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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What are those dark streaks in this composite image of yesterday's solar eclipse? They are reversed shadows of mountains at the edge of the Moon. The center image, captured from Xiamen, China, has the Moon's center directly in front of the Sun's center. The Moon, though, was too far from the Earth to completely block the entire Sun. Light that streamed around all of the edges of the Moon is called a ring of fire. Images at each end of the sequence show sunlight that streamed through lunar valleys. As the Moon moved further in front of the Sun, left to right, only the higher peaks on the Moon's perimeter could block sunlight. Therefore, the dark streaks are projected, distorted, reversed, and magnified shadows of mountains at the Moon's edge. Bright areas are called Bailey's Beads. Only a narrow swath across Earth's Eastern Hemisphere was able to see yesterday's full annular solar eclipse. Next June, though, a narrow swath across Earth's Northern Hemisphere will be able to see the next annular solar eclipse. A total solar eclipse will be visible at the bottom of the world near the end of this year. Gallery: Notable images of the Annular Solar Eclipse of 2020 June submitted to APOD

Photo by Wang LetianEyes at Night

© TashiTobgyal/ @IndianExpress 

Your life was short
And you left me early
One day you were here
The next day you were gone
And life was never the same

Perhaps you thought
I would not remember
Lessons you taught me
About right and wrong
About love and respect

But I remember them all
Like it happened yesterday
They helped define me
And will be with me always
In my heart, right next to you

All Copyrights are reserved: Calob 2020

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It may look like Earthrise, but it's actually Venus-set. Just after sunrise two days ago, both the Moon and Venus also rose. But then the Moon overtook Venus. In the featured image sequence centered on the Moon, Venus is shown increasingly angularly close to the Moon. In the famous Earthrise image taken just over 50 years ago, the Earth was captured rising over the edge of the Moon, as seen from the Apollo 8 crew orbiting the Moon. This similar Venus-set image was taken from Earth, of course, specifically Estonia. Venus shows only a thin crescent because last week it passed nearly in front of the Sun, as seen from Earth. The Moon shows only a thin crescent because it will soon be passing directly in front of the Sun, as seen from Earth. Today, in fact, two days after this image was taken, the Moon will create a solar eclipse, with a thin swath across the Earth treated to an annular solar eclipse. Gallery: Notable images of the Venus - Mooon conjunction of 2020 June submitted to APOD

Photo by Dzmitry Kananovich

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Today's solstice brings summer to planet Earth's northern hemisphere. But the northern summer solstice arrived for ringed planet Saturn over three years ago on May 24, 2017. Orbiting the gas giant, Saturn's moon Titan experiences the Saturnian seasons that are about 7 Earth-years long. Larger than inner planet Mercury, Titan was captured in this Cassini spacecraft image about two weeks after its northern summer began. The near-infrared view finds bright methane clouds drifting through Titan's dense, hazy atmosphere as seen from a distance of about 507,000 kilometers. Below the clouds, dark hydrocarbon lakes sprawl near its fully illuminated north pole.

* "Tonight saw a Friday night news dump that will go into the history books". || by Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American

* "Fractured Skulls, Lost Eyes: Police Often Break Own Rules Using ‘Rubber Bullets" || by Liz Szabo and Jay Hancock ~ KHN 

* The Trump Administration Paid Millions for Test Tubes — and Got Unusable Mini Soda Bottles || by J. David McSwane and Ryan Gabrielson

The sound of music
floats through the trees.
I hear your voice;
So sweetly you sing.
The melodious sound
of the music I hear,
reminds me of times
when I called you dear.
Will those years return
back to thee?
I suppose they will,
when you are with me.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Transfusing sunlight through a darkened sky, this beautiful display of noctilucent clouds was captured earlier this week, reflected in calm waters from Nykobing Mors, Denmark. From the edge of space, about 80 kilometers above Earth's surface, the icy clouds themselves still reflect sunlight, though the Sun is below the horizon as seen from the ground. Usually spotted at high latitudes in summer months the night shining clouds have made an early appearance this year as northern nights grow short. Also known as polar mesopheric clouds they are understood to form as water vapor driven into the cold upper atmosphere condenses on the fine dust particles supplied by disintegrating meteors or volcanic ash. NASA's AIM mission provides daily projections of noctilucent clouds as seen from space.

Photo by Ruslan Merzlyakov

Day slowly fades to black.
Moonless sky; Stars all bright,
on this, the darkest night.
Streaking comets, satellites too,
a most remarkable sight to view.

In fullest Sun;
not a bit shady
is where I spied
this Pink Lady.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This telescopic close-up shows off the central regions of otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under backyard suburban skies with narrowband filters. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and dust. Below and right of center are the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. Composed of denser cooler gas and dust, the tadpoles are around 10 light-years long and are likely sites of ongoing star formation. Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation their heads are outlined by bright ridges of ionized gas while their tails trail away from the cluster's central young stars. IC 410 lies some 10,000 light-years away, toward the nebula-rich constellation Auriga.

Photo by Trevor Jones