Archivo del Autor: admin

New Timing for Stubble Burning in India

por | |
Deja un comentario

New Timing for Stubble Burning in India

 
A satellite image of northern India shows a plume of smoke and haze spreading across the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Gray haze is visible over the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, which are labeled. The snow-covered mountains of the Tibetan Plateau are visible to the north.
November 11, 2025

Every year for decades, long rivers of smoke and haze have spread across the Indo-Gangetic Plain in northern India from October to December. That’s when farmers in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and other states burn off plant “stubble” after the rice harvest.

When winds are weak and the atmosphere becomes stagnant, the haze can push levels of air pollution several times higher than limits recommended by the World Health Organization. Smoke typically mixes with particles and gases from other sources, such as industry, vehicles, domestic fires (heating and cooking), fireworks, and dust storms, to form the haze, though scientists consider stubble burning to be a major factor.

In some ways, the seasonal timing of stubble fires in 2025 followed typical patterns. Air quality deteriorated in Delhi and several other cities for about a month after crop fires intensified during the last week of October, explained Hiren Jethva, a Morgan State University atmospheric scientist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. For about a decade, Jethva has tracked the stubble burning season in India using satellites, and has made predictions about the intensity of the upcoming fire season based on vegetation observations.  

The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of a smoky haze darkening skies over much of the plain on November 11, 2025. According to news reports, it was the first of several days in 2025 when pollution levels exceeded 400 on India’s air quality index, the strongest rating on the scale. As in past years, the poor air quality prompted officials in some areas to close schools and institute more stringent air quality controls on construction.

However, the daily timing of burning departs from what Jethva has seen in the past. He started tracking the number of fires years ago by primarily tallying observations from MODIS—which pass over locations on Earth each morning and afternoon on the Terra and Aqua satellites, respectively. Then, most fires were lit in the early afternoon between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. local time.

But in the past few years, stubble fires have occurred progressively later in the day, Jethva said. He identified the shift by analyzing observations from GEO-KOMPSAT-2A, a South Korean geostationary satellite launched in late 2018 that collects data every 10 minutes.

Most stubble fires now happen between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., he said, meaning that fire-monitoring systems that rely solely on MODIS, or similar sensors like VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite), miss many of the fires. “Farmers have changed their behavior,” he said.

His analysis of GEO-KOMPSAT-2A observations indicates that the stubble burning activity in Punjab and Haryana was moderate in 2025 compared to other recent years. This year had higher numbers of fires compared to 2024, 2020, and 2019 but fewer fires than 2023, 2022, and 2021, he found.

Indian Space Research Organization researchers have also pointed out the shift in the timing of stubble burning. In a Current Science study published in 2025, one group reported that MSG (Meteosat Second Generation) satellite observations showed a shift in peak fire activity from about 1:30 p.m. in 2020 to about 5:00 p.m. in 2024. In December 2025, researchers with the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability, & Technology (iForest) released a multi-satellite analysis that came to a similar conclusion.

Meanwhile, parsing out precisely how much stubble fires contribute to poor air quality in Delhi compared to other sources of pollution remains a topic of active study and debate among scientists. “Studies report contributions ranging from 10 to 50 percent,” said Pawan Gupta, a NASA research scientist who specializes in air quality.

Gupta estimates that the stubble burning contribution ranges from 40 to 70 percent on a given day, dropping to 20 to 30 percent if averaged over a month or burning season, and under 10 percent if averaged annually. “Meteorological conditions—like a shallow boundary layer height and low temperature—during the burning season add extra complexity,” he said.

The timing of the fires may influence the degree to which stubble burning affects air quality. Some modeling research suggests that evening fires may lead to a stronger overnight buildup of particle pollution than early-afternoon fires because the planetary boundary layer, the lowest part of the atmosphere, tends to be shallower and have weaker winds at night, allowing pollutants to accumulate.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Adam Voiland.

References and Resources

Downloads

A satellite image of northern India shows a plume of smoke and haze spreading across the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Gray haze is visible over the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, which are labeled. The snow-covered mountains of the Tibetan Plateau are visible to the north.

November 11, 2025

JPEG (2.90 MB)

You may also be interested in:

Stay up-to-date with the latest content from NASA as we explore the universe and discover more about our home planet.

Widespread Smoke from Canadian Fires

3 min read

Fires burning in boreal forests created hazy skies across North America in summer 2025.

Article

Seeing the Monroe Canyon Fire in a New Light

5 min read

As wildland fires raged in the American West, NASA airborne technology was there to image it in incredible detail.

