A lonely road to drive; don’t run out of gas. Saudi Arabia.
Undoubtedly one of the coolest space sights on Earth, the Richat Structure of Mauritania.
January 21, 2013
2,573 notes
The wind has blown away the sand and left bare stone, truly bone dry. Likely Namibia in Southwestern Africa.
The surging flow of the ocean, very visible along the north coast of South America. Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.
how is the sky even a thing that exists
November 5, 2012
43,574 notes
happy space everyone.
August 6, 2012
136 notes
(Movies of jets from young stars at HubbleSite: here)
If you’re like me and maybe a little confused as to what you’re looking at, here’s some more detail (Yes, even Joe has to look stuff up sometimes):
As a star is formed from collapsing dust, ever increasing its density and energy, it begins to form a disk of dust and gas pulled in and rotated by its growing gravity. Perpendicular to this disk, like the tip of a spinning top, some gas is ejected away from the growing star in a high-energy jet. As this collides with interstellar gas, it gives off radiation, which we can observe with telescopes like Hubble.
To see the jets, we have to shift into the infrared and other spectra, as the radiation is outside normal human vision. These movies represent the first time we’ve seen the dynamics of the jets as opposed to still images. More info on protostellar jets here, you star-freaks.
July 17, 2012
18,708 notes
June 7, 2012
149,948 notes
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