Undulatus Asperatus

Where clouds form. Understanding Our World. Book 2. 1947. Internet Archive

新幹線と富士山 (via かがみ～)

For more than a century, scientists have been fascinated by the jet that forms after a drop impacts a liquid. In this study, researchers tracked fluorescent particles in the fluid to understand the velocity and acceleration of flow inside the jet. (Image and research credit: C. van Rijn et al.; via APS Physics; submitted by Kam-Yung Soh)

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- space;the physical universe beyond the earth’s atmosphere//mod carter

Planet: Jupiter

William N. Jennings - Vintage Photographs of Lightnings, c.1885.

Polar Vortex Disruption Of January 2013

Satellite imagery of the disruption of the polar vortex in the northern hemisphere winter 2012-2013. The data show a major stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) event, linked to the distortion and reversal of the normal westerly (moving west to east) flow of air. 

The large vortex (bright) over the North Atlantic Ocean at the start of the clip breaks up into several smaller vortices. This is due to air from lower latitudes (dark) becoming entrained in the polar flow, forming an anti-cyclonic region (dark, rotating clockwise) over Japan and eastern Russia, which disrupts the flow across the region. 

Learn More About The Polar Vortex

Although dramatic, such events are not rare, occurring every two years on average. They can cause winds to reverse near the surface too, leading to very cold spells, especially in North America and Europe. 

The brightness indicates the potential vorticity of the air, a measure of its rotation within its flow, at an altitude of 35 kilometers. Brighter regions have more vorticity. 

A major SSW occurs when the temperatures in the stratosphere around the pole increases by at least 25 Kelvin within a week, causing the wind to change direction. 

The data were gathered by the GEOS-5 satellite every hour between 15th December 2012 and 28th January 2013.

© GMAO / GSFC / NASA / Science Source

“Using nothing more than Newton’s laws of gravitation, we astronomers can confidently predict that several billion years from now, our home galaxy, the Milky Way, will merge with our neighboring galaxy Andromeda. Because the distances between the stars are so great compared to their sizes, few if any stars in either galaxy will actually collide.

Any life on the worlds of that far-off future should be safe, but they would be treated to an amazing, billion-year-long light show a dance of a half a trillion stars to music first heard on one little world by a man who had but one true friend.”

COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014) written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter