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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few million years for the most massive stars, the enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the stellar life cycle. Light from the supernova explosion that created this remnant would have been first seen in planet Earth's sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light 11,000 years to reach us. This sharp NIRCam image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the still-hot filaments and knots in the supernova remnant. The whitish, smoke-like outer shell of the expanding blast wave is about 20 light-years across. A series of light echoes from the massive star's cataclysmic explosion are also identified in Webb's detailed images of the surrounding interstellar medium.

Roof of the Milan Cathedral, Milan, Italy.

Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

James A. Michener - (February 3, 1907 - October 16, 1997)

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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Active galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby Perseus Cluster of Galaxies. Wild-looking at visible wavelengths, the active galaxy is also a prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission. NGC 1275 accretes matter as entire galaxies fall into it, ultimately feeding a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core. Narrowband image data used in this sharp telescopic image highlights the resulting galactic debris and filaments of glowing gas, some up to 20,000 light-years long. The filaments persist in NGC 1275, even though the turmoil of galactic collisions should destroy them. What keeps the filaments together? Observations indicate that the structures, pushed out from the galaxy's center by the black hole's activity, are held together by magnetic fields. Also known as Perseus A, NGC 1275 itself spans over 100,000 light years and lies about 230 million light years away.

Photo by Michal Wierzbinski

Leopard (Panthera pardus pardus) young female in Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

              Eternity

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

William Blake - (1757 – 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Although Blake was largely unrecognized during his life, he is now considered an influential figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, but he is now held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. Read more

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