Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Cruising through the inner solar system, Comet ATLAS C2019/Y4 has apparently fragmented. Multiple separate condensations within its diffuse coma are visible in this telescopic close-up from April 12, composed of frames tracking the comet's motion against trailing background stars. Discovered at the end of December 2019, this comet ATLAS showed a remarkably rapid increase in brightness in late March. Northern hemisphere comet watchers held out hope that it would become a bright nake-eye comet as it came closer to Earth in late April and May. But fragmenting ATLAS is slowly fading in northern skies. The breakup of comets is not uncommon though. This comet ATLAS is in an orbit similar to the Great Comet of 1844 (C/1844 Y1) and both may be fragments of a single larger comet.

Photo by NAO Rozhen

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It was an astronomical triple play. Setting on the left, just after sunset near the end of last month, was our Moon -- showing a bright crescent phase. Setting on the right was Venus, the brightest planet in the evening sky last month -- and this month, too. With a small telescope, you could tell that Venus' phase was half, meaning that only half of the planet, as visible from Earth, was exposed to direct sunlight and brightly lit. High above and much further in the distance was the Pleiades star cluster. Although the Moon and Venus move with respect to the background stars, the Pleiades do not -- because they are background stars. In the beginning of this month, Venus appeared to move right in front of the Pleiades, a rare event that happens only once every eight years. The featured image captured this cosmic triangle with a series of exposures taken from the same camera over 70 minutes near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada. The positions of the celestial objects was predicted. The only thing unpredicted was the existence of the foreground tree -- and the astrophotographer is still unsure what type of tree that is.

Photo by ScottAspinall

Chocolate dream, up in the sky,
Or chocolate in the chocolate pie,
You say you love me,
I wonder why?
Do you tease me,
Or in your way,
Will it be another day,
That goes by,
With me wondering
What I will say.

When I say, I love you
And you say it back to me.
When I say, I worry,
You say "worry not for me."

"Don't be sad", you tell me,
"For what will be, will be".
But when I see you fading
And there is less memory,
Then I feel so helpless
And I weep for thee.

At any social function,
When your eyes start to dim
And the words, you once remembered,
Are no longer, yours to be,
When the words, stop coming,
I will weep for thee.

Across the Valley, atop the hill
comes the shrill call of a Whippoorwill.
The haunting cry, give me a chill
up my spine; it always will.
Gone from my mind; that was until
I heard the cry of the Whippoorwill.
Long did I wonder, why time stood still,
when I heard the cry of the Whippoorwill.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, but also one of the dustiest. Dubbed the Silver Coin for its appearance in smalltelescopes, it is more formally known as the Sculptor Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor. Discovered in 1783 by mathematician and astronomer Caroline Herschel, the dusty island universe lies a mere 10 million light-years away. About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253, pictured, is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest to our own Local Group of galaxies. In addition to its spiral dust lanes, tendrils of dust seem to be rising from a galactic disk laced with young star clusters and star forming regions in this sharp color image. The high dust content accompanies frantic star formation, earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy. NGC 253 is also known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massive black holes near the galaxy's center. Take a trip through extragalactic space in this short video flyby of NGC 253. Astrophysicists: Browse 2,100+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library

Tufts of hair,
A swirling.
Eyes that glisten,
Mouth an orb,
Open to the wind.
Ears, with penchant,
Sounds a flowing,
Sighing, in the night,
Echoes from the
Empty corridors
And vacant rooms,
Until morning light.

When I was young,
not quite a teen,
I thought I knew
what a life did mean.
But now with years
gone, so quickly by,
I know not of life
nor can I try
to explain to you, my friend
how suddenly this
long life will end.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How did this big rock end up on this strange terrain? One of the more unusual places here on Earth occurs inside Death Valley, California, USA. There a dried lakebed named Racetrack Playa exists that is almost perfectly flat, with the odd exception of some very large stones, one of which is pictured here in April of 2019 beneath a dark, Milky-Way filled sky. Now the flatness and texture of large playa like Racetrack are fascinating but not scientifically puzzling -- they are caused by mud flowing, drying, and cracking after a heavy rain. Only recently, however, has a viable scientific hypothesis been given to explain how heavy sailing stones end up near the middle of such a large flat surface. Unfortunately, as frequently happens in science, a seemingly surreal problem ends up having a relatively mundane solution. It turns out that in winter thin ice sheets form, and winds push ice sections laden with even heavy rocks across the temporarily slick playa when sunlight melts the ice.

https://raycollinsphoto.com
https://www.facebook.com/rayco...

I am but one person in this world
And I will be what I will be.
I will march to my own drummer
And I will sing my own sweet song.
Those of you who don't like that;
You don't have to march along.

Loving you, is easier than,
anything.
Loving you, is the best
thing that I do,
for loving you gives me
more happiness,
than all the creature
comforts in the world.
Holding you, while
standing , in a crowed room,
lying with my head
above your shoulder
or gently placing my
hand upon your breast,
is true happiness.