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Archive for university of hawaii

Institute for Astronomy to hold annual open house on Sunday, April 14

By alkaon on April 3, 2013 No Comments

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013 | Posted by |  Print This Article


How do you observe the night sky when it is daytime? You use a telescope on the other side of the world.

“Remote observing” on a telescope in Africa (weather in Africa permitting) will be one of the activities at the UH Manoa Institute for Astronomy annual Open House on Sunday, April 14, from 11a.m. to 4 p.m. at its Mānoa headquarters, 2680 Woodlawn Drive.

There will be short talks on hot astronomical topics such as comets visible in Hawaiʻi skies this year, strategies for long-term human survival, solar eclipses, and how Mauna Kea became the world’s foremost observatory.

As usual, there will be activities for everyone, from keiki to kupuna. New this year are the opportunity to build and control a robot; a display about ATLAS, the system being built at IfA to warn us about incoming space rocks; help from IfA experts in astrophotography so that you can take amazing photographs of the nighttime sky; a scale model of the solar system on the IfA lawn; and a hologram of the Thirty Meter Telescope proposed to be built on Mauna Kea.

Old favorites will be there, too, including comet and sundial making, bottle rockets, and the Bishop Museum’s Magic Planet.

Admission and parking will be free. Lunch will be available for purchase. For up-to-date information, visitwww.ifa.hawaii.edu/open-house/.

This year’s Open House is sponsored by IfA, the UH NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Friends of the IfA, and Kamehameha Schools.

Founded in 1967, the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa conducts research into galaxies, cosmology, stars, planets, and the sun. Its faculty and staff are also involved in astronomy education, deep space missions, and in the development and management of the observatories on Haleakala and Mauna Kea. The Institute operates facilities on the islands of Oʻahu, Maui, and Hawaiʻi.

 

Short URL: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/?p=316875


Author:
University of Hawaii

The University of Hawaii at Mānoa serves approximately 20,000 students pursuing 225 different degrees. Coming from every Hawaiian island, every state in the nation, and more than 100 countries, UHM students matriculate in an enriching environment for the global exchange of ideas. For more information, visit http://manoa.hawaii.edu


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Article source: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/institute-for-astronomy-to-hold-annual-open-house-on-sunday-april-14/123

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New image sensor on UH 2.2-meter telescope dubbed revolutionary

By alkaon on June 22, 2012 No Comments
June 21, 2012 | Mauna Kea, Science Tech Environment

MAUNA KEA, Hawaii: The University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy released the remarkable first infrared astronomy image on Thursday, which was taken by its 2.2-meter telescope on Mauna Kea with new 16-megapixel HAWAII 4RG-15 image sensor.

The field observed is 4096 pixels square and half the diameter of the moon. It is centered on the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) in the constellation Canes Venatici, which is seen face-on. It is gravitationally interacting with the smaller companion galaxy. Spectacular star formation was triggered by this companion coming through the main disk of M51 about 500 million years ago and looping back through it in the last 50 to 100 million years. M51 can be seen through binoculars at a dark sky site and is familiar to amateur astronomers. Credit: UH Institute for Astronomy.

The University of Hawaii today released the first image obtained using its new 16-megapixel HAWAII 4RG-15 (H4RG-15) image sensor on the UH 2.2-meter (88-inch) telescope on Mauna Kea. This represents a significant step forward in astronomical infrared technology because it is the first time a sensor with anywhere near this many infrared pixels has been trained on the sky.

The image shows the Whirlpool Galaxy, a spiral galaxy 23 million light-years away. “The detail captured all across this extended infrared image really whets our appetite for getting these sensors into cameras at newer, much larger telescopes,” said Dr. Donald N. B. Hall of the UH Institute for Astronomy (IfA), who is principal investigator for the project. “The level of detail revealed by digitally zooming in anywhere in the 16-megapixel image is truly incredible.”

This sensor boasts 16 times the pixel count of an earlier sensor developed by the same team and installed on the Hubble Space Telescope during the astronauts’ last refurbishment mission. It also has four times the pixel count of the largest infrared sensors now in use at telescopes around the world.

