The Imaginaurium

Hey all,

I usually try to keep all of my ‘lives’ seperate and not cross-post, but I’m going to break the rules for today.   Below is the video for my latest piano release, “Orbit: A Love Story.”

We spend our lives orbiting around each other.   Some days, our gravity is huge and everyone wants to be around… Other days, friends rush away at escape velocity and are gone before we know it… Perhaps, if you are very lucky, you fall into a stable orbit with another and it can only be love…

Love is universal and attraction often fate and gravity.

Think about the piano differently. Better in headphones!

Image Credits: Hubble Space Telescope / NASA / The GigaGalaxy Zoom Project / etc.

Animations created in Celestia

Music available on iTunes/Amazon/ CDBaby /etc.

You have always been here. Bonus points for naming the planet at the end!

Also, check out the “Love & Gravity” Sweepstakes Facebook Page and
enter for a chance to win some limited edition NASA art prints!

Thanks for all the support and positive feedback!!

Robert Peckyno

“Disaster Zone”, a natural hazards educational resource.

Including:

• Volcanoes Poster Series (13 posters providing a comprehensive introduction to volcanoes and volcanic hazards) (https://vhub.org/resources/2273)
• Hazards Posters (an introduction to earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, and tornadoes)( https://vhub.org/resources/2287)
• Deadly Quiz (96 questions on natural hazards) (https://vhub.org/resources/2272)
• Deadly Crossword (https://vhub.org/resources/2276)
• Not-So-Deadly Crossword (https://vhub.org/resources/2279)
• Deadly Volcanoes Crossword (https://vhub.org/resources/2282)
• Deadly Wordsearch (https://vhub.org/resources/2285)
• Deadly Slideshow (https://vhub.org/resources/2292)
• Deadly Volcanoes Slideshow (https://vhub.org/resources/2295)
• Disaster Zone – Stall Overview (https://vhub.org/resources/2297)
• Activity – Dress up like a Volcanologist (https://vhub.org/resources/2305)
• Activity – Eruption Styles (https://vhub.org/resources/2311)
• Activity – Sounds of Disaster (https://vhub.org/resources/2318)
• Activity – Make-a-Quake (https://vhub.org/resources/2321)
• Activity – Volcanic Rocks (https://vhub.org/resources/2324)
• Factsheet – The Montserrat volcanic crisis (https://vhub.org/resources/2327)

Enjoy! 

Batu Tara

Dr. Tom Pfeiffer, volcanologist with VolcanoDiscovery (an adventure & study travel group that gives tours of active volcanoes) , just posted some amazing photographs from their recent expedition to Batu Tara volcano to observe the ongoing strombolian activity from close range.    Really spectacular stuff!

You can view his entire set of photographs and information here.

Eldfell (“fire mountain” in Icelandic) is a volcano on the island of Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago 15 miles (25 km) south of Iceland. Photograph by the late Svienn Eirikksen, fire marshal of the town of Vestmannaeyjar.

There are three main places where volcanoes originate:

• Hot spots,
• Divergent plate boundaries (such as rifts and mid-ocean ridges), and
• Convergent plate boundaries (subduction zones)

The origin of the magma for hot spots is not well known. We do know that the magma comes from partial melting within the upper mantle, probably from depths not too much greater than 100 km. The actual source of the heat that causes the partial melting (the actual hotspot itself) is almost certainly much deeper than that, but we really don’t know how deep or even exactly what a hotspot is!

At a divergent margin, two tectonic plates are moving apart, and magma that is generated in the upper mantle flows upward to fill in the space. This magma is probably generated at depths that are shallower than those for hotspot magmas. People argue about whether the magma forcing its way to the surface causes the plates to move apart or whether the plates move apart and the magma just reacts to that and fills in the space. Perhaps it is a combination of these two. The most extensive example of this type of volcanism is the system of mid-ocean ridges. Continental examples include the East African Rift, the West Antarctic Rift, and the Basin and Range Province in the southwestern US.

The final major place where volcanism originates is at convergent margins (subduction zones) — where an oceanic plate dives under either another oceanic plate or perhaps a continental plate. As the plate gets pushed further and further it starts to give off its volatiles (mostly water), and these migrate upwards into the mantle just under the overriding plate. The addition of these volatiles to this overriding mantle probably lowers the melting point of that mantle so that magma is generated. Part of the magma may also be generated by the downgoing plate actually starting to melt as it gets into the hotter and hotter interior.