SO. INDIAN OCEAN *Full update* NASA's Aqua Satellite Sees Tropical Cyclone Kate Passing Cocos Keeling Islands
- RWhat esidents of the Cocos Keeling Islands in the Southern Indian
Ocean had a Christmas day visitor they didn't want in the form of
Tropical Cyclone Kate. Kate moved through the islands and triggered
warnings on Dec. 25 before started moving away to the west. NASA's Aqua
satellite caught a picture of Kate on Dec. 25 that showed the heaviest
thunderstorms were west of the islands.
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Kate on Dec. 25 at 0705 UTC (2:05
a.m. EST) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS
instrument captured a visible image of the storm. The MODIS image
showed that the strongest thunderstorms (which appeared bright white on
satellite imagery) were west of the islands although the islands were
still being affected by the storm's northeastern quadrant at the time.
Animated infrared satellite imagery shows the system has developed a
cloud-filled eye as central convection has deepened. On December
25 at 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST) Kate had maximum sustained winds near 35
knots (40 mph/62 kph). Kate was centered near 12.4 south and 96.2 east,
just 30 nautical (34.5 miles/55.5 km) miles southwest of Cocos Island,
Australia. Kate was moving to the west at 8 knots (9.2 mph/14.8 kph). At
that time, Kate was being battered by moderate wind shear from the
northeast, and that wind shear was pushing the bulk of clouds and
showers southwest of the low-level center. By Dec. 26 after Kate
had just passed the islands, it began to intensify, as maximum sustained
winds increased to 70 knots (80.5 mph/129.6 kph). Forecasters at the
Joint Typhoon Warning Center expect Kate to strengthen to 85 knots (97.8
mph/157.4 kph) on Dec. 27 before weakening again. Kate was
centered near 12.5 south latitude and 94.1 east longitude, or about 155
nautical miles (178.5 miles/287.3 km) west of Cocos Island. Kate was
moving to the west at 3 knots (3.4 mph/5.5 kph). Kate is
forecast to move in a west-southwesterly direction over the next couple
of days and weaken back to a depression as vertical wind shear
increases. Rob Gutro
Image
of the day: NASA's RapidScat instrument aboard the International Space
Station measured the gusty winds associated with the cold front that
moved off the U.S. East coast yesterday, Dec. 25. Some of the sustained
winds were as high as 25 meters per second or 55 mph (in red)! Credit:
NASA JPL/Doug Tyler
NORTHERN
INDIAN OCEAN - System 95B is showing signs of organizing today, despite
being battered by strong vertical wind shear (20-30 knots). The low
pressure area is located neaer 5.6 north latitude and 93.2 east
longitude, about 213 nautical miles east-southeast of Colomba, Sri
Lanka. Satellite data shows some flaring convection and
thunderstorms pushed to the west of the center and located over southern
Sri Lanka. Despite the strong wind shear, maximum sustained winds at
the surface are between 25-30 knots. This tropical low has a medium
chance to develop into a depression in the next 24 hours. Today,
Dec. 26 at 750 UTC (2:50 a.m. EST) the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's
Aqua satellite captured this image of the low pressure area.
SO.
PACIFIC OCEAN - 2 Tropical Lows Losing Chances for Development. System
96P is no longer suspect for tropical cyclone formation in the South
Pacific, and the chances for System 94P to develop have dropped to low.
System 94P is centered near 19.2 south and 157.8 west, about 390
nautical miles west-southwest of Bora Bora. NOAA's GOES-West
satellite captured an infrared picture of the low pressure area on Dec.
26 at 1452 UTC (9:52 a.m. EST/U.S.) and it shows that westerly wind
shear has had a strong effect on the system. The Joint Typhoon Warning
Center noted that the storm is being "unraveled and its low-level center
exposed to outside winds." So, it appears that System 94P is also
fizzling out.
SOUTHERN
PACIFIC _ System 96P has formed near 12.4 south and 175.2 west, about
290 miles west-northwest of Pago Pago, American Samoa, but it has a low
chance of development in the next 24 hours.SOUTHERN
PACIFIC OCEAN - System 94P continues to have a high chance for
development over the next 24 hours. It is centered near 14.8 south
latitude and 158.2 west longitude, about 395 nautical miles
west-northwest from Bora Bora. It is moving south at 6 knots and
satellite imagery shows that the storm is consolidating and organizing.
This image was taken from NOAA's GOES-West satellite earlier today.
