Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

“If you could pull all the water in the ocean, the atmosphere, and on top of or beneath the surface of Earth into a ball, it would measure only about 950 (1,500km) miles across. By comparison, the moon is 2,160 (3,475km) in diameter. Of this, only about 3 percent if freshwater, and of that only about two-thirds is in a form or a location that is easily accessible to humans.”

Animation by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, this is a wonderfully clear video version of Adam Nieman’s award winning graphic. [via cgr v2.0]

Popularity: 6% [?]

A SST Truck (Stadium Super Trucks) driven by Adrian Cenni exploding while entering Turn 2 at Crandon International Raceway. The explosions going all the way through the pipe created each a vortex ring.

One of the most amazing UFO photos has been identified as a giant vortex ring: the Viborg “Jellyfish”.

Popularity: 6% [?]

“According to O Parana newspaper, anomalous light rays appeared in the sky of Palotina city, Parana state, [Brazil] at Monday (Dec 17) night. Tiago Testa, who lives in the community of Esquina Progresso recorded the event in photo and called SIMEPAR for a more thorough analysis.” [via Minha Maestria]

This phenomenon is in short just sunlight. But it was captured here in very special conditions, at sunset near the summer solstice, in the video the sun starts behind the camera even though it seems to be right beyond the horizon at front. The puzzled cameraman says the Sun is opposite to where the column of light seems to come from.

To understand this, one first has to understand first a crepuscular ray: the contrast between the rays of sunlight that went through gaps in the clouds and the already darkening ground would already make up for these intense light columns.

When these parallel rays go all the way crossing the sky above our heads and beyond the antisolar point, opposite to the sun, they converge again due to perspective at the vanishing point. This convergence is only apparent, the sun rays actually kept parallel and went all the way through the atmosphere. But the illusion gives the impression the rays are coming the opposite way. Thus, anticrepuscular rays.

Below, a panorama of an anticrepuscular ray captured in Chandler, Arizona, illustrating the perspective effect of the phenomenon.

And here’s another video example from Arizona last year:

And yet another one.

None of them is quite as spectacular as the recent Palotina video.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Click for the full set on DeviantArt – sadly this is just a concept art, but one amazingly well-done by Russell “datazoid”.

Popularity: 7% [?]