Art and Science

freshphotons:

The Inner Cell, MRK.

Breathtaking : The Legions of Doom

Space Shuttle Discovery launches into orbit in the minutes before dawn, leaving a beautiful reflection through the light fog on the Intracoastal Waterway in Ponte Vedra, Florida, 115 Miles from the launch.

For more space awesomeness : http://www.flickr.com/photos/26216961@N07/sets/72157623626570935/

The awesome smoke trail left behind by the space shuttle..

X-RAY GIF of Human Speaking

The Sunset of your dreams

Auroras can make spectacular sights. Photographed above last weekend, flowing multi-colored auroras helped illuminate a busy sky above Tromsø, Norway. Besides the spectacular aurora pictured above, the photographer caught three satellites streaks, one airplane streak, and a friend trying to capture the same sight. Although auroras might first appear to be moonlit clouds, they only add light to the sky and do not block background stars from view. Called northern lights in the northern hemisphere, auroras are caused by collisions between charged particles from the magnetosphere and air molecules high in the Earth’s atmosphere. If viewed from space, auroras can be seen to glow in X-ray and ultraviolet light as well. Predictable auroras might occur a few days after a powerful magnetic event has been seen on the Sun.

Sailing Storm in Sydney, Australia

A yacht, bottom right, sails towards a large storm cloud as she races towards Hobart during the Sydney To Hobart yacht race off Sydney in Australia on Monday.

Total Solar Eclipse

80 images were taken during 5 m 41 s long totality by means of a Canon EOS 5D digital camera equipped with a Russian Maksutov-Cassegrain 6.3/500 mm.

Unfortunately the absolutely clear weather several minutes before the totality was interrupted by a small cumulus cloud and a part of the total eclipse was lost. After careful inspection of all eclipse images, 38 images which were not influenced by clouds were chosen. These images were calibrated by means of about 300 dark frames and about 100 flat-field images.

The display of the solar corona, lunar surface and stars in the resulting image are highly beyond the ability of human vision during the eclipse. The weakest stars visible in the image are of about magnitude 10. The stars are a little bit blurred by the motion of the Sun during the very long eclipse.

(Source: )

To mark Earth Day on April 22, 2000, NASA scientists released this new image of the Earth, updating the famous Blue Marble photograph taken by Apollo astronauts. The digital image uses data collected in 1997 from several satellites to approximate what a human could see from orbit, with the added artistic license of having the Moon in the background. The prominent storm raging off the west coast of North America is Hurricane Linda. The image of the Moon has been magnified to about twice its relative size.