SOUTHERN INDIAN OCEAN - Warnings Remain in Effect for Tropical cyclone Kate
A tropical cyclone warning is in effect for the Cocos Keeling
Islands today as Tropical Cyclone Kate moves through. At 1500 UTC (10
a.m. EST) Kate had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots (40 mph/62
kph). Kate was centered near 12.4 south and 96.2 east, just 30 nautical
miles southwest of Cocos Island, Australia. Kate was moving to the west
at 8 knots. Kate is forecast to move in a west-sou...
SO. INDIAN OCEAN *Full Update* NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite Spots Birth of Tropical Cyclone Kate
- The tropical low pressure area previously known as System 95S
organized and strengthened into Tropical Cyclone Kate on Dec. 24 and the
Cocos Keeling Islands are expected to feel its effects on Dec. 25 and
26. NASA-NOAA's Suomi-NPP satellite passed over Kate after it formed. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite flew over newborn Tropical Cyclone Kate on Dec. 24 at 06:39 UTC (1...
Special Feature and Video: NASA Looks at Some Severe Holiday Weather from Space
Severe weather in the form of tornadoes is not something people expect
on Christmas week but a storm system on Dec. 23 brought tornadoes to
Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana. As the storm moved, NASA's RapidScat
captured data on winds while NOAA's GOES satellite tracked the movement
of the system.http://www.nasa.gov/…/nasa-looks-at-some-severe-holiday-w…/…
When Scott Kelly calls home from the International Space Station
(ISS) sometime next year, whoever answers the phone may simply hang up
on him. The calls will be welcome, but the link can be lousy, with long,
hissing silences breaking up the conversation. That’s what happens when
you’re placing your call from at least 229 mi. (369 km) above the Earth
while zipping along at 17,500 m.p.h. (28,164 kph) and your signal has
to get bounced from satellites to ground antennas to relay stations like
an around-the-horn triple play. “When someone answers, I have to say,
‘It’s the space station! Don’t hang up!’” says Kelly.
Photograph by Marco Grob for Time
That’s not likely to be necessary when he calls his brother Mark.
Perhaps best known as the husband of former Congresswoman Gabrielle
Giffords, who was grievously wounded in an assassination attempt in
2011, Mark is a former astronaut who has been to space four times. He
knows the crackle of an extraterrestrial signal in his ear, just as he
knows the singular feeling of weightlessness, the singular sweep of
Earth outside the window—and the power of 229 miles of altitude to make
a person feel alone. Drive that in the flat and it’s nothing more than
Syracuse to Boston. Fly it straight up and it’s a whole other thing. But most of all, Mark, 50, knows Scott, 50—which is how it is with
brothers, especially when they’re identical twins, born factory-loaded
with the exact same genetic operating system. The brothers’ connection
will be more important than ever beginning in March, when Scott takes
off for a one-year stay aboard the space station, setting a
single-mission record for a U.S. astronaut. Scott will be partnered in his marathon mission with Russian
cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. They, in turn, will be joined by a rotating
cast of 13 other crew members, all of whom will be aboard for anywhere
from 10 days to six months, conducting experiments and reconfiguring
various station modules for the arrival of privately built crew
vehicles, which could come early as 2017. A year in space will require Scott to leave behind a lot: his Houston
home, his daughters—Samantha, 20, and Charlotte, 11—and his girlfriend
of five years, Amiko Kauderer, a NASA public-affairs officer. (He and
his first wife are divorced.) But he won’t, in some ways, leave Mark
behind. Ever since the Apollo days, the U.S. has vaguely discussed a crewed
mission to Mars, though the target date for the grand expedition has
always remained a convenient decade or two away. But on Dec. 5, NASA
took a big step toward that goal, with the successful uncrewed test
flight of the Apollo-like Orion spacecraft—America’s deep-space ship of
the future. Add to that the competition from upstarts like Elon Musk’s
SpaceX and newbie nations like China and India, with their own surging
space programs, and the scramble for cosmic supremacy is accelerating fast.
The biggest problem with our exploratory ambitions is, simply, us.
