Celebrating the physics of all that flows with Nicole Sharp, Ph.D.
- Profile
A Comet’s Tail Swept Away
On Christmas Day 2021, Comet Leonard put on a show in our skies. Though the comet was a pale streak to the naked eye, photographer Gerald Rhemann caught a striking event: the moment part of the comet’s tail disconnected from its body. The solar wind swept the comet’s gas and dust away. Though I’ve talked…
Aerosols and Instruments
Although COVID has disrupted all of our lives, orchestras saw particular disruption, as little was known about how instruments spread aerosol droplets. In this recent study, a team looked at many wind instruments, as played by professional musicians, for the aerosol load and air flow each instrument creates. They found that, on the whole, wind…
“Keeping Our Sheet Together”
When two liquid jets collide, they form a falling liquid sheet. Here researchers explore how that sheet breaks up when the liquids involved contain polymers. The intact areas of the sheet show as dark red or almost black. The edges of the sheet appear in brighter red and yellow, outlining the holes that form and…
Free Contact Lines
How a simple drop of water sits on a surface is a strangely complicated question. The answer depends on the droplet’s size, its chemistry, the roughness of the surface, and what kind of material it’s sitting on. Vetting the mathematical models that describe these behaviors is especially difficult since droplets often get stuck, or “pinned,”…
Pistol Shrimp Snaps
Gram for gram, few animals can match the power of a pistol shrimp’s snap. When its claw closes, the shrimp ejects a jet of water so fast that the water pressure drops below the vapor pressure, causing a cavitation bubble. Like other cavitation bubbles, this one is short-lived, growing and collapsing (and sending out shock…
Dripping Glaze on Ceramics
Candy-colored glaze oozes down the sides of Brian Giniewski’s Drippy Pots. These mugs seem like a great way to the start the day with a little happy, fluidsy action! (Image credit: B. Giniewski; via Colossal)
Martian Glaciers
On Earth, glaciers slide on lubricating layers of water, leaving complex landscapes like fjords and drumlins in their wake. Mars — though once home to enormous ice masses — lacks those geological features. Scientists assumed, therefore, that Martian ice stayed frozen and unmoving. But a new study demonstrates that is not the case. Researchers used…
Jupiter’s Frosted Clouds
New 3D renderings of Jovian clouds show textured swirls akin to a cupcake’s sculpted frosting. The images are based on flyby data from the JunoCam instrument. Because illumination of the clouds is generally brightest for the highest clouds, the team has rendered elevation based on brightest. While this is somewhat physical, it’s not exactly what…
Rising Through Turbulence
Plankton — microscopic creatures with often limited swimming abilities — can face daily journeys of hundreds of vertical meters in the ocean. That’s a daunting prospect for any tiny swimmer. A new mathematical model suggests that plankton can have an easier time of it, though, by riding turbulent currents. The researchers modeled an individual planktar…
How Gas Pump Nozzles Work
Ever wonder how a gas pump shuts off when the tank is full? You might guess that there’s a sophisticated electronic sensor hidden in there. But there isn’t! Gas pumps use an entirely mechanical technique to sense a full tank and shut off flow, as Steve Mould demonstrates in this video. There are two key…