Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why does this galaxy look like a curly vegetable? The Fiddlehead spiral galaxy likely gets its distorted spiral appearance from a gravitational interaction with its close-by elliptical companion NGC 770, seen just below. Cataloged as NGC 772 and Arp 78, the Fiddlehead spans over 200,000 light years, is a nearby 100 million light years beyond the stars of our Milky Way galaxy, and is visible toward the constellation of the Ram (Aries). But in the featured image, the Fiddlehead appears to have another companion -- one with a long and fuzzy tail: Comet 43P/Wolf-Harrington. Though the comet appears to be aimed straight at the massive galaxy, it is actually much closer to us, residing only light minutes away -- well within our Solar System. The comet will never reach the distant spiral galaxy, nor is it physically related to it. By a fortunate trick of perspective, though, these two cosmic wonders briefly share the same frame taken late last year from Calern, France.

Photo by Jean-François Bax & Serge Brunier, OCA/C2PU; Text: Ogetay Kayali (Michigan Tech U.)

Belvedere on the Pfingstberg in Potsdam, Germany. Colonnades with reflection in the water basin.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, featured here, was captured in spectacular detail in an image taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Visible are dark filamentary dust lanes, young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that likely houses a supermassive black hole. Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from NGC 1672, which spans about 75,000 light years across. NGC 1672, which appears toward the constellation of the Dolphinfish (Dorado), has been studied to find out how a spiral bar contributes to star formation in a galaxy's central regions.

Sun setting behind a wild mute swan (Cygnus olor) at Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Could Queen Calafia's mythical island exist in space? Perhaps not, but by chance the outline of this molecular space cloud echoes the outline of the state of California, USA. Our Sun has its home within the Milky Way's Orion Arm, only about 1,000 light-years from the California Nebula. Also known as NGC 1499, the classic emission nebula is around 100 light-years long. On the featured image, the most prominent glow of the California Nebula is the red light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons, stripped away (ionized) by energetic starlight. The star most likely providing the energetic starlight that ionizes much of the nebular gas is the bright, hot, bluish Xi Persei just to the right of the nebula. A regular target for astrophotographers, the California Nebula can be spotted with a wide-field telescope under a dark sky toward the constellation of Perseus, not far from the Pleiades. Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator

Photo by Toni Fabiani Mendez

Aluminium panelling of the Hradčanská metro station in Prague, Czechia.

Ralf Roletschek (talk) - Fahrradtechnik auf fahrradmonteur.de, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

"The fate of the H-1B program – which offers U.S. employers a way to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations – has divided influential Republicans. Tech leaders like Elon Musk strongly support the program, while other Republicans question its impact on American workers. President Donald Trump imposed restrictions on the program in his first term, but his current policy agenda on H-1Bs remains under discussion" More at Pew Research ➜

Charlie Munger - The nickname of Charles Thomas Munger, (1924 –  2023) American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. From 1978 until his death in 2023 , he was vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett. described Munger as his closest partner and right-hand man, and credited him with being the "architect" of modern Berkshire Hathaway's business philosophy. More 

Source:  All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why are there so many cyclones around the north pole of Jupiter? The topic is still being researched. NASA's robotic Juno mission orbiting Jupiter took data in 2018 that was used to construct this stunning view of the curious cyclones at Jupiter's north pole. Measuring the thermal emission from Jovian cloud tops, the infrared observations are not restricted to the hemisphere illuminated by sunlight. They reveal eight cyclonic features that surround a cyclone about 4,000 kilometers in diameter, just offset from the giant planet's geographic north pole. Similar data show a cyclone at the Jovian south pole with five circumpolar cyclones. The south pole cyclones are slightly larger than their northern cousins. Oddly, data from the once Saturn-orbiting Cassini mission has shown that Saturn's north and south poles each have only a single cyclonic storm system.

Flower buds in development of an elderberry Sambucus ('serenade'). Focus stack of 13 photos.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The plane of our Milky Way galaxy extends beyond the limb of planet Earth in this space age exposure captured by astronaut Don Pettit. His camera, with low light and long duration settings, was pointed out the window of a Dragon crew spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on January 29. The orbital outpost was at an altitude of about 400 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean at the time. Motion blurs the Earth below, while the gorgeous view from low Earth orbit includes the Milky Way's prominent satellite galaxies, known as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, near the upper left in the frame. Fans of southern skies can also spot the Southern Cross. The four brightest stars of the famous southern constellation Crux are near picture center, just beyond the edge of the bright horizon and shining through Earth's orange tinted atmospheric glow.

Portrait of French author George Sand by photographer Nadar in 1864. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, she stood up for women, criticized marriage and fought against the prejudices of a conservative society.

Nadar, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.