The human body is a purpose-built machine, designed for the one-G
environment of Earth. Take us into the zero-G of space or the 0.38 G of
Mars and it all comes unsprung. Bones get brittle, eyeballs lose their
shape, hearts beat less efficiently since they no longer have to pump
against gravity, and balance goes awry. At least that’s what we know so
far. “There’s quite a bit of data [on human health] for six months in
orbit,” says space-station program manager Mike Suffredini. “But have we
reached stasis at six months, or do things change at one year? Is there
a knee in the curve we haven’t reached yet?” So NASA needs subjects to venture out and run the long-duration
tests. In a perfect experiment, every one of those subjects would also
have a control subject on the ground—someone with, say, the exact same
genes and a very similar temperament, so you could tease apart the
changes that come from being aloft for 12 months from those that are a
result of growing the same year older on Earth. In the Kelly
brothers—and only the Kelly brothers—NASA has that two-person sample
group. “The twins study didn’t come up when we were selecting crew for
the mission,” says Suffredini. “But it occurred to us later that we had
this ground-based truth in Mark.” What NASA calls a “ground-based truth,” of course, Scott calls a big
brother (by six minutes). And while the mission that is to come may be
equal parts science experiment, endurance test and human drama, it is to
the Kelly brothers (and only the Kelly brothers) just the latest mile
in a journey they’ve shared for half a century. Rocket Men It’s a matter of historical record that Scott and Mark Kelly never
got around to building an airplane. They never built a rocket ship
either, but on both counts they can be forgiven. There’s rarely much
follow-through when you’re 5 years old and you hatch your plans at
night, in whispers, after your parents have put you to bed. The brothers did their planning around the time of the Apollo 11 moon
landing, when space travel seemed sublimely cool. They were alike in
their fascination with space—and in other ways too. Like many twins,
they spoke their own private language in toddlerhood, gibberish that was
unintelligible to adults but seemed to make perfect sense to them. They
dressed alike until first grade too. “There is a picture of us in
orange shorts, orange striped shirts and bow ties,” Mark says—with a
small wince. “We did everything together until college and were always
on the edge of getting into trouble.”
Astronaut Twins: Mark and Scott Kelly, the Early Years
Courtesy Mark and Scott Kelly
At age 1, Scott, left, and Mark with their mother, Patricia Kelly in Oct. 1965.
1 of 13
By the late 1980s, both brothers were commissioned as naval aviators
and both were assigned to active duty aboard aircraft carriers. Upon
finishing their first squadron assignment and tour of duty, both became
Navy test pilots. In 1995 they applied to NASA, and by
1996, they were dressing identically once again—and once again in
orange—this time in the pressure suits of a space-shuttle astronaut. From 1999, the brothers served a combined seven missions, though they
never went to space together. (NASA had no policy against that, but
Scott nixed the idea. “I thought it would really suck for our kids to
lose both their dad and their uncle in one accident.”) And while they
insist there has never been any competition between them, their
interplay suggests a gentle tweaking all the same. “Scott flew first,”
Mark says, “but I flew twice before he got his second flight. Then I
flew my third before he did.” Over drinks at Boondoggles, an astronaut haunt in Houston, Scott
describes a stubborn eye twitch he experienced during re-entry after his
last mission, a 159-day stay aboard the space station that ended in
2011. It’s something other long-duration astronauts have complained of
too, but there is no explanation for it yet. “What do you mean your eyes twitched?” Mark asks. “Yours didn’t?” Scott responds. “No.” “Your flights weren’t long enough.” By shuttle standards, Mark’s flights were actually pretty standard in
terms of duration. His four trips ran about two weeks each, giving him a
total of 54 days in space. Scott’s first two flights were similar, but
his 159-day stay put him at a running total of 180, with a full year
coming up next. A Day in Orbit As much of an adventure as Scott’s mission is likely to be, neither
Mark nor anyone else would envy him every part of it. The ISS is
spacious enough: from end to end, it measures 358 ft. (109 m), a little
larger than a football field. The 14 modules that make up the living and
work space represent only a small fraction of that overall sprawl, but
together they provide as much habitable space as the interior of a
747—or, as the astronauts prefer to think of it, as much as a
four-bedroom house. Still, stay inside any house for a year—even one in orbit—and you’re
going to fall into a routine. For all astronauts, a day aboard the
station begins and ends in a private enclosure about the size of a phone
booth that serves as sleep chamber and personal space, with enough room
for a laptop computer, a few belongings and a sleeping bag. Reveille,
in the form of an alarm from a wristwatch or an iPad in each astronaut’s
enclosure, comes at about 6:30 a.m. (Greenwich mean time), but Scott
admits that on his last flight he often hit the snooze button. “I
