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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Cycle 25 solar maximum made 2025 a great year for aurora borealis (or aurora australis) on planet Earth. And the high level of solar activity should extend into 2026. So, while you're celebrating the arrival of the new year, check out this spectacular auroral display that erupted in starry night skies over Kirkjufell, Iceland. The awesome auroral corona, energetic curtains of light streaming from directly overhead, was witnessed during a strong geomagnetic storm triggered by intense solar activity near the March 2025 equinox. This boreal skyscape captures the evocative display in a 21 frame panoramic mosaic.

Photo by Roi Levi

New Year's fireworks over the Swabian village Eberhardzell near Biberach an der Riss. Today is New Year's Day.

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

Only a night from old to new!
Only a night, and so much wrought!
The Old Year's heart all weary grew,
But said: "The New Year rest has brought."
The Old Year's hopes its heart laid down,
As in a grave; but, trusting, said:
"The blossoms of the New Year's crown
Bloom from the ashes of the dead."
The Old Year's heart was full of greed;
With selfishness it longed and ached,
And cried: "I have not half I need.
My thirst is bitter and unslaked.
But to the New Year's generous hand
All gifts in plenty shall return;
True love it shall understand;
By all my failures it shall learn.
I have been reckless; it shall be
Quiet and calm and pure of life.
I was a slave; it shall go free,
And find sweet peace where I leave strife."
Only a night from old to new!
Never a night such changes brought.
The Old Year had its work to do;
No New Year miracles are wrought.

Always a night from old to new!
Night and the healing balm of sleep!
Each morn is New Year's morn come true,
Morn of a festival to keep.
All nights are sacred nights to make
Confession and resolve and prayer;
All days are sacred days to wake
New gladness in the sunny air.
Only a night from old to new;
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old come true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born.

Helen Hunt Jackson - (1830 – 1885).  American poet and writer, born Helen Maria Fiske. She became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the U. S. Government. Writing under her Pen name, H.H, she described the adverse effects of government actions in her history book,  "A Century of Dishonor" (1881). Her novel "Ramona "(1884) dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican–American War and attracted considerable attention to her cause  and estimated to have been reprinted 300 times. 

Sneha Cecil on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What created the Waterfall Nebula? The origin is still being researched. The structure, officially designated Herbig-Haro 222, appears in the region of NGC 1999 in the Great Orion Molecular Cloud complex. The elongated gaseous stream stretches about ten light years but appears similar to a long waterfall on Earth. Recent observations indicate that HH-222 is likely a gigantic gaseous bow shock, similar to a wave of water caused by a fast-moving ship. The origin of this shock wave is thought to be a jet outflow from the multiple star system V380 Orionis off the lower left of the frame. Therefore, gas does not flow along the waterfall, but rather the entire structure moves toward the upper right. The Waterfall Nebula lies about 1,500 light years away toward the constellation of Orion. The featured image was captured earlier this month from El Sauce Observatory in Chile. Jigsaw Nebula: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day

Photo by Mike Selby

Earth bumblebee on a cosmea flower in a garden in Bamberg, Upper Franconia, Bavaria, Germany. Focus stack of 28 pictures.<.

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

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that's the burden of the year.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850 – October 30, 1919) was an American author and poet. Her works include Poems of Passion and Solitude, which contains the lines "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone." Her autobiography, "The Worlds and I", was published in 1918, a year before her death. Read more

🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash