sixpenceee: “ THE MYSTERY OF DEVIL’S KETTLE FALLS Look at the 2 waterfalls. One of them (the one to the left) seems to descend into a hole and disappear forever. Researchers have poured blue dye and ping ping balls into the fall to try and track...
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sixpenceee:

THE MYSTERY OF DEVIL’S KETTLE FALLS

Look at the 2 waterfalls. One of them (the one to the left) seems to descend into a hole and disappear forever. Researchers have poured blue dye and ping ping balls into the fall to try and track where it goes, but no luck. 

There a bunch of theories but no definite answer. No one is really sure where the water goes just yet

SOURCE

(via sixpenceee)

trailingfireflies: “ Mira (MY-rah) is a star that scientists have studied for 400 years. But NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer telescope captured a very surprising image of Mira. It showed for the first time that Mira has a long tail of dust and...
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trailingfireflies: “ Mira (MY-rah) is a star that scientists have studied for 400 years. But NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer telescope captured a very surprising image of Mira. It showed for the first time that Mira has a long tail of dust and...
Zoom Info
trailingfireflies: “ Mira (MY-rah) is a star that scientists have studied for 400 years. But NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer telescope captured a very surprising image of Mira. It showed for the first time that Mira has a long tail of dust and...
Zoom Info

trailingfireflies:

Mira (MY-rah) is a star that scientists have studied for 400 years. But NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer telescope captured a very surprising image of Mira. It showed for the first time that Mira has a long tail of dust and gas—13 light-years long! That is 20,000 times longer than the average distance from the Sun to Pluto!

A star’s life has a beginning, middle, and end, just like ours. Only a star’s life is much, much longer. Mira is a red giant star near the end of its life. It is blowing off much of its mass in the form of gas and dust. It has already flung out enough material to construct at least 3,000 Earth-sized planets!

Mira is moving at 291,000 miles per hour! This is much faster than the other stars in our part of the Milky Way galaxy. This speed and the huge amount of material coming off Mira have created its contrail-like tail.

Credit NASA

libutron: “ The Extravagant Black Bat flower The unusual Black Bat flower, Tacca chantrieri (Dioscoreales - Dioscoreaceae), is quite distinctive by the strange, unique, near black flowers. The flowers, which can grow up to 25 cm long, have four...
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libutron:

The Extravagant Black Bat flower

The unusual Black Bat flower, Tacca chantrieri (Dioscoreales - Dioscoreaceae), is quite distinctive by the strange, unique, near black flowers. The flowers, which can grow up to 25 cm long, have four large, dark-purple bracts and long bracteoles, giving the inflorescence a striking appearance that superficially resemble a flying bat, a sinister face, or a mean tiger with whiskers.

Tacca chantrieri is an endangered species that occurs in tropical regions of SE Asia including Thailand, Malaysia, and southern China, particularly Yunnan Province.

The features of these flowers have been assumed to function as a ‘‘deceit syndrome’’ in which reproductive structures resemble decaying organic material attracting flies that facilitate cross-pollination (sapromyiophily). However, a study on pollination and mating in Tacca chantrieri populations from SW China, has shown that despite considerable investment in extravagant display, populations of this species are predominantly selfing and that flowers have several traits that promote autonomous self-pollination.

Reference: [1]

Photo credit: ©Stephanie Lichlyter

Locality: Cultivated (Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, US)