wouldn’t wake up at the time it says on the schedule,” he says. “I’d
generally get 30 extra minutes of sleep.” When astronauts do crawl out of the sack, the day that unfolds
usually follows a 30/40/30 work breakdown—30% of the time devoted to
science experiments, 40% to physical exercise and monitoring the
station’s systems and 30% to fixing hardware breakdowns—which is the way
of things when your home requires 52 computers, 3.3 million lines of code, 8 miles (13 km) of wiring and 90 kW of power coming from an acre of solar panels just to keep operating. The daily schedule does allow for some downtime. Movies and books are
stocked in the station, and NASA can send up nearly any TV show the
astronauts request. The crew members are free to email with family
members whenever they want, call home when they’ve got a good downlink
and surf the Internet—though the connection can be sluggish. On this flight, the time for distractions may be especially tight,
thanks to the battery of 10 medical and psychological tests that will be
on the agenda for both Scott and Kornienko in orbit and for Mark on the
ground. Flight surgeons will run studies of cardiovascular efficiency,
blood-oxygen levels and blood volume. Bone density will be monitored,
as well as cellular aging and fluid shifts in the body. Sonograms will
be taken of the eye and optic nerve to determine how those shifts affect
vision. The body’s microbiome will come in for scrutiny as well. The bacteria
that make their home in your gut are critical to maintaining bodily
function, but everyone’s internal ecosystem is different, depending on
diet and environment. The twins’ microbiomes will be regularly
compared, via the unlovely business of analyzing body waste. “Giving
urine and stool samples is an incredibly exciting thing to do,” Mark
says drily. But in the service of human spaceflight—even when that
service is secondhand—it’s worth the small indignity. “I miss every day
I spent in space,” Mark readily admits. Your Brain on Space Travel If the body can suffer from long-term space flight, the mind is hit
even harder—and that causes NASA particular concern. Psychologists will
track Kornienko’s and Scott’s cognitive function, mood and stress
level, partly with regular—and private—interviews. They will be
especially alert for what is known as the third-quarter effect, a
slacking off of psychological performance that hits between the half and
three-quarter point of any long confinement or tour of duty. “Scott has flown a six-month mission, so we have data on him,” says
NASA psychologist Al Holland. “But it’s not a linear thing. Running a
full marathon is different from running two half-marathons.”
Here, the science must yield a bit to the wild card of human emotion,
and even a veteran like Scott may have trouble wrapping his mind around
the scope of the mission he’s about to undertake. His flight begins on
March 28, but he has to leave the U.S. on Feb. 16, since he will take
off from the Russians’ Baikonur launch complex. Recently, Kauderer, his
girlfriend, mused that since his birthday is Feb. 21, he’ll be 50 when
he leaves the country and 52 when he comes home . “I was like, ‘Thanks
for pointing that out,’” he laughs. It’s easy to make jokes at T minus three months. Things will get
harder in the spring, when the mission’s 5,920 orbits get under way. It
is then that the brother in space will be
especially fortunate to have the brother on the ground. “This is a
dangerous job,” says Mark. “The public doesn’t understand how dangerous.
But Scott can talk to someone who’s done this before.” During Scott’s last mission, it was Mark who had to lean on him—in
January 2011, when Giffords was shot. NASA got the news up to Scott, and
it was only later that the brothers could talk. For Mark, it wasn’t
quite the same. “The one person who could have given me the most
support,” he says, “was off the planet.” This time, the support will
likely come from the ground up. Mark has already retired from NASA but is a consultant for SpaceX and
has not given up thoughts of returning to space one day. Scott has not
decided whether he’ll retire when he returns to Earth in 2016. Either
way, it’s unlikely that the Kelly brothers, who once dreamed of building
a rocket ship side by side, will ever fly in one together. But if
humanity hopes to beat the biological limits that confine us to one
small planet in a trackless universe, it will depend on the kind of
science both brothers will soon make possible. Only one Kelly name will
be on the mission patch, but to those who appreciate the brothers’ bond,
it will stand for both.
Aboard
the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore
and Flight Engineer Terry Virts of NASA offered their thoughts and best
wishes to ...
Big
on social media and love science? Apply now for a NASA Social event at
NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Jan. 15 to meet Astronaut
Scott Kelly and go behind-the-scenes of his one-year mission to the
space station and all the science that entails. Deadline is tomorrow at
noon ET tomorrow. Apply at www.nasa.gov/iss1year-social.
On
Thursday, Jan. 15, 20 of NASA's social media followers will have the
unique opportunity to meet Astronaut Scott Kelly who will be launching
to the...
nasa.gov
It’s
beginning to look like Christmas on the International Space Station.
The stockings are out, the tree is up and the station residents continue
advanced space research to benefit life on Earth and in space.
