Lightning strikes the edge of the Grand Canyon, with the majestic “Indian Watchtower” (not actually built by Native Americans) in the foreground. When I saw this photo (via Reddit), I made this face:  It also took me on a curiosity journey: Lightning strikes Earth’s surface about 45 times every second. But not every spot on Earth is struck by lightning at the same frequency. Some places, like Antarctica, almost never see lightning. And some places, like a certain area of Democratic Republic of Congo, get almost 160 strikes per square kilometer every year. This area of Arizona gets about 10 strikes per square kilometer every year. Let’s use a conservative guess for the age of the Grand Canyon at about 6 million years (although some controversial estimates have put its age at up to 17 million years. Or even 70 million). The ridge area that the lightning is striking is about 1 square kilometer in area (I checked on Google Earth, below) View Larger Map If we assume that the Grand Canyon region’s climate has been fairly consistent over that time (which is a big assumption, and most likely not true), then this same sight has happened somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 million times. Lightning does strike twice. And that’s a beautiful thought.
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Lightning strikes the edge of the Grand Canyon, with the majestic “Indian Watchtower” (not actually built by Native Americans) in the foreground. When I saw this photo (via Reddit), I made this face: 

It also took me on a curiosity journey: Lightning strikes Earth’s surface about 45 times every second. But not every spot on Earth is struck by lightning at the same frequency. Some places, like Antarctica, almost never see lightning. And some places, like a certain area of Democratic Republic of Congo, get almost 160 strikes per square kilometer every year. This area of Arizona gets about 10 strikes per square kilometer every year.

Let’s use a conservative guess for the age of the Grand Canyon at about 6 million years (although some controversial estimates have put its age at up to 17 million years. Or even 70 million). The ridge area that the lightning is striking is about 1 square kilometer in area (I checked on Google Earth, below)


View Larger Map

If we assume that the Grand Canyon region’s climate has been fairly consistent over that time (which is a big assumption, and most likely not true), then this same sight has happened somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 million times.

Lightning does strike twice. And that’s a beautiful thought.

Not quite a scene from E.T., but close … What a stunning shot of the moon! Not only does this perfectly capture the optical oddities of the “moon illusion” (why the moon looks bigger near the horizon), but when you think about the sheer technical mastery that went in to making it happen … WOW! Philipp Schmidli (his website, in German) set up on a hillside a kilometer away so he could get this angle, after scouting the perfect spot on foot using GPS. To get the photo he needed to use a 1200 mm focal length, which is like a reverse-sniper-rifle of optical input. The moon illusion is enhanced by that telephoto trick, too, but you can head over to io9 if you want to dig into the technical details (several commenters there have done a good job with it). But wow.
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Not quite a scene from E.T., but close …

What a stunning shot of the moon! Not only does this perfectly capture the optical oddities of the “moon illusion” (why the moon looks bigger near the horizon), but when you think about the sheer technical mastery that went in to making it happen … WOW!

Philipp Schmidli (his website, in German) set up on a hillside a kilometer away so he could get this angle, after scouting the perfect spot on foot using GPS. To get the photo he needed to use a 1200 mm focal length, which is like a reverse-sniper-rifle of optical input. The moon illusion is enhanced by that telephoto trick, too, but you can head over to io9 if you want to dig into the technical details (several commenters there have done a good job with it).

But wow.

Source: io9.com

Spring Fling The sun just released a M6.5 class flare today, a merely medium-powered burst of solar energy. While it’s the strongest flare yet this year (2013 is predicted to be a maximum in the solar activity cycle), it likely won’t affect much down here. I just thought it was really pretty, as captured here by NASA’s SDO satellite.  (via NASA)
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Spring Fling

The sun just released a M6.5 class flare today, a merely medium-powered burst of solar energy. While it’s the strongest flare yet this year (2013 is predicted to be a maximum in the solar activity cycle), it likely won’t affect much down here.

I just thought it was really pretty, as captured here by NASA’s SDO satellite. 

(via NASA)

Source: nasa.gov

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.

Here’s my very first attempt at photographing the moon! All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I took this shot last Thursday, March 28, just one day after the full moon. You can see the waning shadow beginning to creep in at the top. I got pretty lucky with the position of the moon, and the terminator (the line between light and dark) fell right across the moon’s Langrenus crater up there around the 12:30 position. Don’t worry, I didn’t know that off the back of my hand, I had to look it up. Langrenus is almost 3 km deep and about 130 km across, and with the sharp angle of the sunlight I was able to catch the back of the crater wall quite well. Of course, that was pure luck, since I was just shooting at a white dot in the sky. A few photo nerd notes: Considering that I didn’t have a tripod with me (I shot this on top of a fencepost), this is only at 105 mm, and I had to turn the ISO way up, it turned out pretty nice. I need to get a lens that goes to 200 mm or beyond, bad. Inquire if you’d like to donate one :)
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Here’s my very first attempt at photographing the moon!

All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I took this shot last Thursday, March 28, just one day after the full moon. You can see the waning shadow beginning to creep in at the top. I got pretty lucky with the position of the moon, and the terminator (the line between light and dark) fell right across the moon’s Langrenus crater up there around the 12:30 position. Don’t worry, I didn’t know that off the back of my hand, I had to look it up. Langrenus is almost 3 km deep and about 130 km across, and with the sharp angle of the sunlight I was able to catch the back of the crater wall quite well. Of course, that was pure luck, since I was just shooting at a white dot in the sky.

A few photo nerd notes: Considering that I didn’t have a tripod with me (I shot this on top of a fencepost), this is only at 105 mm, and I had to turn the ISO way up, it turned out pretty nice. I need to get a lens that goes to 200 mm or beyond, bad. Inquire if you’d like to donate one :)

The physics of fluid, revealed in spellbinding color by artist Fabian Oefner. The exotic fluid dynamics of paint splattering off of a rotating drill are captured frozen in time using high-tech flash technology. The whole thing is over in approximately 1/40000th of a second. Check out io9 for a little fluid dynamic explanation and check out more from Oefner here.
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The physics of fluid, revealed in spellbinding color by artist Fabian Oefner. The exotic fluid dynamics of paint splattering off of a rotating drill are captured frozen in time using high-tech flash technology. The whole thing is over in approximately 1/40000th of a second.

Check out io9 for a little fluid dynamic explanation and check out more from Oefner here.

Source: io9.com

Earth, Why You So Angry? Our planet apparently had to blow off a little steam earlier this year, captured in this volcanic lightning strike during an eruption of Sakurajima volcano in Japan. Lightning strikes Earth about 40 times every second, and scientists don’t know exactly how those strikes work. It’s clear, though, that just like in a thunderstorm, there’s extreme charge differences built up between the ash cloud and the Earth. It’s mysterious, violent and beautiful. (via APOD)
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Earth, Why You So Angry?

Our planet apparently had to blow off a little steam earlier this year, captured in this volcanic lightning strike during an eruption of Sakurajima volcano in Japan. Lightning strikes Earth about 40 times every second, and scientists don’t know exactly how those strikes work. It’s clear, though, that just like in a thunderstorm, there’s extreme charge differences built up between the ash cloud and the Earth.

It’s mysterious, violent and beautiful.

(via APOD)

Source: apod.nasa.gov