Hurricane Earl Photos: Stunning NASA Satellite Images

(Sept. 3) -- As Hurricane Earl makes its way up the Eastern Seaboard, ruining vacations and Labor Day weekend plans as it proceeds, NASA has been keeping an eye on the storm from space, as well as from the eye of the hurricane itself. The result is some very cool pictures:

1. Hurricane Earl runs up the East Coast, 9:40 a.m. EDT, Friday, Sept. 3.
This image of Earl was taken by the GOES satellite, which was developed by NASA for use by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Meteorologists use the satellite imagery to watch and predict severe weather and natural disasters, like forest fires and volcanic eruptions.

2. Hurricane Earl grazes North Carolina and Virginia, 9:15 a.m. EDT, Friday, Sept. 3.
NASA took this image of Earl with a GOES satellite and then enhanced it by adding three colors -- red, green and blue -- to create a false color image.

3. Eye of Hurricane Earl, 9:05 a.m. EDT, Thursday, Sept. 2.
NASA's unmanned Global Hawk plane took this image from the inside of the hurricane, some 11.4 miles above sea level (a hat tip to the Los Angeles Times). The plane is one of three aircraft used in the agency's Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment, which NASA is running from Aug. 15 to Sept. 30 to study how tropical storms turn into hurricanes.

4. Hurricane Earl from the International Space Station, Monday, Aug. 30.
The crew of Expedition 24 on the International Space Station snapped this photo with a digital camera as Earl was just north of the Virgin Islands. At the time, the hurricane was a Category 4 storm.