NASA's Traffic and Atmospheric Information for General Aviation (TAIGA) technology system

NASA's Traffic and Atmospheric Information for General Aviation (TAIGA) technology system is capable of showing pilots the altitude of nearby terrain via color. 

Yellow identifies terrain that is near the aircraft's altitude and red shows the terrain that is higher than the plane's altitude. 

Image coutresy ARC/Joseph Rios.

NASA has formally delivered to Alaskan officials a new technology that could help pilots flying over the vast wilderness expanses of the northern-most state.

The technology is designed to help pilots make better flight decisions, especially when disconnected from the Internet, telephone, flight services and other data sources normally used by pilots.

S. Peter Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and Thomas Edwards, Director of Aeronautics at Ames, met with Alaskan officials Monday to deliver the software innovation known as the Traffic and Atmospheric Information for General Aviation (TAIGA).

This aviation technology, a collection of algorithms, concepts and data, is the result of a joint effort between Ames and the State of Alaska.

Over the vast expanses of Alaska, with its mountainous terrain and extreme weather events, pilots often are disconnected from vital navigation aids and communication.

Taking on these factors, NASA developed a satellite-based communication method through which regional data is sent only to that specific region.

The customised data sets can be downloaded quickly and plugged into a mobile application.

NASA has developed only a conceptual version of the mobile software application, which includes full 3-D terrain visualization.

The algorithms, concepts and data are available as an open-source project for further development by industry and the aviation community into an end-user system. The 3-D terrain visualization software will be made available separately.

"We are excited to lend a helping hand to general aviation pilots in Alaska," said Worden. "With the TAIGA app, Alaska pilots will be able to remain independent, but with a dose of safety when needed."

In a recent test at Ames, data from a satellite-based messaging system was successfully received on the satellite receiver and viewed on the concept version of the mobile app while in flight.

Since sending data via satellite can be expensive, NASA also developed a method for tightly bundling the data to be transmitted, thereby decreasing the cost of satellite data transmission using this technology.

"Each data broadcast will go only to the areas that are appropriate for those data," said Joseph Rios, TAIGA engineer at Ames. "Once a pilot receives a data broadcast, it will be available for viewing on their iPad."

The next step in development of the TAIGA concept will be for engineers with the State of Alaska to take the NASA concept and develop it to an app that meets the specific needs of Alaskan pilots.

Ames will continue to investigate new functionalities, and Alaskan officials hope to distribute a production prototype app to general aviation pilots for testing early next year.

NASA ER-2: Melt ponds shine in MABEL laser altimeter flight images

Engineers installed a new camera system on MABEL for its summer 2014 campaign, so scientists could better understand what it measured during flights. 

A key goal of the Alaska-based campaign was to measure glacial melt ponds like this one, photographed July 16. 

Credit: NASA

Even from 65,000 feet above Earth, aquamarine melt ponds in the Arctic stand out against the white sea ice and ice sheets. These ponds form every summer, as snow that built up on the ice melts, creating crystal clear pools.

On July 16 and July 17, NASA's ER-2 aircraft flew above Alaskan glaciers and to the North Pole, carrying an instrument called the Multiple Altimeter Beam Experimental Lidar (MABEL).

MABEL is a laser altimeter, measuring the elevation of glaciers, mountains, forests and other topography below.

Scientists will use those measurements to design analysis software, or algorithms, for the upcoming Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission.

The 2014 MABEL campaign continued through July and was launched, in part, to capture melt ponds and other features of summer ice.

After nine science flights out of Fairbanks, Alaska, the ER-2 and MABEL returned to California on Aug. 1, gathering additional data along the way.

For this campaign, engineers added a new camera system to allow the team to match the MABEL measurements with a visual glimpse of the ground.

The digital camera takes a picture every 3 seconds, each frame capturing an area about 2.5 by 1.5 kilometers (1.6 by 0.9 miles).

Some of these first images downloaded were just what the MABEL team wanted to see, said Thorsten Markus, ICESat-2 project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

They want to understand how the MABEL data collected over a melt pond differs from data collected over open water, ice and more, and the images indicate there will be good measurements to analyze.

From the ER-2’s cruising altitude of 65,000 feet, the camera system snaps images of an area about 2.5 by 1.5 kilometers (1.6 by 0.9 miles). 

These melt ponds, formed by snowmelt on Alaskan glaciers, can range in size and shape. 

Credit: NASA

"We have clear open water, then we see melt ponds and then we see open water again," Markus said of a shot taken on the way to the North Pole.

"For algorithm development, this is perfect."

On a July 17 flight to the North Pole and back, the ER-2 aircraft carrying the MABEL instrument flew over fractured sea ice, dotted with melt ponds and marked by ridges formed by the dynamic ice. 

Credit: NASA

Volcano Redoubt: Volcanoes 'scream' at ever-higher pitches until they erupt

Redoubt Volcano on March 31, 2009. View to the east of the summit crater of the volcano, heavily covered with deposits from recent eruptions, many of which were preceded by harmonic tremor.

Credit: Game McGimsey

It is not unusual for swarms of small earthquakes to precede a volcanic eruption.

They can reach a point of such rapid succession that they create a signal called harmonic tremor that resembles sound made by various types of musical instruments, though at frequencies much lower than humans can hear.

A new analysis of an eruption sequence at Alaska's Redoubt Volcano in March 2009 shows that the harmonic tremor glided to substantially higher frequencies and then stopped abruptly just before six of the eruptions, five of them coming in succession.

Alicia Hotovec-Ellis

"The frequency of this tremor is unusually high for a volcano, and it's not easily explained by many of the accepted theories," said Alicia Hotovec-Ellis, a University of Washington doctoral student in Earth and space sciences.

Documenting the activity gives clues to a volcano's pressurization right before an explosion.

That could help refine models and allow scientists to better understand what happens during eruptive cycles in volcanoes like Redoubt, she said.

The source of the earthquakes and harmonic tremor isn't known precisely. Some volcanoes emit sound when magma – a mixture of molten rock, suspended solids and gas bubbles – resonates as it pushes up through thin cracks in the Earth's crust.

But Hotovec-Ellis believes in this case the earthquakes and harmonic tremor happen as magma is forced through a narrow conduit under great pressure into the heart of the mountain.

The thick magma sticks to the rock surface inside the conduit until the pressure is enough to move it higher, where it sticks until the pressure moves it again.

Each of these sudden movements results in a small earthquake, ranging in magnitude from about 0.5 to 1.5, she said. As the pressure builds, the quakes get smaller and happen in such rapid succession that they blend into a continuous harmonic tremor.

"Because there's less time between each earthquake, there's not enough time to build up enough pressure for a bigger one," Hotovec-Ellis said. "After the frequency glides up to a ridiculously high frequency, it pauses and then it explodes."

She is the lead author of a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research that describes the research. Co-authors are John Vidale of the UW and Stephanie Prejean and Joan Gomberg of the U.S. Geological Survey.

The pause in the harmonic tremor frequency increase just before the volcanic explosion is the main focus of the Nature Geoscience paper.

"We think the pause is when even the earthquakes can't keep up anymore and the two sides of the fault slide smoothly against each other," Hotovec-Ellis said.

Upward-gliding tremor immediately before a volcanic explosion also has been documented at the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica and Soufrière Hills volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

"Redoubt is unique in that it is much clearer that that is what's going on," Hotovec-Ellis said. "I think the next step is understanding why the stresses are so high."

More information: Paper: DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1879

Pavlof and Cleveland volcanoes erupting in Alaska

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) photographed this striking view of Pavlof Volcano on May 18, 2013. 

The oblique perspective from the ISS reveals the three dimensional structure of the ash plume, which is often obscured by the top-down view of most remote sensing satellites. 

Situated in the Aleutian Arc about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, Pavlof began erupting on May 13, 2013. 

The volcano jetted lava into the air and spewed an ash cloud 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) high. 

When photograph ISS036-E-2105 (top) was taken, the space station was about 475 miles south-southeast of the volcano (49.1° North latitude, 157.4° West longitude). 

The volcanic plume extended southeastward over the North Pacific Ocean. (Credit: NASA)

More Information
Visit the AVO website for updated alerts and activity reports on Pavlof and Cleveland volcanoes.

Virtually travel to these locations through an AVO webcam of Cleveland volcano and a FAA webcam located in Cold Bay about 37 miles west of Pavlof.

Alert after eruption of Alaskan volcano Mount Pavlof

Mount Pavlof, one of Alaska's most restless volcanoes has shot an ash cloud 15,000 feet into the air in an eruption that is visible for miles.

An air traffic controller in the region said small planes have flown around the ash plumes.

The ash would have to rise to tens of thousands of feet to threaten larger planes.

The eruption began on Monday, and photographs show lava spraying out from the summit of the volcano, located 625 miles from Anchorage.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory said clouds of ash, steam and gas have occasionally reached the 20,000-foot level and have been visible from the nearby communities of Cold Bay and Sand Point.

Onsite seismic instruments have detected an increase in the force of tremors from the 8,262-foot volcano.

Typically, Pavlof eruptions are gas-rich fountains of lava that can shoot up to a few thousand feet, but its ash clouds are usually less dense than the plumes of more explosive volcanoes that pose a greater hazard to aircraft, scientists say.

This image shows a pyroclastic flow (superheated fluid mix of gas, lava and melted snow) racing down the slopes of Alaska's Pavlof volcano after it erupted May 13, 2013. 

CREDIT: NASA Earth Observatory

Pavlof is a 5,675-foot peak and among the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc, with nearly 40 known eruptions, according to the observatory.

The Aleutian Islands are about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, Alaska

The volcano last erupted in 2007 and during the 29-day eruption, Pavlof emitted mud flows and erupting lava, as well as ash clouds up to 18,000 feet.

In early May, Cleveland Volcano, on an uninhabited island in the Aleutian Islands, experienced a low-level eruption.

Satellite imagery shows the volcano has continued to discharge steam, gas and heat in the past week.

New analysis of earlier images showed a small lava flow going over the south east rim of the summit crater, the observatory said.

Cleveland's most recent significant eruption began in February 2001 and sent ash clouds up to 39,000 feet above sea level. It also produced a rocky lava flow and hot debris that reached the sea.

The Aleutian Islands have long been  a source of volcanic activity as the Nasa image below shows.

Cleveland Volcano, Aleutian Islands

Image credit: NASA

At 3:00 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time on May 23, 2006, Flight Engineer Jeff Williams from International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 13 contacted the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) to report that the Cleveland Volcano had produced a plume of ash.

Shortly after the activity began, he took this photograph.

This picture shows the ash plume moving west-southwest from the volcano’s summit. A bank of fog (upper right) is a common feature around the Aleutian Islands.

The event proved to be short-lived; two hours later, the plume had completely detached from the volcano.

The AVO reported that the ash cloud height could have been as high as 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) above sea level.

Cleveland Volcano, situated on the western half of Chuginadak Island, is one of the most active of the volcanoes in the Aleutian Islands, which extend west-southwest from the Alaska mainland.

It is a stratovolcano, composed of alternating layers of hardened lava, compacted volcanic ash, and volcanic rocks.

NASA Terra Satellite- Cloud Streets Off of the Aleutian Islands

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

Strong winds polished the snow of southwestern Alaska and stretched marine stratocumulus clouds into long, parallel streets in early January, 2012.

After crossing Bristol Bay, the winds scraped the clouds across the tall volcanic peaks of the Aleutian Islands.

As the wind impacted the immobile mountains, the airflow became turbulent, swirling in symmetric eddies and carving intricate patterns into the clouds on the leeward side of the islands.

At the top of this image, the bright white color indicates a thick layer of snow overlying the land of southwestern Alaska.

The pristine white is broken by the rugged Ahklun Mountain Range in the east, which is partially covered by a bank of clouds.

Off the coast of Alaska, sea ice floats in Bristol Bay, cracked and chipped by the flow of the waters which lie underneath. A few cloud streets – parallel lines of clouds – can be seen in the far northwest over land.

The clouds increase over the sea ice and become thick over open water, where row upon row of clouds lie close in perfectly parallel formation.

The Aleutian Islands stretch from northeast to southwest across the image. Sea ice, which is bright white here, lies on the windward side of the islands. A few of the tallest volcanic peaks can be seen rising from the icy islands.

The character of the cloud streets change as they impact the Aleutians, especially near the center of the image, where two rows of beautifully symmetric swirls of eddies in the clouds stretch across the sky.

These swirling formations are known as von Karman vortex streets. This true-color image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite on January 11, 2012.

Alaska's Redoubt Volcano Blows Off Steam

Redoubt is a 10,196-foot-high (3,108 meters) glacier-covered stratovolcano, about 105 miles (170 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, in Lake Clark National Park.

The volcano formed beginning about 890,000 years ago and a collapse of its summit some 10,500-13,000 years ago produced a major debris avalanche that spread across the region, according to the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program.

An eruption in 1989 hurt the region's economy and halted air travel across the globe.

The volcano's last known eruption was in 2009, and a series of small earthquakes rumbled for a few days in April 2010.

NASA Airborne Radar to Study Volcanoes in Alaska and Japan

This UAVSAR interferogram shows active volcano Mount St. Helens (left) and dormant volcano Mount Adams, both in Washington state. 

The sensor collected data for this image during flights in July 2009 and August 2010 to compute the surface deformation that could indicate activity in the volcanoes' magma. 

No deformation was evident during this period. 

Credit: NASA image

This study builds on UAV SAR research of U.S. West Coast and Hawaiian volcanoes acquired from 2009 through 2011 and additional observations of Central and South American volcanoes gathered in 2010 and 2011.

SAR Interferogram Kilauea

The deployment of NASA's C-20A (G-III) began Oct. 2 when the aircraft departed NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., imaging volcanoes in the Western United States en route to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Wash.

After refueling, the aircraft will travel on to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska.

The sensor will image volcanoes in Alaska, including those in the Aleutian Islands, before arriving at Yokota Air Force Base near Tokyo, Japan.

Yokota is the staging location for science missions to collect data about volcanoes on several islands in Japan that pose a hazard to nearby populations.

On its return, the aircraft will repeat the route, acquiring data from the opposite viewing direction, before arriving back at its base in Palmdale Oct. 11.

NASA's C-20A (G-III) banks over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., carrying the UAVSAR underbelly pod, in preparation for studying U.S. and international volcanoes. (NASA / Lori Losey)

The aircraft features a high-precision autopilot designed and developed by engineers at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. 

The Precision Platform Autopilot guides the aircraft using a kinematic differential Global Positioning System developed by JPL and the aircraft's inertial navigation system to enable it to fly repeat paths to an accuracy of 15 feet or less. 

With the precision autopilot engaged, the synthetic aperture radar is able to acquire repeat-pass data that can measure land-surface changes within millimeters.

UAVSAR provides a measurement system that complements satellite-based observations by providing rapid revisits and imaging of active volcanoes to better understand their deformation prior to, during or after an eruption.

In addition to the NASA study of volcanoes, the UAVSAR team is working with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency scientists to define cross-calibration sites, including flight lines over disaster and forested areas, between the UAVSAR and the PISAR-L2 airborne radars.
 

Stunning volcanic view of Alaid Volcano, Alaska

Credit: NASA

Alaid Volcano, the northernmost and highest volcano in the Kuril Island chain, which stretches from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula to Japan.

Part of Russian territory, Alaid has the textbook cone-shape summit of a composite volcano and tops out at 7,674 feet (2,339 meters). 

A composite volcano, or stratovolcano, is made of many layers of hardened lava and ash spewed out during periodic eruptions.

NASA Aqua Image: Bering Sea Teeming with Ice

For most of the winter of 2011–2012, the Bering Sea has been choking with sea ice.

Though ice obviously forms there every year, the extent of the ice cover has been unusually widespread this season.

In fact, the past several months have included the second highest ice extent in the satellite record for the Bering Sea region, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

The natural-colour image above shows the Bering Sea and the coasts of Alaska and northeastern Russia on March 19, 2012.

The image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Black lines mark the coastlines, many of which have ice shelves or frozen bays extending beyond their land borders.

NSIDC reported that ice extent in the Bering Sea for January was 562,000 square kilometers, at least 104,600 square kilometers above the 1979 to 2000 average. Though numbers were not released for February, the pattern persisted through to March 2012.

