Category Archives: Nature

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The Milky Way photographed from Chile after sunset on Tuesday surrounded by the ripples of airglow Australis. NASA explains:

Above a sea of clouds and flanking the celestial Milky Way, the airglow seems to ripple and flow across the northern horizon in atmospheric waves. Originating at an altitude similar to aurorae, the luminous airglow is instead due to chemiluminescence, the production of light through chemical excitation. Commonly captured with a greenish tinge by sensitive digital cameras, this reddish airglow emission is from OH molecules and oxygen atoms at extremely low densities and has often been present in southern hemisphere nights during the last few years.

Larger image here.

Astronomy Picture of the Day (NASA)

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High speed photos of piscivorous birds doing their thing in the waters of southern California by Salah Baazizi.

Despite seeming to have been taken at close range, the photographer uses a 400mm super telephoto lens, positioning himself far from the terns, gulls and herons at work.

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The fruit of Finnish photographer Joni Niemelä’s obsession with the carnivorous plant Drosera, also known as ‘Sundew’ on account of the droplets that collect on the tips of its spiny leaves.

More here and here.

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The rare Diphylleia grayi, or ‘skeleton flower’ (found only in the colder regions of Japan and China and in the Appalachian Mountains in the US) changes from white to translucent when exposed to water then back from its ‘skeletal’ form to white as it dries.

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