While the 16-megapixel count is comparable to commercial imagers in today’s professional digital cameras, infrared sensors used for astronomy must also overcome two formidable technical challenges: The pixels must be sensitive to infrared colors, and they must be big enough to match the huge magnification of the image from a large telescope.

The H4RG-15 development, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, has overcome these challenges through an academic-industrial partnership that draws upon the combined expertise of the IfA, Teledyne Scientific and Imaging, GL Scientific and ON Semiconductor. This latest sensor is the culmination of a 20-year, $15-million effort that has developed five generations of increasingly larger and more powerful infrared sensors in the HAWAII series. The acronym stands for HgCdTe (mercury-cadmium-telluride) Astronomical Wide Area Infrared Imager.

To overcome the first of these major challenges—that the silicon used to fabricate visible imagers is blind to infrared light—infrared-sensitive crystals must be electrically connected to each of the 16 million pixels.

The second challenge, matching the image scale at the focus of a large telescope, means that the pixels must be huge—several hundred times that of the pixels in an iPhone, resulting in one of the largest silicon chips ever produced.

Front and back views of a 2-1/2 inch square H4RG-15 sensor mounted to its silicon carbide package. Teledyne Imaging Sensors, a world leader in creating infrared sensors, electrically connects infrared-sensitive crystals to each of the 16 million pixels by growing an alloy of mercury telluride and cadmium telluride onto a wafer that matches the readout, implanting the 16 million individual photodiodes and depositing a tiny (0.0002 inch) dot of indium at the center of each pixel. This infrared detector array is then precisely aligned with matching indium dots on the CMOS readout, and the two are clamped together with hundreds of pounds of force to complete the electrical connections, a process known as hybridization. Teledyne then mounts the hybrid sensor to a custom package produced by GL Scientific. Credit: GL Scientific.

The HAWAII-4RG-15 pushes the limits of current and foreseeable technology. Larger sensors can likely be constructed only by assembling mosaics of individual arrays, much like tiling a floor. With this technique, 64-megapixel and even gigapixel-class infrared sensors should be possible. GL Scientific, a Hawaii high-tech company founded by former IfA astronomer Dr. Gerard Luppino, is a world leader in mounting the sensors into packages and assembling these into mosaics.

The Infrared-Optical (IO) sensor development program is run out of the IfA’s Hilo facility on the Big Island of Hawaii, where Hall is located. “These detectors are vital to the long-term success of the James Webb Space Telescope and other upcoming space astronomy missions,” he commented. “They also greatly improve the infrared sensitivity of ground-based telescopes such as those on Mauna Kea today and are critical for the coming generation of 30-m-class telescopes, including the Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Mauna Kea.”

ABOVE: The four H4RG-15 readouts that can be fitted onto an eight–inch silicon wafer (shown left) contrast to the 400 plus typical computer chips in the wafer at right. (For comparison, an iPhone camera chip will easily fit within the pen.) The unprecedented yields for these very large scale silicon readouts can be attributed to the expertise and yield improvement efforts made by ON Semiconductor’s wafer fabrication teams driven by the Custom Foundry Business Unit. The achievement is a direct result of the company’s more than 35-year focus on meeting the technical needs of their military and aeronautics customers. The silicon wafers for these H4RG-15 readouts were manufactured at ON Semiconductor’s wafer manufacturing facility located in Gresham, Oregon. Credit: ON Semiconductor.

SOURCE: University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy

Article source: http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2012/06/21/new-image-sensor-on-uh-2-2-meter-telescope-dubbed-revolutionary/

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Earth Has Just One Moon, Right? Think Again

By alkaon on April 3, 2012 No Comments

The last lunar eclipse of 2011 as seen from the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles on Dec 10, 2011.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

The last lunar eclipse of 2011 as seen from the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles on Dec 10, 2011.

Everybody knows that there’s just one Moon orbiting the Earth. But a new study by an international team of astronomers concludes that everybody is dead wrong about that.

“At any time there are one or two one-meter diameter asteroids in orbit around the Earth,” says Robert Jedicke, an astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii.

Since most of these objects are too small to see, Jedicke had to use indirect methods to reach his conclusions. He started with a few well known facts.

Crazy Orbits In Space

The minimoons that orbit around Earth don’t follow nice, smooth paths — they seem to dance around the planet in the shape below.

