[Friday, August 1, 2008] On August 1, a total solar eclipse was visible in parts of Canada, northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia, Mongolia and China.

[Thursday, August 7, 2008] Almost all the AMASE team with their boxes of instruments and gear and tools and such assembled in Longyearbyen in a big conference room at the Radisson and unpacked equipment and started assembling the instruments and running tests.

[Friday, August 8, 2008] We don't have spacecraft to take us outside our solar system--not yet, at least. Still, astronomers thought they had a pretty good understanding of how our solar system formed and in turn, how others formed.

[Monday, August 11, 2008] Students from OSU's Radiation Physics Laboratory built and successfully launched a cosmic radiation detector this summer that reached the edge of outer space.

[Monday, August 11, 2008] "Svalbard is one of my most favorite places to be in the world.so it came to the point where I made the decision to concentrate my research project for my dissertation on Svalbard."

[Wednesday, August 13, 2008] Dramatic year-to-year temperature swings and a century-long warming trend across West Antarctica are linked to conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean, according to a new analysis of ice cores.

[Wednesday, August 13, 2008] The first scientific mission with Sentry, a newly developed robot capable of diving as deep as 5,000 meters into the ocean, has been successfully completed by scientists and engineers from WHOI and the University of Washington.

[Wednesday, August 13, 2008] Earth observation satellite data have never been in more demand than today as missions have demonstrated their ability to enable better understanding and improved management of the Earth and its environment.

[Wednesday, August 13, 2008] GOCE, the first of a series of Earth Explorer satellites to be launched into orbit, has taken off aboard a cargo aircraft for its flight to the Arkhangelsk Airport in Russia, en route to Russias Plesetsk Cosmodrome, about 800 km north of Moscow.

[Friday, August 15, 2008] For the last few years, astronomers have faced a puzzle: The vast majority of asteroids that come near the Earth are of a type that matches only a tiny fraction of the meteorites that most frequently hit our planet.

[Friday, August 15, 2008] Researchers from NASA and other institutions have identified the common thread that determines how aerosols from human activity, like the particles from burning of vegetation and forests, influence cloud cover and ultimately affect climate.

[Saturday, August 16, 2008] This detailed view depicts a portion of the Gila River channel (center) between the Sentinel Volcanic Field and Oatman Mountain in south-central Arizona.

[Saturday, August 16, 2008] This view was taken looking east as the station was flying approximately 100 kilometers off the Peruvian coast and shows Cordillera Huayhuasha.

[Saturday, August 16, 2008] A new study, co-funded by NASA, has identified a link between a warming Indian Ocean and less rainfall in eastern and southern Africa. Computer models and observations show a decline in rainfall, with implications for the region's food security.

[Saturday, August 16, 2008] Scientists have discovered ancient bacteria that rely on arsenic, rather than water, to grow during photosynthesis. Analysis indicates that this process probably dates back a few billion years.

[Saturday, August 16, 2008] Questions about the origin and nature of Earth and the life on it have long preoccupied human thought and the scientific endeavor.

[Monday, August 18, 2008] We are finished with the day's "rover operations". We got in three Sols' worth of operations, looked at many a rock and drove the rover a whiplash-inducing, NASCAR-ish 1.5 meters!

[Tuesday, August 19, 2008] Pyramids of Dashur, Egypt are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 17 crewmember on the International Space Station.

[Tuesday, August 19, 2008] Polar Mesospheric Clouds (also known as noctilucent clouds) are transient, upper atmospheric phenomena observed usually in the summer months at high latitudes (greater than 50 degrees) of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

[Tuesday, August 19, 2008] Cataclysms have occurred in the history of the universe and the Solar System. The Symposium will review those that had a critical influence on the evolution of habitable worlds and on the emergence and survival of life on Earth, and possibly elsewhere.

[Wednesday, August 20, 2008] New research finds that coal burning, primarily in North America and Europe, contaminated the Arctic and potentially affected human health and ecosystems in and around Earth's polar regions.

[Wednesday, August 20, 2008] All indications are that in FY 2009 the National Science Foundation will operate, at least until the new Congress and new Administration are in place next year, on a Continuing Resolution that fixes funding at the prior year's level.

[Thursday, August 21, 2008] Since no grid of weather stations exists on Mars, scientists depend on computer models to study the climate. Balme hopes to make those models more accurate by using data from terrestrial dust devil observations as analogs for the Martian ones.

[Wednesday, August 27, 2008] The Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere requested the SAB to establish a standing working group to provide scientific advice and broad direction NOAA's climate program in the context of both national and international activities.

[Friday, August 29, 2008] GeoEye, Inc. announced today the launch of the world's highest resolution, commercial Earth-imaging satellite is scheduled for Sept. 4, 2008, from Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

[Friday, August 29, 2008] Oxygen is constantly leaking out of Earth's atmosphere and into space. Now, ESA's formation-flying quartet of satellites,

[Friday, August 29, 2008] Following last summer's record minimum ice cover in the Arctic, current observations from ESA's Envisat satellite suggest that the extent of polar sea-ice may again shrink to a level very close to that of last year.

[Friday, August 29, 2008] Researchers examining images of gullies on the flanks of craters on Mars say they formed in sites once occupied by glaciers. The features are eerily reminiscent of gullies formed in Antarctica's mars-like McMurdo Dry Valleys.

[Saturday, August 30, 2008] The Dry Tortugas are a group of islands located approximately 75 miles west of Key West, Florida; they form the western end of the Florida Keys in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Saturday, August 30, 2008] Cape Farewell, Greenland is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 17 crewmember on the ISS. This view illustrates the southernmost tip of Greenland, known as Kap Farvel in Danish and Nunap Isua in Inuit.