Onelargeprawn
John D Boswell, the brains behind the Symphony of Science ditches vocals and auto-tune in favour of visuals and music in his latest video. Set to a piece of original music, Boswell uses compiles footage from a variety of documentaries to create Our Story in 1 Minute, a journey that takes us from the big bang over 13 billion years ago to single-celled microbial beginnings to the peak of human endeavour.
[via @shawn_hamman]
Astronauts like Don Pettit see the most fabulous things from the viewports of the International Space Station. This little fly-by video shows a compilation of views from the ISS as it orbits the Earth at night. NASA scientist Dr. Justin Wilkinson serves as our soothing tour guide while the ISS zips over the nocturnal landscapes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ObnEpRccHM
[via Huffington Post]
Sometimes the boffins over at NASA like to have a bit of fun. Images of the sun captured from their Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission were enhanced, not to add any further scientific value, but to make them look purdy.
The visualization shows the movement of plasma in the sun’s atmosphere. The corona as it is called reaches temperatures of 600000 Kelvin, or 599726.85 degrees Celsius! Have a look at our beautiful Incandescent Sun below.
To download the images and HD video, travel to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
[via Holy Kaw]
The interactive Scale of the Universe shows us how minuscule and gargantuan elements in our universe can be. But just how do we go about measuring the distances from the Earth to these celestial bodies? This charming animated short from the Royal Observatory Greenwich answers that question, explaining the concepts with easy, familiar analogies.
[via Brain Pickings]
The interactive Scale of the Universe shows us how minuscule and gargantuan elements in our universe can be. We know that atoms, the basic unit of matter, are small but just how small are we talking about?
Scientist and teacher Jonathan Bergmann answers that question in this quick animated chemistry lesson using blueberries, grapefruits, and football stadiums as metaphors.
You can find many more educational videos at TED-Ed.
[via @blahsum]
Every day it’s swirling. The world ocean is a large body of water that covers over 70% of the Earth’s surface and this beautiful time-lapse animation by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio shows the movement of the ocean currents around the continents and islands.
Using data during the period of June 2005 and December 2007, Perpetual Ocean is produced using a complex computation model that is usually used to predict changes in world’s currents. In this case all the facts and figures have been removed, leaving only the curly and swirly patterns that look like they could be part of the starry nightscape in a Vincent van Gogh painting.
For more information on Perpetual Ocean, visit the Scientific Visualization Studio.
[via @JoeyHiFi]
As part of an all-sky astronomical survey, NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (or WISE) satellite took over 2.7 million images and beamed back 5 trillion bytes of data to eager astronomers back on Earth. This composite image is made up of 18,000 images covering the sky and shows more than 560 million stars and galaxies! You’ll notice that the prominent Milky Way Galaxy runs horizontally at the centre of the map.
The mosaic image has an oval shape and that is because of the method used to render the 3D sky onto a 2D map.
The sky can be thought of as a sphere that surrounds us in three dimensions. To make a map of the sky, astronomers project it into two dimensions. Many different methods can be used to project a spherical surface into a 2-D map. The projection used in this image of the sky is called Aitoff, named after the geographer who invented it. It takes the 3-D sky sphere and slices open one hemisphere, and then flattens the whole thing out into an oval shape.
Have a look at the full image after the jump.
Another day, another time-lapse video. Not that we’re complaining of course. Vimeo user AJRCLIPS collects and edits the open source data from NASA’s Image Science & Analysis Laboratory to show the stars as viewed from different cameras placed aboard the International Space Station. As expected, the views are splendiferous.
[via +Ron Garan]
Envisat (or “Environmental Satellite”) is an Earth-observing satellite that was launched into space by the European Space Agency a little over a decade ago. In that time the €2.3 billion, 8-ton satellite has orbited the Earth thousands of times and had beamed down data that has helped scientists to study ozone depletion, the spread of pollution, and monitor maritime traffic.
Envisat has also taken a few photos during its tenure. Wired Magazine celebrates the 10th anniversary of the satellite with a gallery of images of the earth as shot from space. Have a look at some of the beautiful topographies after the jump.
So we don’t usually post big brands here, but this is one marketing campaign that has captured our attention. Mercedes Benz is developing a new range of hydrogen-powered cars. Their claim is that the car will produce zero emissions, thus making it invisible to the environment.
As a part of their campaign they have covered one side of the new car in LED lights and placed a Canon EOS 5D Mark II on the other. This recorded footage live and transmitted it onto the LEDs. The effect: an invisible car. They drove the vehicle around Germany and caught the reaction of consumers. Needless to say, it is very impressive!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZIGzpi9lCck&w=500]
We won’t be seeing one of these cars in the near future as the costs will be prohibitive to most consumers. It is likely only to be put into production by 2015.
[via Digital Trends]