amazing science images you must see

Take a minute toooohandaaah. In this composite photograph, the northern lights, or aurora, reflect off J

This photograph won fifth place in the Against the Lights category of the InternationalEarth and Sky Photo Contest, run by The World at Night (TWAN). Light pollution reflects in winter cloud cover. The source of the apocalyptic glow is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) away the city of Portland, Oregon.

Icelands Grimsvotn volcano erupts on May 22, 2011.

The Space Shuttle Endeavour is docked with the International Space Station one last time in this May 28, 2011 photograph. Below, city lights brighten thenight side of Earth. The STS 134 astronauts left the station the next day on May 29, and they are scheduled to land in Florida on Wednesday, June 1.

A researcher examines the paws of a sedated polar bear in this 1982 photograph taken in Alaska. Polar bears giant paw pads help them keep traction on ice and snow.

The emerald tree boa, which is found in the Amazon basin, is equipped with highly sensitive heat sensing organs that it uses for 3 D thermal imaging oftheir prey. Its color pattern and the way the tree boa drapes itself over branches are similar to the green tree python from Australia and New Guinea.

Looks like these chasers have found their storm. Lightning crackles behind a stormchase vehicle in Enid, Okla. In 2009 and 2010, an armada of researchers in fully equipped vehicles (including this one) descended on the Great Plains, following the weather. The project, VORTEX2, has one major goal: Tornado forecasting. Right now, residents in stormy areas usually have only 13 minutes to seek cover from a twister, and 70 percent of alarms are false. Understanding how and when tornados form is a major goal for meteorologists trying to give people on the ground more warning about these deadly winds.

Venus sparkles like a diamond over the Rio de la Plata near Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Rio de la Plata is an estuary of the Parana and Uruguay Rivers.Its so large (125 miles, or 200 kilometers from shore to shore) that some geologists consider the Rio de la Plata to be not a river mouth, but a marginal sea. The lights of Buenos Aires are visible in the far right of this May 28, 2011 photo.

The space between cells is a freeway when youre a Staphylococcus bacterium. A tight barrier of cells is supposed to prevent outside invaders like these Staph bugs (red and purple) from entering the body. The fact that we get sick is testimony that those barriers sometimes fail. Now, University of Pennsylvania researchers have found one reason why: Some pathogenic bugs have the key that opens secret passages in this cellular wall.

This may be as relaxing as it gets. Various shades of blue come to life in this view of Pukaki, a glacial lake in New Zealand. The alpine lake, which sitsalongside Lakes Tekapo and Ohau, was carved out long ago by glaciers. Its striking blue color comes from the finely ground rock particles called glacial flour from the glaciers that now feed it.