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Category: space – Page 815

Mapping Deforestation in Cambodia Photo

A new ‘Data in Action’ ArcGIS Story Map at NASA’s Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) maps deforestation in Cambodia using NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land Cover and Vegetation Continuous Fields datasets to highlight land cover changes.

The southeastern Asian country of Cambodia continues to struggle with extensive loss of its forests. In 2013, Dr. Matthew Hansen and colleagues found that Cambodia lost nearly 12,600 square kilometers of forest from 2000 to 2012. This ranked fifth worldwide for the time period (Hansen et al. 2013). Since 2012, Cambodia has continued to experience forest loss at alarming rates, loss that has extended even into the country’s national parks and protected areas. Large scale vegetation loss, or gains, can be monitored using Earth observation land data products derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on-board the Terra satellite. Data products like these are archived and distributed free of charge by NASA’s LP DAAC.

NASA Wants to Grow a Moon Base Out of Mushrooms

Fungus Among Us

The idea is to ship dormant fungus to a Moon base and, once it arrives, give it water and the right conditions to trigger growth, according to a NASA press release. That would also require a supply of photosynthetic bacteria to provide the fungus with nutrients. Once the fungus grows into the shape of a structure, it would be heat-treated, effectively killing it and turning it into a compact brick.

“Right now, traditional habitat designs for Mars are like a turtle — carrying our homes with us on our backs — a reliable plan, but with huge energy costs,” lead researcher Lynn Rothschild said in the release. “Instead, we can harness mycelia to grow these habitats ourselves when we get there.”

Massive asteroid ‘could be dangerous to life on Earth’ if it breaks up

A massive mile-long double asteroid linked to a one-inch meteor that streaked a fireball over Japan three years ago could threaten humanity in millions of years if it eventually breaks up, scientists wrote in a report published Monday.

“The potential breakup of the rock could be dangerous to life on Earth,” Toshihiro Kasuga, a visiting scientist at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and Kyoto Sangyo University, said in a release Wednesday, according to CNET. “Those resulting asteroids could hit the Earth in the next 10 million years or so.”

The findings were first reported in The Astronomical Journal Monday.

Strange ‘Martian’ Mineral Mounds Rise Up from Utah’s Great Salt Lake

Rare mounds of a crystalline mineral have emerged above the surface of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, where they’re expected to remain just a few months before disappearing again.

Scientists think these mounds may be similar to mineral structures on Mars that could preserve traces of microbes that may have lived in the planet’s saltwater lakes billions of years ago.

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