This image shows oil-flow visualization of a cylindrical roughness element on a flat plate in supersonic flow. The flow direction is from left to right. In this technique, a thin layer Keep reading
Tag: NASA
Martian Landing Physics
A little over a week ago, NASA’s Curiosity rover landed on Mars, the culmination of years of engineering. The mission’s landing, in particular, was the subject of intense scrutiny as Keep reading
Sally Ride
Today FYFD takes a brief aside from fluid dynamics to mark the passing of Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman to travel to space. A physicist by training, Ride served Keep reading
How the Sun Drives the Earth
This video describes how the sun’s energy drives wind and ocean currents on earth. As solar winds stream forth from the sun, our magnetosphere deflects the brunt of the impact Keep reading
Portrait of Gas Giants
[original media no longer available] Here raw footage from NASA’s Cassini and Voyager missions has been combined in a stunning portrait of Saturn and Jupiter. Watch as tiny moons create Keep reading
F-18 Flow Viz
Water tunnels are useful tools for determining aerodynamic characteristics of aircraft, such as this F-18 model placed in the NASA Dryden Flow Visualization Facility. By matching the Reynolds number of Keep reading
Testing Flames in Space
In microgravity, flames behave very differently than on earth due to a lack of buoyant forces. On earth, a flame can continue burning because, as the warm air around it Keep reading
Voyager Explores the Edge of the Solar System
Though unconventional by our terrestrial concepts of fluids, the solar wind and its interaction with objects in and around our solar system can be considered a form of fluid dynamics. Keep reading
Solar Flare
An M-class solar flare with a towering prominence erupted from the Sun over the course of three hours in late September. Notice how the plasma does not fall straight back Keep reading
Aurora from the ISS
The solar wind, a rarefied stream of hot plasma ejected from the sun, constantly bombards Earth’s magnetic field. This results in the formation of the magnetosphere, which deflects most of Keep reading