Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Do young stars blow bubbles? The larger view shows a stellar field observed with the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, and the inset highlights HD 61005, a star like our Sun, only 120 light-years away. Much younger than the Sun, at just about 100 million years old, it blows a fast and dense stellar wind that pushes out the cooler dust and gas that surrounds it, forming a bubble called an astrosphere. The star-blown bubble was detected with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and it has a diameter roughly 200 times the Earth-Sun distance. Our Sun has a bubble too, called the heliosphere, which protects the planets from cosmic radiation. Also shown in the inset is debris left behind from star formation, observed by Hubble. The debris appears as wings, giving the star its nickname: the Moth.

Two Glanville fritillaries (Melitaea cinxia) on a red clover. Today is Kaede Hondo's birthday, she voiced Kokoro Yotsuba in Kamisama Minarai: Himitsu no Cocotama.

Sven Damerow, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Unknown Author. Typically presented as a proverb or a Zen Buddhist-inspired teaching;  telling us that intense emotions, like anger, distort our perception, preventing us from seeing things as they truly are and calm clarity is needed for clear understanding.

Luca Bravo on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

rlier this week, Earth’s shadow swept across the full Moon in the year’s only total lunar eclipse. This stunning sequence combines images showing the Moon’s path across the night sky. Each lunar image captures our planet’s shadow gradually engulfing the Moon, culminating in its red glow. Sunlight scatters and refracts as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere toward the Moon. Shorter wavelength light (blue and green) scatters more efficiently, leaving red, orange, and yellow hues to paint the lunar surface. Tsé Bit'a'í (”rock with wings”, also known as Shiprock), located in Navajo Nation, provides a powerful volcanic foreground central to this photo and to stories of Navajo origin, adventure, and heroism. As the first full moon of the lunar new year, this eclipse held significance across cultures. Visible from East Asia to North America, this eclipse united observers across great distances, a cosmic reminder that we share the same sky.

Photo by Satoru Murata; Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Ground shoot of one Euphorbia griffithii Beautifully colored ground shoot emerges in a natural border. Focus stack of 15 photos.

Dominicus Johannes Bergsma., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

On a soaked fence-post a little blue-backed bird,
Opening her sweet throat, has stirred
A million music-ripples in the air
That curl and circle everywhere.
They break not shallow at my ear,
But quiver far within. Warm days are near!

Max Forrester Eastman (1883 – 1969) was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet and a prominent political activist. Moving to New York City for graduate school, Eastman became involved with radical circles in Greenwich Village. He initially supported socialism but became highly critical first of Stalinism and then of communism and socialism in general, becoming an advocate of free market economics. He was also a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance and an activist for a number of liberal and radical causes. In later life, he published more frequently in National Review and other conservative journals, but he always remained independent in his thinking. For instance, he publicly opposed United States involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s, earlier than most. Wikipedia

Experience the breathtaking beauty of the aurora australis, captured in stunning detail by NOAA, showcasing nature's mesmerizing light display.

by NOAA on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What’s looking back at you isn’t a cosmic eye, but Shapley 1, a beautifully symmetric planetary nebula. Shapley 1, also known as the Fine Ring Nebula or PLN 329+2.1, bejewels the southern sky constellation of the Carpenter's Square (Norma). The nebula is the result of a star near the mass of our Sun running out of fuel and shedding its outer layers. Glowing oxygen from those expelled layers makes up the circular halo. The bright central point is actually a binary: a white dwarf, the remaining stellar core after the outer layers are expelled into space, and another star, orbiting each other every 2.9 days. Shapley 1’s annular shape is due to our top-down view of the system and provides insight into the influence of central stars on planetary nebula structures.

Photo by Peter Bresseler; Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)

Two children playing with colours on the Hindu festival of Holi in Bangladesh. Today is Holi.

Md Rafayat Haque Khan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Enjoy the serene beauty of Gold Creek Pond in Washington, captured in stunning imagery that invites you to explore nature's tranquility.

by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

If you could fly over the North Pole of Mars, what would you see?  Images from ESA’s Mars Express mission in 2019 were compiled into the featured video which shows just such a trip. First you see below you a landscape tinted orange by rusted iron in the fine soil, with some land appearing darker due to exposed rock. Soon the northern polar cap comes into view, mostly white because of its reflective frozen water. Surrounding the polar cap is the North Polar Basin, a layered depression covered with dust and sand. The frames in the featured video were captured during northern Martian Spring when the carbon-dioxide ice is evaporating, leaving the underlying water-ice in the cap. Mars Express continues to study the Martian surface and look for clues about the Red Planet's ancient climate and potential for life.