ausevor

[ausevor]

[ausevor]

Beneath the shade of tamarisk trees, right by the Aegean Sea, awaits your perfect Greek escape. Fresh food, golden sands, and pure island serenity—Naxos is calling.

Nikol (instagram.com/nikolstergiou)

#GreekIslands#BeachVibes#AegeanSea#TravelGreece#CycladesMagic#DroneView#naxosandsmallcyclades#SmallCyclades#Naxos#naxosisland#Greece#Aegean#visitgreece#greekislands#aegeansea#cyclades_island#travelgreece#lovegreece#island#travel_greece#perfect_greece#Ναξος#Ελλάδα#beaches

[ausevor]

[ausevor]

Bramall Hall, Stockport, Greater Manchester, England

Bramall Hall is a largely Tudor manor house in Bramhall, within the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. It is a timber-framed building, the oldest parts of which date from the 14th century, with later additions from the 16th and 19th centuries. The house, which functions as a museum, and its 70 acres (28 ha) of landscaped parkland with lakes, woodland, and gardens (Bramhall Park) are open to the public.

Dating back to Anglo-Saxon England, the manor of Bramall was first described in the Domesday Book in 1086, when it was held by the Masseys. From the late 14th century it was owned by the Davenports who built the present house, and remained lords of the manor for about 500 years before selling the estate of nearly 2,000 acres in 1877.

[ausevor]

Stirling Moss (Mercedes-Benz W196) Grand Prix de Monaco 1955. © Yves Debraine - Klemantaski - Getty. - source Carros e Pilotos.

[ausevor]

Columns of The Rectors Palace - Dubrovnik - Croatia

[ausevor]

In the trace lies the truth: Halogens and the fate of the lunar crust

How halogens uncover the hidden history of lunar crust formation and the striking lunar surface dichotomy.

On a clear night, the Moon you gaze upon looks the same as it looked for the first humans that walked the Earth --- the same black-and-white side of our nearest neighbor by large dark ‘seas’ and white ‘highlands’ has been facing us for billions of years. The Moon is thought to have been born in a giant impact between our Earth and a Mars-sized other planet, Theia, ca. 4.5 billion years ago. The energy associated with this impact is expected to have led to an ocean of magma covering both the Earth and the young Moon. Cooling of this magma is expected to result in a nearly homogeneous solid Moon, covered with the same crust everywhere. This is not always the case. The hemisphere always facing us, called the lunar nearside, has a totally different appearance than its opposite half, the farside, which is dominated by bright, highland-dominated landscapes, with virtually no ‘seas’.

The dark lunar ‘seas’ or maria in Latin, are composed of widespread basaltic magmas, mostly erupted ca. 3.5 billion years ago on the nearside, with very few eruption on the far side. This marks a distinct evolution history for these two hemispheres. Why and how did this happened? The secret that shaped the Moon into two worlds may well be buried within minute amounts of halogens (e.g., fluorine and chlorine), found in lunar samples.

Halogen abundances in lunar minerals provide unique insight into the Moon’s evolution, but incomplete knowledge of halogen incorporation in minerals and melts has limited their application. Researchers at the Geodynamics Research Center, Ehime University collaborating with colleagues from Universität Münster (Germany) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands), carried out high-pressure, high-temperature experiments and successfully derived unique new data on how chlorine (Cl) distributes itself between lunar minerals and co-existing magma. They coupled models of the evolution of the lunar interior to measured halogen abundances in lunar crust samples and found that most lunar nearside samples turn out to be anomalously rich in Cl. In contrast, crustal materials from the lunar farside do not show this Cl enrichment. The researchers provide evidence to link this enrichment to the incorporation of gaseous Cl-compounds by lunar nearside rocks.

This finding indicates that the existence of widespread chloride vapor (with Cl likely present as metal chlorides) was possibly limited to the lunar nearside, suggesting the metal chloride vapor appears to be tied to lunar dichotomy. Considering Cl is highly incompatible and volatile, this vapor-phase metasomatism may be related to (impact-induced/eruption) degassing from extensive lunar mare basalts in the nearside Procellarum KREEP Terrane. Crustal rocks in the lunar farside, without Cl enrichment, are shown to be products from magma derived from lunar interior ca. 4.3 billion years ago. Based on F/Cl modeling, the researchers found that a particular type of lunar crustal rock called the Mg-suite likely originate from a deep mantle which preserves remnants of the initial lunar magma ocean that was present 4.5 billion years ago.

