In February 2024, the North Atlantic’s sea ice reached its furthest extent of the season, limning the coastline with tens of kilometers of ice. These images — both capturing the Keep reading
Category: Phenomena
Running Out of Sand?
Headlines over the past few years have suggested that the world is running out of sand — specifically, that we’re running out of the angular sand grains preferred for concrete. Keep reading
The Taum Sauk Dam Failure and Its Legacy
Managing an electrical grid is all about balancing the electricity that plants can supply with the instantaneous demands of consumers. If there’s more power available than people need, it needs Keep reading
Convection in Blue
Convection cells like these are all around us — in the clouds, on the Sun, and in our pans — but we rarely get to watch them in action. Convection Keep reading
Herding Sheep
Flocks of birds, schools of fish, and herds of sheep all resemble fluids at times, and physicists have been trying to recreate their collective motion for decades. Many of these Keep reading
Who Killed the Colorado River?
From its source high in the snowy Rocky Mountains, the Colorado River runs through two countries and five states on its way to the Gulf of California. Or at least Keep reading
Sea Ice Swirls
Fragments of sea ice tumble and swirl in this satellite image of Greenland’s east coast. In spring, Arctic sea ice journeys down the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard. Along Keep reading
A Comet’s Two Tails
The bright tail of a comet doesn’t actually stream out behind it. Instead, the tail points away from the sun, showing off all the ice, dust, and gas blown off Keep reading
Erie Algal Bloom
Blue-green algae bloom in Lake Erie’s summer conditions. Unfortunately for those looking to spend summer on the water, the dominant organism in this bloom produces a toxin that “can cause Keep reading
Marangoni Blossoms
When surface tension varies along an interface, fluids move from regions of low surface tension to higher surface tension, a behavior known as the Marangoni effect. Here, a drop of Keep reading