The accumulation of ice this season has largely been fueled by persistent northerly winds blowing from the Arctic Ocean across the Strait.

Local weather has been dominated this winter by a low-pressure system—with its counterclockwise circulation—that has brought extensive moisture from the south to coastal and interior Alaska and cold winds down across the sea to the west.

Those winds have pushed ice toward the narrow, shallow strait, where it piles up. Beyond the narrows, those same winds also push cold air and cold surface waters to lower latitudes, allowing the ice to grow farther south than usual.

As of March 16, National Weather Service forecasters noted that all of the ice cover in the Bering Sea was first year ice, much of it new and thin.

The widespread and persistent ice cover in the Bering Sea has posed significant problems for fisherman and for supply ships in the region.

The weather driving the ice has also brought extreme snowfall events to many parts of Alaska this winter.

The Bering stands in stark contrast to the rest of the Arctic ice cap, where sea ice extent was below average in both January and February.

Ice cover was down drastically on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Arctic, including the Kara, Barents, and Laptev Seas, where ice-free waters were 4 to 8 degrees Celsius (7 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit) above the norm.

Aleutian Volcano Erupts Again

A restless Aleutian volcano exploded again on Friday, according to reports in Anchorage.

Researchers from the Alaska Volcano Observatory have detected another short explosion in Cleveland on Friday.

The explosion occurred for the second time in two days.

On Wednesday night the Cleveland Volcano had spewed a small amount of ash, a potential hazard to trans-oceanic air travel, but the ash did not appear to reach above 20,000 feet, just after two days.

Satellites have not detected a high-level ash cloud that could pose a threat to trans-oceanic air travel, according to reports.

For the past few months, researchers have also detected a series of small earthquakes at the lliamma volcano in Alaska.

Volcano Eruption in Cleveland Alaska sparks Airline Alerts

Scientists raised the alert level for trans-pacific commercial air traffic on Thursday, based on the satellite images of the Cleveland volcanic eruption in Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

Satellite images at 4:02 a.m. (Alaska time) showed Cleveland Volcano had spewed ash 15,000 feet into the air in a cloud that moved east-southeast, the Associated Press reported the Alaska Volcano Observatory as saying.

Though the eruption is small and not expected to pose any threat to the big airlines at this point in time, scientists have increased the alert level from yellow to orange, which represents an increased potential of eruptions with or without ash emissions.

The airline industry had already been on alert as the ash emissions could cause disruptions for the air traffic once it reached the level of 20,000 feet. Earlier in July, satellite images showed lava build up in the crater and accumulation in the form of a dome.

The Cleveland Mountain is situated on an uninhabited Chuginadak Island and is a 5,675-foot peak.

Ferocious Alaska Storm: NOAA Satellite View

The massive storm bearing down on Alaska was caught by infrared instruments on a NOAA satellite at 9 a.m. ET on Nov. 8.

The monster storm bearing down on the west coast of Alaska was caught by the infrared sensors on board a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite.

This NOAA interactive map shows the regions affected.

The storm is predicted to bring hurricane-force winds and high waves through the Bering Strait and along the Alaskan coast.

Coastal flood warnings are in effect for much of western Alaska, and some coastal villages evacuated last night (Nov. 8), according to news reports.

"This will be extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm of an epic magnitude rarely experienced," read a statement from the NWS. "All people in the area should take precautions to safeguard their lives and property."

The storm could be one of the most severe Bering Sea storms in nearly 40 years.

The storm could be similar to a 1974 storm that socked the state, but sea ice is lower in today's warmer world, providing no protection along the coast, according to the NWS.

 CREDIT: NOAA

Bering Sea: Massive storm threatens Alaska

An unusual Bering Sea storm packing hurricane-force winds and 35ft waves is moving rapidly towards the western Alaska coastline.

The storm is travelling at 60mph and has reached the western Aleutian Islands, said Andy Brown, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Anchorage.

It could reach the beachfront city of Nome with winds hitting 85mph.

