Frozen Glass I was pretty shocked to find out just how little liquid fresh water Earth contains, like we saw in this post. But I was equally shocked to find out that as much as one-fifth of Earth’s fresh water is locked up in the beauty above: Lake Baikal. Siberia’s Lake Baikal, not only the world’s oldest lake at ~25 million years of age, is the largest single fresh water source on the planet. The water is so deep and so pure that when it freezes it becomes a sort of cold, turquoise glass, giving an observer a lens that can see over 100 feet straight down. There’s more pictures not to miss at My Modern Met.
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Frozen Glass

I was pretty shocked to find out just how little liquid fresh water Earth contains, like we saw in this post. But I was equally shocked to find out that as much as one-fifth of Earth’s fresh water is locked up in the beauty above: Lake Baikal.

Siberia’s Lake Baikal, not only the world’s oldest lake at ~25 million years of age, is the largest single fresh water source on the planet. The water is so deep and so pure that when it freezes it becomes a sort of cold, turquoise glass, giving an observer a lens that can see over 100 feet straight down.

There’s more pictures not to miss at My Modern Met.

skeptv:

I Didn’t Know That : The Science Behind Ice Skating

Do you know why you can skate across ice? It’s not because ice is slippery. Richard Ambrose and Jonny Phillips demonstrate the science behind ice skating while trying to maintain their balance!

by National Geographic.

I remember Mr. Wizard doing this wire/block of ice trick when was a kid, but I never put it together with ice skating. I love when simple physics and chemistry can explain our favorite past-times.

Frost Flowers Blooming in the Arctic Ocean are Found to be Teeming with Life These snowflake-like crystals grow from tiny imperfections in floating sea ice, the super-frigid air causing water vapor to crystallize right out of the air into the stunning ordered shapes you see.  These “frost flowers” have been found to harbor microbial life, far more than the sea around them, creating tiny ecosystems like forzen coral. Life does find a way, huh? Read more about the research of these “frost flower” microbial communities here. (via Colossal)
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Frost Flowers Blooming in the Arctic Ocean are Found to be Teeming with Life

These snowflake-like crystals grow from tiny imperfections in floating sea ice, the super-frigid air causing water vapor to crystallize right out of the air into the stunning ordered shapes you see. 

These “frost flowers” have been found to harbor microbial life, far more than the sea around them, creating tiny ecosystems like forzen coral. Life does find a way, huh?

Read more about the research of these “frost flower” microbial communities here.

(via Colossal)

Source: thisiscolossal.com

A Beautiful Chill One of the most fascinating things about living in central Texas, where I live, is the volatility of the weather. And by “fascinating”, here I mean “completely weird and rather shocking.” This is my favorite part of the year in that regard. What we miss out on in terms of leaves changing color (they don’t) and a lowly hanging autumn sun (it’s high and hot until November), we make up for in pure meteorological chaos. Tonight, the temperature will drop approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit in three hours. It boggles my mind that this nothing but a huge bubble of cold air, swooping in clear from the reaches of the Arctic Circle all the way down to Texas. The rotation of the Earth and the jet stream grab hold of this icy mass of atmosphere like an invisible snowball, and throw it at 60 kilometers per hour in the direction of unsuspecting Texans, who today were sweating in shorts for the last time in 2012. Although this year’s Blue Norther will arrive under cover of darkness, the pewter-colored wall of clouds that proceeds them is not a sight you’ll ever forget. We won’t quite reach freezing temperatures by morning, not like the record 65 degree drop seen in the 1911 Blue Norther, so the only frozen spiderwebs I’ll be seeing are right here on my computer screen. I think that’s fine with me. It’s always best to ease into this kind of chill if you ask me. So as we in the northern half of the planet begin our descent into autumn chill, curl up with this beautiful science/art video gallery of exotic ice crystals forming on the tip of a needle. It’ll send chills up your spine.
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A Beautiful Chill

One of the most fascinating things about living in central Texas, where I live, is the volatility of the weather. And by “fascinating”, here I mean “completely weird and rather shocking.” This is my favorite part of the year in that regard. What we miss out on in terms of leaves changing color (they don’t) and a lowly hanging autumn sun (it’s high and hot until November), we make up for in pure meteorological chaos.

