Tag: Beauty
Stunning aurora borealis over Canada viewed from space
Can’t wait till NASA makes 4K (or even 8K) video the standard for satellite videos. Storage volumes have dropped way down in price and the taxpayer money in their pockets can pay for higher res in a New York minute.
I suggest not only clicking on the “expand” icon in the lower RH corner as soon as you start the video running; but, then, move a jot to the left and click the gear shape for settings. No need to change resolution; but, you can reduce playback speed and slow down the pan speed. Way cool! I usually run it at 0.5.
Antarctica from space
Thanks, UrsaRodinia
Spiral aurora over Iceland
Click once or twice to expand fully
Thanks, Ursarodinia
Blood moon Sunday night — don’t hold your breath waiting for the end of days
A rare astronomical phenomenon Sunday night will produce a moon that will appear slightly bigger than usual and have a reddish hue, an event known as a super blood moon.
It’s a combination of curiosities that hasn’t happened since 1982, and won’t happen again until 2033. A so-called supermoon, which occurs when the moon is closest to earth in its orbit, will coincide with a lunar eclipse, leaving the moon in Earth’s shadow. Individually, the two phenomena are not uncommon, but they do not align often…
Appropriately, some loonies need to be cautioned
A rare confluence of a lunar eclipse and a supermoon set to happen this weekend has prompted such widespread fear of an impending apocalypse that the Mormon Church was compelled to issue a statement cautioning the faithful to not get caught up in speculation about a major calamity…
It’s unclear how many Latter-day Saints buy the theory, but Mormon leaders were worried enough that they took the rare step this week of issuing a public statement cautioning the faithful not to get carried away with visions of the apocalypse.
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints told its 15 million worldwide members that they should be “spiritually and physically prepared for life’s ups and downs,” but they urged them not to take speculation from individual church members as doctrine and “avoid being caught up in extreme efforts to anticipate catastrophic events.”
True Believers really work at validating their ticket to the Great Beyond over simple astronomical events like this. It’s enough to make some believe the Earth is round.
Drones over Iceland
Thanks, Om
Pic of the Day
Click to enlarge — Image Credit/Oleg Bartunov
Why would a cloud appear to be different colors? A relatively rare phenomenon known as iridescent clouds can show unusual colors vividly or a whole spectrum of colors simultaneously. These clouds are formed of small water droplets of nearly uniform size.
When the Sun is in the right position and mostly hidden by thick clouds, these thinner clouds significantly diffract sunlight in a nearly coherent manner, with different colors being deflected by different amounts. Therefore, different colors will come to the observer from slightly different directions.
Many clouds start with uniform regions that could show iridescence but quickly become too thick, too mixed, or too far from the Sun to exhibit striking colors. The above iridescent cloud was photographed in 2009 from the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal, behind the 6,600-meter peak named Thamserku.
Thanks, Ursarodinia
Just because…
Birds of Paradise Project
Thanks, Ursarodinia