Public Posts

A macro shot of a red-and-green macaw's (Ara chloropterus) eye, Serra da Capivara National Park, Piauí state, Brazil.

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

Chapel of the Sacred Heart in the Jaszczurówka neighborhood of Zakopane, Poland.

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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Jupiter looks a bit different in ultraviolet light. To better interpret Jupiter's cloud motions and to help NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft understand the planetary context of the small fields that it sees, the Hubble Space Telescope was being directed to regularly image the entire Jovian giant. The colors of Jupiter being monitored go beyond the normal human visual range to include both ultraviolet and (not pictured) infrared light. Featured from 2017, Jupiter appears different in near ultraviolet light, partly because the amount of sunlight reflected back is distinct, giving differing cloud heights and latitudes discrepant brightnesses. In the near UV, Jupiter's poles appear relatively dark, as does its Great Red Spot and a smaller (optically) white oval to the right. The String of Pearl storms farther to the right, however, are brightest in near ultraviolet, and so here appear (false-color) pink. Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede appears on the upper left. Juno continues on a looping 33-day orbit around Jupiter, while Earth-orbiting Hubble is aging and now relies on a single stabilizing gyroscope.

James Montgomery Flagg used the familiar figure of "Uncle Sam" and thus created the most famous recruiting poster by the U.S. Army. From April 1917 to autumn of 1918 more than four million pieces of it were printed. Still utilized in more recent times, this print was probably made in 1975. Today is Veterans Day in the United States.

James Montgomery Flagg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Today is the United States Marine Corps birthday on which it turns 250 years old.

Joe Rosenthal, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Ursula K. Le Guin ( 1929 – 2018) was an American author born in Berkley, California. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction.  Her work was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and more than a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. She is frequently described as an author of science fiction and has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le  Guin said that she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". More 

Two chestnut-tailed starlings (Sturnia malabarica) kissing while perched on a branch in Satchari National Park, Bangladesh.

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