March 9, 2015
Rocket Land
Photograph by Kevin Kunstadt
Strobe rockets light up the night sky in Mason City, Iowa. Mason City is home to the Iowa Thunderstorm, the Pyrotechnics Guild International’s small fireworks convention.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Astronomy Picture of the Day: March 8th of the 2015
Stars at the Galactic Center
Image Credit: Susan Stolovy (SSC/Caltech) et al., JPL-Caltech, NASA
Explanation: The center of our Milky Way Galaxy is hidden from the prying eyes of optical telescopes by clouds of obscuring dust and gas. But in this stunning vista, the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared cameras, penetrate much of the dust revealing the stars of the crowded galactic center region. A mosaic of many smaller snapshots, the detailed, false-color image shows older, cool stars in bluish hues. Reddish glowing dust clouds are associated with young, hot stars in stellar nurseries. The very center of the Milky Way was only recently found capable of forming newborn stars. The galactic center lies some 26,000 light-years away, toward the constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this picture spans about 900 light-years.
National Geographic Photo of the Day: March 8th of 2015
March 8, 2015
The Pitcher and the Carpenter
Photograph by Christian Ziegler
The fanged pitcher plant and the carpenter ant (seen here in Borneo) have a mutualistic relationship: While the plant’s pitcher stem provides a home for small ant colonies of up to 30 individuals, the ants keep the chemistry of the pitcher’s liquid balanced by removing large insects that have found their way inside. If the insects were to rot in the liquid, it would spoil.
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Astronomy Picture of the Day: March 7th of 2015
NGC 602 in the Flying Lizard Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Don Goldman
Explanation: Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is just below center in this telescopic field of view with the angular size of the Full Moon on the sky. The cluster itself is about 200 light-years in diameter. Glowing interior ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. Of course, the more extended wings of emission in the region suggest a popular name for the complex cosmic environment, The Flying Lizard Nebula.
National Geographic Photo of the Day: March 7th of 2015
March 7, 2015
Hellenic Cadets
Photograph by Alex Majoli, National Geographic
Cadets from the Hellenic Military Academy tour the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Degraded by pollution, the ancient temple to the goddess Athena atop the Acropolis is being restored.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Astronomy Picture of the Day: March 6th of 2015
Cometary Globule CG4
Image Credit & Copyright: CEDIC Team - Processing: Christoph Kaltseis
Explanation: The faint and somehow menacing cometary globule CG4 reaches through the center of this deep southern skyscape. About 1,300 light-years from Earth toward the constellation Puppis, its head is about 1.5 light-years in diameter and its tail about 8 light-years long. That's far larger than the Solar System's comets that it seems to resemble. In fact, the dusty cloud contains enough material to form several Sun-like stars and likely has ongoing star formation within. How its distinctive form came about is still debated, but its long tail trails away from the Vela Supernova remnant near the center of the Gum Nebula, while its head could represent the rupture of an originally more spherical cloud. Still, the edge-on spiral galaxy also near picture center is not actually being threatened by CG4. The galaxy lies in the distant background more than 100 million light-years away.
National Geographic Photo of the Day: March 6th of 2015
March 6, 2015
Light in Winter
Photograph by David Stoker, National Geographic Your Shot
Predawn sunlight strikes the South Rim of Arizona’s Grand Canyon in this picture submitted to the recent Your Shot assignment First Light. “A cold winter storm had passed through the region the day prior,” writes photographer David Stoker. “I had driven to the Grand Canyon in anticipation of the storm. I remember the morning being particularly cold as I hiked along the rim awaiting the arrival of the sun. The skies were still overcast, but a small break in the clouds allowed a single ray of sunlight to shine through, illuminating a small portion of the butte below.”
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Astronomy Picture of the Day: March 5th of 2015
Enhanced Color Caloris
Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ. APL, Arizona State U., CIW
Explanation: The sprawling Caloris basin on Mercury is one of the solar system's largest impact basins, created during the early history of the solar system by the impact of a large asteroid-sized body. The multi-featured, fractured basin spans about 1,500 kilometers in this enhanced color mosaic based on image data from the Mercury-orbiting MESSENGER spacecraft. Mercury's youngest large impact basin, Caloris was subsequently filled in by lavas that appear orange in the mosaic. Craters made after the flooding have excavated material from beneath the surface lavas. Seen as contrasting blue hues, they likely offer a glimpse of the original basin floor material. Analysis of these craters suggests the thickness of the covering volcanic lava to be 2.5-3.5 kilometers. Orange splotches around the basin's perimeter are thought to be volcanic vents.
National Geographic Photo of the Day: March 5th of 2015
March 5, 2015
Catch of the Day
Photograph by Yoh Fong Chan, National Geographic Your Shot
“The polar bears were usually playing, sleeping, and sometimes nursing,” writes Your Shot member Yoh Fong Chan of observing the bears in Kaktovik, Alaska. “They were hanging out near the shore during this time of the year, waiting for the sea to freeze before they could go out hunting for seals. On this very rare occasion, this bear came proudly from the horizon with its catch of the day.” Chan, who had long dreamed of photographing polar bears in the wild, says patience and endurance were important. “It was bitterly cold out there. As with most wildlife photography, hours were spent observing and waiting to capture that one special moment.”
