Magazine Posts

Jaakko Kemppainen on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Large galaxies grow by eating small ones. Even our own galaxy engages in a sort of galactic cannibalism, absorbing small galaxies that are too close and are captured by the Milky Way's gravity. In fact, the practice is common in the universe and illustrated by this striking pair of interacting galaxies from the banks of the southern constellation Eridanus, The River. Located over 50 million light years away, the large, distorted spiral NGC 1532 is seen locked in a gravitational struggle with dwarf galaxy NGC 1531, a struggle the smaller galaxy will eventually lose. Seen nearly edge-on, in this sharp image spiral NGC 1532 spans about 100,000 light-years. The NGC 1532/1531 pair is thought to be similar to the well-studied system of face-on spiral and small companion known as M51.

Photo by Vikas Chander

Mountaineers descending into Chola Valley, 5,200 metres (17,100 ft) a. s. l., in good weather conditions, with a panoramic view over snow-capped Himalayan peaks to the south of the Great Himalayan Range in Mahalangur Himal, Nepal, Himalayas. Today is International Mountain Day.

Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

               "NIght"

The night has a thousand eyes,
     And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
      With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
    And the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies
    When love is done.

Francis William Bourdillon (1852 - 1921) was a British poet, translator and a bibliophile. Bourdillon is known for his poetry, and in particular, for the single short poem "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes". He had many poem collections and essays published, including three smaller volumes of verse published anonymously at Oxford between 1891 and 1894.

Photo credit: RezaAskarii

Ray Hennessy on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, this dusty interstellar molecular cloud has by chance has assumed an immediately recognizable shape. Fittingly known as The Horsehead Nebula, it lies some 1,500 light-years distant, embedded in the vast Orion cloud complex. About five light-years "tall," the dark cloud is cataloged as Barnard 33, first identified on a photographic plate taken in the late 19th century. B33 is visible primarily because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the glow of emission nebula IC 434. Hubble space telescope images from the early 21st century find young stars forming within B33. Of course, the magnificent interstellar cloud will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years. But for now the Horsehead Nebula is a rewarding though difficult object to view with small telescopes from planet Earth.

Photo by George Chatzifrantzis

"Unity of humanitarian and technical sciences", Soviet time Bas-relief in Saint Petersburg.

Nikolai Bulykin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Anton Darius on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This cosmic close-up looks deep inside the Soul Nebula. The dark and brooding dust clouds outlined by bright ridges of glowing gas are cataloged as IC 1871. About 25 light-years across, the telescopic field of view spans only a small part of the much larger Heart and Soul nebulae. At an estimated distance of 6,500 light-years, the star-forming complex lies within the Perseus spiral arm of the Milky Way, seen in planet Earth's skies toward the constellation of the Queen of Aethiopia (Cassiopeia). An example of triggered star formation, the dense star-forming clouds of IC 1871 are themselves sculpted by the intense winds and radiation of the region's massive young stars. This color image adopts a palette made popular in Hubble images of star-forming regions.

Photo by Nicola Bugin

Val Sinestra. Candlestick fungus (Xylaria hypoxylon) on an erosion field.

Agnes Monkelbaan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Many wonders are visible when flying over the Earth at night. Such visual spectacles occur every day for astronauts in low Earth orbit, but the featured video captured several from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2011 and set them to rousing music. Passing below are white clouds, orange city lights, lightning flashes in thunderstorms, and dark blue seas. On the horizon is the golden haze of Earth's thin atmosphere, frequently decorated by dancing auroras as the video progresses. The green parts of auroras typically remain below the space station, but the station flies right through the red and purple auroral peaks. Solar panels of the ISS are seen around the frame edges. The ominous wave of approaching brightness at the end of each sequence is just the dawn of the sunlit half of Earth, a dawn that occurs every 90 minutes. Free APOD Lecture in Phoenix: This Wednesday (December 10) at 7 pm

Window in the west facade of the Lutheran Fishermen's Church in Born auf dem Darß, Germany.

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