Scientists are fascinated by the organized patterns that can emerge from non-living systems. Here, researchers study micron-sized magnetic particles, immersed in a viscoelastic fluid and subjected to an oscillating magnetic Keep reading
Tag: magnetic field
Mermaid Cereal
In the Cheerios effect, floating objects can fall into one another due to capillary attraction — just like Cheerios link up in a cereal bowl. Here researchers play with that Keep reading
Magnetic Soap Films
Soap films naturally thin over time as fluid evaporates and differences in film thickness cause surface-tension-driven flows. In this video, researchers experiment with adding magnetic nanoparticles to the soap film. Keep reading
A Forest of Ferrofluids
Ferrofluids are made up of ferrous nanoparticles suspended in a carrier fluid like an oil. Under magnetic fields, they take on an array of shapes — from pointed spikes to Keep reading
Contactless Bending
Using electromagnetism, researchers are bending and shaping soft liquid wires even against gravity. The team used galinstan — an alloy of gallium, indium, and tin that remains liquid at room Keep reading
Brilliant Auroras
Glowing auroras billow across Canada in this satellite image from a recent geomagnetic storm. As our sun enters a more active part of its solar cycle, we can expect more Keep reading
Coronal Heating
Compared to its interior, the surface of our sun is a cool 6,000 degrees Celsius. But beyond the surface, the sun’s corona heats up dramatically through interactions between plasma and Keep reading
“One Month of Sun”
Get lost in the beauty of our star with Seán Doran‘s film “One Month of Sun”. Constructed from more than 78,000 NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory images, the video shows solar Keep reading
Testing Granular Gas Theory
When excited, a group of particles can behave much like a gas. These granular gases exhibit many similarities to molecular gases but contain one vital difference: without a constant input Keep reading
Ferrofluid Snakes
We’re used to seeing ferrofluids — with their suspended iron nanoparticles — as spiky fluids when exposed to a magnetic field. But this is not always the case. Here, the Keep reading