MessageToEagle.com -
There are many extreme places on our wonderful Earth.
Among them is the hottest place on Earth. But where exactly is it?
To answer that question is not as easy as it might seem.
This question is in fact still widely debated because, how the temperature is measured plays an important role when scientists attempt to decide
what place is hotter than the other.
Many people think the hottest place on Earth is Al Azizyah, Libya, with a recorded temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius).
In Death Valley, California, USA, temperature 134 Fahrenheit in 1913, which makes it another very hot spot on this planet.
But there are also other places where the temperature can be extreme.
We can take for example Lut, a huge desert located in the eastern region of Iran.
It is an amazing, but extremely inhospitable place where few, if any organisms can survive. On one occasion, NASA's satellite Aqua recorded surface
temperatures as high as 71 °C (159 °F)!
Lut Desert as seen from space by the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA
In 2004, ecologist Steve Running visited the Flaming Mountain, a ridge of dark red sandstone on the edge of the Taklimakan Desert and the Tian Shan range.
The surface of the mountain is said to reach temperatures of 50 to 80°C (122 to 175°F) in the summer, and a nearby tourist center marks the spot with a huge golden thermometer. It is the hottest place in China, if not the world, or so says the local lore.
And that got Running thinking: exactly where is the hottest place on Earth? With some colleagues at the University of Montana, he did some research and found that the location of the world's hottest spot changes, though the conditions don't. Think dry, rocky, and dark-colored lands.
In July 1913, observers in Furnace Creek, California-Death Valley-watched the thermometer reach 56.7°C (134°F) and declared it to be the highest
temperature ever recorded on Earth. But just nine years later, on September 13, 1922, a weather station in El Azizia, Libya, recorded a temperature
of 58.0°C (136.4°F).
Measurements of MODIS (Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) installed on NASA's satellite "Aqua" from 2003 - 2005 testify that the hottest
land surface on Earth is located the Lut desert, where land surface temperatures reach here 70.7 degrees C (159-160 degrees F).
"Yet most of the places that call themselves the hottest on Earth are not even serious contenders," says Running. The reason is partly about where the
measurements are made. But it is also a tale about how temperature is measured.
"The World Meteorological Organization has approximately 11,119 weather stations on Earth's land surface collecting surface temperature observations,"
notes David Mildrexler, also from the University of Montana. "When compared to the 144.68 million square kilometers of land surface, that's one station
every 13,012 square kilometers."
"The Earth's hot deserts-such as the Sahara, the Gobi, the Sonoran, and the Lut-are climatically harsh and so remote that access for routine measurements
and maintenance of a weather station is impractical," he adds. "The majority of Earth's hottest spots are simply not being directly measured by
ground-based instruments."
That's where satellites come in and that is what we have to keep in mind when considering the hottest place on Earth.
For the time being, the Lut desert with its incredible 71 °C (159 °F) remains Earth's hottest spot.
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MessageToEagle.com -
There are many extreme places on our wonderful Earth.
If you want to experience an alien landscape it is not necessary to travel to another planet.
In fact, there are places on Earth where the landscape is truly bizarre, almost extraterrestrial many would say.
Looking at this amazing scenery, one can easily ask - Are we still on Earth?
Where did our planet come from?
We already know that 
A research team has now returned to Lake Untersee to begin the first real studies of this incredible environment.
This new high-quality image details the conical stromatolites that have formed on top of a boulder at a depth of about 20 meters, other
cones can be seen populating the sloping bottom...
Solar tornadoes several times as wide as the Earth can be generated in the solar atmosphere, say researchers in the UK.
"This is perhaps the first time that such a huge solar tornado is filmed by an imager. Previously much smaller solar
tornadoes were found my SOHO satellite. But they were not filmed," says Dr. Xing Li, of Aberystwyth University.
Just recently scientists announced they found
In Douglas Adams book the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy we encounter a machine called Deep Thought. It is the most powerful computer ever built. Deep Thought is capable of answering questions
concerning life, the Universe, and simply everything. Now scientists are planning to create a similar machine. It is called the Living Earth Simulator (LES).
The past decade has been one of unprecedented weather extremes. Scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany argue that the high incidence of extremes is not merely accidental.
From the many single events a pattern emerges. At least for extreme rainfall and heat waves the link with human-caused global warming is clear...
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The sky was cloudy and grey, keeping the heat in despite the sun being weaker than today.
The water temperature of the oceans was much higher at 40-50 degrees (the temperature of a hot bath) and circulating currents were very strong.