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Astronomy Picture of the Day: March 4th of 2015
Pillars and Jets in the Pelican Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Larry Van Vleet (LVVASTRO)
Explanation: What dark structures arise from the Pelican Nebula? Visible as a bird-shaped nebula toward the constellation of a bird (Cygnus, the Swan), the Pelican Nebula is a place dotted with newly formed stars but fouled with dark dust. These smoke-sized dust grains formed in the cool atmospheres of young stars and were dispersed by stellar winds and explosions. Impressive Herbig-Haro jets are seen emitted by a star on the right that is helping to destroy the light year-long dust pillar that contains it. The featured image was scientifically-colored to emphasize light emitted by small amounts of ionized nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur in the nebula made predominantly of hydrogen and helium. The Pelican Nebula (IC 5067 and IC 5070) is about 2,000 light-years away and can be found with a small telescope to the northeast of the bright star Deneb.
National Geographic Photo of the Day: March 4th of 2015
March 4, 2015
Mixed Roots
Photograph by Felipe Jacome
The mangroves of the Cayapas Mataje Mangrove Reserve in northwestern Ecuador are the tallest in the world. The area is home to many Afro-Ecuadorian communities who rely on gathering black cockles that can be found in the mud of the mangroves and sold as a culinary delicacy. Picking shells is a tremendously arduous task, as concheros have to crouch down for hours in knee-deep mud.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Astronomy Picture of the Day: March 3rd of 2015
A Dust Devil on Mars
Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA
Explanation: It was late in the northern martian spring when the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spied this local denizen. Tracking across the flat, dust-covered Amazonis Planitia in 2012, the core of this whirling dust devil is about 140 meters in diameter. Lofting dust into the thin martian atmosphere, its plume reaches about 20 kilometers above the surface. Common to this region of Mars, dust devils occur as the surface is heated by the Sun, generating warm, rising air currents that begin to rotate. Tangential wind speeds of up to 110 kilometers per hour are reported for dust devils in other HiRISE images.
National Geographic Photo of the Day: March 3rd of 2015
March 3, 2015
High-Foraging Chamois
Photograph by Stefano Unterthiner, National Geographic
Springtime is when high-foraging chamois give birth; there are now about 8,000 in Italy’s Gran Paradiso National Park.See more photos from the February 2015 feature story “Paradise Found.”
Monday, March 2, 2015
Astronomy Picture of the Day: March 2nd of 2015
Lenticular Cloud, Moon, Mars, Venus
Image Credit & Copyright: Nuno Serrão
Explanation: It is not every day that such an interesting cloud photobombs your image. The original plan was to photograph a rare angular conjunction of Mars and Venus that occurred a week and a half ago, with the added bonus of a crescent Moon and the International Space Station (ISS) both passing nearby. Unfortunately, on Madeira Island, Portugal, this event was clouded out. During the next day, however, a spectacular lenticular cloud appeared before sunset, so the industrious astrophotographer quickly formulated a new plan. A close look at the resulting image reveals the Moon visible toward the left of the frame, while underneath, near the bottom, are the famous planets with Venus being the brighter. It was the unexpected lenticular cloud, though, perhaps looking like some sort of futuristic spaceship, that stole the show. The setting Sun illuminated the stationary cloud (and everything else) from the bottom, setting up an intricate pattern of shadows, layers, and brightly illuminated regions, all seen evolving in a corresponding video. Mars and Venus will next appear this close on the sky in late August, but whether any place on Earth will catch them behind such a photogenic cloud is unknown.
National Geographic Photo of the Day: March 2nd of 2015
March 2, 2015
Icesheet #4727
Photograph by Murray Fredericks, National Geographic
A constellation of orbs, rings, and halos hangs above the Greenland ice sheet in this picture by Murray Fredericks, who spent months photographing the island’s remote beauty. The optical phenomena seen here occur when ice crystals—suspended by powerful winds called piteraqs—refract sunlight.ICESHEET #4727, 22° AND 46° HALO, TANGENT ARC, PARRY ARC, CIRCUMZENITHAL ARC, AND PARHELIC CIRCLE
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Astronomy Picture od the Day: March 1st of 2015
Inside the Coma Cluster of Galaxies
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA);
Acknowledgment: D. Carter (LJMU) et al. and the Coma HST ACS Treasury Team
Explanation: Almost every object in the above photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured above is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies houses billions of stars - just as our own Milky Way Galaxy does. Although nearby when compared to most other clusters, light from the Coma Cluster still takes hundreds of millions of years to reach us. In fact, the Coma Cluster is so big it takes light millions of years just to go from one side to the other! The above mosaic of images of a small portion of Coma was taken in unprecedented detail in 2006 by the Hubble Space Telescope to investigate how galaxies in rich clusters form and evolve. Most galaxies in Coma and other clusters are ellipticals, although some imaged here are clearly spirals. The spiral galaxy on the upper left of the above image can also be found as one of the bluer galaxies on the upper left of this wider field image. In the background thousands of unrelated galaxies are visible far across the universe.
National Geographic Photo of the Day: March 1st of 2015
March 1, 2015
Falls in Autumn
Photograph by Vedrana Tafra, National Geographic Your Shot
Dispersing fog and a moment of sunshine bring the falls and foliage of Croatia’s Plitvice Lakes National Park into view on an early autumn morning. The country’s oldest and largest national park, Plitvice boasts more than plunging waterfalls: Its 16 terraced lakes, formed by natural travertine dams, change color throughout the day, and its abundant wildlife includes 261 species of birds.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)