Chlorine-rich vapors released during eruptions (or impact-induced evaporation) played a key role in transforming the Moon’s nearside that human can see. Meanwhile, the farside crust, invisible to us all, escaped from these vapor-associated volcanic activities and thus preserved more pristine information about the Moon including about the lunar magma ocean that formed right after the Moon was born. This finding illustrates the scientific value of recent lunar space missions that focused specifically on studying the lunar far side.

IMAGE: Around 4.5 billion years ago, the Moon was covered by a global magma ocean. The solidification of the Moon is expected to produce a plagioclase-rich crust. This only appears in the farside of the Moon, whereas the nearside Moon is largely covered by dark erupted basalts. Credit Jiejun Jing

[ausevor]

Sun’s fury may change the weather on distant worlds — and maybe even ours

A new study led by scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, NASA, the Florida Institute of Technology, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and the University of Oxford has uncovered a connection between solar flares — sudden outbursts of radiation from stars — and short-term weather patterns on distant Earth-like planets.

Published in The Astronomical Journal, the study offers the clearest evidence yet that space weather — particularly flares from a planet’s host star — can cause measurable changes in a planet’s climate within just days of an event. These findings provide important clues about the habitability of exoplanets and may even help refine how we understand short-term atmospheric shifts on Earth.

“This study highlights an underexplored but important solar-climate link,” said Dr. Assaf Hochman, from the Institute of Earth Sciences at Hebrew University. “While anthropogenic greenhouse gases primarily drive long-term climate change, we now see that short-term solar variability can also play a role in modulating regional climate behavior.”

The international team — including Dr. Assaf Hochman, Dr. Howard Chen, Dr. Paolo De Luca, and Dr. Thaddeus D. Komacek — used advanced 3D General Circulation Models to simulate how sudden flares from host stars affect the climate on tidally-locked exo-Earths such as TRAPPIST-1e, a planet that always shows the same face to its sun.

Their results reveal a chain reaction:

Upper atmospheric cooling occurs quickly after a flare, driven by radiative emissions from molecules like NO and CO₂.

Simultaneously, lower atmospheric warming happens due to increases in greenhouse-like gases such as H₂O and N₂O.

Wind speeds in the middle atmosphere can intensify dramatically — surging to over 140 km/h on the dark, night side of the planet.

What It Means for Earth — and Beyond

While the main focus was on distant worlds, the study opens up provocative possibilities for Earth’s climate systems too.

The patterns observed suggest that solar activity may temporarily alter a planet’s general atmospheric circulation. This isn’t about long-term climate shifts, but rather short-lived regional anomalies — the kind that could be especially noticeable in already volatile weather zones.

The research emphasizes that while solar flares aren’t a major driver of Earth’s long-term climate compared to human activity, their effects are real, detectable, and worth factoring into future atmospheric models. This is particularly true when considering regions sensitive to abrupt changes in temperature and wind.

The study also underscores that stars don’t just warm their planets — they can stir up the weather too. Understanding these interactions is crucial to assessing which exoplanets might truly be capable of supporting life.

This interdisciplinary effort brought together experts in astroclimate modeling, atmospheric chemistry, and planetary science, with support from institutions across four countries and multiple NASA research centers. Their findings not only enhance our understanding of distant exoplanets but could also help us refine how we predict and prepare for solar influences here on Earth.

IMAGE: Temporal medians of "extreme," "moderate," and "quiescent" simulations for Temperature (T in K). Credit: The Astronomical Journal (2025). DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/add33e

[ausevor]

[ausevor]

[ausevor]

A 1952 Morane-Saulnier MS.317 in French Naval markings seen at the Shuttleworth Fly Navy Day

[ausevor]

Clive Arrowsmith - Pirelli Calendar (1991)

[ausevor]

[ausevor]

Imber: The deserted village on Salisbury Plain.

Source: facebook.com

[ausevor]

Come For The Cosmic Awe, Stay For The Skeletons In Spacesuits: Adam Rowe On Sci-Fi Art Of The 1970s – Unquiet Things

An interview with @70sscifiart!

Image: Bruce Pennington’s 1974 cover to A. E. van Vogt’s The World of Null-A

[ausevor]

Oppenheim, Germany 1920s