CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - An unmanned Delta 2 rocket lifted off from California on Saturday carrying a NASA satellite to measure how much water is in Earth’s soil, information that will help weather forecasting and tracking of global climate change.
The tiny amount of soil moisture links the planet’s overall environmental systems – its water, energy and carbon cycles - as well as determines whether particular regions are afflicted with drought or flooding.
“It’s the metabolism of the system,” NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory lead scientist Dara Entekhabi told reporters at a prelaunch news conference.
The 127-foot (39 meter) rocket, built and flown by United Launch Alliance, blasted off at 6:22 a.m. PST/1422 GMT from Vandenberg Air Force Base, located on California’s central coast, a live NASA Television broadcast showed.
The launch had been delayed a day by high winds and a second day to make minor repairs on the rocket’s insulation.
Perched on top on the rocket was NASA’s 2,100-pound (950 kg) SMAP, which will spend at least three years measuring the amount of water in the top 2 inches of Earth’s soil.
Overall, soil moisture accounts for less than 1 percent of the planet’s total water reservoir, with 97 percent in the planet’s oceans and nearly all of the rest locked in ice, said Entekhabi, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Currently, scientists rely largely on computer models to account for soil moisture.
But from its orbital perch 426 miles (685 km) above Earth, SMAP has two microwave instruments to collect actual soil moisture measurements everywhere on Earth and update the measurements every two- to three days.
Including the launch and three years of operations, the mission is costing NASA $916 million. United Launch Alliance is a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.
(Editing by Alison Williams)
They think the yellow balls could be a new stage of massive star formation.
Areas where green and red overlap appear yellow in infrared light. Astronomers realized that the yellow balls are patches where the green organic material overlaps with the red dust because stellar winds haven't pushed the organic material out into a halo yet. Astronomers think the yellow balls are the missing link between the birth of a star and the green and red bubbles they produce.
Europa is about 1,900 miles in diameter — slightly smaller than our moon. The brown veins that give the moon it's iconic beauty are still a mystery, but the leading theory is that they show where Europa's crust cracked open, letting warmer, dirtier water seep through and then freeze.
Below is a close-up of the circular impact crater in the southern hemisphere in the image above. 
The impact crater's arms reach far across the surface. Even 620 miles north of the crater you can see evidence of the white streaks in the awesome close-up shot below.
Although Galileo took the most detailed images of Europa we have, astronomers still don't know exactly how much liquid water there is or if life hides underneath the moon's icy shell. That is why, just last year, 
"Realizing what this picture depicted had a big impact on me," Garan said. "When viewed from space, Earth almost always looks beautiful and peaceful. However, this picture is an example of man-made changes to the landscape in response to a threat, clearly visible from space. This was a big surprise to me."
"We're going to have a crash-test dummy inside and a prototype seat, so we'll get data from that," Reisman said. "We're going to have a very flightlike propulsion system as far as everything that goes into the abort, including the avionics, which are going to be identical to the avionics we plan for the flight vehicle."
Above, is one of the breathtaking color images that Hubble took. Rarely do we get a chance to see three moons transit, or cross in front of, Jupiter simultaneously. In fact, a triple-transit like this won't happen again until Dec. of 2032.
There's even an amazing vine of the entire transit:
Last month, New Horizons began the "encounter phase" of its mission, which will be highlighted by the July 14 close flyby. On that date, the probe will zoom within just 8,500 miles (13,600 km) of the dwarf planet's surface.
In the 1990s, NASA's Galileo spacecraft flew by Europa a dozen times, snapping pictures of the vibrant surface. But it wasn't the surface that intrigued scientists like Vance — it was the compelling evidence Galileo found for a vast and deep liquid ocean underneath the surface.
The key reason why life is more likely to exist on Europa than most other places in the solar system is because of the tidal energy that Jupiter's powerful gravitational pull exerts on the tiny moon..jpg)
Dive deep enough, and you'll reach places on Earth that are blacker and colder than your worst nightmares. These conditions are akin to what Europa's oceans might be like, and although it's hard to imagine that anything could survive under these conditions, scientists continue to be pleasantly surprised by what they find..jpg)
Right now, NASA's Juno spacecraft is flying through space toward Jupiter, scheduled to reach the planet in July of 2016. Juno will not study Europa directly, but it will give scientists important information about how much tidal energy Jupiter exerts on Europa and, therefore, a better idea for how active its undersea hydrothermal vents may be.
You can see the original “Rockets of the World" illustration from physics professor Peter Alway's 1995 book “Rockets of the World"
The yellow version (upper right) shows carbon monoxide gas, which is concentrated in areas where new stars are being born. Meanwhile, the blue image (lower right) shows light created when charged particles get caught up in the 
When astronomers look at X-ray images like the one above, they focus on the points that shine brightest. In this case, the bright, white dots represent sources of high-energy X-rays such as the hot gas either left-over after a star explodes or ejected from a supermassive black hole. The purple shows hot gas that is also emitting x-rays, but at lower temperatures than the bright white regions.
Stars are born inside of dense, dusty clouds in space. As dust sticks together, it grows heavier, which attracts more dust. If a clump of dust grows dense enough, then the core will heat up and start generating nuclear fusion in its core. This hot gas emits light in the form of ultra-violet radiation, which is why astronomers study these wavelengths to figure out where stars are forming. 
One of Hubble's outstanding qualities is how well it can resolve distant objects. Just look at the level of detail in the image above compared to the more fuzzy ones taken by Chandra and GALEX.
Infrared light illuminates the dust within galaxies. Galaxies often contain lots of dust, which is why this image looks more complete and totally different from the ones taken by Chandra and GALEX.