odditiesoflife:

Strange Rock Formations Around the World

There is no doubt that our planet is an astoundingly beautiful place. We still have the opportunity to conserve the resources we have left. This generation cares. Care is good, but action is better. The places featured above are examples of the majesty and mystery of our Earth. We need to do all we can to protect what is ours.

1. Cappadocia, Turkey
2. Stone Forest National Park, Yunnan, China
3. Gibson Steps (12 Apostles), Great Ocean Road, Australia
4. Bryce Canyon, Utah
5. Ko Tapu Island, Thailand
6. Giant’s Causeway, Ireland
7. Mono Lake, California
   

spaceplasma:

Sun Emits Mid-Level Flare

A burst of solar material leaps off the left side of the sun in what’s known as a prominence eruption. This image combines three images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured on May 3, 2013, at 1:45 pm EDT, just as an M-class solar flare from the same region was subsiding. The images include light from the 131-, 171- and 304-angstrom wavelengths.

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 1:32 pm EDT on May 3, 2013. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing, and the radio blackout for this flare has already subsided.

This flare is classified as an M5.7-class flare. M-class flares are the weakest flares that can still cause some space weather effects near Earth. Increased numbers of flares are quite common at the moment, as the sun’s normal 11-year activity cycle is ramping up toward solar maximum, which is expected in late 2013.

Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA

(via itsfullofstars)

odditiesoflife:

Disney’s Classic Animated Films and Rotoscoping

While Disney has made some of the most popular animated features of all time, they had the good sense to use the most advanced animation technology available at that time - rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is a technique in which animators trace over footage, frame by frame, for use in live-action and animated films. The recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope, although this device was eventually replaced by computers. It is the vintage predecessor to the computer simulation techniques James Cameron used for his Avatar characters.

Source 1, 2