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"On carbon-negative Samsø Island, renewable energy is collectively owned — which means that the greener the island gets, the more everyone benefits"....... Read more

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

A camera on board the uncrewed Orion spacecraft captured this view on December 5 as Orion approached its return powered flyby of the Moon. Below one of Orion's extended solar arrays lies dark, smooth, terrain along the western edge of the Oceanus Procellarum. Prominent on the lunar nearside Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms, is the largest of the Moon's lava-flooded maria. The lunar terminator, shadow line between lunar night and day, runs along the left of the frame. The 41 kilometer diameter crater Marius is top center, with ray crater Kepler peeking in at the edge, just right of the solar array wing. Kepler's bright rays extend to the north and west, reaching the dark-floored Marius. Of course the Orion spacecraft is now headed toward a December 11 splashdown in planet Earth's water-flooded Pacific Ocean.

Love is you.
Love, you are,
close to me,
near or far.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

A mere seven hundred light years from Earth, toward the constellation Aquarius, a sun-like star is dying. The dying star's last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a well studied and nearby example of a Planetary Nebula, typical of this final phase of stellar evolution. Combining narrow band image data from emission lines of hydrogen atoms in red and oxygen atoms in blue-green hues, it shows tantalizing details of the Helix, including its bright inner region about 3 light-years across. The white dot at the Helix's center is this Planetary Nebula's hot, central star. A simple looking nebula at first glance, the Helix is now understood to have a surprisingly complex geometry.

Photo by Tommaso Stella

Grey the day,
cold, crisp.
Background music,
a plethora of
Christmas Carols,
bringing back
memories of
happier days.

"Moore v. Harper is a test of whether this Supreme Court can ever be trusted with power." Click to read th full article at Vox

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What’s happening inside this interstellar mountain? Stars are forming. The mountain is actually a column of gas and dust in the picturesque Eagle Nebula (M16). A pillar like this is so low in density that you could easily fly though it -- it only appears solid because of its high dust content and great depth. The glowing areas are lit internally by newly formed stars. These areas shine in red and infrared light because blue light is scattered away by intervening interstellar dust. The featured image was captured recently in near-infrared light in unprecedented detail by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched late last year. Energetic light, abrasive winds, and final supernovas from these young stars will slowly destroy this stellar birth column over the next 100,000 years. Astrophysicists: Browse 2,900+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library

Will life be delayed?
How would that happen"
Time is fleeting.
We try to delay
life or love.
We, as mortals have,
as someone said,
"A shelf life."
When our time is up,
it is up, so
enjoy life to the
fullest, every day.
Wait for no one.
"Carpe Diem."

"Northwest SOIL promised to help students with serious disabilities. But when school districts urged action, the state let the private school stay open and receive millions in tax dollars..... For years, the complaints languished with Washington state education officials." ...."Northwest SOIL’s corporate owner, Universal Health Services, has for years skimped on staffing and basic resources while pressuring managers to enroll more students than the staff could handle..." Read more at ProPublica

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen with the unaided eye even from the depths of a light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident. The featured 11-hour exposure, taken from the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's eyesight. Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (post 1995)

Photo by Blake EstesChristian Sasse

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How different does the universe look on very small scales? On very large scales? The most famous short science film of its generation gives breathtaking comparisons. That film, Powers of Ten, originally created in the 1960s, has been officially posted to YouTube and embedded here. From a picnic blanket near Chicago out past the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies, every ten seconds the film zooms out to show a square a factor of ten times larger on each side. The 9-minute video then reverses, zooming back in a factor of ten every two seconds and ends up inside a single proton. The Powers of Ten sequence is actually based on the book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke in 1957, as is a similar but mostly animated film Cosmic Zoom that was also created in the late 1960s. The changing perspectives are so enthralling and educational that sections have been recreated using more modern computerized techniques, including the first few minutes of the movie Contact. Ray and husband Charles Eames, the film's creators, were known as quite visionary spirits and even invented their own popular chair.

Video by Charles & Ray EamesEames Office

May the desire,
you had yesterday,
be the wish,
granted today
and lead to
a bright tomorrow.