Last week, Joe Palca told the story of the Messenger probe’s journey to Mercury. It too, doesn’t take a smooth path — watch the video below to see the trek it made to the innermost planet in our solar system.

The squiggly lines on this image show the path of a simulated minimoon that is temporarily captured by Earth. The asteroid in the corner of the image, 1999 JM8, is nearly two miles across and more than 1,000 times larger than the minimoons.
Institute for Astronomy/University of Hawaii

The squiggly lines on this image show the path of a simulated minimoon that is temporarily captured by Earth. The asteroid in the corner of the image, 1999 JM8, is nearly two miles across and more than 1,000 times larger than the minimoons.

A Long, Twisted Path To Mercury

It took the Messenger spacecraft nearly eight years to reach orbit around Mercury. Follow the topsy-turvy path the probe took to reach the planet closet to the sun.

Credit: Joe Palca, Andrew Prince, John Rose / NPR; Video courtesy NASA/Johns Hopkins University

“We know that there is a population of asteroids in orbit around the sun, that can come close to the Earth at some point in their orbit,” he says. Mostly these go whizzing by, not even slowing down to wave. “But there’s a very small sub-component of that population that are on orbits that are very much like the Earth’s.”

And so these objects, when they go by the Earth, they come by very slowly. It’s like when you’re jogging on a circular track, and a slightly faster runner passes you.

“And by coming by so slowly, there’s a small chance they can be captured by the Earth’s gravity and go into orbit around the Earth,” says Jedicke. The best estimates say about a million or more small objects pass close to the Earth every year.

So what Jedicke and his colleagues, Mikael Granvik from the University of Finland and Jeremie Vaubaillon of the Observatoire de Paris, did was write a computer program to calculate how many would be caught by Earth’s gravity and go into orbit.

For the most part, their calculations indicate that most of these objects are no larger than three feet across. But about once every 50 years there’s one the size of a garbage truck, “and maybe once every 100,000 years, there’s be an asteroid that’s about the size of a football field in orbit around the Earth,” Jedicke says.

That’s big enough to be seen with the naked eye.

No one of these minimoons sticks around for very long. That’s because while they are captured by Earth’s gravity, it’s a loose capture. “So loose that little gravitational nudges from the other planets in the solar system or from the moon can eventually just sort of dislodge them from the Earth’s gravity and allow them to go back into orbit around the Sun,” says Jedicke.

The new research appears in the journal, Icarus.

There’s reason to think that Jedicke’s conclusions are correct.

“We keep track of all the asteroids in the Earth’s vicinity,” says Paul Chodas, with the Near-Earth Object program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “And there was one, very small asteroid which was discovered to be in orbit around the Earth. We didn’t know that right away…we thought it might be an old rocket stage or some other junk left over from the space program. But the trajectory indicated it was an asteroid.

Chodas says now that there’s good reason to believe they’re there, astronomers will be able to adjust their observations to keep an eye out for these temporary minimoons.

Article source: http://www.npr.org/2012/04/03/149712082/earth-has-just-one-moon-right-think-again

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NASA Seeks Amateur Astronauts to Study Space Food

By alkaon on February 28, 2012 No Comments

In the film Mission To Mars, astronauts find a stranded and presumed dead Don Cheadle happily living on the planet’s surface, surviving on food grown in a makeshift greenhouse. Now NASA is looking to enlist the public’s help to see if such a solution, among others, might actually work on the red planet.

The NASA-funded effort is led by Cornell University and the University of Hawaii, and has been dubbed the Mars Analogue Mission and Food Study. The 120-day study is designed to discover viable food alternatives to the instant food currently used on space missions. Because planet-bound missions (for instance, to Mars) offer a gravity environment, cooking would be possible (cooking is almost impossible in microgravity environments aboard spacecrafts). And since little is known about the viability of astronauts cooking food on the surface of another planet, NASA commissioned the Mars Analogue Mission and Food Study to uncover the culinary possibilities.