It's great to be home for the holidays! The #ISS
becomes home for visiting astronauts and is home for Astronauts Barry
Wilmore and Terry Virts this holiday. Watch '93 Million Miles' set to
music from Jason Mraz: http://go.nasa.gov/1AWLCJT
A
Christmas greeting from low Earth orbit! Astronauts Barry Wilmore and
Terry Virts wish a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to the men and
women in the armed ...
The
six Expedition 42 crew members started Christmas week with a replanned
schedule after SpaceX postponed its Dragon launch until Jan. 6. The crew
would have been unloading new science and cargo from Dragon had it
arrived Sunday but instead turned its attention to ongoing science and
maintenance.
Terry Virts continued preparing for the arrival of Dragon collecting gear to be stowed for return to Earth.
blogs.nasa.gov
Love
Science? Meet Astronaut Scott Kelly and Learn About the Research
Planned for his One-Year Mission to the International Space Station
On Thursday, Jan. 15, 20 of NASA's social media followers will have the
unique opportunity to meet Astronaut Scott Kelly who will be launching
to the International Space Station for a one year mission, the longest
space mission ever assigned to a NASA astronaut. Participants will also have a chance to speak with space station scientists and...
On
Thursday, Jan. 15, 20 of NASA's social media followers will have the
unique opportunity to meet Astronaut Scott Kelly who will be launching
to the...
What will astronauts see as they return from Mars? New video recorded during NASA’s Orion return through Earth’s atmosphere provides viewers a taste of what the...
NASA
and SpaceX announced Thursday the launch of the Dragon commercial cargo
craft is now scheduled for no earlier than Jan. 6. The six-member
Expedition 42 crew postponed its Dragon mission preparations and focused
on eye exams and station maintenance.
TIME
highlights NASA's first-ever 1-year mission to the space station. See
TIME's new cover: The Year Ahead featuring Astronaut Scott Kelly. http://ti.me/1w25Qgo Learn more about the space station research goals: nasa.gov/iss-science
NASA astronaut Terry Virts unpacked Robonaut 2 so that payload controllers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama could power up its new legs for the first time.
![SO. INDIAN OCEAN *Full Update* NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite Spots Birth of Tropical Cyclone Kate
- The tropical low pressure area previously known as System 95S organized and strengthened into Tropical Cyclone Kate on Dec. 24 and the Cocos Keeling Islands are expected to feel its effects on Dec. 25 and 26. NASA-NOAA's Suomi-NPP satellite passed over Kate after it formed.
NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite flew over newborn Tropical Cyclone Kate on Dec. 24 at 06:39 UTC (1:39 a.m. EST) and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite or VIIRS instrument aboard captured a visible image of the storm. The VIIRS image showed strong thunderstorms around the center of circulation. There was also a large band of thunderstorms south of the center wrapping into it from the southwestern quadrant.
VIIRS is a scanning radiometer that collects visible and infrared imagery and "radiometric" measurements. Basically it means that VIIRS data is used to measure cloud and aerosol properties, ocean color, sea and land surface temperature, ice motion and temperature, fires, and Earth's albedo (reflected light).
According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM), at 8:00 pm WST local time (7 a.m. EST) on Dec. 24, Tropical Cyclone Kate had maximum sustained winds near 65 kilometers per hour (40 mph). It is centered near 10.9 south latitude and 98.4 longitude, or about 225 km (139.8 miles) northeast of Cocos Island. Kate is moving to the west-southwest at 19 kph (11.8 mph).
ABM says "The system has intensified and has been name Tropical Cyclone Kate. It is possible that gales will commence on the [Cocos] islands before sunrise Thursday, Dec. 25 (Christmas Day). The period of greatest risk is likely to be during the afternoon and evening on Christmas Day.
ABM stated that cyclone impacts for the Cocos Keeling Islands should be expected during Christmas and Boxing Day. The Australian Federal Police have advised a Blue Alert for communities on Home and West Island. ABM noted that the center of the tropical cyclone is expected to pass close to the islands during the afternoon of Dec. 25 (local time) and will cause very rough seas as it approaches the Cocos Keeling Islands
For updated forecasts, please visit the ABM website at: http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone,
Image: NASA/NOAA/NRL
Text: Rob Gutro/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center](https://scontent-b-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/s480x480/10351469_823998367646958_7834131005975590339_n.jpg?oh=cf92ad6e492f55b9b56f591752749b69&oe=553B1BFB)
