sighbroken

do you ever just stop and think wow what the fuck these things are real and they exist in the world like what this shit ain’t just a picture it is actually literally a thing somewhere

travelingteadaze

Yeah this is in Yellowstone national park man. It’s good, you should go sometime.

bowieismyboyfriend

I’ve been here and it smells really bad

battlepope

but it look cool doe

everybodylovescasserole

Fun fact about these pools: the bluer the color the hotter it is. The red rim is the coolest part and the blue is the hottest. (THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD TOUCH THE RED RIM IT IS STILL SCALDING HOT)

a-singer-of-songs

The actual, not simplified version is EVEN COOLER.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/science-behind-yellowstones-rainbow-hot-spring-180950483/?no-ist

Basically, different temperature water allows different organisms to grow.  The water in the middle is so hot that almost nothing can grow, so the water is crystal clear, and since it’s so deep, and since water is a GREAT scatterer of light in the blue part of the spectrum, the water looks blue!  As the water spreads out toward the edges, it cools, allowing different species of bacteria to grow, and these different species cause the different colors.  So, really, it does boil down to water temperature, but it boils down to how water temperature affects different bacteria.

Of course, the fact that there are things living in this water at all is AMAZING in and of itself!

astrakiseki

And those thermophiles have been really helpful in terms of science too! Because it has led to stuff like PCR that lets you copy amplify DNA and RNA for analysis!