Up close and personal with an active volcano


The whole video is amazing but dont miss 00:54  

Sandrine Ceurstemont, video producer
Few people would venture up close to an erupting volcano. But photographer Dr Richard Roscoe specialises in capturing volcanoes in action so he was eager to be one of the first to spend a night on the rim of Mount Bromo in Eastern Java, Indonesia. Since November 2010, the volcano has entered an unusually long active phase, displaying strombolian activity, towering ash columns and occasionally powerful shockwaves. Roscoe managed to film examples of different types of activity from the crater rim and a neighbouring inactive cone (see video above). He says:
From the deep pit at the bottom of the crater, incandescent material was frequently hurled high into the air. Sleeping would have been too risky and was anyhow impossible due to the tremendous roaring noise often coming from the crater resulting from powerful degassing and frequent explosions
In some shots of the ash eruptions, shockwaves are visible rising up the plume. When they propagate, it leads to transient condensation of water in the cloud overhead.
http://www.newscientist.com

NASA scientists transform a gamma ray burst into a musical score






Posted by Rob Alderson
I became pretty obsessed with the idea of working at NASA after visiting the Kennedy Space Center as a kid and being treated to astronaut’s ice cream (like real ice cream but in small round balls). Then various dream-spoilers (parents, careers advisors and the like) dissuaded me by pointing out that it was all very science-y and quite serious and I was utterly unsuited to this kind of lifestyle, tiny-balled ice cream or not.
But a recent post on the NASA blogs suggest it’s not quite as uptight as I had been led to believe after a project to transform a gamma ray-burst into music (I know!). As the loveable boffins put it: "Thanks to the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), we can extend our sense of sight to “see” the universe in gamma rays. But humans not only have a sense of sight, we also have a sense of sound. If we could listen to the high-energy universe, what would we hear? What does the universe sound like?"
A study of gamma-ray burst GRB 080916C (a massive one, trust me) was analysed and the high-energy photos converted into musical notes, with different photons assigned to different instruments – harp, cello, or piano – based on how likely it was they came from the burst. Visually this might not be the most arresting thing you see today but my word as a concept it’s pretty incredible.
Good work NASA chaps and chapesses, now where do I sign up?
www.blogs.nasa.gov
www.itsnicethat.com