Strong winds blew curtains of mist across Skógafoss in this image of nesting northern fulmars by photographer Stefan Gerrits. Despite water’s high density compared to air, fine droplets are able to stay aloft for long periods, given the right breeze. Mists, fogs, and sea spray can float surprising distances; droplets exhaled from our lungs can persist even farther. (Image credit: S. Gerrits; via Colossal)
Category: Art
“Melting Snowflake”
It’s hard to preserve something as ephemeral as a snowflake, as seen in this microphotograph by Michael Robert Peres. Despite the old adage, it is possible to make identical snowflakes, but it requires mirroring the freezing conditions exactly, including both temperature and humidity. Here, the snowflake’s crystalline structure survives as a ghost in a melting droplet. (Image credit: M. Peres; via Ars Technica)
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“Magnetic Vortex”
The Macro room team is back with a video featuring their signature colorful cleverness. This time they’re using a magnetic stirrer to swirl up some mesmerizing flows. It’s well worth a watch. (Video and image credit: Macro Room)
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“500,000-km Solar Prominence Eruption”
It’s difficult at times to fathom the scale and power of fluid dynamics beyond our day-to-day lives. Here, twists of the Sun‘s magnetic field propel a jet of plasma more than 500,000 kilometers out from its surface in an enormous solar prominence eruption. To give you a sense of scale for this random solar burp, that’s bigger than ten times the distance to satellites in geostationary orbit. (Image credit: P. Chou; via Colossal)
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The Balvenie
Photographer Ernie Button explores the stains left behind when various liquors evaporate. This one comes from a single malt scotch whisky by The Balvenie. The stain itself is made up of particles left behind when the alcohol and water in the whisky evaporate. The pattern itself depends on a careful interplay between surface tension, evaporation, pinning forces, and internal convection as the whisky puddle dries out. (Image credit: E. Button/CUPOTY; via Colossal)
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A Rough Day
Winds from the north made for wild conditions at Nazaré in Portugal. Photographer Ben Thouard caught these crashing waves in the late afternoon, when the low sun angle illuminated the spray of the surf. Every year teratons of salt and biomass move from the ocean to the atmosphere, much of it through turbulent wave action driven by the wind. Here, the wind rips droplets off of wave crests, but smaller droplets reach the atmosphere when bubbles–trapped underwater by crashing waves–reach the surface and burst. (Image credit: B. Thouard/OPOTY; via Colossal)
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A Gentoo Flotilla
If you’re used to seeing penguins on land, their speed and grace in the water can surprise. Penguins are even capable of extra bursts of speed through supercavitation. They trap air beneath their feathers and then release it underwater when they need to move faster. Their coating of bubbles reduces their drag and gives them the extra speed to help escape predators like leopard seals. (Image credit: R. Barats/OPOTY; via Colossal)
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Frosted
Frost forms hexagonal columns on a wooden rail in this microphotograph by Gregory B. Murray. Like in snowflakes, when water molecules freeze they position themselves to form six-sided crystals. From this perspective, it looks like a miniature version of the Giant’s Causeway. (Image credit: G. Murray; via Ars Technica)
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“Orion, the Horsehead and the Flame in H-alpha”
Photographer Daniele Borsari captured this gorgeous composite image of nebulas in black and white, emphasizing the motion underlying the gas and dust. In the upper right, the Orion Nebula shines, bright with new stars. In the lower left, you can pick out the distinctive shape of the Horsehead Nebula and, further to the left, the Flame Nebula. We often see nebulas in bright colors, but I love the way black and white highlights the turbulence surrounding them. (Image credit: D. Borsari/ZWOAPOTY; via Colossal)
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Cornflower Roots Growing
As children, most of us plant a seed or two and watch it sprout, but we never get a view quite like this one. This microscopic timelapse shows the roots of a cornflower plant extending into moist, porous soil, establishing xylem, and extending root hairs outward to collect water and nutrients to fuel further growth. At the end, there’s even a close-up view of flow inside the root hairs. What an incredible glimpse inside a world we so often take for granted! (Video and image credit: W. van Egmond; via Colossal)
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