* Astronomy

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Japan Quake

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NASA Satellite Sees Area Affected by Japan Tsunami

A new before-and-after image pair from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft shows a region of Japan's northeastern coast, northeast of the city of Sendai, which was affected by the March 11, 2011 tsunami.
The images show the coastal cities of Ofunato and Kesennuma, located about 90 kilometres northeast of Sendai. Ofunato has a population of about 42,000, while the population of Kesennuma is about 73,000. Areas covered by vegetation are shown in red, while cities and unvegetated areas are shown in shades of blue-gray. The image on the left was acquired on March 14, 2011; the image on the right was acquired in August 2008. When compared closely, vegetation is no longer visible in many coastal areas in the new image, particularly around Kesennuma. Scientists believe this is most likely due to the effects of the tsunami.
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Japan tsunami 'could be 1,000-year event'

Tsunamis on the scale that hit north-east Japan last week may strike the region about once every 1,000 years, a leading seismologist has said.
Dr Roger Musson said there were similarities between the last week's event and another giant wave that hit the Sendai coast in 869AD.
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A strong magnitude 6.0 earthquake occurred at 15:23:53 (UTC) on Tuesday, March 15, 2011, off the East coast of Honshu, 135 km East from Hachinohe, Honshu, at a depth of 9 km.

Location 40.404°N, 143.090°E

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A strong magnitude 6.1 earthquake occurred at 13:31:46 (UTC) on Tuesday, March 15, 2011, in the Eastern Honshu region, 40 km NNE from Shizuoka, Honshu, at a depth of 1 km.

Location 35.322°N, 138.552°E

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A strong magnitude 6.0 earthquake occurred at 09:49:54 (UTC) on Tuesday, March 15, 2011, off the East coast of Honshu, 137 km ENE from Iwaki, Honshu, at a depth of 15.3 km.

Location 37.348°N, 142.406°E

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Japan Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days, Moved Axis

The March 11, magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan may have shortened the length of each Earth day and shifted its axis. But don't worry-you won't notice the difference.
Using a United States Geological Survey estimate for how the fault responsible for the earthquake slipped, research scientist Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., applied a complex model to perform a preliminary theoretical calculation of how the Japan earthquake-the fifth largest since 1900-affected Earth's rotation. His calculations indicate that by changing the distribution of Earth's mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).
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2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami

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RE: Japan Quake

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What is happening in quake-stricken Japan nuclear plant?

Technicians are battling to stabilise a third reactor at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear plant, which has been rocked by a second blast in three days.
The fuel rods inside reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have been fully exposed on two separate occasions, raising fears of a meltdown.
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