Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why does Saturn appear so big? It doesn't -- what is pictured are foreground clouds on Earth crossing in front of the Moon. The Moon shows a slight crescent phase with most of its surface visible by reflected Earthlight known as ashen glow. The Sun directly illuminates the brightly lit lunar crescent from the bottom, which means that the Sun must be below the horizon and so the image was taken before sunrise. This double take-inducing picture was captured on 2019 December 24, two days before the Moon slid in front of the Sun to create a solar eclipse. In the foreground, lights from small Guatemalan towns are visible behind the huge volcano Pacaya. News: APOD Receives First Outreach Prize from the International Astronomical Union

Photo by Francisco Sojuel

Camano Island, WA

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It's stars versus dust in the Carina Nebula and the stars are winning. More precisely, the energetic light and winds from massive newly formed stars are evaporating and dispersing the dusty stellar nurseries in which they formed. Located in the Carina Nebula and known informally as Mystic Mountain, these pillar's appearance is dominated by the dark dust even though it is composed mostly of clear hydrogen gas. Dust pillars such as these are actually much thinner than air and only appear as mountains due to relatively small amounts of opaque interstellar dust. About 7,500 light-years distant, the featured image was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope and highlights an interior region of Carina which spans about three light years. Within a few million years, the stars will likely win out completely and the entire dust mountain will evaporate.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why does this galaxy have a ring of bright blue stars? Beautiful island universe Messier 94 lies a mere 15 million light-years distant in the northern constellation of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici). A popular target for Earth-based astronomers, the face-on spiral galaxy is about 30,000 light-years across, with spiral arms sweeping through the outskirts of its broad disk. But this Hubble Space Telescope field of view spans about 7,000 light-years across M94's central region. The featured close-up highlights the galaxy's compact, bright nucleus, prominent inner dust lanes, and the remarkable bluish ring of young massive stars. The ring stars are all likely less than 10 million years old, indicating that M94 is a starburst galaxy that is experiencing an epoch of rapid star formation from inspiraling gas. The circular ripple of blue stars is likely a wave propagating outward, having been triggered by the gravity and rotation of a oval matter distributions. Because M94 is relatively nearby, astronomers can better explore details of its starburst ring.

Saratoga Passage. WA

"Proteins are the building blocks of life, chains of amino acids that can twist and bend into a mind-boggling variety of shapes. Last year, DeepMind AI cracked a 50-year-old problem of protein folding and published the protein structures for 20 species – including nearly all 20,000 proteins expressed by humans. Now, it's Alphafold AI has finished the job, and released predicted structures for more than 200M proteins.... .. AI is paving the way for the development of new medicines or technologies to tackle global challenges such as famine or pollution" Read more
Image Credit: DeepMind

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo view from lunar orbit. The 3D anaglyph was created from two photographs (AS11-44-6633, AS11-44-6634) taken by astronaut Michael Collins during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. It features the lunar module ascent stage, dubbed The Eagle, rising to meet the command module in lunar orbit on July 21. Aboard the ascent stage are Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first to walk on the Moon. The smooth, dark area on the lunar surface is Mare Smythii located just below the equator on the extreme eastern edge of the Moon's near side. Poised beyond the lunar horizon is our fair planet Earth.

Photo by ALSJ

Sitting on the patio,
nowhere to go.
Writing an Ode,
which I'll show,
to no one.

A good friends Mother,
left the World today.
She lived in a Country,
so far away.
a foreign country,
on the Mediterranean Sea.
A beautiful country,
she will no longer see.
Rest in peace, where
you will surely be.

Mental health issues such as anxiety and depression were a leading cause of global health problems even before the spread of COVID-19; however, they’ve gotten worse........  worldwide  rates have increased by an overwhelming 25%. In the U.S., 4 in 10 adults have reported symptoms of anxiety or depression during the pandemic, compared with 1 in 10 from January to June 2019..... Read more

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

An ancient tree seems to reach out and touch Earth's North Celestial Pole in this well-planned night skyscape. Consecutive exposures for the timelapse composition were recorded with a camera fixed to a tripod in the Yiwu Desert Poplar Forests in northwest Xinjiang, China. The graceful star trail arcs reflect Earth's daily rotation around its axis. By extension, the axis of rotation leads to the center of the concentric arcs in the night sky. Known as the North Star, bright star Polaris is a friend to northern hemisphere night sky photographers and celestial navigators alike. That's because Polaris lies very close to the North Celestial Pole on the sky. Of course it can be found at the tip of an outstretched barren branch in a postcard from a rotating planet.

Photo by Jeff Dai

When the World crumbles,
like castles of sand
and the life you know
is not yours to command,
it is the time to stand,
raising your voices up high
and protest. You must,
so, all will know why.
This is your fight.
Do you live or just die?