Public Posts

Morning in a Pine Forest (1889) by Russian artists Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky.

Ivan Shishkin / Konstantin Savitsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Sebastian Unrau on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The defining astronomical moment of the equinox today is at 14:46 UTC (March 20). That's when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving north in its yearly journey through planet Earth's sky, marking the beginning of spring for our fair planet in the northern hemisphere and fall in the southern hemisphere. Then, day and night are nearly equal around the globe. In fact, both day and nighttime exposures from a spring equinox at the Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, are used in this composited skyscape. Over 1,000 images were taken with a fisheye lens and merged in the ambitious equinox project. The apparent motion of the Sun setting along the celestial equator on the equinox date follows the bright linear, diagonal track from the sequence of daytime exposures taken over 6 hours. After sunset, nighttime exposures recorded startrails, with the celestial equator as a linear track and concentric arcs circling the north celestial pole near Polaris at upper right and the south celestial pole beyond the lower left edge (and below the Teide horizon). The foreground includes the distant Teide volcano peak and the observatory's pyramid-shaped solar laboratory building.

Photo by Juan Carlos Casado

Capparis spinosa in the Ichkeul National Park. Today is the first day of spring and Tunisia's Independence Day.

IssamBarhoumi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

James Arthur Baldwin (1924 –1987) was an American writer, orator and activist. As a writer, he garnered acclaim across various mediums, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, was published in 1953; decades later, Time magazine included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language novels released from 1923 to 2005. His first essay collection, Notes of a Native Son, was published in 1955. Baldwin was also a well-known, and controversial, public figure, especially during the civil rights movement in the United States.

Benjamin Voros on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

ven if you live with your head in the clouds, you won’t find a jellyfish like this one very often. The featured image shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on March 4. The launch happened 52 minutes before sunrise, and the second stage rocket exhaust plume was high enough in the sky to catch the light of the rising sun, while the photographer was still in the dark. This combination of light and shadow, possible at dawn or dusk, makes the exhaust, mostly water vapor and carbon dioxide, appear as a glowing cloud. It only looks like it's going down, as the rocket follows the curvature of the Earth on its way to space. A related effect is the twilight phenomenon, which causes colorful contrails sometimes mistaken for UFOs. But, in case you are wondering: real jellyfish were sent to space by NASA in the 1990s as part of a science experiment.

Photo by Michael Seeley

Saint Joseph depicted holding a staff with lily blossoms and the Christ Child on a stained-glass window in the Saint Antony church in Urtijëi. Today is St. Joseph's feast day in Western Christianity.

This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. This image is not in the public domain. Please respect the copyright protection. It may only be used according to the rules mentioned here. This specifically excludes use in social media, if applicable terms of the licenses listed here not appropriate. Please do not upload an updated image here without consultation with the Author. The author would like to make corrections only at his own source. This ensures that the changes are preserved.Please if you think that any changes should be required, please inform the author.Otherwise you can upload a new image with a new name. Please use one of the templates derivative or extract., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

                           I

They met and they talked where the crossroads meet,
Four men from the four winds come,
And they talked of the horse, for they loved the theme,
And never a man was dumb.
The man from the North loved the strength of the horse,
And the man from the East his pace,
And the man from the South loved the speed of the horse,
And the man from the West his grace.

So these four men from the four winds come,
Each paused a space in his course
And smiled in the face of his fellow man
And lovingly talked of the horse.
Then each man parted and went his way
As their different courses ran;
And each man journeyed with peace in his heart
And loving his fellow man.

                           II

They met the next year where the crossroads meet,
Four men from the four winds come;
And it chanced as they met that they talked of God,
And never a man was dumb.
One imagined God in the shape of a man.
A spirit did one insist.
One said that nature itself was God.
One said that he didn’t exist.

They lashed each other with tongues that stung,
That smote as with a rod;
Each glared in the face of his fellow man,
And wrathfully talked of God.
Then each man parted and went his way,
As their different courses ran;
And each man journeyed with wrath in his heart,
And hating his fellow man.

(This poem is in the public domain)

Sam Walter Foss (1858 – 1911) was an American librarian and poet born in Candia, New Hampshire. He gra­du­at­ed from Brown Un­i­ver­si­ty, Pro­vi­dence, Rhode Is­land, in 1882, His works include The House by the Side of the Road, Two Gods and The Coming American. He served as librarian at the Somerville Public Library in Massachusetts.  Foss used to write a poem a day for the newspapers and his five volumes of collected poetry