High Clouds Aloft High Clouds Aloft A Cassini spacecraft image captures a bright, oblong storm swirling high through the middle latitudes of the southern hemisphere. The image was taken through a spectral filter centered on wavelengths of light that are strongly absorbed by methane gas. Hence, any light making it through this filter to the camera's detector has bounced off clouds that are high in the atmosphere, making them visible, while light passing through the cloud-free surroundings gets absorbed by the methane gas there before it reaches the lower clouds. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 5, 2009 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 890 nanometers. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Top 10 Reasons Why the World Won't End in 2012 In the early days of computers, when hard drives weighed as much as a piece of furniture, a popular phrase was "Garbage-in, Garbage-out" (GIGO). It meant that computers would unquestioningly process the most nonsensical of input data and produce nonsensical output. "GIGO" describes the abysmal lack of intelligent thought and critical thinking on the Internet when it comes to all the hysteria about the end of the world coming on December 21, 2012, just in time to ruin Christmas. I'm getting e-mail about this weekly and I expect the nonsense to ratchet up. This latest installment in decades of flaky astronomical apocalypse predictions is loosely based on the Mayan calendar that marks the end of a 5,126-year era. Apparently the Mayans knew something about the heavens we don't, according to numerous hot-selling 2012 doomsday books on the market. The ten top 2012 doomsday scenarios: 10. So what else is new under the sun? 9. Don't hold you breath. 8. This isn't nearly as easy as tipping cows.
LIVE REAL TIME SATELLITE AND SPACE SHUTTLE TRACKING AND PREDICTIONS Interactive 3D model of Solar System Planets and Night Sky