Although the study is open to the public and the requirements are not as rigid as they might be for real astronauts, the space food camp is nevertheless not for the average slacker. Desired applicant attributes include: experience in a complex operational system (e.g. submarine, ambulance, airplane cockpit, control room), tobacco-free for at least 24 months, a bachelor’s degree in engineering, biological or physical sciences, mathematics, or computer science, and a background in medicine or nursing at the “first responder” level or higher. However, that’s about as strict as the rules get. After that, most people in good health between the ages of 21-65 have a decent shot at becoming a simulation astronaut.

The 4-month study will take on eight participants (6 crew members and 2 alternates) who will all receive room and board, round trip travel to and from the Ithaca, New York training workshop, and $5,000 at the end of the study. The deadline is February 29th, 2012 and, if you think you’ve got what it takes to be a interplanetary foodie, you can apply here.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

Article source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400768,00.asp

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NASA Recruits Cooks for Mars Trip

By alkaon on February 24, 2012 No Comments

Calling all chefs with ‘out of this world’ skills

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Feb 23, 2012 @ 10:38 AM
Posted by Molly Aronica, Editor

This an exciting time for people with a passion for space travel and food (and no, being a fan of astronaut ice cream and Tang does not automatically qualify you). NASA is seeking experienced cooks (who also have a degree in engineering, biological or physical sciences, mathematics or computer science) to volunteer for a simulated mission to Mars. 

The project, called the Hawaii Space Exploration Analogue Simulation (HI-SEAS), will require the six chosen participants to live in a specially contstructed base located on a Hawaiian lava flow for four months. The group of researchers leading the project (from the University of Hawaii and Cornell University) discovered that lava flows are the most similar environment to that of Mars that exists on Earth. 

The purpose of this research is to figure out how to provide the astronauts with nutritious and healthy meals that they’ll be able to cook easily and will also be interesting to their palates during a lengthy journey to Mars. 

Interested volunteers can apply here by Feb. 29, and should be prepared to test a wide variety of pre-packaged foods, cook under pressure with a very limited supply of ingredients, and develop recipes for future missions.





Article source: http://www.thedailymeal.com/nasa-recruits-cooks-test-trip-mars

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UH & NASA looking for a few good astronaut wannabes

By alkaon on February 23, 2012 No Comments

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Space junkies, strap on your spacesuits!

The University of Hawaii and NASA are on the hunt for participants for a first-of-its-kind habitat study to Mars. NASA has a mission to Mars in its sights, and Hawaii is about to play a big part. This experiment could get us one step closer to the red planet.

“We’re going to be sending people to Mars, at least Mars on the Big Island,” says UH Information and Computer Sciences professor Kim Binsted. She’s partnering with NASA -to study space food and its importance to astronauts.

Binsted explains, “Right now, when they go the space station, they tend to come back several pounds lighter than when they went. They don’t eat properly when they’re there, and that’s fine for a few months, but if you’re going for two-and-a-half years to Mars, for example, that’s not good.”

The project entails setting up living quarters on the Big Island for a six person crew. The sleeping and working conditions are less than ideal – simulating what life would look and feel like on Mars.

“They’re going to be acting as if they’re exploring Mars, so they can’t go outside without their spaceship, without their spacesuits on, they have a time delay like they would communicating from Mars,” Binsted says.

Video cameras will record their every move. Researchers will monitor the crew’s eating habits, including how often and exactly what they consume. The goal is to get a better sense of how to equip our astronauts with food that will keep them healthy on long-term space missions.

Participants must be between 21 and 65 years old. Those who complete the study will receive five-thousand dollars.

Binsted says Hawaii is the perfect place for this kind of research.”It’s got a Mars-like environment that NASA needs for its studies, but unlike some of the other places in the world that have this, Hawaii is accessible year-round.”

The experiment is expected to begin January of next year.

Copyright 2012 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

 

Article source: http://urbanhonolulu.hawaiinewsnow.com/news/news/85047-uh-nasa-looking-few-good-astronaut-wannabes

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UH & NASA looking for a few good astronaut wannabes

By alkaon on February 23, 2012 No Comments

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Space junkies, strap on your spacesuits!

The University of Hawaii and NASA are on the hunt for participants for a first-of-its-kind habitat study to Mars. NASA has a mission to Mars in its sights, and Hawaii is about to play a big part. This experiment could get us one step closer to the red planet.

