The Venus Transit

Posted by "CavalierZee"



The Venus transit as seen in the 171 wavelength. This channel is especially good at showing coronal loops - the arcs extending off of the Sun where plasma moves along magnetic field lines. The brightest spots seen here are locations where the magnetic field near the surface is exceptionally strong.

Credit: NASA SDO

Weirdest Planets

Posted by "CavalierZee"


Courtesy Of "National Geographic and YouTube"

With temperatures ranging from 1000 to 2000°C, gravity 15 times stronger than Earth’s, and a year that lasts just 5.6 of our days, HAT-P-2b is not a planet you’d want to visit for vacation.

The unusual gas giant—located 440 light-years away in the constellation Hercules – turns out to be the most massive planet found outside our solar system so far.

Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, spotted the superdense planet using the HATNet global network of automated telescopes, which scans a large fraction of the Northern Hemisphere sky every night to search for planets.

HAT-P-2b, the second planet the project has discovered, stunned scientists with far-out features unprecedented for an alien world.

HAt-P-2b is but one of the odd planets in the cosmos. Journey further into space with this documentary, and discover the weirdest planets of our universe.

Magnifying The Universe

Posted by "CavalierZee"

The above is an interactive infographic. We have also developed a complimentary poster that you can view here: Sizes of the Universe poster. If you're technically inclined, here's a look at the references we used to construct these infographics: Facts About The Universe.

Introduction:

This interactive infographic from Number Sleuth accurately illustrates the scale of over 100 items within the observable universe ranging from galaxies to insects, nebulae and stars to molecules and atoms. Numerous hot points along the zoom slider allow for direct access to planets, animals, the hydrogen atom and more. As you scroll, a handy dial spins to show you your present magnification level.

While other sites have tried to magnify the universe, no one else has done so with real photographs and 3D renderings. To fully capture the awe of the vastly different sizes of the Pillars of Creation, Andromeda, the sun, elephants and HIV, you really need to see images, not just illustrations of these items. Stunningly enough, the Cat's Eye Nebula is surprising similar to coated vesicles, showing that even though the nebula is more than 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times larger, many things are similar in our universe.

We hope you have a blast magnifying the universe, know that each time you zoom in a depth, you're magnifying the universe 10x ... and every time you zoom out, the bigger objects are 1/10th of their prior size.

If you zoom from the biggest object, The Observable Universe (8.8 x 10E26 ... or 880,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000m across), all the way down to the hydrogen atom's proton nucleus (1.7 x 10E-15 ... or 0.0000000000000017m across), you will have zoomed in over 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000x! Unbelievable isn't it? Our universe really is immensely massive and surprisingly small.

How To Use:

Step 1:
To experience this interactive infographic in full screen (our recommendation) click the "Full Screen" button in the top right corner of the infographic.

Step 2:
Choose one of nine starting points by moving your mouse over and clicking one of the 9 images (atoms, animals, buildings, mountains, planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies and the observable universe).

Step 3:
Now on the bottom of the infographic, there is a blue blue dot that you can click on with your mouse.Drag the blue circle left to go "up" in size and drag the blue circle right to go "down" in size.

Step 4:
To relocate to one of the nine entry points, click the corresponding yellow dot on the scroller at the bottom of the page

Credits:

You can view a list of image credits used in the construction of this infographic by clicking here.

Produced for Number Sleuth by Science is Beautiful in coordination with Mandril Design and Killer Infographics. 

The Universe made possible by Number Sleuth

Celestial Lights

Posted by "CavalierZee"


By "Ole C. Salomonsen"




[View in full screen. It's magnificent!]

For those who do not know, auroras are caused by solar activity. This is shortly visualized in the video.

Our suns activity varies in 11 year cycles, and we are closing solar maximum (solar max) for our current solar cycle somewhere between 2012-2013, and solar activity has clearly been picking up.

The beginning of 2011 was lots of clouds but weather improved late 2011 and out 2012. This video contains recordings from some of the most spectacular auroral displays I have ever witnessed, and I have seen a few.


For this video I did shoot approx 150.000 exposures from sept.2011 - april.2012 using Canon DSLR's and various wide angle lenses. Approx 6.000 frames in this video. To achieve pannings I used the fantastic Stage Zero + MX2 controller time-lapse gear from Dynamic Perception.

The video is a merge of two parts; the first part contains some more wild and aggressive auroras, as well as a few milky way sequences, hence either auroras are moving fast because they are, or they are fast due to motion of the milky way / stars.

Still, some of the strait up shots are very close to real-time speed, although auroras mostly are slower, she can also be FAST!

The second part has some more slow and majestic auroras, where I have focused more on composition and foreground.

The music should give you a clear indication of where you are :)

Edge Of The Milkyway

Incredible Views Of The MilkyWay In TimeLapse..Enjoy!