The storm is expected to produce a 10ft sea surge, forcing dozens of coastal communities to make emergency preparations. Mr Brown advised Bering Sea mariners and people living in coastal communities from Wales to Unalakleet to "prepare for a really nasty storm".

The last time forecasters saw anything similar was in 1974, when Nome also took the brunt of the storm. That surge measured more than 13ft, pushing beach driftwood above the level of the previous storm of its type in 1913.

The storm, described by Mr Brown as "big, deep, low", is taking an unusual path through the northern and eastern Bering Sea. Winds from the storm are expected to push large amounts of water into Norton Sound, raising sea levels 10ft above normal.

Making communities more vulnerable than in past years is the lack of shore-fast sea ice, said Jeff Osinsky, the National Weather Service's regional warning co-ordinator. "The presence of sea ice can sometimes act to protect coastal areas," he said.

The bigger concern will be for Alaska Natives in the 18 villages in the region. The village of Point Hope, which sits on the tip of a peninsula with the Arctic Ocean on one side and the Bering Sea on the other, is 7ft to 8ft above sea level, Mayor Steve Oomittuk said.

The Inupiat Eskimo village of about 700 people has no sea wall and no evacuation road. If evacuation becomes necessary, everyone will go to the school because it sits on higher ground and is big enough to accommodate everyone, he said.

Smaller communities that are vulnerable to storm erosion are of particular concern, especially the village of Kivalina, already one of the state's most threatened communities because of erosion.

Revealed: Orange gunk that plagued village was eggs

Scientists have identified an orange-colored gunk that appeared along the shore of a remote Alaska village as millions of microscopic eggs filled with fatty droplets.

But the mystery is not quite solved. Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday they don't know for sure what species the eggs are, although they believe they are some kind of crustacean eggs or embryos.

They also don't know if the eggs are toxic, and that worries many of the 374 residents of Kivalina, an Inupiat Eskimo community located at the tip of an 8-mile barrier reef on Alaska's northwest coast.

There's been at least one report of dead minnows found in the lagoon of the village the night the eggs appeared last week. Residents also are worried about the community's dwindling reserves in village water tanks even though the orange mass has dissipated from the lagoon and Wulik River, city administrator Janet Mitchell said.

"It seems to be all gone," she said. "But if they're microscopic eggs, who's to say they're not still in the river?"



This photo provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows a magnified close-up of the orange gunk. Scientists also don't know why the unidentified eggs suddenly emerged on the shores of Kivalina last week. Villagers say they've never seen such a phenomenon before.

"We'll probably find some clues, but we'll likely never have a definitive answer on that," NOAA spokeswoman Julie Speegle said.

Samples are being sent to a NOAA laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina, for further analysis. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation also sent samples Monday to the Institute for Marine Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Gooey, slimy substance
Kivalina residents live largely off the land, and many are worried about the effect on some wildlife and plants from the goo, which turned powdery once it dried — and probably went airborne.

Mitchell said some people went berry picking over the weekend, but couldn't tell if the goo was on the fruit, called salmonberries, which are the same color of the eggs. The caribou are in the region now, but she doesn't believe the migrating animals pose much risk as a food source.

The eggs were found on at least one roof and in buckets set all over the village to collect rain water. City Councilwoman Frances Douglas said the gooey, slimy substance was widely spread in streaks along the Wulik River and the lagoon, which is a half mile wide and six miles long. Orangey water was reported from as far away as the village of Buckland, southeast of Kivalina.

Douglas estimated the volume of eggs she could see "in excess of a thousand gallons, easily."

Revealed: Orange gunk that plagued village was eggs

Alaska: Cleveland Volcanic Eruption warning raised

A lava dome atop the massive Cleveland Volcano in Alaska's Aleutian Islands has gotten larger in the past week, and officials keeping an eye on the restive mountain have raised eruption threat levels.

The lava dome, a viscous mass of lava belched up from inside the mountain but too thick to flow down its sides, widened by 33 feet over five days, to 164 feet across.

On the fifth day, Aug. 2, the Alaska Volcano Observatory raised the volcano alert level to "watch" and aviation color code to orange, the second-highest levels in each four-level scale.

"The presence of the lava dome increases the possibility of an explosive eruption but does not necessarily indicate that one will occur," the latest report from the AVO stated.

