Month: December 2011

GOES Satellite Video of 2011 Hurricane Season Released

The GOES series of satellites provide continuous (every 30 minutes) satellite information for the U.S. and are critical during hurricane season. GOES-11 and GOES-13 provide infrared and visible satellite data over the western and eastern U.S. and eastern Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. The 2011 hurricane season is now available in one 4.5 minute video from NOAA. GOES satellites are operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA just released a video from the GOES-13 satellite that takes the viewer through all 19 tropical cyclones that formed in the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season. Supplemental animations and images were also created by NASA’s GOES Project. Those animations show activity in each month of the 2011 hurricane season. September (below) puts on the best show, with several storms circling clockwise around the Bermuda High.

September 2011 Hurricane Season (East Coast)

Double click on image above to start the video.

NASA's Kepler Mission Confirms Its First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star

NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the “habitable zone,” the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.


To read more about this discovery go to https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepscicon-briefing.html

Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.


New Horizons Becomes Closest Spacecraft to Approach Pluto

NASA’s New Horizons mission reached a special milestone on Dec. 2, 2011, on its way to reconnoiter the Pluto system, coming closer to Pluto than any other spacecraft.

It’s taken New Horizons 2,143 days of high-speed flight – covering more than a million kilometers per day for nearly six years—to break the closest-approach mark of 1.58 billion kilometers set by NASA’s Voyager 1 in January 1986.


Read the full story at the Science@NASA website.


New Horizons Update

Dec. 10 — Total Eclipse of the Moon

The action begins around 4:45 a.m. Pacific Standard Time when the red shadow of Earth first falls across the lunar disk.  By 6:05 a.m. Pacific Time, the moon will be fully engulfed in red light. This event—the last total lunar eclipse until 2014—is visible from the Pacific side of North America, across the entire Pacific Ocean to Asia and Eastern Europe.



Learn more about lunar eclipses by viewing the video below.

Who Are NES Teachers?

The NASA Explorer Schools project invests in science, technology, engineering and mathematics educators to inspire and engage future scientists, engineers, and technicians NASA needs to continue our journey.



Are you too looking for exciting and interactive ways to connect your students to NASA? Are you in search of engaging, academically rigorous resources and activities that you can easily implement into your classroom? Do you want to give your students the opportunity to chat with a NASA expert and have their questions answered live online? Check out NASA Explorer Schools.