Tonight, the temperature will drop approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit in three hours. It boggles my mind that this nothing but a huge bubble of cold air, swooping in clear from the reaches of the Arctic Circle all the way down to Texas. The rotation of the Earth and the jet stream grab hold of this icy mass of atmosphere like an invisible snowball, and throw it at 60 kilometers per hour in the direction of unsuspecting Texans, who today were sweating in shorts for the last time in 2012.

Although this year’s Blue Norther will arrive under cover of darkness, the pewter-colored wall of clouds that proceeds them is not a sight you’ll ever forget. We won’t quite reach freezing temperatures by morning, not like the record 65 degree drop seen in the 1911 Blue Norther, so the only frozen spiderwebs I’ll be seeing are right here on my computer screen. I think that’s fine with me. It’s always best to ease into this kind of chill if you ask me.

So as we in the northern half of the planet begin our descent into autumn chill, curl up with this beautiful science/art video gallery of exotic ice crystals forming on the tip of a needle. It’ll send chills up your spine.

staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory.  Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world. See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Zoom Info

staceythinx:

Scenes From Antarctica is a stunning gallery from The Atlantic’s In Focus blog that captures the amazing landscapes and research facilities that populate this harsh territory. 

Superb photo tour of the inhospitable and exotic end of the world.

See that top photo of the gorgeous sun halo? If you missed it last week, we toured through some of the atmospheric phenomena that you see in pictures like that. It’s pretty neat stuff.

Capturing a Heavenly Halo at Greenland’s Summit Station It’s easy to see a photo like this, pause for a moment, let out an “ooh” or an “ahh” or two, then continue on about your business. But that takes all the fun out of it! Let’s stop for a moment, and really appreciate what’s going on in this picture. What is the science behind such atmospheric phenomena? Almost every optical phenomenon in the daylight sky, whether it’s a rainbow or a halo or a “sun dog”, occurs due to light bending through water that’s suspended in the atmosphere. That water could be liquid (like rainbows) or crystallized ice (like above), but it acts as a prism all the same. Start with the inner ring around the Sun. This is a solar halo. To be precise, it’s probably a 22˚ halo. This ring occurs when hexagonal ice crystals, randomly distributed and aligned in the atmosphere, refract light coming from the Sun back to the eye of the viewer. While every crystal of ice in the air is bending the light that hits it, only the hexagon-shaped crystals that happen to be sitting at exactly 22˚ away from the Sun AND oriented just right are able to bend light straight back at your eye. This is because of their particular six-sided geometry. Someone standing 50 feet to your right would see the same halo, but from a completely different set of randomly aligned ice crystals! What about those two orbs of concentrated light to the left and right of the Sun? Those are called “sun dogs”. Aristotle used to refer to them as “mock suns”, chasing the real Sun through the sky. They usually are only seen when the Sun is low in the sky, and always at the same elevation as the Sun itself. What causes these? The same ice crystals as the 22˚ halo! You see, as the hexagonal crystals sink down to Earth, they begin to align. It’s the same thing that happens to a falling dart: the air resistance makes them stand up straight. Remember how the 22˚ halo was formed by whatever crystals just happened to be pointing our way? The sun dogs appear brighter because there’s simply more “ice prisms” pointing in the right direction to send light into your eyes. You can even see a red-to-blue prism effect at work, since different wavelengths of light get bent at slightly different angles. And that blob at the top of the halo? That’s an upper tangent arc. It’s origin lies in the same alignment of ice crystals that form the sun dogs, but instead of falling vertically, they are arranged horizontally. If you look closely ou can even see the far edges arcing down like wings, suspending the orb of light in mid-air. The arm of light reaching upwards like a solar pillar is the result of simple reflected sunlight off of the icy faces of suspended crystals. The outer ring is perhaps the most rare. I’m pretty sure that’s a 46˚ halo. The same hexagonal ice crystals are at play, but instead of bending light through their six-sided faces, they are bending it through their base. That particular geometry of refraction gives bends light at a wider angle, meaning the halo is larger. It’s fainter, because there are fewer ice crystals randomly oriented that way, and can only be seen when the Sun is low and the air is clouded with frozen water. There’s definitely more in there that I’m not mentioning, but wow … right? Sights such as these would be carry plenty of beauty without further explanation, but a little knowledge certainly enriches nature’s grandeur, no? (via Alan Boyle, photo by Ed Stockard)
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Capturing a Heavenly Halo at Greenland’s Summit Station

It’s easy to see a photo like this, pause for a moment, let out an “ooh” or an “ahh” or two, then continue on about your business. But that takes all the fun out of it!

