Cool Sciencey Pictures

[Dub]

First to break speed of sound without a vehicle. This dude is off his rocker.



That video terrified me. Is this the same guy who had a tear in his glove and his hand swelled up like a melon?

Not quite sure about that.  I know there was another guy that was planning on doing the same thing within the last few years, but never saw if he ended up going through with it.  Last I saw he was still low on money and countries were denying him takeoff on their land.

[Jeffy]

http://www.wimp.com/supersonicflight/

[WillieWatanabe]

Cyclone Yasi made landfall near Mission Beach in Queensland, Australia in the early morning hours of February 3, 2011 as a Category 5 storm. This image of Cyclone Yasi uses MTSAT-2 visible imagery from February 2, 2011 at 0632Z, late afternoon in Australia.

The image here is visualized using McIDAS, Photoshop and Maya. McIDAS was used to access and image the data from NOAA's MTSAT operational satellite ingest server at a resolution of 4096x4096 pixels. NASA's Blue Marble data set provides the colored land imagery. Two images were prepared in Photoshop, one a combination of the land and satellite image in color and one in black and white darkening all but the white cloud tops. The black and white image was used as a displacement map in Maya, creating the 3D appearance of the clouds, and the color image was draped over the displacement as a texture.

[steve dave]

cool sciencey video

[reidrolled]

 

[CHONGS]

from Justin Majeczky on Vimeo.

from William Castleman on Vimeo.

[pissclams]

cool sciencey video

omg that's great

[CHONGS]

 

[WillieWatanabe]

The photo above shows a layer of mid-level clouds and their shadows as observed from an altitude of approximately 8,500 ft (2,590 m). It was taken flying east to west somewhere over the desert of southeastern California -- the camera is facing northwest. Note the thin beams of light filtering through the altocumulus cloud deck. From this perspective, the picture seems as if it could have been snapped by a scuba diver. Shadows from the clouds projected upon the desert floor look much like undulations in sand in shallow water. In actuality, the dappled surface results from the interplay of nearly vertical sunbeams and cloud shadows -- crepuscular rays. The wavy appearance of the shadows is caused by uneven topography. Photo taken on October 12, 2007.

[WillieWatanabe]

[Pett]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/photogalleries/101111-elephants-crocodile-attack-ambush-africa-pictures/#/elephant-vs-alligator-fight-1_28154_600x450.jpg

[WildcatNkilt]

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This along with your post before is absolutely mind blowing.  Knowing that Earth is a micro-spec of what we know as the Universe always makes me 

[WillieWatanabe]

A whirlpool is seen near Oarai City, Ibaraki Prefecture, northeastern Japan, March 11, 2011.

[WillieWatanabe]

The underside of space shuttle Discovery is visible in this image photographed by an Expedition 23 crew member on the International Space Station soon after the shuttle and station began their post-undocking relative separation on April 17th, 2010. Undocking ended a stay of 10 days, 5 hours and 8 minutes.The recognizable feature on Earth below is the south end of Isla de Providencia, about 150 miles off the coast of Nicaragua near 13.3 degrees north latitude 81.4 degrees west longitude.

[CHONGS]

[WillieWatanabe]

Workers inspect a caved-in section of a prefectural road in Satte, Saitama Prefecture, after one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in Japan slammed its eastern coast March 11.

[WillieWatanabe]

The photo below seemingly shows a sky calligraphed with clouds above Davos, Switzerland. In actuality, they're remnant contrails from Swiss Air Force F/A-18s jets made some hours before. These jets were engaged in training maneuvers. The spirals near the top of the picture result from a mock "dogfight" and are related to hole punch clouds and fall streaks. Note that the zenith is at the top of the photo and southwest is toward the bottom. The fact that these contrails remained intact since the training exercise ended indicates that both sufficient water vapor was present at the level of the jet maneuvers (perhaps 20,000 ft or 6,000 m) and that wind shear was minimal. Where the jets were guided in a steep trajectory, the contrails are more confined; longer sausage-like contrails appear where the jets followed a more horizontal flight path.

[Fldermaus]

Little brown bat, turned invisible (by yours truly  ).

[WillieWatanabe]

Iridescent Clouds over Mt. Everest. The rare phenomenon is caused by light reflecting off tiny ice crystals inside the body of the cloud's water vapor.

[WillieWatanabe]

The photo below showing greenhouses galore in shades of beige, tan and sepia was taken above Almería Province in southeastern Spain. On the arid plains of Spain, produce is grown under the world's largest array of greenhouses and trucked northward to various distribution centers.

[EllToPay]

[WillieWatanabe]

Recipe for a rainbow: Add bright sunlight to raindrops and voila!--a beautiful band of multi-colors arcs across the sky. With such an ingredient list, you might suppose that rainbows can only be seen during the day, yet last night Ethan Tweedie of Kamuela, Hawaii, recorded this spectacular example long after dark. "It was a moonbow," explains Tweedie. The bright moon played the role of sun, illuminating nightime raindrops falling through the damp Hawaiian air. "I've been trying to photograph a moonbow for a long time. Last night I was driving back from the Volcano there it was!"

[HeinBallz]

Photo of a double sun taken in China described as an extremely rare optical illusion

A tentative explanation by Jim Kaler was quoted on Life’s Little Mysteries, summarized as “an effect of optical refraction”. But as they themselves quoted other experts, this does not seem like anything seen before. That is, “sun dogs, sunset mirages, sun pillars and sun halos are all relatively common and well understood. But not this effect”.

Basically they are symmetric and appear some degrees apart from the Sun. They may be partially obstructed, and thus not appear very symmetric, but not like the Chinese double-sun.

[stunted]

lol.  Looks like boobs

[WillieWatanabe]

The multiple cascades of Iguazu Falls, one of the most spectacular and intricate waterfalls in the world, slip off a basalt escarpment on the Iguazu River, along a border shared by Argentina and Brazil. Iguazu’s cascades stretch along a subtropical ridge for about 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers), most thunderously at a cleft called the Devil’s Throat. The falls in places are 260 feet (80 m) high and are broken into an estimated 275 streams.

http://epod.usra.edu/.a/6a0105371bb32c970b014e86f63217970d-pi