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Hot Springs of Swag

@radioactiveswagsprings-blog / radioactiveswagsprings-blog.tumblr.com

17 | M | swagland Science
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cracked
www.cracked.com

The Gravity Field And Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) is proof that form is function and both are beautiful. Especially when they’re made of pure genius. A low orbit meant the satellite had to care a bit about aerodynamics, solar power made it shiny, and the incredible sensitivity of its instrumentation required a design without any moving parts. It was sleek, shiny, and solid. The realities of rocket science and the laws of physics teamed up to build an icon of fantastic ‘50s futurism for real.

The satellite mapped variations in the Earth’s gravitational field, allowing it to measure ocean currents, investigate the mantle, even probe inside hazardous volcanic regions. There was a real risk it would find a secret Bond villain. Which is the most reasonable explanation for how it got hit by an earthquake in space. The 2011 Tohoku earthquake turned tectonic plates into the world’s biggest sub(terranean)woofer. This vibrated the entire atmosphere so hard it even affected GPS signals by shaking the ionosphere. But the GOCE was flying low enough to feel the acoustic wave. This wasn’t a detection of the ground shaking: Its accelerometers and orbital correction thrusters felt the shaking from 260 kilometers straight up.

5 of the Coolest Scientific Findings (Are Shockingly Recent)

Source: cracked.com
#science
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scinerds
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kny111

What the Death of the Sun Will Look Like

About 1.1 billion years from now, the sun will begin to change. As the hydrogen fuel in its core is used up, the burning will spread outward toward the surface. This will make the sun grow brighter. This increased radiation will have a devastating effect on our planet. Here’s what that might look like.
The mean surface temperature of the earth will rise from about 68°F to 167°F. The earth’s oceans will evaporate. The planet will become a stark, lifeless desert.
Finally, at the age of almost 1.1 billion years, the sun will run out of hydrogen almost entirely. When the sun uses hydrogen to create energy, it changes it to helium. After all these years, the core of the sun will be filled with left-over helium. This helium will become unstable as it begins to collapse under its own weight. The core of the sun will become even denser and hotter. As this happens, the sun will swell one-and-a-half times its normal size and grow more than twice as bright as it is now.
Over the next 700 million years, it won’t grow any brighter . But it will continue to grow larger. It will swell to more than twice its present size. As it does so, it will cool down a little. From the parched surface of the earth, the sun will look like an enormous orange ball hanging in the misty sky.
At the age of about 1.2 billion years the sun will blow off more than a quarter of the mass of its outer surface. With a less massive sun to attract them, the planets’ orbits will change. Venus will become as distant as the earth is now, and the earth will move even farther away.
Eventually, the ever-swelling sun will become a red giant. It will become 166 times larger than the sun we knew. This is almost as large as the orbit of the earth today. The planets Mercury and Venus will be devoured in the flames of the giant star. The mountains of the earth will melt and flow like red-hot molasses into vast, flat seas of lava. A bloated red sun will fill more than half the sky.
While this spells the death of the inner planets, it will bring new life to the more distant worlds.

Full Article

Source: io9.com
#sun
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sciencetynan

The Alien Beauty Of Jellyfish In Alexander Semenov ’s New Photos

Russian marine biologist and underwater photographer Alexander Semenov is back with some new extraordinary photographs of the deep sea aliens. Alexander is currently leading a team of scientists on a three-year-long Aquatilis expedition to explore the deep waters around the world.

The aim of Aguatilis expedition is to reveal the hidden animal kingdom living miles under the surface. “You can’t actually study gelata in labs or in an aquarium, because their bodies can fall apart from a single human touch”, explains the team of Aquatilis. The team uses innovative equipment and even a robot in order to capture the jellyfish.

Alexander Semenov

Source: asylum-art
#jellyfish#underwater creatures
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sciencetynan

A Martian Sunrise - Daybreak at Gale Crater

Gale Crater can be seen in the center of this image with its central mountain of Strata. This is the Crater where NASA landed the Curiosity Mars Rover and made history in 2012. Curiosity discovered that this crater was once at the bottom of a large freshwater lake. The water in this lake would have been drinkable by humans and hospitable to microbial life. After exploring the Crater, Curiosity proceeded to explore the nearby plains of Aeolis Palus in search of life. Curiosity continues its search today, 140,000,000 miles away from home on a planet inhabited entirely by robots. (Though this image is computer generated, all of the geological features are correct and realistic.) 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Science Magazine

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tuffschist
fyeahuniverse.tumblr.com

Dan’s Cave, Abaco Island

In depths ranging from 75ft to 170ft, Dan’s Cave is one of the most beautiful places someone could dive. Stalagmites, stalactites, and other formations up to 10,000 years old. Dan’s Cave is the diving equivalent of K2: the photographer of this image died not so long ago in this very cave.

(Image by Wes C. Skiles)

Source: fyeahuniverse
#caves
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earthstory

Wave clouds

Boundaries in the atmosphere can act like the boundary between oil and water; if you shake a container you can mix them, but if you just rock it, you’ll set off a wave at the interface between the oil and the water.

These are Undulatus asperatus or wave clouds photographed over South Carolina on the morning of March 30. These clouds form when there is a boundary between 2 layers of different density and something disturbs that boundary. The boundary is pushed up in one spot, it comes down next to it, and that sets off a wave that carries downwind.

Undulatus Asperatus clouds aren’t an official type of cloud yet, but their name has been submitted for consideration to become the first new type of cloud in a half century (read more here: http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1W0T-MY)

-JBB

Image credit: Danny Buxton and Amy Anderson of Smoaks, SC via @bryluhn on Twitter Shared here and here with permission: https://twitter.com/bryluhn/status/582601011895877632

http://wapo.st/1EW1zjG

Head over to our blog for video of these clouds rolling through: http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1hC3j2T

Source: facebook.com
#clouds#wave clouds
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sciencetynan

Using Tumblr is like renting an apartment and continually asking the landlord to fix the heating, but instead the landlord repaints your living room walls every month.

And you’re like “But I liked the off-white, it went well with my furniture!” but the landlord insists that the hot pink is exactly what the place needs. And the moment you get used to the pink walls and bought things to match them, the landlord comes and paints the room forest green.

Meanwhile, the heating still doesn’t work.

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