Let’s stop for a moment, and really appreciate what’s going on in this picture. What is the science behind such atmospheric phenomena?

  • Almost every optical phenomenon in the daylight sky, whether it’s a rainbow or a halo or a “sun dog”, occurs due to light bending through water that’s suspended in the atmosphere. That water could be liquid (like rainbows) or crystallized ice (like above), but it acts as a prism all the same.
  • Start with the inner ring around the Sun. This is a solar halo. To be precise, it’s probably a 22˚ halo. This ring occurs when hexagonal ice crystals, randomly distributed and aligned in the atmosphere, refract light coming from the Sun back to the eye of the viewer. While every crystal of ice in the air is bending the light that hits it, only the hexagon-shaped crystals that happen to be sitting at exactly 22˚ away from the Sun AND oriented just right are able to bend light straight back at your eye. This is because of their particular six-sided geometry. Someone standing 50 feet to your right would see the same halo, but from a completely different set of randomly aligned ice crystals!
  • What about those two orbs of concentrated light to the left and right of the Sun? Those are called “sun dogs”. Aristotle used to refer to them as “mock suns”, chasing the real Sun through the sky. They usually are only seen when the Sun is low in the sky, and always at the same elevation as the Sun itself. What causes these? The same ice crystals as the 22˚ halo! You see, as the hexagonal crystals sink down to Earth, they begin to align. It’s the same thing that happens to a falling dart: the air resistance makes them stand up straight. Remember how the 22˚ halo was formed by whatever crystals just happened to be pointing our way? The sun dogs appear brighter because there’s simply more “ice prisms” pointing in the right direction to send light into your eyes. You can even see a red-to-blue prism effect at work, since different wavelengths of light get bent at slightly different angles.
  • And that blob at the top of the halo? That’s an upper tangent arc. It’s origin lies in the same alignment of ice crystals that form the sun dogs, but instead of falling vertically, they are arranged horizontally. If you look closely ou can even see the far edges arcing down like wings, suspending the orb of light in mid-air. The arm of light reaching upwards like a solar pillar is the result of simple reflected sunlight off of the icy faces of suspended crystals.
  • The outer ring is perhaps the most rare. I’m pretty sure that’s a 46˚ halo. The same hexagonal ice crystals are at play, but instead of bending light through their six-sided faces, they are bending it through their base. That particular geometry of refraction gives bends light at a wider angle, meaning the halo is larger. It’s fainter, because there are fewer ice crystals randomly oriented that way, and can only be seen when the Sun is low and the air is clouded with frozen water.

There’s definitely more in there that I’m not mentioning, but wow … right? Sights such as these would be carry plenty of beauty without further explanation, but a little knowledge certainly enriches nature’s grandeur, no?

(via Alan Boyle, photo by Ed Stockard)

reuters: Scientists are using the world’s biggest telescope, buried deep under the South Pole, to try to unravel the mysteries of tiny particles known as neutrinos, hoping to shed light on how the universe was made. The mega-detector, called IceCube, took 10 years to build 2,400 meters below the Antarctic ice. At one cubic km, it is bigger than the Empire State building, the Chicago Sears Tower - now known as Willis Tower - and Shanghai’s World Financial Center combined. Designed to observe neutrinos, which are emitted by exploding stars and move close to the speed of light, the telescope is attracting new attention in the wake of last week’s discovery of a particle that appears to be the Higgs boson - a basic building block of the universe. “You hold up your finger and a hundred billion neutrinos pass through it every second from the sun,” said Jenni Adams, a physicist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, who works on IceCube. READ ON: Giant ice telescope hunts for dark matter’s space secrets This is a very cool telescope, built right out of the Earth just like a mad scientist or evil villain would want it. As we have talked about before, most neutrinos pass through us (and the Earth) without interacting with anything. By using enormous detecting tubes to look for these neutrino events (maybe sensing only one every 20 minutes) and the particular glowing radiation they give off in water, IceCube can trace and analyze how these mysterious particles interact with Earth, when they rarely do. By tracing the path where neutrinos originate, we could discover astronomical sources in deep space. This isn’t usually the case when it comes to high-energy physics, but the Wikipedia page for the IceCube detector is pretty good. Check it out. Finally, this is clearly how physics is done on Hoth.
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reuters:

