Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Stickney Crater, the largest crater on the martian moon Phobos, is named for Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, mathematician and wife of astronomer Asaph Hall. Asaph Hall discovered both the Red Planet's moons in 1877. Over 9 kilometers across, Stickney is nearly half the diameter of Phobos itself, so large that the impact that blasted out the crater likely came close to shattering the tiny moon. This enhanced-color image of Stickney and surroundings was recorded by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passed within some six thousand kilometers of Phobos in March of 2008. Even though the surface gravity of asteroid-like Phobos is less than 1/1000th Earth's gravity, streaks suggest loose material slid down inside the crater walls over time. Light bluish regions near the crater's rim could indicate a relatively freshly exposed surface. The origin of the curious grooves along the surface is mysterious but may be related to tidal stresses experienced by close-orbiting Phobos or the crater-forming impact itself.

Photo by HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

PO boxes at the historic U.S. Post Office in downtown Chico, California. Today is International World Post Day.

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

Jorge Luis Borges (1899 – 1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist and poet. He was a key figure in Spanish language and universal literature. Biography

By Les Anderson on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How was the Saturn system imaged so clearly? Astrophotographer Tom Williams captured such exquisite details due to one night of exceptional atmospheric conditions above the United Kingdom. This means more than a cloudless sky. Pockets of air at different temperatures and densities move around and bend light as it travels through Earth’s atmosphere, distorting astronomy images. This is called “seeing.” Less atmospheric turbulence means clearer images. The astrophotographer reduced the impact of seeing with the lucky imaging technique: thousands of short-exposure images are taken very quickly with a high-speed camera and the clearest images are added up. Which object in this smörgåsbord interests you? Perhaps Titan or the icy stripes of Enceladus? Maybe the gaps and spokes in Saturn’s rings? Saturn's opposition, when Earth passes in between the planet and the Sun, occurred on October 4th. Due to the planet's proximity and full illumination from the Sun, now is a great time of year to observe it!

Photo by Tom Williams

Jaguar (Panthera onca) drinking from the river in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

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

No one told me it would be like this—
how growing older is another passage of discovery
and that aging is one grand transformation,
and if some things become torn apart
or even lost along the way,
many other means show up
to bring me closer
to the center of my heart.

No one ever told me
if whatever wonder waits ahead
is in another realm and outside of time.
But the amazement, I found,
is that the disconcerting things
within the here and now
that I stumble and trip my way through,
also lead me gracefully home.

And no one told me that I would ever see
an earth so strong and fragile,
or a world so sad and beautiful.
And I surely didn't know
I'd have all this life yet in me
or such fire inside my bones.

From Susan Frybort, (author of Open Passages) poetry collection "Look to the Clearing" 

By David Clode on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

"Happy New Year!" No, wait, this is not a fireworks display. This image shows Nebula Pa 30, observed with the Gemini North Telescope in Hawai'i. It is likely the remnant of an old supernova explosion: separate historical records by Chinese, Japanese and Arabic astronomers tell of a "guest star" that appeared in the sky for 185 days in the year 1181. It is believed that this bright new point of light came from the supernova that caused the fireworks in Pa 30. Astronomers don't know exactly what happened in this unusual explosion, classified as a Type Iax supernova, but it is thought to be caused by the merger of two white dwarfs. The mysterious central star in the image is extremely hot and produces a strong wind, possibly forming the radial filaments. Look closely at them: those pearl-like knots stringing the filaments are 4 light-days in diameter. Understanding how a supernova created this amazing nebula continues an 845-year old mystery (and counting).

Photo by International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA. Acknowledgment: PI: T. Cunningham (Center for Astrophysics - Harvard & Smithsonian). Image Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), D. de Martin & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab).