhoon Maysak #39;s maximum sustained winds of 160 miles per hour are churning the waters of the Western Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, lashing the tiny island of Yap, with a population of only...

By: wochit News

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Space Station Astronaut Snaps Breathtaking Pictures of Record-breaking Typhoon - Video

What Happens If Russia Abandons the International Space Station?

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Bill Ingalls/NASA/Getty Images Mikhail Kornienko, Gennady Padalka, and Scott Kelly (left to right) in front of a Soyuz spacecraft simulator. Kornienko and Kelly started a one-year tour of the space station last week.

For fifty years, NASA prepared for space missions as if for battle: practice repeatedly what you must do, prepare to be surprised, and have backup plans when you are, because you will be. But now with Americas space future at stake, that principle appears to have weakened, and NASA may have overlooked something crucial.

On March 4, during testimony before a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee, NASA administrator Charles Bolden was asked about what happens if the Russians pull out of the International Space Station. (Critical ISS modules are Russian, and currently the only way for humans to travel between the ISS and the ground is via Russian Soyuz spacecraft.) Asked by the new chairman, John Culberson, about what would happen in the event that Vladimir Putins current belligerency ever led to Russia refusing to fly Americans to the space station, Bolden stated that it would be impossible for either Russia or America to operate the station without the other. Pressed by Culberson about NASA contingency plans, Bolden said You are forcing me into this answer, and I like to give you real answers, then adding I don't want to try and BS anybody. But, in the end, told the committee, We would make an orderly evacuation.

Thats itwed have time to pack and turn out the lights.

Thats the wrong answer. But Culbersons question was wrong too, narrowly focused as it was on Kremlin perfidy. Many scenarios could cripple Russias ability to fly crews to the ISS. The Russians could be victimized by technical problems with launch vehicles, suffer diplomatic problems with the Soyuz launch site (which is located in Khazakastan, a country concerned about whats been happening in Ukraine), be subject to terrorist attacks on ground infrastructure, or suddenly have to cope with age- or human-error-induced crippling of one of their station modules. Exactly what NASA and its other partners would have to do in response to any of these scenarios would deeply depend on the specific nature of the loss of function.

So to learn that NASA has spent no thought on what to do in the face of this wide gamut of possible events is disturbing. Past space disasterssuch as Apollo 13s liquid-oxygen tank explosion, Skylabs crippling launch mishaps, and the misshapen Hubble telescope mirrorwere overcome in large part because space planners had anticipated categories of failures and had then outlined response plans, albeit often with the details left to be filled in as needed.

But apparently not this time, with the most expensive and irreplaceable space station the world has ever seen? Let me suggest some half-baked answers as a starting point.

The problem of getting a US crew to the station is approaching resolution, with operational missions of commercial crew transportation vehicles from SpaceX and Boeing two or three years away. That date is budget-driven and with emergency funding could be moved significantly sooner.

Meanwhile, even if no new astronauts can be sent to the ISS, those already aboard would be able to hunker down and extend their stay significantly. It would bend and even break current medical limits (which have only recently been extended to permit a one-year stay on the station for Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly, who blasted off for the ISS last Friday) but it would be an emergency response.

The remaining safety issue would be the problem of conducting anemergency evacuation in the case that one or both of the two Soyuz spacecraft normally docked at the station were unavailable. Even here, there are conceivable short-term modifications to existing cargo vehicles, such as SpaceXs Dragon capsule, that could provide an acceptable crew return ability with bare-bones life support.

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What Happens If Russia Abandons the International Space Station?


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