Decimatethestars-blog - Cassini

The faint rings of Uranus, shot in 1986, are made of countless fragments of water ice containing radiation-altered organic material.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Michael Benson, Kinetikon Pictures

Bioluminescent Plankton

Scientists have only recently discovered that this type of plankton glows when they are moved because of stress - ironic when you consider how relaxing the sight of the shimmering waves are in the dark night. Bioluminescence is used as a defence mechanism to draw predators towards the creature trying to eat the plankton. The tiny flashes of light also disorientate and surprise the predator.

These tiny organisms produce light using a chemical called luciferin. The process of creating a bioluminescent light, which is simply light produced within a living creature, differs between organisms. Some need a particular food or another creature for the effect to happen. But this type of plankton, called dinoflagellates, produce luciferin on their own. The light the tiny plankton emit is called ‘cold light’, meaning less than 20% of the light generates heat.

Huge areas of the ocean can become populated by glowing plankton but the effect is especially common in warm-water lagoons that have narrow openings to the sea. This causes the plankton to gather and become trapped, causing the water to turn orange.

Image credit: Will Ho, Kin Cheung, Landscapes Maldives & eyegami

Source: Kuoni

The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, containing an estimated 10,000 galaxies.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

Colorful Moon Mosaic 

Credit: Noel Carboni

Astonishing Saturn, observed by the Cassini space probe on November 27, 2013.

Look up at the super blue blood full moon Jan. 31 – here's what you'll see and why

by Shannon Schmoll

During the early hours of Jan. 31, there will be a full moon, a total lunar eclipse, a blue moon and a supermoon – all at the same time. None of these things is really all that unusual by itself. What is rare is that they’re happening all together on one day.

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Simple Jupiter Photo with 4 moons - For more images of the cosmos Click Here

Beautiful Saturn, observed by the Cassini probe on November 27, 2013.

(Ian Regan)

Boston Dynamics has shown off its new version of SpotMini, but now it’s also catching us up with its bipedal Atlas bot, the most humanoid of its creations. Atlas can now jump from elevated block to elevated block, and do a complete about-face in the air. It can leap pretty high, and also do a backflip – and then celebrate its backflipping ability. –

This illustration shows the cosmic epochs of our Universe from the Big Bang to the Present. The position of galaxy A1689-zD1 is shown as an example of a particularly early forming and distant galaxy. 

Image credt: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI).