Portal:Physics/2006 Selected pictures

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This is an archive of entries that appeared on Portal:Physics's Selected Picture section in 2006.

January 17, 2006 - First collision of two 100GeV Gold ions

Particles erupt from the collision point of two relativistic (100GeV) gold ions in the STAR detector of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Electrically charged particles are discernable by the curves they trace in the detector's magnetic field.

March 11, 2006 - Z-pinch

Z-pinch at Sandia National Laboratories Z machine. Due to the extremely high voltage, the power feeding equipment is submerged in concentric chambers of 540,000 gallons of transformer oil and 600,000 gallons of deionized water, which act as insulators. Nevertheless, impressive lightning, referred to as "arcs and sparks", can be seen over the power feeds.

May 4, 2006 — Daisy surface tension

Surface tension around a floating daisy. The surface tension prevents the water from spilling into the daisy. Photo credit: William M. Connolley.

September 2, 2006 - Red sunset

The prolonged path length of the sunlight in earth's atmosphere increases scattering of blue (short) wavelengths, yielding an orange tint in the remaining light as the sun sets. Photo credit: Fir0002.

November 13, 2006 - Tycho's Supernova

Tycho's Supernova Remnant. In 1572, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe observed and studied the explosion of a star that became known as Tycho's supernova. More than four centuries later, Chandra's image of the supernova remnant shows an expanding bubble of multimillion degree debris (green and red) inside a more rapidly moving shell of extremely high energy electrons (filamentary blue).

December 7, 2006 - Hubble Ultra Deep Field

This high resolution image of the HUDF includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, are some of the most distant galaxies to have been imaged by an optical telescope, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field, or HUDF, is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, composited from Hubble Space Telescope data accumulated over a period from September 3, 2003 through January 16, 2004. It is the deepest image of the universe ever taken in visible light, looking back in time more than 13 billion years. The HUDF contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies.

Week 52

Icicles form when the temperature is below zero degrees Centigrade and when there is a supply of water. Typically, temperature is just a few degrees below zero and water is melted by the sun, for instance on the roof of a house. Water, under its weight, flows down and freezes, thus increasing icicle's size. If temperature rises, water can no longer freeze, and the icicle can start melting and diminish in size. If weight of an icicle grows too large, the icicle breaks and collapses onto the ground.