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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why are these meteor trails nearly parallel? Because they were all shed by the same space rock and so can be traced back to the same direction on the sky: the radiant of the Quadrantid Meteor Shower. This direction used to be toward the old constellation of Quadrans Muralis, hence the name Quadrantids, but when the International Astronomical Union formulated its list of modern constellations in 1922, this constellation did not make the list. Even though the meteors are now considered to originate from the recognized constellation of Bootes, the old name stuck. Regardless of the designation, every January the Earth moves through a dust stream and bits of this dust glow as meteors as they heat up in Earth's atmosphere. The featured image composite was taken on January 4 with a picturesque snowy Slovakian landscape in the foreground, and a deep-exposure sky prominently featuring the constellation Orion in the background. The red star Betelgeuse appears unusually dim -- its fading over the past few months is being tracked by astronomers. Teachers: APOD in the Classroom

Photo by Petr Horálek

I Know Not

Posted by MFish • Profile • 01/19/20 at 10:06PM • Poetry • See more by MFish

I know not what I write,
I know not at all.
The words that pour out
are not mine I write,
for there seem to be no
thought in my mind,
other than writing the words.
Hopefully they're not trite
but have meaning to you,
it's for you that I care,
no matter the issue,
no matter the time,
my wish for you
is Peace and be kind.

A Comment by Alan

Your avatar
Alan • 01/20/2020 at 04:39PM • Like 1 • Profile

I enjoy reading your posts

I Looked

Posted by MFish • Profile • 01/19/20 at 09:22PM • Humor • See more by MFish

I looked at the wall,
purple it was,
covered with vines
and a pinkish fuzz.
I saw some movement,
off to the side,
when I looked again
my eyes opened wide,
for there, by the trunk
of a short, squatty tree,
a creature was looking
directly at me.
A small creature,
about three feet tall,
something you'd find
if you went to the mall.
It had four legs
and a tail so very long,
I knew at a glance
that it didn't belong
here in the room
looking at me,
so I woke from my stupor
and set it free.
Free from my mind
where it's life began;
free to enter my dream
once more, again.

“The impression we derive from a book, depends much less upon its real contents, than upon the temper of mind and preparation with which we read it" ..........Click here to read Maria Popova's article on Brain Pickings


NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Are your eyes good enough to see the Crab Nebula expand? The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, an expanding cloud of debris from the explosion of a massive star. The violent birth of the Crab was witnessed by astronomers in the year 1054. Roughly 10 light-years across today, the nebula is still expanding at a rate of over 1,000 kilometers per second. Over the past decade, its expansion has been documented in this stunning time-lapse movie. In each year from 2008 to 2017, an image was produced with the same telescope and camera from a remote observatory in Austria. Combined in the time-lapse movie, the 10 images represent 32 hours of total integration time. The sharp, processed frames even reveal the dynamic energetic emission within the incredible expanding Crab. The Crab Nebula lies about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Teachers: APOD in the Classroom

Video by Detlef Hartmann

Oh, Oh

Posted by MFish • Profile • 01/18/20 at 11:35PM • Humor • See more by MFish

Oh, oh I said
as I turned the next page.
What happened here
is a small outrage.
A page out of order,
is what I saw,
an obvious error
or a simple flaw,
of my writing too fast,
of the words, that I know
that spray from my past.
Wait a minute; Just woah,
it's not a mistake
as it really does matter,
when writing the words
it is not idle chatter.

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