Bo’s posterous

Where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains, a series of large-scale standing waves may form on the downwind side. If the temperature at the crest of the wave drops to or below the dewpoint, moisture in the air may condense to form lenticular clouds. As the moist air moves back down into the trough of the wave, the cloud may evaporate back into vapor. Under certain conditions, long strings of lenticular clouds can form near the crest of each successive wave, creating a formation known as a 'wave cloud'. The wave systems cause large vertical air movements and so enough water vapor may condense to produce precipitation. The clouds have been mistaken for UFOs (or "visual cover" for UFOs) because these clouds have a characteristic lens appearance and smooth saucer-like shape. Bright colors (called Irisation) are sometimes seen along the edge of lenticular clouds. [Wikipedia]

(C) 2007 Philippe Sainte-Laudy

Uploaded on September 4, 2007 to Flickr
by Philippe Sainte-Laudy

This is a volcano called Tungurahua in Ecuador. It is 5,000 meters high. The volcano is currently active, and its last major eruption, which took place on August 16 of last year is seen in this photo. Ash and gases are spewing from the volcano. This volcano is still erupting today, but not violently. The ash that is erupting into the air is made up of jagged peices of rock and glass. The white clouds of steam surrounding the volcano show how hot the volcano is while erupting.

This artist’s impression depicts an exoplanet similar to the newly discovered WASP-18b. As seen from the planet, the host star spans an angle of more than 30° and hovers menacingly at a fixed position in the sky.

Credit: C. CARREAU/ESA/Nature

The odd, fiery planet is so close to its star and so large that it is triggering tremendous plasma tides on the star. Those powerful tides are in turn warping the planet's zippy less-than-a-day orbit around its star. The result: an ever-closer tango of death, with the planet eventually spiraling into the star.

Credit: AP

Ever wonder what it would look like if you took about 100,000 nearby large (i.e., Milky Way sized and larger) galaxies, reduced each one to a point, and mapped them? Well, at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, they did this, from the point of view of where we are in the Universe. We are the Milky Way, the one dot dead center in this image.

Geologists regard the Teton Range as one of Earth’s most impressive examples of fault-block mountains. The blocks forming the Tetons and Jackson Hole are joined at the Teton Fault, along which movement is estimated to average about one foot per 300–400 years. Although the Tetons are the youngest mountains of the Rocky Mountain chain, they contain some of its oldest rocks, dating back about 2.8 million years. Piedmont lakes rimmed by moraines from the last glaciation are adjacent to the range.

http://www.greateryellowstonescience.org/grte

Auroras are produced by the collision of charged particles from Earth's magnetosphere, mostly electrons but also protons and heavier particles, with atoms and molecules of Earth's upper atmosphere (at altitudes above 80 km (50 miles)).

The collisions in the atmosphere electrically excite electrons to take quantum leaps (a mechanism in which the electron's kinetic energy is converted to visible light); and molecules in the upper atmosphere. The excitation energy can be lost by light emission or collisions. Most auroras are green and red emissions from atomic oxygen. Molecular nitrogen and nitrogen ions produce some low level red (pink) and very high blue/violet auroras. 

Wiki: http://3.ly/ScX

For example, what you see on the photo above is the Russian water well. The have made a 16 feet (5 meters) deep hole in the ice and there they can get fresh water from somewhere, so when person gets in there he can see sun trying to penetrate through this many feet thick ice.

The USAF F-22A Raptor stealth fighter jet is transonic, flying slightly below Mach 1; and there's a Prandtl-Glauert (P-G) Cloud present (via Digg)