Sidusglacies - ⚡️

An total solar eclipse, 1905, observed from Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain, illustrated by Major Baden-Powell.

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

07/04/20

The Fermi Paradox

Once upon a time, scientists decided, “what would happen if we point Hubble at this dark piece of the sky and leave the exposure open for an absurd amount of time?” Said scientists then experienced sudden bowel incontinence from the results. Vast specks of light, like the first image and when zoomed in, each individual speck of light is it’s own galaxy with it’s own solar systems.

Seeing the sheer vastness of the universe and that it’s so large, it’s incomprehensible to our feeble minds, is it possible that we’re alone? Where are all the aliens?

The Fermi Paradox tries to describe why we seem to be alone in a vast sea of endless possibilities for intelligent life to form. Life seems to form easily, surely it’s the same elsewhere.

Here’s some main bullet point arguments as to why we’re seemingly alone.

• We’re too far apart, separated by vast space and time • We’re rare or we’re the first • The aliens don’t have advanced technology (we don’t either). Think of it this way, an octopus or a crow is intelligent life. They’ve never even visited the moon. • Mass extinctions happen more often than not, they might be dead or intelligent life never exists long enough to make contact with each other before it’s wiped out • We haven’t existed long enough to be discovered or to figure out how to find others • They’re too advanced for us • It’s simple nature of intelligent life to eventually wipe itself out • Intelligent life has discovered that it’s too dangers to be in contact • We’re not listening properly for their messages. It’s like trying to listen to a CD on a record player - it won’t work. • We’re not contacted because we’re in a simulation or an alien zoo • Maybe they’re already here, observing • Maybe they’re here (e.g. UFOs?) we just don’t know how to talk to them or acknoweldge them. We laugh at most UFO reports.

Comet Hyakutake

I would choose you in every life;

time after time, we meet again.

The North America Nebula, NGC 7000 // DaydreamAstro

The Poles of Mars.

L: The North Pole, pictured down to the equator R: The South Pole, in more detail

Credit: ESA

This is an artist’s concept of the fastest rotating star found to date. The massive, bright young star, called VFTS 102 rotates at about two million kilometres per hour. Centrifugal force from this dizzying spin rate has flattened the star into an oblate shape, and spun off a disk of hot plasma, seen edge on in this view from a hypothetical planet. The star may have “spun up” by accreting material from a binary companion star. The rapidly evolving companion later exploded as a supernova. The whirling star lies 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

Credit: NASA/ESA and G. Bacon (STScI)