Public Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

An example of violence on a cosmic scale, enormous elliptical galaxy NGC 1316 lies about 75 million light-years away toward Fornax, the southern constellation of the Furnace. Investigating the startling sight, astronomers suspect the giant galaxy of colliding with smaller neighbor NGC 1317 seen just right of the large galaxy's center, producing far flung star streams in loops and shells. Light from their close encounter would have reached Earth some 100 million years ago. In the sharp telescopic image, the central regions of NGC 1316 and NGC 1317 appear separated by over 100,000 light-years. Complex dust lanes visible within also indicate that NGC 1316 is itself the result of a merger of galaxies in the distant past. Found on the outskirts of the Fornax galaxy cluster, NGC 1316 is known as Fornax A. One of the visually brightest of the Fornax cluster galaxies it is one of the strongest and largest celestial radio sources with radio emission extending well beyond this one degree wide field-of-view.

Photo by Simone Curzi

Self-portrait by Anna Bilińska, 1887.

Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What would it look like to plunge into a monster black hole? This image from a supercomputer visualization shows the entire sky as seen from a simulated camera plunging toward a 4-million-solar-mass black hole, similar to the one at the center of our galaxy. The camera lies about 16 million kilometers from the black hole’s event horizon and is moving inward at 62% the speed of light. Thanks to gravity’s funhouse effects, the starry band of the Milky Way appears both as a compact loop at the top of this view and as a secondary image stretching across the bottom. Move the cursor over the image for additional explanations. Visualizations like this allow astronomers to explore black holes in ways not otherwise possible.

A long exposure picture, northern lights and light pollution from a nearby city in the background. Oh and there is that little me again with a light in hand....nothing new :) ---- Jonatan Pie on Unsplash

Wild Alpine ibex (Capra ibex) at Creux du Van with the Swiss Alps in the background during sunset.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's happening in the center of nearby spiral galaxy M77? The face-on galaxy lies a mere 47 million light-years away toward the constellation of the Sea Monster (Cetus). At that estimated distance, this gorgeous island universe is about 100 thousand light-years across. Also known as NGC 1068, its compact and very bright core is well studied by astronomers exploring the mysteries of supermassive black holes in active Seyfert galaxies. M77's active core glows bright at x-ray, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and radio wavelengths. The featured sharp image of M77 was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The image shows details of the spiral's winding spiral arms as traced by obscuring red dust clouds and blue star clusters, all circling the galaxy's bright white luminous center. Free APOD Lecture in Phoenix: Wednesday, December 10 at 7 pm

Fortified city of Carcassonne during the blue hour, France. Founded during the Gallo-Roman period, the citadel derives its reputation from its 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) long double surrounding walls interspersed by 52 towers. The medieval citadel, situated on a hill on the right bank of the river Aude, was restored at the end of the 19th century by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. In 1997, it was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites because of its exceptional testimony to the architecture and planning of a medieval fortress town.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How typical is our Solar System? Studying 3I/ATLAS, a comet just passing through, is providing clues. Confirmed previous interstellar visitors include an asteroid, a comet, a meteor, and a gas wind dominated by hydrogen and helium. Comet 3I/ATLAS appears relatively normal when compared to Solar System comets, therefore providing more evidence that our Solar System is a somewhat typical star system. For example, Comet 3I/ATLAS has a broadly similar chemical composition and ejected dust. The featured image was captured last week from Texas and shows a green coma, a wandering blue-tinted ion tail likely deflected by our Sun's wind, and a slight anti-tail, all typical cometary attributes. The comet, visible with a telescope, passed its closest to the Sun in late October and will pass its closest to the Earth in mid-December, after which it will return to interstellar space and never return. Explore the Universe: Random APOD Generator

Photo by Victor Sabet & Julien De Winter

Narrow-banded dartwhite (Catasticta flisa postaurea) on Mimosa pudica, Villa Gerar, Silvania, Cundinamarca, Colombia.

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

Carl Edward Sagan (1934 – 1996) ~ American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. He was one of the most well-known scientist of the 1970's and 1980's . He was controversial in scientific, political, and religious circles for his views on extraterrestrial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and religion. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He was an advocate for nuclear disarmament and co-wrote and hosted 'Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.'  He was widely regarded as a freethinker and one of his most famous quotations, in Cosmos, was, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  He died at the age of 62 from complications of Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). More
 
Quote source: From the book "Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" by Carl Sagan (1995) 

My Heart Has Known Its Winter

A little while spring will claim its own,
In all the land around for mile on mile
Tender grass will hide the rugged stone.
My still heart will sing a little while.

And men will never think this wilderness
Was barren once when grass is over all,
Hearing laughter they may never guess
My heart has known its winter and carried gall.

This poem is in the public domain

Arna Bontemps (1902-1973)  Poet, writer, teacher, novelist. Born in Alexandria, Louisiana, the son of Creole parents. Bontemps published his first poem, "Hope" In 1924, which was followed by other poems, children's books and fiction writings; including "God Sends Sunday" (1931) and "You Can't Pet a Possum" (1934). He  published his novel "Black Thunder" in 1936  which is considered by some as his best work. Followed by the children's book "Sad-Faced Boy" (1937), and his novel, "Drums at Dusk" (1939). This book was more widely recognized than his other novels.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

If you could stand on Titan -- what would you see? The featured color view from Titan gazes across an unfamiliar and distant landscape on Saturn's largest moon. The scene was recorded by ESA's Huygens probe in 2005 after a 2.5-hour descent through a thick atmosphere of nitrogen laced with methane. Bathed in an eerie orange light at ground level, rocks strewn about the scene could well be composed of water and hydrocarbons frozen solid at an inhospitable temperature of negative 179 degrees C. The large light-toned rock below and left of center is only about 15 centimeters across and lies 85 centimeters away. The saucer-shaped spacecraft is believed to have penetrated about 15 centimeters into a place on Titan's surface that had the consistency of wet sand or clay. Huygen's batteries enabled the probe to take and transmit data for more than 90 minutes after landing. Titan's bizarre chemical environment may bear similarities to planet Earth's before life evolved.