Inside the ISS: Splitting Hairs About Gravity

An astronaut in microgravity is being accelerated by the force provided by a single hair.

 

NASA | Canyon of Fire on the Sun

A magnetic filament of solar material erupted on the sun in late September, breaking the quiet conditions in a spectacular fashion. The 200,000 mile long filament ripped through the sun's atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon of fire. The glowing canyon traces the channel where magnetic fields held the filament aloft before the explosion. Visualizers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. combined two days of satellite data to create a short movie of this gigantic event on the sun.

 

Hewitt-Drew-it! 72. Specific Heat

The "thermal inertia" of substances is explained, particularly water.

 

Fluid Knots and Smoke Ring Physics

"Filamental Vortex Loops," such as those found in smoke rings and mushroom clouds, crop up in a number of applications in fluid dynamics. Earlier this year, scientists created a long-sought twist on this phenomenon: knotted vortex loops.

 With the help of 3-D printer-created hydrofoils, lasers, and a high-speed camera, researchers from the University of Chicago collected the beautiful images in this video.

 

Is time travel possible? - Colin Stuart

Time travel is a staple of science fiction stories, but is it actually possible? It turns out nature does allow a way of bending time, an exciting possibility suggested by Albert Einstein when he discovered special relativity over one hundred years ago. Colin Stuart imagines where (or, when) this fascinating phenomenon, time dilation, may one day take us.

 Lesson by Colin Stuart, animation by TED-Ed.