Earth’s atmosphere is escaping into space…but very slowly. It’ll be billions of years before it’s gone, but this MinuteEarth video explains it in two short minutes!
EarthSky // Page 3
Via Bytesize Science
On the latest video from ByteSize Science – released May 20, 2013 – the American Chemical Society (AMS) explains why orange juice and toothpaste is such a bad taste combo.
Cloud streets over the Bering Sea on January 20, 2006. Image Credit: Jesse Allen, NASA.
Cloud streets are long rows of cumulus clouds that are oriented parallel to the direction of the wind. Check out these cool images!
The Wright brothers’ airplane on its first powered flight on December 17, 1903. Via Library of Congress.
May 22, 1906. On this date, two Ohio brothers – Wilbur and Orville Wright – received a patent for their heavier-than-air flying machine. Just three years before, the two bicycle mechanics had made the first controlled, powered flight. The Wrights wrote in their patent that their airplane design:
… provide[s] means for guiding the machine both vertically and horizontally … combining lightness, strength, convenience of construction, and certain other advantages.
Photo credit: Tosca Yemoh Zanon. Thank you Tosca!
They’re ubiquitous at this time of the year. Who looks closely at a fly? Well, EarthSky Facebook friend Tosca Yemoh Zanon did.
The waxing gibbous moon is near the ringed planet Saturn on May 22
You’ll find the bright moon near the planet Saturn on the evening of May 22, 2013, and the star Spica to the west (right) of the moon and Saturn. Although both Saturn and Spica shine brightly, they’ll be harder than usual to see tonight because of the lunar glare. Can you see them? Binoculars might help, if you have them.
The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase. It’s getting big in the sky, and will turn full on the night of May 24/25. In the Northern hemisphere, we often call this particular full moon the Flower Moon, Rose Moon or Strawberry Moon. The full moon will barely clip the Earth’s penumbral shadow, but this eclipse will be so shallow and faint that’ll be virtually impossible to observe.
Full Flower Moon shines from dusk till dawn on May 24/25
Saturn, the sixth planet outward from the sun, will shine in front of the constellation Virgo until passing out of Virgo and into the constellation Libra in late August/early September 2013. Blue-white Spica, the brightest star in Virgo, contrasts beautifully with golden Saturn, the most distant world that you can easily see with the unaided eye.
In this image, taken at night after the tornado passed through Moore, moonlight is illuminating the tops of the storm clouds. Image Credit: William Straka III, University of Wisconsin, CIMSSData Credit: University of Wisconsin
On May 20, 2013, NASA and NOAA satellites were monitoring the weather system that generated severe weather in the south-central United States and spawned the Moore, Oklahoma tornado. This post contains four images from that routine monitoring from space.
Credit: Shutterstock / mypokcik
Engineers have developed a novel method for producing clean hydrogen, which could prove essential to weaning society off of fossil fuels and their environmental implications.
Cancer cells. Credit: Shutterstock / Shebeko
Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Lund University, Sweden, have bioengineered a novel molecule which has been proven to successfully kill tumor cells.
A 4.5-m (14.8-ft) white shark removed a 20-kg (44-lb) chunk of flesh, sinew, and blubber from a whale by performing lateral headshakes. Courtesy C. Fallows, et al.
At False Bay, South Africa, great white sharks are infamous for their dramatic attacks on fur seals. They propel from the ocean depths towards their prey at such great speed that they breach the ocean surface, often with a seal clamped between rows of teeth in their enormous mouth. But the seals aren’t the only source of food for the sharks. Scientists have uncovered new evidence that scavenging on dead whales is a little-known but significant food source for great whites.
