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Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American writer, poet, singer, and civil rights activist.

Photo Credit: York College ISLGP / CC by https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Kristen Colada Adams on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

That's no moon. But you could be forgiven for thinking it was a crescent Moon in the sky. It is a lesser known fact that Venus also has phases. (What about other planets?) The featured image shows Venus seen almost directly between the Sun and the Earth. This happens once every year and a half, and it is like the alignment that happens every month during a new Moon. But the new Moon is dark, while Venus' backlit atmosphere refracts and scatters the sunlight, creating a glowing crescent arc that extends beyond 180 degrees: the tips of this arc are called the "horns". The crescent can be seen with a small telescope or binoculars during twilight, but those with exceptionally acute eyesight may be able to see it with the unaided eye. Ancient Babylonian astronomers may have been the first to study Venus' brightness changes, which are related to its phases. Many other cultures have similar astronomical records, including the oldestsurvivingMaya book.

Photo by Thierry Legault

Vineyards (AOC Languedoc-Cabrières) in autumn at the foot of the Pic de Vissou. Commune of Cabrières, Hérault, France.

Christian Ferrer, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

I waited on
In the late autumn moonlight,
A train droning out of thought—

The mind on moonlight
And on trains.

Blind as a thread of water
Stirring through a cold like dust,
Lonely beyond all silence

And humming this to children,
The nostalgic listeners in sleep,

Because no guardian
Strides through distance upon distance,
His eyes a web of sleep.

Yvor Winters, (1900 - 1968), was an American poet, literary critic and professor. Winters was the author of many books. He married the poet and novelist Janet Lewis in 1926. He was awarded the 1961 Bollingen Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems. Read more

“The Moonlight” was published in Secession no. 7 (Winter, 1924).This poem is in the public domain.

Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Jupiter is one of the least lonely planets in the Solar System, at least when it comes to natural satellites. 115 moons have been discovered orbiting Jupiter so far! (Saturn has the most with 293, but who’s counting.) Ganymede and Io, two of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, met in the sky on October 20th, 2026. Today’s video captures the meeting, with Ganymede briefly blocking Io from view. This event, when an astronomical object passes in front of another and either completely or partially blocks it, is called a mutual occultation. The mutual occultations of Galilean moons are rare to witness because they require Earth’s edge-on view of their orbits. This occurs once every 6 years when Jupiter reaches its equinox and appears less “tilted”. Ganymede is also casting its shadow on Jupiter’s right side. Any fictional Jovian species within the shadow would experience a solar eclipse!

Video by Michael Wong

Watch NASA's Astronomy Video of the Day

71-931M "Vityaz" tram at Tverskaya Zastava Square in Moscow, Russia.

A.Savin, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.