<p>Something on Earth is always burning! NASA's Earth Observatory tracks wildfires across the world with <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MOD14A1_M_FIRE" target="_blank">maps available for viewing</a> from 2000-present. Some wildfires can restore <a href="/earth/ecosystems.html">ecosystems</a> to good health, but many can threaten human populations, posing a natural disaster threat.</p> <p>Check out the materials about natural disasters in <a href="/earth/natural_hazards/when_nature_strikes.html">NBC Learn Videos</a>, and their earth system science connections built up by the related secondary classroom activities.</p><p><small><em>NBC Learn</em></small></p>On May 20, 2013, a massive EF5 <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/tornado.html">tornado</a> hit Moore, Oklahoma, devastating communities and lives. The tornado, on the ground for 40 minutes, took a path through a subdivision of homes, destroying block after block of homes, and hitting two elementary schools just as school was ending as well as a hospital. Hundreds of people were injured, and 24 were killed.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of Ks0stm, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license</em></small></p>A <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024035/article">study</a> of over 40,000 written entries in Irish Annals and ice core measurements shows a strong correlation between <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/interior/eruptions.html">volcanic eruptions</a> and extreme cold weather in Ireland over a 1200 year period, from 431 to 1649. During this time up to 48 volcanic eruptions were identified in Greenland ice core records through deposition of volcanic sulfate in annual layers of ice. Find out more about <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/geosphere_volcanoes_influence_on_climate.html">volcanoes and climate</a>.<p><small><em>Image Courtesy of Marco Fulle</em></small></p>An artist's rendering of the moment of impact of a massive <a href="/our_solar_system/meteors/meteors.html">meteorite</a> at the end of the Cretaceous (at the end of the <a href="/earth/geology/hist_mesozoic.html">Mesozoic Era</a>). Many scientists have concluded for decades that a meteorite four to six kilometers in diameter impacted the Earth at this time, resulting in a <a href="/earth/past/KTextinction.html">mass extinction of dinosaurs</a> and many other life forms. Recent research suggests that perhaps <a href="/headline_universe/olpa/chicxulub.html">massive volcanic eruptions</a> may be been responsible for the extinction.<p><small><em>Courtesy of Don Davis, NASA</em></small></p>According to <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-277">NASA scientists</a>, the Voyager 1 spacecraft entered interstellar space in August 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to leave the <a href="/our_solar_system/solar_system.html">solar system</a>. The space probe is about 19 billion km from the <a href="/sun/sun.html">Sun</a>. <a href="/space_missions/voyager.html">Voyager 1 and 2</a> were launched in 1977 on a <a href="/space_missions/voyager.html">mission</a> that flew them both by <a href="/jupiter/jupiter.html">Jupiter</a> and <a href="/saturn/saturn.html">Saturn</a>, with Voyager 2 continuing to <a href="/uranus/uranus.html">Uranus</a> and <a href="/neptune/neptune.html">Neptune</a>. Voyager 2 is the longest continuously operated spacecraft. It is about 15 billion km away from the <a href="/sun/sun.html">Sun</a>.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p>This image is a montage of high resolutions photographs of the Earth taken in January 2012 by the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite. The image shows many stunning details of <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/earth.html">our home planet</a> - <a href="http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/gallery/VIIRS_4Jan2012.jpg">particularly at high resolution</a>. The beauty of our planet is obvious from space - our blue <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/overview.html">waters</a>, our white <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/cloud.html">clouds</a>, and the green from <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Life/life.html">life</a> abundant at the surface.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p>


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