Sun in CaK light

Heart-Shaped Glomerocryst Photomicrograph

While studying samples of lavas from the Aeolian Islands off the west coast of Italy, I came across an interesting aggregate of crystals (glomerocryst).

A photomicrograph thin section of the aggregate is featured above. Aeolian lava is studied to understand how magma forms at depth and the level of risk of its eruption. This particular glomerocryst is made of two minerals; plagioclase and pyroxene, whose chemical compositions, textures and melt inclusions help decipher just what happens in a magma chamber.

But, if you look closely at its shape, you might learn something more — that even something as hard as a rock has a heart. — Bernardo Cesare

Microscopic Life Captured in a Plankton Net

The photo above shows a sample of water teeming with microscopic life.

The sample was collected in a plankton net suspended into an incoming tide for 20 minutes from a bridge over an inlet near Brunswick, Maine. It was later photographed in a lab at the Southern Maine Community College. Several diatoms (aquatic, photosynthetic plants) can be identified here.

The round, cathedral window like structure is a stepanodiscus and the connected, rectangular tubes are tabellaria. Diatoms are at the bottom of the food chain, meaning that nearly all life depends upon these creatures. They produce as much as 50 percent of the Earth’s oxygen. — Paula Ursoy and John Stetson

Fern Prothallium

Young Sporophyte

A sporophyte is the diploid generation of a plant or alga that has a double set of chromosomes. All land plants, and some algae, have life cycles in which a multicellular haploid gametophyte generation alternates with a multicellular diploid generation. In the Gymnosperms and flowering plants (Angiosperms), the sporophyte generation is the most prominent phase, comprising the familiar green plant with its roots, stem, leaves and cones or flowers. In the flowering plants, the gametophytes are very reduced in size, and are represented by the pollen and the embryo sac. [*]

Double Pink Rainbow Over Glen Ashley, South Africa

The photo above showing a high-arching pink rainbow was captured at sunset near Durban, South Africa.

The camera is facing toward the anti-solar point. Like the setting Sun, the rainbow colors we’re familiar with acquire red or pink hues once the Sun dips close to the horizon. This is because as the Sun sets (or rises) the increased path length sunlight takes through the atmosphere acts to scatter out the green, blue and violet colors from our view. — Photo Jacques Joubert Summary Jim Foster

Colors in Pond Ice Using a Polarizer Lens

The photo above showing meltwater on ice, imaged using a circular polarizer lens, was taken on a pond near Rimavska Sobota, Slovakia.

The refractive index of ice crystals depends upon the polarization and propagation direction of a beam of light. This property is known as birefringence (sometimes called double refraction). The colored light seen when looking through the sides of an airplane window is an example of birefringence. When a beam of light propagates through ice crystals, two distinct rays result, depending upon the direction of propagation.

A polarizer filter or lens acts to recombine the rays. However, due to the fact that these rays were out of phase when recombined, the new polarized rays are composed of various wavelengths of visible light, which as shown here result in especially vibrant colors. Note that colors in pond ice may also be due to interference in narrow fissures and from refraction by trapped air bubbles. — Photography: Daniela Rapava Summary: Jim Foster & Daniela Rapava

Paris Viewed Through a Drop of Water

The photo above shows an image of Paris and the Eiffel Tower as captured inside a drop of water — Bertrand Kulik