A fast & furious jet stream high above Jupiter’s equator can help scientists understand the atmospheres of many planets, including some beyond our solar system.

Speeding through the atmosphere high above Jupiter’s equator is an east–west jet stream that reverses course on a schedule almost as predictable as a Tokyo train’s. Now, a NASA-led team has identified which type of wave forces this jet to change direction.

Similar equatorial jet streams have been identified on Saturn and on Earth, where a rare disruption of the usual wind pattern complicated weather forecasts in early 2016. The new study combines modeling of Jupiter’s atmosphere with detailed observations made over the course of five years from NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility, or IRTF, in Hawai’i.

Read more: http://go.nasa.gov/2BErshN

In temperatures that can drop below -20 degrees Fahrenheit, along a route occasionally blocked by wind-driven ice dunes, a hundred miles from any other people, a team led by two ICESat-2 scientists scientists will survey an unexplored stretch of Antarctic ice.

Learn more about their research here: http://go.nasa.gov/2zd17VZ

It’s beginning to look a lot like the holiday season in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of a blizzard of stars, which resembles a swirling snowstorm in a snow globe.

The stars are residents of the globular star cluster Messier 79, or M79, located 41,000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Lepus. The cluster is also known as NGC 1904.

Globular clusters are gravitationally bound groupings of as many as 1 million stars. M79 contains about 150,000 stars packed into an area measuring only 118 light-years across. These giant “star-globes” contain some of the oldest stars in our galaxy, estimated to be 11.7 billion years old.

Most globular clusters are grouped around the central hub of our pinwheel-shaped galaxy. However, M79’s home is nearly on the opposite side of the sky from the direction of the galactic center. One idea for the cluster’s unusual location is that its neighborhood may contain a higher-than-average density of stars, which fueled its formation. Another possibility is that M79 may have formed in an unusual dwarf galaxy that is merging with the Milky Way.

In the Hubble image, Sun-like stars appear yellow. The reddish stars are bright giants that represent the final stages of a star’s life. Most of the blue stars sprinkled throughout the cluster are aging “helium-burning” stars. These bright blue stars have exhausted their hydrogen fuel and are now fusing helium in their cores.

A scattering of fainter blue stars are “blue stragglers.” These unusual stars glow in blue light, mimicking the appearance of hot, young stars. Blue stragglers form either by the merger of stars in a binary system or by the collision of two unrelated stars in M79’s crowded core.

Credit: NASA and ESA, Acknowledgment: S. Djorgovski (Caltech) and F. Ferraro (University of Bologna)

It’s beginning to look a lot like the holidays in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of a blizzard of stars.

This swirling snow globe is the globular star cluster Messier 79, located 41,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lepus.

http://go.nasa.gov/2kpo4g7

The 2017 total solar eclipse was a scientific bonanza! Scientists looked at how the Sun's atmosphere generates heat, how the dip in solar energy affected Earth’s atmosphere, and even how to protect against contaminating other planets with bacteria. These science results and more are being shared at the American Geophysical Union meeting - #AGU17.

Read more: http://go.nasa.gov/2kpNQ3U

In late December 2014, a submarine volcano in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga erupted, sending a violent stream of ash, steam and rock into the air. The ash plumes rose as high as 30,000 feet (9 kilometers) into the sky, diverting flights. When the ash finally settled in January 2015, a newborn island with a 400-foot (120-meter) summit nestled between two older islands – visible to satellites in space. More: http://go.nasa.gov/2jOKpnF

The newly formed Tongan island, unofficially known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai after its neighbors, was initially projected to last a few months. Now it has a 6- to 30-year lease on life, according to a new NASA study. #AGU17

Meet rocket girl Tiera Fletcher who is taking one step for mankind, and one giant leap for young girls and women everywhere looking to break into the world of STEM.

Tiera, is a 22-year-old rocket structural analysis engineer who is analyzing parts of NASA's Space Launch System. She is helping NASA send a rocket to Mars. Read her interview on breaking barriers for women in research: http://bit.ly/2zSFe04

When he's not designing the software that runs spacecraft and science instruments, Nicholas Yanchik likes racing autocross.
http://go.nasa.gov/2kgl6KT

Most recent image from space reveals columns of smoke from California wildfires

Copious columns of gray-brown smoke pour off the edge of California's coast in this image of the Thomas Fire taken by NASA's Aqua satellite on Dec. 7, 2017. This raging inferno that has been described by firefighters as a "war zone" started just four days ago on December 4. Burning more than 96,000 acres and 150 structures to date according to Inciweb this fire has been urged on by one particular meteorological phenomenon in California, the Santa Ana (also known as the Diablo or Devil) winds. These winds which although typical at this time of year have been uncharacteristically ferocious of late. In fact, for the first time in the history of wind warnings, a purple wind advisory, meaning "extreme", has been issued. This advisory means winds could top 80 mph -- hurricane strength. Winds at this strength would effectively shut down fire fighting efforts, and these winds have been the catalyst that have moved this fire so far so fast. On December 7, firefighters noted that fire was moving at a rate of one football field length every second. Even if the winds weaken there is another frightening risk that could arise--unpredictability. The winds slowing down could prompt a near instant change of wind direction putting firefighters in harm's way. With only 5% of the fire contained at present the undertaking to quell this fire could be an arduous one.

NASA's Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS instrument. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. Each red spot is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than background, indicative of fire.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC