A local Australian radio station tweeted this gorgeous cloud formation Monday, asking listeners, "Did you see the weird rainbow thing in the sky over Wonthaggi?" Discovery reports that the weird rainbow thing is in fact something called a "fallstreak hole". Here's how the NOAA describes the weather event: >These 'supercooled' water droplets need a 'reason' to freeze, which usually comes in the form of ice crystals. Planes passing through the cloud layer can bring these ice crystals. Once the ice crystals are introduced, the water droplets quickly freeze, grow and start to fall. A hole is left behind, which will start to expand outward as neighboring droplets start to freeze. We think "fallstreak" is a pretty great name for the gorgeous phenomenon. Geocaching Melbourne via Twitter
SHARE
Smithsonian shared a collection of x-rays of underwater creatures. Recognize this eerie eel? It’s Enchelynassa canina — a kind of moray.

{!! $img_subtitle !!}

A local Australian radio station tweeted this gorgeous cloud formation Monday, asking listeners, “Did you see the weird rainbow thing in the sky over Wonthaggi?” Discovery reports that the weird rainbow thing is in fact something called a “fallstreak hole”. Here’s how the NOAA describes the weather event: >These ‘supercooled’ water droplets need a ‘reason’ to freeze, which usually comes in the form of ice crystals. Planes passing through the cloud layer can bring these ice crystals. Once the ice crystals are introduced, the water droplets quickly freeze, grow and start to fall. A hole is left behind, which will start to expand outward as neighboring droplets start to freeze. We think “fallstreak” is a pretty great name for the gorgeous phenomenon.

{!! $img_subtitle !!}

This beautiful mosaic is in fact a super-close-up image of garlic stained with toluidine blue. The image is part of a series from Rob Kesseler, who specializes in dramatic microscopy of everyday plants.

{!! $img_subtitle !!}

Here’s what Brookhaven National Laboratory has to say about this fall-appropriate image on their Flickr page: >What appear to be lovely autumn leaves are actually the dendritic sprawl of lithium growing inside a battery. Brookhaven scientists use a technique called transmission electron microscopy to study the emergence of the atomic structures that cause batteries to age so poorly. Mapping what goes wrong on this fundamental scale helps us design new and improved nanotechnology for everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

{!! $img_subtitle !!}

NASA installed this multi-million dollar composite materials research robot, known as ISAAC, in their Langley aerospace facility this week. The giant machine can build rocket and airplane parts out of epoxy and fibers.
galleries