The agency added that it does not anticipate any threat to air traffic from ash plumes or other airborne debris should Cleveland erupt. "Lava flows onto the flanks of the volcano may develop but would not be hazardous to aviation," the report said.

The 5,676-foot-tall volcano, on the uninhabited island of Chuginadak, has erupted more than 20 times since 1828. The last eruption occurred over the course of a week in late July.

The mountain is part of the infamous Ring of Fire, a string of volcanoes strewn around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean that produces some of the world's most dramatic and dangerous eruptions.

The Cleveland Volcano could put on quite a show in coming days.

"Short-lived explosions could produce an ash cloud that exceeds 20,000 feet above sea level," according to the AVO report. "These events can occur without warning and may go undetected in satellite imagery for hours."

APOD: Midnight Solar Eclipse

On June 1, the shadow of the New Moon was cast across a land of the midnight Sun in this year's second partial solar eclipse.

This picture of the geocentric celestial event above the Arctic Circle was taken near midnight from northern Finland's Kaunispää Hill in Lapland. Of course the region's reindeer were able to watch as both Moon and Sun hugged the northern horizon just above a cloud bank.

Also visible from parts of Alaska and Canada, the eclipse began at sunrise in Siberia and northern China at 19:25 UT, ending about 3.5 hours later north of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean.

Remarkably, just one lunation later, on July 1 the New Moon's shadow will again reach out and touch the Earth in a partial solar eclipse, limited in visibility to a relatively small area in the Antarctic Ocean. July's eclipse will be followed by the fourth and final partial solar eclipse of 2011 on November 25.

That eclipse will be seen from a southern land of the midnight Sun.

NASA ASTER Imgae: Alaska’s Susitna Glacier

Like rivers of liquid water, glaciers flow downhill, with tributaries joining to form larger rivers but where water rushes, ice crawls.

As a result, glaciers gather dust and dirt, and bear long-lasting evidence of past movements.

Alaska's Susitna Glacier revealed some of its long, grinding journey when the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead on Aug. 27, 2009.

This satellite image combines infrared, red and green wavelengths to form a false-color image. Vegetation is red and the glacier's surface is marbled with dirt-free blue ice and dirt-coated brown ice.

Infusions of relatively clean ice push in from tributaries in the north. The glacier surface appears especially complex near the center of the image, where a tributary has pushed the ice in the main glacier slightly southward.

Susitna flows over a seismically active area. In fact, a 7.9-magnitude quake struck the region in November 2002, along a previously unknown fault. Geologists surmised that earthquakes had created the steep cliffs and slopes in the glacier surface, but in fact most of the jumble is the result of surges in tributary glaciers.

Glacier surges--typically short-lived events where a glacier moves many times its normal rate--can occur when melt water accumulates at the base and lubricates the flow.

This water may be supplied by meltwater lakes that accumulate on top of the glacier; some are visible in the lower left corner of this image. The underlying bedrock can also contribute to glacier surges, with soft, easily deformed rock leading to more frequent surges.

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science

NASA Image: Aurora Borealis, Alaska

NASA space physicist James Spann sent this picture of the northern lights from Poker Flat, Alaska, where he was attending a conference to study auroras

NASA: Yukon River Delta, Alaska : Image of the Day

Yukon River Delta, Alaska : Image of the Day

Nature works in patterns, and one of those patterns is imprinted on the frozen Alaskan landscape in this true-color image from January 11, 2010. Like a winter-bare tree, a network of roots, or the veins, arteries, and capillaries that enclose an organ, the Yukon River branches across the snowy Yukon Delta to the Bering Sea.

The main branches of the river are bright white, the surface frozen and probably covered in snow. The smaller distributaries (the branches that break away from the main branch of the river) are darker, highlighted against the field of white that covers the rest of the delta region. Each branch flows into the Bering Sea, but the coastline is invisible in this image. The shallower water near shore has frozen, and the white sea ice blends with the white, snow-covered coast. The continuous field of white heightens the delta’s resemblance to a tree viewed against a cloudy sky.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image on January 11, 2010. The highest resolution version of the image is provided above, but the image is also available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.