Incredible Optics Photos
1. Lunar Halo
The beautiful circle surrounding the moon in this image is caused by ice crystals suspended in the air. Known as a paraselenic circle, this rare phenomenon comes from moonlight reflecting in complex ways off the crystals. While the circle is commonly only seen in sections, in some cases, such as this one, it can stretch around the entire sky.
A similar effect can occur on a chilly day with sunlight, forming a giant parhelic circle in the sky.
Image: Adam Kraft
2. Lightning Spectra
In his celebrated 1704 book Opticks, Isaac Newton describes shining a white light through a prism. When the light emerged, the famous physicist was surprised to see it broken into a dazzling rainbow of colors.
While this and other discoveries from Newton helped revolutionize the field of optics, it wasn’t until the 1800s that scientists understood how much information those rainbows contained. When passed through a prism, the light coming from a hot gas reveals its constituent elements in telltale lines of color.
In this image, taken during a thunderstorm over Paris, the forking lightning bolt heats surrounding air to between 36,000 and 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking apart air molecules into ionized plasma. The bright lines of the spectra reveals the presence of nitrogen and hydrogen in our atmosphere.
Image: Denis Joye
The second one. O_O That is awesome.
(via scinerds)
damn
X Class Solar Flare Sends ‘Shockwaves’ on The Sun (by NASA Goddard Photo and Video)
(via scinerds)
This reminds me of Seth form Trinity Blood. Dunno why, but it does. <3
(Source: crashic)
Skin cells have been converted directly into cells which develop into the main components of the brain, by researchers studying mice in California.
The experiment, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, skipped the middle “stem cell” stage in the process.
The researchers said they were “thrilled” at the potential medical uses.
Far more tests are needed before the technique could be used on human skin.
Stem cells, which can become any other specialist type of cell from brain to bone, are thought to have huge promise in a range of treatments. Many trials are taking place, such as in stroke patients or specific forms of blindness.
One of the big questions for the field is where to get the cells from. There are ethical concerns around embryonic stem cells and patients would need to take immunosuppressant drugs as any stem cell tissue would not match their own.
An alternative method has been to take skin cells and reprogram them into “induced” stem cells. These could be made from a patient’s own cells and then turned into the cell type required, however, the process results in cancer-causing genes being activated.
(Source: scinerds)
done by tattwo way (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1512212569) a Malaysian artist that comes over to Townsville, Queensland, Australia to tattoo the Army boys that I help look after. he’s a remarkable artist and wonderful person to go under the drill for 5 or so hours.
Cherry blossoms are a symbol of life and beauty to me and a reminder not to take things so seriously, and the bumble bees are an anomaly to the laws of physics as they are not supposed to be able to fly :: i just love their little furry butts, they work so hard.
OMG, that’s beautiful!
I have this book. It’s disappointing because most of the book is full of thumbnail size prints of his work. Only a few dozen larger ones in the front, and not even his best. of. all. are clearly seen.
Better off getting the works in separate books like, The Tale of Genji, Hiten, Maten, Fairies, Alice Erotica(not for kids), Marchen, 1001 Nights, Mono, Dawn, Biten, etc, etc.
He has more art-books, but I don’t know em all….yet.
(Source: tenebris-pulcritudina)
Tiny Volcanic Moon Controls Jupiter’s Auroras
Jupiter has a permanent ring of auroral light surrounding each of its poles. Most of the charged particles responsible for the light have long been thought to originate from tiny, hyperactive Io, which burps out about a tonne of sulphur per second in its persistent, violent volcanic activity. However, the sun was thought to cause any variations in the rings via changes in the pressure of the solar wind.
But new observations suggest that Io can control these changes as well. “Variations we thought were connected to the sun we now see are connected to the volcanic activity,” says Bertrand Bonfond of the University of Liège in Belgium.
(via scinerds)
This. Oh my god. This.
(thanks for the introduction yourmotherisaxx)
Bout’ to die of happy! Xp
Lunar Corona
The light from the nearly full moon interacts with the cloud droplets and high ice crystals in the desert sky to create the colorful scene of a lunar corona. This atmospheric phenomena have an intensely bright central aureole which is almost white and fringed with yellows and reds
I’d love to see and photograph a lunar corona.
(via scinerds)
