NASA Astronomy Pictures Of The Day [Week 1/2010]

Please join us on Facebook for the latest science news and videos: tinyurl.com NASA Astronomy Pictures Of The Day [Week 1/2010]. — Please subscribe to Science & Reason: • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com — ? A Roll Cloud Over Uruguay These rare long clouds may form near advancing cold fronts. In particular, a downdraft from an advancing storm front can cause moist warm air to rise, cool below its dew point, and so form a cloud. When this happens uniformly along an extended front, a roll cloud may form. Roll clouds may actually have air circulating along the long horizontal axis of the cloud. A roll cloud is not thought to be able to morph into a tornado. • Learn more: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov ? The Spotty Surface of Betelgeuse Betelgeuse really is a big star. If placed at the center of our Solar System it would extend to the orbit of Jupiter. But like all stars except the Sun, the red supergiant is so distant it usually appears as a single point of light, even in large telescopes. The intriguing picture shows two, large, bright, star spots. The spots potentially represent enormous convective cells rising from below the supergiant’s surface. They are bright because they’re hotter than the rest of the surface, but both spots and surface are cooler than the Sun. Betelgeuse is about 600 light-years away. • Learn more: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov ? The Tail of the Small Magellanic Cloud A satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, the Small Magellanic …