Daniiux

Framed by Nature // Merlin Kafka

Kyoto Prefecture, Japan by Norihiro Kataoka

Tampere // Juuso Hämäläinen

Bruno Hans Bürgel - Aus Fernen Welten, 1920.

Lightning Appreciation Post:

There are nearly 500 lightning strikes every second around the world.

Only about 100 of these strike the earth, the others are between and within the clouds themselves.

Lightning is very visible from space (last gif from Astronaut Reid Wiseman)

Besides regular storms (thunder storms, hurricanes, etc.) lightning can be found in volcanoes (gif 3) and even intense forest fires.

In conclusion: nature is fucking awesome!

The Invisible Galaxy

A new form of diffuse galaxy has been discovered inside the Coma Cluster. This place is made 99.99% of dark matter, totally invisible as it doesn’t interact with light.

The galaxy is known as Dragonfly 44 and was discovered by astronomers Pieter van Dokkum and his colleagues.

The way star systems orbit around the center of a galaxy is inexplicable with “normal” physics. To account for the velocity variations and patterns we need to add a new ingredient to the gravitational pot: dark matter.

Dragonfly 44 in particular has so few stars that were the dark matter to be taken away, the galaxy would fly apart the same way you’d go flying if the cord holding the swing to a swing set were severed.

(Image credit: NASA, JPL-CalTech and L. Jenkins) 

Crashing In//Oregon July 2016