Transparent snails, Greenland's hidden valleys and the Earth's selfie just begin our favourite images for this week.
1. Stunning night sky view
North America might be treated to a spectacular new meteor shower, called the Camelopardalids, tonight and early tomorrow (May 23 and 24).
For the first time on record, Earth will travel through the debris field of the Comet 209P/LINEAR. If it lives up to the most optimistic predictions, this passage could result in a celestial fireworks show, peaking between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. EDT (0600 and 0800 GMT) tomorrow morning.
2. Fairy wasps
A fuzzy-faced, tree-living carnivore, a transparent snail and ice-clinging anemones are among the top new species discovered in the last year.
The 2014 top 10 list, put together by the International Institute for Species Exploration at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, highlights the most amazing species discovered in 2013. According to the institute, this year's Top 10 New Species come from a field of 18,000 newfound species named in 2013.
3. Deep-sea beauty
Ancient fossils now reveal that the deep sea may be the origin of many lineages of sea creatures found closer to the surface, such as a number of sea stars, sea urchins and snails, researchers say.
These new findings suggest the deep sea has played a much greater role in producing and preserving diversity in marine life than once thought, scientists added.
4. Earth selfie!
NASA has created what appears to be the first "global selfie" of all time, making a mosaic image of the planet from pictures snapped on Earth Day.
A grand total of 36,422 images make up the 3.2-gigapixel Global Selfie, which the space agency released yesterday (May 22). NASA asked social media followers to post pictures of themselves tagged #globalselfie on and around April 22, and then gathered these photos into a mosaic mimicking satellite images taken of the globe on that day.
5. Colorado River reaches Gulf
For the first time in 16 years, freshwater from the Colorado River has flowed into the salty waters of the Gulf of California.
On Thursday (May 15) a high tide surged past a stubborn sandbar and connected the river with the Sea of Cortez, said Francisco Zamora, director of the Colorado River Delta Legacy Program for the Sonoran Institute. Because of water use upstream, little flow from the 1,450-mile Colorado River [2,330 kilometres] has reached the sea in 50 years.
6. Fairy Circles
"Fairy circles" that form in the arid grasslands of Namibia have baffled scientists for decades. In the latest attempt to explain the cause of these mysterious circular patches, a group of researchers turned to aerial images.
From the aerial images, the scientists discovered that fairy circles are distributed in surprisingly regular patterns, which might rule out the popular theory that termites are the creators.
7. Stunning supercell
Credit: Basehunters
Storm chasers captured stunning footage of a supercell, or rotating thunderstorm, churning above northeastern Wyoming over the weekend.
The time-lapse video, stitched together by a group called Basehunters, spans about an hours' drive from Wright to Newcastle, Wyoming, on Sunday (May 18), the creators said in their video description. The two-minute clip shows a mass of ominous grey clouds billowing upwards in a corkscrew-like fashion before dissipating.
8. Greenland's hidden valleys
The decline of Greenland's glaciers could be more spectacular than predicted, because the island's valleys run longer and deeper than thought, a new study finds.
Researchers have created the most detailed map to date of Greenland's toothy rim - the canyons and mountains hiding beneath its thick ice. The survey revealed never-before-seen valleys that sink below sea level, which can make glaciers more vulnerable to melting, according to the study, published today (May 18) in the journal Nature Geoscience. Many glaciers thought to flow atop shallow beds are instead streaming atop the deep gorges, the researchers said.
9. Humpback whale tale
Humpback whale populations across the world may actually be separate subspecies, a new genetic study reveals.
Though the expert swimmers make the longest migrations of any mammal, the subpopulations in the North Pacific, North Atlantic and the Southern Hemisphere oceans stick to separate routes.
10. Rare clouded leopard cub
What could be better than two tiny leopard cubs? Three tiny leopard cubs, of course!
At least, that's the attitude of administrators at Denver Zoo, who welcomed the addition of a female, clouded leopard cub to join the zoo's two existing cubs of the same species on Saturday (May 17). Zookeepers hope this addition will increase the chances that these rare cats will one day breed successfully.
11. Shooting Stars, Milky Way Above Kellys Slough Wildlife Refuge
The Milky Way is an awe-inspiring sight on its own. Add in shooting stars and you've got something magical. That was the night-time scene that one lucky photographer captured at a North Dakota wildlife refuge.
The above photo was part of the Share The Experience photo contest, sponsored by the National Park Service. The contest was designed to showcase the best user-submitted photos from national parks across the country. The winners can be viewed here.
At Kellys Slough National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota, the action is in the sky, day and night. The roughly 2-square-mile (5 square kilometres) refuge was established in 1936 to help protect migratory birds. The refuge serves as an important migration corridor for waterfowl and shorebirds.
Water levels at Kellys Slough typically retreat during summer, creating mudflats that attract a diversity of shorebirds during the fall migration, which peaks in late July and early August. As many as 22 species of shorebirds have been sighted on the refuge in the month of July, including American avocets, killdeer, Wilson’s phalaropes, willets, marbled godwits, upland and spotted sandpipers.
Top image via YouTube.
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