Can NASA predict natural disasters?

Humans aside, our planet is a pretty violent place. What we call natural disasters is just our planet going through its natural changes on its own schedule. Understanding that schedule and what makes our planet tick is something that has eluded us since the dawn of time. We've made great strides in the past century, and some of that progress is due to the contributions of a government agency most people associate withMars, Jupiter and even the moon, but not Earth.

What you may not be familiar with are some of the ways this agency is putting its resources and the knowledge it's gained studying other worlds to good use by helping us learn more about our own world.

Up Next 10 Inventions That Changed the World 5 Future Inventions Everyone's Been Waiting For Curiosity Project: 10 NASA Inventions You Use Everyday

Because most of the objects NASA(National Aeronautics and Space Administration) studies are extremely far away, it excels at what's called remote sensing, or using technology to see details in things far away. When you consider that "close" on NASA's scale means getting to within a few thousand miles of a distant moon or planet, it should come as no surprise that pointing those devices at our planet from a couple hundred miles away produces some extremely detailed information. It's exactly that level of information that's proving crucial in understanding the natural processes on Earth and in outer space that can cause natural disasters.

Now, let's take a look at some of the more significant ways NASA improves this understanding in order to help us predict when the "next big one" might be heading our way.