SPECTACULAR ORANGE PYROTECHNICS FROM BELOW & ABOVE NOW

Right now, there are super-colossal orange phenomena happening that are magnificent to behold. Some are erupting from deep within our own planet, as massive volcanoes in Hawaii and Iceland spew molten lava. Some are exploding and swirling in outer space. Check out these spectacular Beautiful Orange images below.

VOLCANIC ORANGE

As we watch the lava flows threaten local villages on the big island of Hawaii, and we fear its potential destruction, we know that this natural phenomenon serves to reshape and refresh our planet. And as we hope that all people in its path will be safe and will manage well, we also note the beauty of these orange infernos.

Icelandic photographer Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson captures the brilliant orange beauty of arctic volcanoes with a sense of powerful poetry. Here is his latest image, showing the recent activity at Bardarbunga, an area on the northwestern edge of the Vatnajokull ice cap.

Bardarbunga has been erupting stunning lava flows since August 31st with no signs of letting up. This massive lava flow recalls a similar event at Bardarbunga 8,600 years ago, an eruption that produced the largest known lava flow in the past 10,000 years.

It’s no surprise that Bardarbunga is active once again. The volcano has erupted 23 times in recorded history, about twice a century, and the last time was in 1910. Bardarbunga sits over the hottest part of the North Atlantic Magma Plume.

This is what it looks like to get up close and personal with a volcano. Documentarian George Kourounis and filmmaker Sam Cossman repelled more than one thousand feet down into the Marum crater in heat proof suits to enter the 1300F environment. The volcano lies on the Vanuatu Archipelago off of Australia.

ASTRONOMICAL ORANGE

From solar flares, to colliding stars, to spiral galaxies, new images of astronomical events show us how beautiful cosmic orange can be.

NEUTRON STAR COLLISION

A new video, released by NASA, shows how two super-dense neutron stars destroy each other in a cataclysmic cosmic merger event that eventually creates a black hole.

STELLAR FLARE

Last month NASA's Swift satellite reported a stellar flare over 10,000 times more powerful than the biggest solar flare on record, coming from a binary star system 60 light-years away.

SOLAR CORONA

NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft has produced a slew of new images, and new data on the workings of the corona, the atmosphere of the Sun.

The new findings were published in the October 17 issue of the journal Science.

GALACTIC HALO

This composite image recently taken by the ground-based telescope at the Palomar Observatory shows the NGC 6946 galaxy ablaze, with an orange galactic halo emanating from a fiery star-filled center.

ANDROMEDA GALAXY

This beautiful orange spiral is the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest large spiral galaxy to our own, the Milky Way. Now two European Space Agency observatories have produced far more detailed images, taken at infrared wavelengths. We are able to see that like the Milky Way, this galaxy contains several hundred billion stars, with new ones being formed continuously.

SOLAR FLARES

Check out this newly released video, produced by NASA which sets the beauty of orange solar flares to music. It’s like watching a cosmic orange ballet.

Read more about Beautiful Orange, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including 10 Beautiful Fast Orange Cars Now.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Orange in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 11.02.14. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

PHOTO CREDITS:

1. Photo: by Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson. Bardarbunga eruption.
2. Photo: by Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson. Bardarbunga eruption.
3. Photo: by Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson. Bardarbunga eruption.
4. Photo: by Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson. Bardarbunga eruption.
5. Photo: by Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson. Bardarbunga eruption.
6. Video: by NASA Goddard. “Graceful Eruption.”
7. Photo: Courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Two super dense stars colliding.
8. Photo: Courtesy of NASA/AEI/ZIB/M. Koppitz and L. Rezzolla. Simulation of neutron collision.
9. Photo: Courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. A stellar flare over 10,000 times more powerful than the previous largest solar flare on record.
10. Photo: Courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Data from IRIS Spacecraft show how the sun is heated.
11. Photo: Courtesy of Palomar Observatory. Composite image taken by a telescope at Palomar Observatory.
12. Photo: Courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA Deep Space Photo.
13. Photo: Courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. A solar flare in action.
14. Video: by Sam Cossman. “Diving into an Active Volcano.”