British scientists are using pictures of penguin poop from high-powered satellites to locate emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica.

The scientists track the penguin's waste because the penguins themselves are hard to distinguish on the sea ice, as their coloring blends into the shadows. Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) came up with the poop-spotting method, as the waste shows up easily in the pictures from space, staining the ice a reddish-brown, according to a statement from the BAS.

Bursts of gamma rays from an exploding star 13 billion light-years away from Earth became the most distant object ever seen by modern astronomers when the space observatory Swift detected its afterglow Thursday.

American and British astronomers announced the discovery of the event called GRB 090423 on Tuesday, according to Astronomy.com.

After four years of inactivity, Galapagos Islands' La Cumbre Volcano spewed lava, gas and smoke on Saturday on Fernandina Island. La Cumbre has an elevation of 4,842 feet.

According to the Geophysical Institute of the National Polytechnic School it has recorded 43 thermal alerts. The institute's satellite images showed a column of gas 60 miles long west of the Galapagos Island. This indicates an increase in volcanic activity.

A Japanese maker of nuclear fallout shelters said that sales rose dramatically in the lead-up to North Korea's rocket launch, as a number of concerned Japanese citizens took safety matters into their own hands.

The Osaka-based Shelter Co. said it received orders for 12 shelters in jus two months prior to Sunday's launch, more than twice the number it usually sells in the entire year.

NASA engineers on Monday are figuring out if the International Space Station (ISS) should maneuver to avoid getting hit by a debris or piece of a Soviet Union-era satellite.

The piece of the Russian Kosmos 1275 will pass about half a mile from the space station at 2:14 a.m. CDT (7:14 a.m. GMT) Tuesday, said Bill Jeffs, a spokesman at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, according to CNN.