Scientists are using the world’s biggest telescope, buried deep under the South Pole, to try to unravel the mysteries of tiny particles known as neutrinos, hoping to shed light on how the universe was made.

The mega-detector, called IceCube, took 10 years to build 2,400 meters below the Antarctic ice. At one cubic km, it is bigger than the Empire State building, the Chicago Sears Tower - now known as Willis Tower - and Shanghai’s World Financial Center combined.

Designed to observe neutrinos, which are emitted by exploding stars and move close to the speed of light, the telescope is attracting new attention in the wake of last week’s discovery of a particle that appears to be the Higgs boson - a basic building block of the universe.

“You hold up your finger and a hundred billion neutrinos pass through it every second from the sun,” said Jenni Adams, a physicist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, who works on IceCube.

READ ON: Giant ice telescope hunts for dark matter’s space secrets

This is a very cool telescope, built right out of the Earth just like a mad scientist or evil villain would want it. As we have talked about before, most neutrinos pass through us (and the Earth) without interacting with anything. By using enormous detecting tubes to look for these neutrino events (maybe sensing only one every 20 minutes) and the particular glowing radiation they give off in water, IceCube can trace and analyze how these mysterious particles interact with Earth, when they rarely do. By tracing the path where neutrinos originate, we could discover astronomical sources in deep space.

This isn’t usually the case when it comes to high-energy physics, but the Wikipedia page for the IceCube detector is pretty good. Check it out.

Finally, this is clearly how physics is done on Hoth.

This Stunning View of Arctic Could Be Last of its Kind That’s a new image from our buds at NASA, showing the Arctic ice cap, a sort of white-capped on our blue home. If you have faith in your internet connection, you can view an 11,000 x 11,000 pixel version here. NASA’s new Suomi NPP satellite started sending images back to Earth this year, and they are stunning. We were even treated to an updated 2012 version of the iconic Blue Marble shot (which you really must see). But as the detailed images of our planet’s climate and atmosphere roll in, so does the worry that we may be capturing a few views for the last time. Each summer, Arctic sea ice melts and recedes to a certain degree due to higher temperatures. But over the past few decades, the melting has gotten faster and more severe (the 2011 melt was a record low). Don’t believe me? Check out this video from NASA showing the change in summer ice from the past 32 years. Climate change models have predicted the complete loss of summer ice in the Arctic by 2070 or so. But as this years melt begins, hot and fast, 2030 is looking like a real possibility for an ice-free Arctic. That means that in as little as 20 years, this photo could be a look into the past instead of the present. (via Smart News)
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This Stunning View of Arctic Could Be Last of its Kind

That’s a new image from our buds at NASA, showing the Arctic ice cap, a sort of white-capped on our blue home. If you have faith in your internet connection, you can view an 11,000 x 11,000 pixel version here.

NASA’s new Suomi NPP satellite started sending images back to Earth this year, and they are stunning. We were even treated to an updated 2012 version of the iconic Blue Marble shot (which you really must see). But as the detailed images of our planet’s climate and atmosphere roll in, so does the worry that we may be capturing a few views for the last time.

Each summer, Arctic sea ice melts and recedes to a certain degree due to higher temperatures. But over the past few decades, the melting has gotten faster and more severe (the 2011 melt was a record low). Don’t believe me? Check out this video from NASA showing the change in summer ice from the past 32 years.

Climate change models have predicted the complete loss of summer ice in the Arctic by 2070 or so. But as this years melt begins, hot and fast, 2030 is looking like a real possibility for an ice-free Arctic. That means that in as little as 20 years, this photo could be a look into the past instead of the present.

(via Smart News)

Source: blogs.smithsonianmag.com