via brooklynmutt:
An amazing GIF of a volcano erupting on Jupiter’s moon - via @simonowens
This superb shot is Jupiter’s moon Io, showing the Tvashtar Paterae volcanic region, as captured by NASA’s New Horizons satellite.
Random fact: Volcanoes are named for the Roman god Vulcan, who was a son of Jupiter, and this moon orbits the planet of the same name … whooooooooa man. (Io, however, is part of Greek mythology, and was a lover of Zeus)
This is not to be confused with the equally gorgeous Saturnian moon Enceladus and its spouting geysers (below).
Planetarium Apocalypse!
Over 520 students, 5th graders I might add, are about to storm the Mystic Seaport Treworgy Planetarium for six consecutive 20 minute shows. And for the entire day, there will be over 600 people…for a theater that seats only about 90!
Bring on the munchkin hordes!
APOD| 2013 May 31 |The Eagle and The Swan
Image Credit & Copyright: Dieter Willasch (Astro-Cabinet)Explanation: The Eagle Nebula and the Swan Nebula span this broad starscape, a telescopic view of the Sagittarius spiral arm toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The Eagle, also known as M16, is left, above center, and the Swan, or M17 at the lower right. The deep, wide-field image shows the cosmic clouds as brighter regions of active star-formation. They lie along the spiral arm suffused with reddish emission charactistic of atomic hydrogen gas, and dusty dark nebulae. In fact, the center of both nebulae are locations of well-known close-up images of star formation from the Hubble Space Telescope. M17, also called the Omega Nebula, is about 5500 light-years away, while M16 is some 6500 light-years distant. In the frame that covers 3 degrees across the sky, the extended wings of the Eagle Nebula are spread over 120 light-years.
Neil deGrasse Tyson : Your ego and the cosmic perspective.
“You thought more highly of yourself than, in fact, the circumstances deserved.”
I’ve been up for nearly 23 hours with no sleep. On the bright side, I did get to see Alberio (B Cygni) and Andromeda (M31), as well as some detailed lunar cratering along the terminal.
via science-junkie:
Prince Rupert’s drop
The prince Rupert’s drop is a truly amazing thing.When molten glass hits cold water, its outer surface cools rapidly and shrinks as it solidifies. Since the center is still fluid, it can flow to adjust to the outer shell’s smaller size. As that center eventually cools and solidifies, it also shrinks, but now the outer shell is already solid and can’t change its shape to accommodate the smaller core. The result of this is a high amount of internal pressure, as the inside pulls the outside from all directions the glass is set to release a lot of energy. If you break the thin glass at the tail, a chain reaction travels like a shock wave through the drop. As each section breaks, it releases enough energy to break the next section, and so on, shattering the whole drop in less than a millisecond. At the same time The glass can be extremely strong aswell glass breaks when tiny scratches pull apart and spread into fractures. Since the surface is compressed by internal stress, scratches can’t grow, and the glass is very difficult to break.
Credits: ScienceCubed - http://sciencecubed.tumblr.com/
People, if you haven’t seen Destin from Smarter Every Day shatter these things at 130,000 frames per second, you haven’t truly lived.