“We’re going to be sending people to Mars, at least Mars on the Big Island,” says UH Information and Computer Sciences professor Kim Binsted. She’s partnering with NASA -to study space food and its importance to astronauts.

Binsted explains, “Right now, when they go the space station, they tend to come back several pounds lighter than when they went. They don’t eat properly when they’re there, and that’s fine for a few months, but if you’re going for two-and-a-half years to Mars, for example, that’s not good.”

The project entails setting up living quarters on the Big Island for a six person crew. The sleeping and working conditions are less than ideal – simulating what life would look and feel like on Mars.

“They’re going to be acting as if they’re exploring Mars, so they can’t go outside without their spaceship, without their spacesuits on, they have a time delay like they would communicating from Mars,” Binsted says.

Video cameras will record their every move. Researchers will monitor the crew’s eating habits, including how often and exactly what they consume. The goal is to get a better sense of how to equip our astronauts with food that will keep them healthy on long-term space missions.

Participants must be between 21 and 65 years old. Those who complete the study will receive five-thousand dollars.

Binsted says Hawaii is the perfect place for this kind of research.”It’s got a Mars-like environment that NASA needs for its studies, but unlike some of the other places in the world that have this, Hawaii is accessible year-round.”

The experiment is expected to begin January of next year.

Copyright 2012 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

 

Article source: http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/16998747/uh-nasa-looking-for-a-few-good-astronaut-wannabes

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Mission to munch: Simulated Mars mission aims to find best menu for trip

By alkaon on February 23, 2012 No Comments

A joint study between researchers from Cornell University and University of Hawaii-Manoa promises to keep things interesting on a simulated mission to Mars — at least in the kitchen.

One of NASA’s concerns about sending a crew on a three-year journey to the Red Planet is something called “menu fatigue.”  Months and months of eating the same, freeze-dried, prepared foods that astronauts usually eat in space (given the inability to cook much of anything) can cause even those with normally healthy appetites to eat less. 

University of Hawaii researchers say this would be a big problem on a mission because if the astronauts’ overall food intake declines, they would be at risk for nutritional deficiency, loss of bone and muscle mass, and reduced physical capabilities. 

To solve the problem, USA Today says researchers have set up a study that requires applicants to “live essentially like astronauts” for four months, dressing in simulated space suits and eating a mix of the prepared foods NASA astronauts eat today and some shelf-stable foods, such as flour, sugar and freeze-dried meats, for making their own meals.

The half-dozen volunteers chosen will move into a simulated Mars base on a Hawaii lava flow for four months in 2013 for the study — and researchers are taking applications until February 29.  If you are interested in finding out more about the study or want to apply, you can find out more at the University of Hawaii’s Web site.

Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Article source: http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/science_tech/mission-to-munch-simulated-mars-mission-aims-to-find-best-menu-for-trip

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NASA seeks cooks for Mars trip simulation

By alkaon on February 22, 2012 No Comments

NASA is looking for volunteers to prepare foods during a simulated Mars mission that will see six lucky people locked in close proximity for 120 days.

Researchers from the University of Hawaii and Cornell University are looking for volunteers for the simulation, dubbed the Hawaii Space Exploration Analogue Simulation (HI-SEAS), which will aim to solve the problems of space cuisine. The purpose is to make sure that astronauts making the long trip to Mars get proper nutrition on the trip.

Food for preparation in zero gravity is a well-established industry, and the problems of feeding people in space have led to some interesting – and by all accounts, horrible – taste and texture combinations. But it has been noted that after long periods of the same sorts of foods, “menu fatigue” sets in, and the food is less attractive. Orbital travel already takes a toll on muscles and skeletal development, so the team are going to experiment with cooking actual food as well to keep astronauts interested in eating.

“Anecdotal evidence indicates that menu fatigue may be less significant when food is cooked fresh on site rather than simply rehydrated,” says the call for volunteers. “With the right ingredient set and some skill and creativity in the kitchen, an almost infinite variety of foods can be produced, providing planetary explorers with a nutritionally balanced diet customized to their evolving needs and likes. Moreover, preparation of food is an important part of every human culture, with psychological value for both the crew and the cook.”

