APOD: A Particle Beam Jet forms HH 24 (2014 Feb 04)

[Nitpicker]

Another example of Coriolis "forces" having an effect on relatively small scales, is the Foucault pendulum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum

Again, to be highly reliable, these things only need to be roughly an order of magnitude bigger than a bathtub, and their swing needs to be initiated in a carefully controlled manner. But in the case of the bathtub, we are not talking about high reliability of the vortex direction, just a slight trend one way or another, dependent on hemisphere.

Edit: Failing to release a Foucault pendulum with proper care, does not reliably guarantee its failure to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. It just makes it more likely to fail.

[MarkBour]

This is an especially beautiful image.

Does anyone else see the face (and more) of a rat in it? The nose would be just to the right of the beam, all lit up. You can also see a dark eye and ear to the right of the nose and a light ear above it. It is as if the rat is facing the source of the jets and the light from it is illuminating its face. So that's my "constellation inventing" for the day.

Anyway, I am often struck by parallels or similarities in nature at hugely different scales. And this image reminds me of lightning on earth. After all, we have a beam of electrons jumping from one location in a cloud to another. And it is a bright and fleeting thing. (Of course the scale is different -- thousands of years versus a fraction of a second.)

[neufer]

Another example of Coriolis "forces" having an effect on relatively small scales, is the Foucault pendulum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum

Again, to be highly reliable, these things only need to be roughly an order of magnitude bigger than a bathtub, and their swing needs to be initiated in a carefully controlled manner. But in the case of the bathtub, we are not talking about high reliability of the vortex direction, just a slight trend one way or another, dependent on hemisphere.

[b][color=#0000FF]The Foucault pendulum at the Musée des arts et métiers in Paris plays a major part in the novel.[/color][/b]

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<<Foucault's Pendulum (original title: Il pendolo di Foucault) is a novel by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published in 1988. The pendulum of the title refers to an actual pendulum designed by the French physicist Léon Foucault to demonstrate the rotation of the earth, and has symbolic significance within the novel. Foucault's Pendulum is full of esoteric references to Kabbalah, alchemy and conspiracy theory. The following are some of the secret and not-so-secret groups that appear in Foucault's Pendulum:

• The Knights Templar
  The Rosicrucians
  The Gnostics
  The Freemasons
  The Bavarian Illuminati
  The Elders of Zion
  The Assassins of Alamut
  The Cabalists
  The Bogomils
  The Cathars
  The Jesuits

[neufer]

In an effort to bring us back to matters astronomical, I offer the following link:
http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/My_Fa ... me_Gurgles

[img3="Archimedes' screw "HH 24 accelerator""]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _small.gif[/img3]

1) Particle Beam Jets from HH 24 are accelerated by a helical
Archimedes' screw of rotating polar magnetic field lines

2) Archimedes did his best thinking in a bathtub

3) Benedict Cumberbatch (as Stephen Hawking) gurgles in a bathtub
and "chases after Roger Penrose" in a "Eureka!" moment at the train station.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqA1lLIAA-A