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Sunday 14 October 2012

BEST EARTH IMAGES OF THE WEEK XXX


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Best Earth Images of the Week, - Oct. 12, 2012
By
Our Amazing Planet, 13 October 2012.

1. Robo-maps

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For the first time, scientists have made a 3-D map of sea ice in eastern Antarctica.

The map will help reveal the amount of ice in the region, which is important for understanding how climate change is affecting Antarctica.


2. Transformation of a landscape

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Fall has come to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, bringing its bright colours and beautiful scenery - and film student Mike Kvackay was there to take a time-lapse video of nature in all its splendour. He even got a bonus cameo from the Northern Lights.

Although Kvackay, 21, hails from Chicago, he decided to enrol in cinematography at Northern Michigan University due in part to his love of the Upper Peninsula's natural beauty. Driven by his passion for photography and nature, he taught himself how to make time-lapse videos, which involve taking thousands of pictures and stitching them together into a movie. In the beginning, it wasn't easy, Kvackay said.


3. Record highs

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The sea ice circling Antarctica reached record levels late last month, extending 7.51 million square miles (19.44 million square kilometres), the most ever recorded by satellite.

The previous record was set in 2006, at 7.49 million square miles (19.39 million km), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC).


4. Odd find

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A new species of coral has been discovered that clings to the ceilings of underwater caves in the western Pacific's Coral Triangle.

Able to tolerate low levels of light, the species lacks the symbiotic algae that most corals need to survive. The newfound species is related to deep-sea corals that survive in dark conditions below depths of 130 feet (40 meters), but so far, this species has been found no deeper than 115 feet (35 m), according to a description of the species published today (Oct. 11) in the journal ZooKeys.


5. Beautiful lights

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When a powerful solar flare, known as a coronal mass ejection, hit Earth's magnetic field on Oct. 8, people living in North America's northern latitudes were treated to a spectacular light show.

This visible light image from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite shows the northern lights swirling across Canada's Quebec and Ontario provinces. The city lights of Montreal also shine in the bottom of the image.


6. Across the sky

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All was calm on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula when NASA's Terra satellite passed over at noon local time on Saturday (Oct. 6). Or so it seemed.

Underground, molten rock boiled with tectonic fury, ready to blow. And within minutes, the Shiveluch volcano erupted.


7. Antarctic drift

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As spring began to warm the Southern Hemisphere, a NASA satellite captured a snow-and-ice covered island surrounded by Antarctic icebergs.

NASA's Terra satellite spotted two icebergs, which measured more than 21 miles (35 kilometres) long, floating near South Georgia Island in the southern Atlantic Ocean, with several smaller ice chunks clustered nearby. South Georgia Island itself is only 105 miles (170 km) long from northwest to southeast.


8. Whipped around

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Winds are blowing massive clouds of Saharan dust over the Atlantic Ocean, as shown in this image captured today (Oct. 8) by NASA's Aqua satellite.

Plumes of dust extend from the Western Sahara and Mauritania to the west of the Cape Verde islands . This is the second day winds have whipped up dust storms in the region.


9. Fall Leaves at Glacier National Park

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The fall foliage in Montana's Glacier National Park has arrived, in a preview of what other parts of the country can soon expect.

The National Park Service captured the above photo on Oct. 1. The fall foliage is a brilliant blend of burnt orange and dark green, with Chief Mountain looming in the background.


[Source: Our Amazing Planet. Edited.]


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