V838 Monocerotis generated a flash so brilliant that scientists had never seen anything like it before. NASA has just released an image created using data from the Hubble Space Telescope that shows V838 expelling material into space. However, “what we are actually seeing is an outwardly moving ‘light echo’ of the bright flash – about a million times solar luminosity – from 11 years ago.” Continue reading for a video and more information.
The Lencois Maranhenses National Park is located in Maranhao state, in northeastern Brazil. It is an area of low, flat, occasionally flooded land, overlaid with large, discrete sand dunes. It encompasses roughly 1500 square kilometers, and despite abundant rain, supports almost no vegetation. Continue reading for a video, more pictures, and additional information.
Photo credit: TheMeta
Ever wonder just how large a solar flare from the sun really is? Well, the image above shows just how small the Earth really is when compared to one. Scientifically speaking, a solar flare is a sudden brightening observed over the Sun’s surface or the solar limb. Click here to view the first image in this week’s funny work pictures gallery. Continue reading for a video of an awesome Han Solo in Carbonite business card case.
Mammatus, also known as mammatocumulus (meaning “mammary cloud”), is essentially a meteorological term applied to a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud. Mammatus are most often associated with the anvil cloud and also severe thunderstorms. Continue reading for more.
Now that you’ve seen extreme close-ups of the human eye, now it’s time to see Suren Manvelyan’s work on animals. In addition to macro photographer, “Suren has been teaching physics, mathematics, projective geometry and astronomy at the Yerevan Waldorf School for the last decade.” If you’re wondering, Suren says that “all animals are alive and were not harmed during shooting.” Continue reading to see more.
Derweze is basically a village in Turkmenistan of about 350 inhabitants, located in the middle of the Karakum Desert, about 260 km north from Ashgabat. It got its nickname, “the door to hell”, due to a drilling rig accident gone terribly wrong. Continue reading to see more.
It’s always a good time to appreciate clever photography, and that’s why we’ve rounded up twenty more pictures that were captured at the perfect moment, not to mention place and time. They range from the airplane being pinched above to the Olympic rings in perfect alignment with the moon. Continue reading to see them all.
A roll cloud is basically a low, horizontal, tube-shaped, and relatively rare type of arcus cloud. They differ from shelf clouds by being completely detached from other cloud features. We’ve rounded up five mind-blowing pictures for your viewing enjoyment. Continue reading to see them all.
It’s not everyday that you’re able to see the planets in our solar system clearly, without the use of a telescope, much less three of them at once. This photographer captured Jupiter, Venus, and the Moon above Los Angeles from Griffith Observatory. Click here to view the first image in today’s viral picture gallery. Continue reading for a video of a Kinect-powered pool game.
Photo credit: Martin Rietze
Technically speaking, volcanic lightning is called a “dirty thunderstorm” and occurs when lightning is produced in a volcanic plume. A study in the journal Science indicated that electrical charges are generated when rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in a volcanic plume collide and produce static charges, just as ice particles collide in regular thunderstorms. Continue reading to see more.