Article

B.C. Wildfires Send Smoke Skyward

2 min read

Lightning likely ignited several large fires that sent smoke pouring over the Canadian province in early September 2025.

Article
Keep Exploring

Discover More from NASA Earth Science

Subscribe to Earth Observatory Newsletters

Subscribe to the Earth Observatory and get the Earth in your inbox.


Earth Observatory Image of the Day

NASA’s Earth Observatory brings you the Earth, every day, with in-depth stories and stunning imagery.


Explore Earth Science


Earth Science Data

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

Space Balance and Stem Cell Research Wrap Up Week on Station

por | |
Deja un comentario

Space Balance and Stem Cell Research Wrap Up Week on Station

JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut and Expedition 73 Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui points a camera out a cupola window and photographs external International Space Station hardware. The orbital outpost was soaring 263 miles above the Atlantic Ocean northwest of Spain at the time of this photograph.
JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui points a camera out a cupola window and photographs external International Space Station hardware. The orbital outpost was soaring 263 miles above the Atlantic Ocean at the time of this photograph.
NASA

The Expedition 74 crew wrapped up the week exploring how the body balances itself in space and growing stem cells to improve health. Meanwhile, ongoing cargo operations and lab maintenance rounded out the schedule aboard the International Space Station.

Scientists are investigating how a crew member’s sense of balance, movement, posture, and visual stability adapts to living in weightlessness. They are looking at potential space-caused changes to the brain’s network, or vestibular system, when interpreting motion, position, and equilibrium in space. Results may improve astronaut training and benefit therapies for patients on Earth.

NASA Flight Engineer Chris Williams wore virtual reality goggles on Friday and responded to visual cues sent from a computer operated by NASA Flight Engineer Zena Cardman. The duo worked inside the Columbus laboratory module as doctors on the ground remotely guided the astronauts during the vestibular portion of the CIPHER human research experiment.

Williams later worked out for the exercise portion of the CIPHER study, this time looking at his cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle strength, and endurance. Cardman treated and preserved stem cells growing in space to demonstrate their superiority to those manufactured on Earth and advance a wide range of patient therapies including regenerative medicine.

Roscosmos Flight Engineers Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev also explored how a crew member’s vestibular system adapts to microgravity for their space agency’s Virtual experiment. They took turns wearing a different set of virtual reality goggles that tracked their vision helping researchers understand a crew member’s sensory interactions in weightlessness. Roscosmos scientists will also use the data to train crews for future missions and prepare them for the return Earth’s gravity.

Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui installed six material sample carriers inside the Kibo laboratory module’s airlock on Friday for robotic installation on the outside of the orbital outpost next week. The carriers house materials that will be exposed to space radiation, extreme temperature changes, and more to benefit a variety of Earth and space industries.

Station Commander Mike Fincke of NASA spent the end of the week on cargo and maintenance. Fincke first loaded cargo for disposal inside JAXA’s HTV-X1 cargo craft that will depart the station’s Earth-facing port on the Harmony module in late January. Afterward, he replaced pipes in the Tranquility module’s waste and hygiene compartment, also known as the space station’s bathroom.

Roscosmos Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov kicked off his day on orbital plumbing maintenance before moving on and photographing scientific hardware for analysis on the ground.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here.

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

Mark A. Garcia

NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim to Discuss Eight-Month Space Station Mission

por | |
Deja un comentario

NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim to Discuss Eight-Month Space Station Mission

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim poses inside the International Space Station’s cupola as it orbits 265 miles above the Indian Ocean near Madagascar.
Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim will recap his recent mission aboard the International Space Station during a news conference at 3:30 p.m. EST Friday, Dec. 19, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Watch the news conference live on NASA’s YouTube channel. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.

Media interested in participating in person must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom no later than 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.

Media wishing to participate by phone must contact the Johnson newsroom no later than two hours before the start of the event. To ask questions by phone, media must dial into the news conference no later than 15 minutes prior to the start of the call. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.

Kim returned to Earth on Dec. 9, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. He logged 245 days as an Expedition 72/73 flight engineer during his first spaceflight. The trio completed 3,920 orbits of the Earth over the course of their nearly 104-million-mile journey. They also saw the arrival of nine visiting spacecraft and the departure of six.

During his mission, Kim contributed to a wide range of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations. He studied the behavior of bioprinted tissues containing blood vessels in microgravity for an experiment helping advance space-based tissue production to treat patients on Earth. He also evaluated the remote command of multiple robots in space for the Surface Avatar study, which could support the development of robotic assistants for future exploration missions. Additionally, Kim worked on developing in-space manufacturing of DNA-mimicking nanomaterials, which could improve drug delivery technologies and support emerging therapeutics and regenerative medicine. 

Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

-end-

Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
james.j.russell@nasa.gov

Shaneequa Vereen
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
shaneequa.y.vereen@nasa.gov

Share

Details

Last Updated

Dec 12, 2025

Editor
Jessica Taveau
Location
NASA Headquarters

Related Terms

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Jessica Taveau

NASA’s Webb, Curiosity Named in TIME’s Best Inventions Hall of Fame

por | |
Deja un comentario

NASA’s Webb, Curiosity Named in TIME’s Best Inventions Hall of Fame

Image composited from an image of Curiosity in a rocky Mars landscape and Webb Telescope over a star filled background
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Curiosity rover, have earned places in TIME’s “Best Inventions Hall of Fame”.
NASA GSFC, NASA JPL

Two icons of discovery, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Curiosity rover, have earned places in TIME’s “Best Inventions Hall of Fame,” which recognizes the 25 groundbreaking inventions of the past quarter century that have had the most global impact, since TIME began its annual Best Inventions list in 2000. The inventions are celebrated in TIME’s December print issue.

“NASA does the impossible every day, and it starts with the visionary science that propels humanity farther than ever before,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Congratulations to the teams who made the world’s great engineering feats, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Mars Curiosity Rover, a reality. Through their work, distant galaxies feel closer, and the red sands of Mars are more familiar, as they expanded and redefined the bounds of human achievement in the cosmos for the benefit of all.”

Decades in the making and operating a million miles from Earth, Webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built, giving humanity breathtaking views of newborn stars, distant galaxies, and even planets orbiting other stars. The new technologies developed to enable Webb’s science goals – from optics to detectors to thermal control systems – now also touch Americans’ everyday lives, improving manufacturing for everything from high-end cameras and contact lenses to advanced semiconductors and inspections of aircraft engine components.

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Meanwhile on Mars, the unstoppable Curiosity rover, NASA’s car-size science lab, has spent more than a decade uncovering clues that the Red Planet once could have supported life, transforming our understanding of our planetary neighbor. These NASA missions continue to make breakthroughs that have reshaped our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Curiosity has also paved the way for future astronauts: Its Radiation Assessment Detector has studied the Martian radiation environment for nearly 14 years, and its unforgettable landing by robotic jetpack allowed heavier spacecraft to touch down on the surface — a capability that will be needed to send cargo and humans to Mars.

Mars rover sitting on the red soil of mars and facing the camera for a selfie
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used two different cameras to create this selfie in front of Mont Mercou, a rock outcrop that stands 20 feet (6 meters) tall. The panorama is made up of 60 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the rover’s robotic arm on March 26, 2021, the 3,070th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. These were combined with 11 images taken by the Mastcam on the mast, or “head,” of the rover on March 16, 2021, the 3,060th Martian day of the mission.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

To compile this “Hall of Fame” list, TIME solicited nominations from TIME editors and correspondents around the world, paying special attention to high-impact fields, such as health care and technology. TIME then evaluated each contender on a number of key factors, including originality, continued efficacy, ambition, and impact.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

The Curiosity rover was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.

To learn more about NASA’s science missions, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov

Share

Details

Last Updated
Dec 12, 2025
Editor
Marty McCoy
Contact
Laura Betz

Related Terms

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

Explore NASA Science Activities


James Webb Space Telescope

Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…


Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Rover

Part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, at the time of launch, Curiosity was the largest and most capable rover…


Science Missions

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

The Calabash clash

por | |
Deja un comentario

The Calabash clash

The Calabash Nebula, pictured here — which has the technical name OH 231.8+04.2 — is a spectacular example of the death of a low-mass star like the Sun. This image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the star going through a rapid transformation from a red giant to a planetary nebula, during which it blows its outer layers of gas and dust out into the surrounding space. The recently ejected material is spat out in opposite directions with immense speed — the gas shown in yellow is moving close to a million kilometres an hour. Astronomers rarely capture a star in this phase of its evolution because it occurs within the blink of an eye — in astronomical terms. Over the next thousand years the nebula is expected to evolve into a fully fledged planetary nebula. The nebula is also known as the Rotten Egg Nebula because it contains a lot of sulphur, an element that, when combined with other elements, smells like a rotten egg — but luckily, it resides over 5000 light-years away in the constellation of Puppis (The Poop deck).

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…