Initially, six volunteers will be selected for a two-week test inside an enclosed environment on Hawaii to simulate a space voyage, where they will eat prepackaged foods and meals they cook themselves, can only receive time-lagged electronic messages to simulate distance from Earth, and will only leave the capsule when wearing a space suit.

Following successful completion of this shakedown cruise-with-cruising, a four-month trial will begin to measure the longer term effects of the two forms of diet. The testers will have their energy use measured, and hopefully the effects of self-prepared meals verses prepackaged can be accurately measured. A chef will help with meal selection, to avoid a Blazing Saddles bean-feast situation.

Those looking to take on the task must have nothing to do next year, be between 21 and 65, possess a degree in engineering, biological or physical sciences, mathematics, or computer science, and be smoke-free for at least the last two years. Household cooking experience and a valid driver’s license is considered desirable.

You have until February 29 to apply. ®

Article source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/22/nasa_mars_cooks/

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Picky Eaters Need Not Apply: NASA Seeks Taste Testers for Mars Simulation

By alkaon on February 22, 2012 No Comments

Getty Images

If you can you stomach four months of experimental Mars-appropriate cooking, NASA has an experience that seems ready-made for a reality TV show.

NASA wants to figure out how it would feed astronauts a balanced, healthy diet if they take a three-year trip to the red planet. To help simulate the creative cooking juices and test out some theories, NASA is asking for interested cooks to sign up for four-month Mars simulation on a Hawaiian lava flow.

(PHOTOS: The Best Photos from Space 2011)

Participants must don imitation spacesuits, eat what astronauts currently digest, track and measure their food intake and even try their hand at cooking, using a limited array of ingredients.

The study, operated in part by Cornell University and the University of Hawaii, hopes to figure out what foods the faux-astronauts don’t get sick of (“menu fatigue”), what ingredients lend itself to easy preparation in an environment that makes cooking “nearly impossible” and what balance NASA should strike in time (wasted) preparing meals versus time that could be spent researching while in space.

While one requirement for the assignment (you can apply here by Feb. 29) is a “willingness and ability to eat a wide range of foods,” would-be participants must also hold a bachelor’s degree in engineering, biological or physical sciences, mathematics or computer science, as testing food won’t be the only activity they carry out as they simulate the living and working conditions on the lava flow base (the closest thing we have on Earth to Mars).

As study participants compile recipes and cooking tips to improve the food system for planetary missions, they too can enjoy the beauty of rehydrated meals.

PHOTOS: John Glenn: 50th Anniversary of Astronaut’s Earth Orbit

Article source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/21/picky-eaters-need-not-apply-nasa-seeks-taste-testers-for-mars-simulation/

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NASA Image of the day

Rare Clear View of Alaska

 
On most days, relentless rivers of clouds wash over Alaska, obscuring most of the state's 6,640 miles (10,690 kilometers) of coastline and 586,000 square miles (1,518,000 square kilometers) of land. The south coast of Alaska even has the dubious distinction of being the cloudiest region of the United States, with some locations averaging more than 340 cloudy days per year. That was certainly not the case on June 17, 2013, the date that the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite acquired this rare, nearly cloud-free view of the state. The absence of clouds exposed a striking tapestry of water, ice, land, forests, and even wildfires. Snow-covered mountains such as the Alaska Range and Chugach Mountains were visible in southern Alaska, while the arc of mountains that make up the Brooks Range dominated the northern part of the state. The Yukon River -- the longest in Alaska and the third longest in the United States -- wound its way through the green boreal forests that inhabit the interior of the state. Plumes of sediment and glacial dust poured into the Gulf of Alaska from the Copper River. And Iliamna Lake, the largest in Alaska, was ice free. The same ridge of high pressure that cleared Alaska's skies also brought stifling temperatures to many areas accustomed to chilly June days. Talkeetna, a town about 100 miles north of Anchorage, saw temperatures reach 96°F (36°C) on June 17. Other towns in southern Alaska set all-time record highs, including Cordova, Valez, and Seward. The high temperatures also helped fuel wildfires and hastened the breakup of sea ice in the Chukchi Sea.Image Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFCCaption: Adam Voiland
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